Introduction
After the riots of 1969, the ruling coalition in Malaysia, called National Front (Barisan Nasional), embarked on a long-term strategy to lift the Malays out of their (relative) poverty. This was reflected in the various development strategies, beginning with the New Economic Policy (NEP, or: Dasar Ekonomi Baru, DEB) launched by Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein in 1971 at the beginning of the Second Malaysia Plan (Tillainathan and Kee Chok Cheong 2016: 56). Sub-sequent periods, in line with the following five-year long Malaysia Plans, were called the National Development Policy (1991-2001), National Vision Policy (2001-2010), and the New Economic Model (2011-2020).Footnote 1 Tillainathan and Kee Chok Cheong (2016) periodise these post-1969 years differently, indicating that the early NEP years lasted from the launch in 1971 through 1986, when the government was forced to alter its economic policy mix after the sharp recession of 1985/86. Accordingly, the next period, from 1987 to the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) 1997/98 (“between two crises”, 2016: 59), was marked by ownership liberalisation and privatisation programs and saw a boost in export-oriented manufacturing. For the post-AFC period, Tillainathan and Kee Chok Cheong (2016: 63-66) note that the earlier strong growth rates never returned, partly because of more international competition for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from countries with lower wages (such as Vietnam or Indonesia), partly because of a quality problem in the Malaysian Higher Education system. They link this problem to the NEP-inherent positive discrimination for Malays in state universities. Tillainathan and Kee Chok Cheong (2016: 63) also build on the criticism of the previous generation of Malaysian economists, including Gomez and Jomo (1999), who had highlighted ‘state-government-party collusion’ and crony-capitalism as a problem in the privatisation policies.
This critical assessment from the field of economic studies views the positive discrimination strategy for Malays and other Bumiputera since the launch of the NEP in 1971 as the main reason for the numerous economic problems Malaysia has experienced since, and indirectly advocates a non-race-based approach to economic development. If we focus, however, on the pro-NEP discourse of the period in order to understand the imaginaries constructed and disseminated for the new cultural roles of Malays, one important source is Mahathir Mohamad’s much-quoted book The Malay dilemma (1970). In it, he argues that the social and economic situation of the Malays can only be improved if they leave their social and economic niches by changing their cultural horizons through education. In other words, a restructuring of the “Plural Society” of Malaysia, to borrow Furnivall’s term here,Footnote 2 would necessarily include a mental revolution of the Malays. Logically, for the NEP to succeed, education for the Malays played a key role (Matheson Hooker Reference Matheson Hooker2000: 309). An indication is that the portfolio of the Minister of Education (often merged with that of the Minister of Higher Education) has been deemed so important that almost all Malaysian Prime MinistersFootnote 3 since 1969/70 had been previously Minister of Education, as Table 1 illustrates.
Ministers of Education who became Prime Ministers of MalaysiaFootnote 4
Table 1 Long description
The table lists Malaysian leaders who served as both Minister of Education and Prime Minister, highlighting their years in each role. Abdul Razak Hussein was Minister of Education from 1952 to 1957 and Prime Minister from 1970 to 1976. Hussein Onn followed as Minister from 1970 to 1973 and Prime Minister from 1976 to 1981. Dr Mahathir Mohamad had the longest tenure as Prime Minister, serving from 1981 to 2003 and again from 2018 to 2020, after being Minister of Education from 1974 to 1978. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Anwar Ibrahim, Najib Razak, and Muhiyiddin Yassin also transitioned from Minister of Education to Prime Minister. The data shows a trend where several leaders held both positions, indicating a possible pathway from educational leadership to national leadership.
Knowledge Society
The first long tenure of Dr Mahathir Mohamad as Prime Minister (1981-2003) is often called “the Mahathir era”.Footnote 5 Yet, for the topic of this paper it is also significant that he was Minister of Education (1974-1978, cf. Table 1) and Deputy Prime Minister (1976-1981)Footnote 6 before. Mahathir’s influence in the field of culture and education could justify the concept of an “extended Mahathir era” (1974-2003), when inspiration about the role of education for the development process, in particular for the Malays in the context of the NEP, came from a vivid national discourse on elements of theories of the “Knowledge Society” and the “Knowledge Economy”.Footnote 7 These terms were originally coined by Peter Drucker, who was born in Austria in 1909, earned a PhD in law at the University of Frankfurt, before moving to England, where he privately studied economics with John Maynard Keynes, before he finally migrated to America, where he taught management at New York University from 1950-1971.Footnote 8 He coined the term “knowledge worker” in 1969 (Drucker Reference Drucker1969). For the related sociological discourse on “knowledge society” and “knowledge economy”, as it took place in the 1990s and 2000s in Malaysian government-related think-tanks, Drucker’s ideas were, among others, discussed by frequently invited Western sociologists such as Evers (Reference Evers2001) who kept publishing on aspects of that theme throughout the 2000s (Evers Reference Evers2002, Reference Evers2003; Evers and Gerke Reference Evers and Gerke2004; Evers, Gerke, and Hornidge 2008). His contributions were situated in a context in Malaysia where the theme not only had an academic, but also a political significance since “knowledge society” was a key theme for the modernisation discourse since the Mahathir era. Examples for this wider significance are proceedings from congresses organised by important think-tanks such as the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, ed. (2000), or publications for a wider audience, such as Dakian’s book K-ekonomi pemacu ekonomi di Malaysia (2007), or numerous articles in Malaysian academic journals, both in English and Malay.Footnote 9
A central part of the Malaysian government’s strategy of a “knowledge society” was already formulated in the national vision “Wawasan 2020” (Vision 2020), officially launched by the Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 1991 in a speech at the Malaysian Business Council (Mahathir Mohamad 1991), and then incorporated into the various Malaysia Plans since.
The objective of “Vision 2020” was to accelerate the pace of Malaysian Development, with an annual growth rate of at least 7 percent, so that by 2020, the country whould achieve the status of a fully developed nation. Among the key parts of that strategy was to improve the human capital of the citizens of Malaysia, in particular the ethnic Malays and other Bumiputera, by fully embracing education and science. In this context, a particular emphasis was placed on Information and Computer Technology (ICT) in order to play a relevant role in the relatively new and fast-growing industry related to ICT. In fact, in the meantime, Malaysia has been ranked in the Human Development Index of the United Nations Development Program in the highest category of “very highly developed countries” since 2020 (based on data from 2019).Footnote 10 At the same time, Malaysia’s exports are now to a large extent based on manufactured goods, such as Integrated Circuits (21 % of the exports in 2017), Office machine parts (4.2 %), Broadcasting equipment (3.6 %), or Semiconductor devices (2.9 %).Footnote 11 One could therefore argue that, at least according to these mentioned indicators, the “Vision 2020” has accomplished its main objectives, despite the criticism of Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 2023 that Malaysia could have performed better and that his successors as Prime Minister since 2003 had led “good for nothing administrations” and had turned the Vision 2020 dream “to ashes”.Footnote 12
“Vision 2020” as a Childhood Memory
For the older generation of Malaysians, whose memories go back to the early 1990s, the imagination of “Vision 2020” is an important part of their memories from a young age. The governments of Malaysia under the various Ministers of Education listed above (Table 1) emphasised strongly on conveying the messages of “Vision 2020”, in particular to the youth. The official channels of education and higher education were all engaged in the propaganda of “Vision 2020”, as were the media, mostly controlled by the government or closely linked private companies. A key role was also given to the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP), the state agency in support of the Malay language, literature, and culture, established in 1956, even before the independence of the Federation of Malaya in 1957.Footnote 13 The DBP has funding lines for research, book publications, including youth novels, journals, and magazines. It also aims at improving the international role of the Malay language, among others, with support for the teaching of the Malay language abroad,Footnote 14 or by inviting foreign scholars to conduct research on Malay language and literature.
When the “Vision 2020” was launched in 1991, the DBP engaged in numerous supportive activities. This included the organisation of competitions for producing illustrations of a future Malaysia in 2020, e.g., in the DBP magazine Majalah Dewan Bahasa, as remembered by the blogger with the pen name nuargtoFootnote 15 in his online blog dated February 2017, “Wawasan 2020: antara realiti dan fantasi”.Footnote 16 At that time (according to the author: ca. 1991)Footnote 17, the author was a fourth-grade primary school student, and he also remembers other sources of inspiration, such as the magazine Majalah Kuntum, published monthly by the privately owned Star Media Group Berhad since 1980, which also engaged in visualisations of the Vision 2020.Footnote 18 For the imagination of that futuristic Malaysia, nuargto also names films and comics such as Back to the Future Footnote 19, Demolition Man Footnote 20, Doraemon Footnote 21, Pendekar Laut,Footnote 22 and “Dewataraya (sic)”Footnote 23 as important sources of influence. Some of these are Western (i.e. here: American), such as Back to the Future or Demolition Man,Footnote 24 some are Malay translations of Japanese manga, such as Doraemon, and others are Malay translations of comics from Hong Kong, such as Dewata Raya. According to the records in the State Library of Western Australia, Pendekar Laut is in the Malay language, while the author and illustrator have Chinese names, namely Yat Leung Wan and Chi Fai Tang.Footnote 25 These diverse transnational cultural horizons in science fiction appear to be typical of the Malay-language youth literature and media available to young Malaysians in the 1990s,Footnote 26 indicating that, in this case, Malay language and Malay ethnicity were not necessarily tied to each other. A reason could be that, according to Othman Puteh and Ramli Isin (2003: 263), there was only a limited number of Malay authors active in the genre of science fiction literature in the 1980s.Footnote 27 As the government under Mahathir Mohamad emphasised so strongly on science and scientific thinking, especially for the Malays, the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) as state agency in charge of the support of Malay language and literature, reacted by the publication of Malay scientific literature as well as creative science fiction as a means to enhance the critical thinking capacities of Malaysia’s youth within the context of the overall development strategy, as the Director-General (Ketua Pengarah) of DBP from 1988 to 1993Footnote 28, Dato’ Haji Jumaat Dato’ Haji Mohd. Nor points out in a book chapter on the history of DBP that appeared during his tenure (Jumaat Mohd. Nor Reference Kelantan1992: 29). Rubaidin Siwar (Reference Puteh and Ahmad1984: 110) dates the first deliberate attempt of the DBP to promote Malay-language science fiction literature as 1980, when the DBP organised a writing competition for science fiction for children. This date would be in line with the concept of an extended Mahathir era, from 1974-2003, when his ideas about the importance of science and technology for Malaysia’s development already resonated widely in the country, even before he ascended to the position of Prime Minister in 1981.
This aspect can be investigated further through an inquiry of a sample of Malaysian science fiction books in the Malay language published until the end of the Mahathir era in 2003. My analysis departs from the special collection of Malaysian youth literature in the Malay languageFootnote 29 at Goethe University Frankfurt. This collection is both “random” and “as comprehensive as possible”, as I bought all suitable books in Malay and on Malaysia (i.e. several thousands) available at the Chow Rasta Used Book Market in George Town, Penang, in 2009 for the collection in Frankfurt.Footnote 30 In total, these are 15 books, of which five are not listed in the Malaysian Academic Library Union Catalogue MALCat, which in turn features 52 books from 1973 through 2001 for the search term “cereka sains” (science fiction) and related searches, many of which are not in Frankfurt. For instance, 26 books by Zailiani Taslim, published in 1986 and 1987 by Uni-Text in Petaling Jaya, are only documented at the library of Universiti Utara Malaysia.Footnote 31 That means that the sample in Frankfurt is not representative of the entirety of Malay science fiction literature from Malaysia in the Mahathir era; it is, however, good enough for a qualitative analysis. The following books with a science fictionFootnote 32 topic are physically accessible and hence covered here. For Malaysian readers with access to the Malaysian inter-library borrowing system, Table 2 also contains the academic libraries in Malaysia where the respective publication is located.Footnote 33
Sample of science fiction youth novels from the Mahathir era, 1981-2003
Table 2 Long description
The table provides a selection of science fiction youth novels published between 1979 and 1996, focusing on themes such as space travel and short story collections. Notable authors include Rubaidin Siwar, who has multiple entries, and the works are published by various Malaysian publishers. The novels are available in several Malaysian university libraries, with Universiti Sains Malaysia frequently listed. The table also notes the presence of old library stamps and the diversity of themes, including time travel and U.F.O. encounters. Some entries highlight the collaborative nature of the works, such as 'GXTM II', which features stories from a writing competition.
As Table 2 demonstrates, the genre of science fiction existed in Malaysian youth novels already prior to the period from 1981 to 2003, when Dr Mahathir Mohamad was Prime Minister of Malaysia. For instance, the book by M. Ariffin SiriFootnote 38, Mendaratlah plasma hijau (1985), was first published in 1977 by the State Agency for Malay Language and Culture, the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, under the umbrella of the Malaysian Ministry of Education (Kementerian Pelajaran Malaysia). This is possibly already linked to the programmatic vision of Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, who served as Minister of Education from 1974 to 1978.Footnote 39 As the book Spektra 2000 by Rubaidin Siwar (1979) was published by the commercial publishing house Macmillan at about the same time, it appears that science fiction novels were in general a popular genre in Malaysia already in the 1970s, including by employing dates from the distant future, such as the year 2000 to symbolise the futuristic dimension. From a book title such as “Spektra 2000”, it is not very far to the name of the long-term development plan of the Mahathir era, “Vision 2020”.
In fact, from the sample it is obvious that science fiction youth literature (cereka sains) was a frequent genre of Malay fiction in the period 1981-2003, when the views of Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad shaped much of the ideological mainstream of Malaysia. Several were published by the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, such as M. Ariffin Siri (1985), Kamariah Yussof, ed. (1988), Masrul Hazian et al. (1991), Muhammad Jaafar Darwis (1993), and Haniza Hashim (1996), which demonstrates the commitment of that state agency to the genre. As this also includes the publication of the winning short stories of a science fiction writing competition of the Ministry of Education (Masrul Hazian et al., 1991), it can be safely argued that in the period 1981-2003 both the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka and the Ministry of Education were engaged in a campaign to promote a positive orientation towards science and the future as a time full of possibility among the youth of Malaysia.
The column “Old library stamp” in Table 2 is inspired by approaches from manuscript studies, where also annotations about previous owners matter to discuss a manuscript in its historical context. In the case of this sample of science fiction youth books collected at a used book market in Penang in 2009, it is interesting to see that a number of these Malay-language books were previously at Chinese school libraries, in particular the library of the secondary school “J.K. Chung Hwa Confucian P. Pinang”Footnote 40, namely Rubaidin Siwar (1979), Ilias Haji Zaidi (1982), Rubaidin Siwar (1986), and Masrul Hazian et al. (1991). This means that these books also served to improve the knowledge of the Malay language among Chinese students. The Yayasan Bina Ilmu Pulau Pinang, the previous owner of the book by Muhammad Jaafar Darwis (1993), has been registered since 1993 as a centre for teaching and training, and it presents itself on its Facebook page as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) founded to improve the knowledge of society through science.Footnote 41 The visual representation on its Malay-language Facebook page shows an emphasis on an ethnically mixed profile, as Chinese, Malay, and Indian staff and/or customers are represented through photographs and in a promotional video.Footnote 42 A similar multi-ethnic cultural context among previous owners of Malay-language science fiction youth novels in the sample also applies to the Perbadanan Perpustakaan Awam Pulau Pinang (Public Library of Penang), previous owner of the book by Sulaiman Zakaria (1986). One can therefore safely summarise that the Malay-language science fiction youth novels from the Mahathir era in the sample were popularised by state agencies such as the Dewan Bahasa, yet they also seemed to have resonated widely, including in Chinese and culturally mixed contexts. Apparently, they were so popular that several commercial publishing houses also published numerous books of that genre, as Table 2 documents. Interestingly, these commercial publishing houses were all located in the Klang valley, namely Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya, and Klang, i.e., the metropolitan area in and around Kuala Lumpur. Malaysian science fiction youth literature in the Mahathir era can therefore be associated with a metropolitan readership that was, however, not limited to Greater Kuala Lumpur, as the copies in this sample were all collected in Georgetown, Penang.Footnote 43 The emphasis on science and engineering in the Mahathir era, associated with the slogan “Vision 2020” (Wawasan 2020), came from the national government, and resonated apparently very well with those parts of society that were open towards those narratives of the future, especially in urban areas.
“Vision 2020” and “Project 2020”
As Table 2 demonstrates, almost all of the science fiction youth novels in the sample stories are about space travel, including to such distant (sometimes imaginary) parts of the universe such as Planet Hampagas (Kamariah Yusof 1988), Planet Epsilon (Ghazali Ngah Azia 1991), Planet TerataiFootnote 44 (Ilias Haji Zaidi 1982), Planet Edonis (Haniza Hashim 1996), Planet Mars (Fitri Azrin 1989), and the Andromeda galaxy (Rubaidin Siwar 1986). This is in line with the observation by Rubaidin Siwar (Reference Puteh and Ahmad1984: 109) that Malay science fiction literature of the period was greatly influenced by international science fiction mediated via comics, films, and TV series such as “Lost in space”, “Star trek”, and “Buck Rogers in the 25 century”, that very often employed space travel as their main plot.
Yet, one book in my sample is different, namely Projek 2020 by Samsuri A. Hamid (1994). The title reminds me of the national “Vision 2020” (Wawasan 2020), proclaimed by the Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 1991. The plot in Projek 2020 concerns a time machine that was developed by the figure of the Malaysian Professor Syimir, who is the director of the laboratory and office of the “National Science Complex” (Kompleks Sains Nasional) erected by the government (1994: 5). As Prof Syimir explains:
“Pihak Kerajaan telah mengeluarkan belanja yang banyak untuk membiayai kos pembinaan bangunan kompleks sains ini. Bangunan ini juga menjadi lambang kemajuan negara kita yang setanding dengan Jepun, Amerika Syarikat, Perancis dan negara-negara lain dalam bidang sains dan teknologi,” beritahu Profesor Syimir kepada Afiq selepas bangunan itu dirasmikan oleh Perdana Menteri dahulu. Pada masa itu, Afiq masi bersekolah di sekolah rendah. (1994: 5).
[“The Government spent big amounts to finance the costs for the construction of the building. This building has become a symbol for the progress of our country, which is at par with Japan, the United States of America, France, and other countries, in the field of science and technology”, informed Professor Syimir Afiq at the time when that building was officiated by the Prime Minister. At that time, Afiq was still in primary school].
One of the products constructed in this symbol of the progress of Malaysia is a time machine, based on theories by Albert Einstein (1994: 18-19). As an experiment, Prof Syimir sends Afiq and Rony back in time. However, the machine malfunctions, and the friends are suddenly caught in a historical war between the Malays and the British, where the Malays are being led by the figure of Tuk JanggutFootnote 45. He is in fact a historical Footnote figure 46, living between 1853 through 1915 in Kelantan, and features among the celebrated heroes of Malay resistance against the British in the Mahathir era. An example is the children’s book Tok Janggut pejuang rakyat (Tok Janggut, fighter for the people) by Mahazir Othman (1989) in the series Siri tokoh sejarah tempatan (Series of Regional Historical Heroes), published just a few years before Projek 2020 (1994). At page 110 of the book Projek 2020, there is a column entitled “Tahukah adik-adik?” (Do you know, children?) that aside from Tuk Janggut there were a number of other regional fighters for independence against British colonialism, including Datuk Bahaman and Mat Kilau (Pahang), Datuk Maharaja Lela (Perak), Dol Said (Negeri Sembilan), Haji Abdul Rahman Limbung (Terengganu), Pendekar Rentap and Sharif Masahor (Sarawak), and Mat Salleh (Sabah). Also, the youth novel Tok Janggut by Rosmera was published in the extended Mahathir era (1974-2003), namely in 1977.
As Afiq and Rony find themselves in the middle of the resistance fighting against the British, the story of national resistance against colonialism becomes vivid for the readers, full of tension, and with great reverence for the legendary national heroes. Yet, after the Prime Minister inspects the building again, Prof Syimir re-starts the time machine and brings his grandchildren back from the past. This time, the time machine ends on 1 September 2020 (1994: 104), and as the entire journey ends with a safe return of Afiq and Rony, the media are all reporting in abundance about Prof Syimir and the great success for Malaysian science and engineering. Next time, Professor Syimir declares, the journey will go to the time of Hang Jebat (1994: 106),Footnote 47 a legendary hero linked to the Golden Age of the Empire of Malacca before the Portuguese conquest in 1511.Footnote 48
This youth novel Projek 2020 is therefore not only an ordinary science fiction novel, featuring space travel to far distant stars and planets. Rather, it is linked to the year “2020” as a symbol of Malaysian progress based on science and engineering, and it features the figure of the Prime Minister (Perdana Menteri) who is the mastermind behind Malaysia’s ambitious development strategy “Vision 2020”. This youth novel also combines elements of science fiction with elements of the genres of historical youth novels, as well as anti-colonial, nationalist youth novels. The constructed trajectory spans between selected highlights of the past (regional Malay resistance of the colonial era) and the bright future of “2020”, obviously bypassing more problematic phases such as the riots of 1969 mentioned in the beginning of this paper. At the same time, it can be also read as a reference to the tradition of Malay science fiction novels, especially the example set by Seteru Dunia by Muhammad Sallehuddin (1938)Footnote 49, a Jawi-script bookFootnote 50 that features a story about a mal-functioning time machine as central plot.Footnote 51 Here, a fictional GermanFootnote 52 engineer has selected Singapore as the location for experimenting with a new time-machine, which unfortunately malfunctions and turns a human into a monkey that then escapes and runs amok in Singapore (Mohd Tani Ahmad, Sarah Sadon, and Suhaimi Haji Muhammad 1988: 444).Footnote 53 Yet, in Projek 2020, the protagonists do not transform into dangerous animals, but rather keep their dignity as human beings fighting for a good cause, which is in this case a bright future for Malaysia due to science and technology being mastered by Malaysian professors.
Elements of Science Fiction in Arena Wati’s Novel Panrita
The long and challenging journey to the distant future of “2020” not only inspired Malaysian science fiction youth novels of the Mahathir era (1981-2003). It was also reflected in serious literature for adult and highly educated readers. A prime example is the novel Panrita by Arena Wati (1925-2009)Footnote 54, published in 1993 by the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. On the cover, the name of the author is rendered with the title “Sasterawan Negara” (Malaysian National Laureate). This title is an award to an outstanding literary author for their contributions to Malay literature and has been awarded since 1981 only fourteen times.Footnote 55 Arena Wati (pen name of Muhammad Dahlan Abdul Biang Andi) was awarded in 1988. The title comes with various privileges, including a lifelong publication guarantee with Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.Footnote 56
The plot of Panrita is a science fiction-like journey from Earth through various universes, to the destination of alam roh, which means in Panrita both some concrete ‘world of spirits’ as well as an abstract ‘spiritual world’.Footnote 57 Here, the characters are experiencing a dream-like mental condition, a transit before they return to earth. The concept of the multiple worlds appears to be inspired by Islam, yet, in Panrita, a lot of creative license is taken since this is a literary work, not a theological treatise. While the complex relationship between Islam and Science Fiction in Malaysia merits an in-depth discussion in separate publications, for the scope of this paper, it is relevant that an important boundary for Malay-Muslim authors of the period engaged in science fiction is expressed by Shahnon Ahmad, awarded with the Malaysian Literary Award in 1982.Footnote 58 According to him, science fiction should always keep human beings and their values at the centre of the story, as humans are the highest creatures at the side of God, “makhluk yang tertinggi di sisi Tuhan” (Shahnon Ahmad 1992: 115). In this light, the malfunctioning time machine in the novel Projek 2020 discussed above appears in a different light: rather than turning Prof. Syimir’s grandchildren into monsters, they preserve their dignity as human beings, staying upbeat about the future of Malaysian citizens in “2020”.
In Panrita, the journey is a spiritual one, and is framed within Islamic settings and reflections, including the pilgrimage to Mecca. Symbolically, it also reflects the impacts of the high-tech journey of Malaysia on spirituality and beliefs on the way towards the proposed state of “Vision 2020”. Various elements from science fiction literature of the 1980s and 1990s also feature in Panrita, such as computer disquettes, and space travel. At the same, other aspects of world literature and global history are evoked, including the names of Ibnu Batutah, Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, and Petrarch (1993: 1). As the novel is highly complex, and comprises numerous references to Islamic theology, it is very difficult to translate.Footnote 59 It is also very rarely the object of scholarly studies, as neither the Malaysian Academic Library Union Catalog MALCatFootnote 60 nor the online repository for journal articles published in Malaysian scholarly journals, MyCiteFootnote 61, lists scholarly contributions about Panrita. One of the rare published scholarly discussions is a short segment about Panrita by Mana Sikana in his book about post-modern Malay literature (2004: 134-135). Accordingly, Panrita is similar to “historiographic metafiction”, as theorised by Linda Hutcheon (1993), as well as in line with “new historicism” (Mana Sikana 2004: 135). Mana Sikana contends that, being confronted with an intertextual “creative encyclopedia”, the reader is being carried from ancient Greece to Rome, to the Muslim world and the Malay world, while the main protagonist is searching for perfection (kesempurnaan) (Mana Sikana 2004: 134). The ultimate purpose, as Mana Sikana views it, is not a demystification or de-mythology of modernity, but rather a contribution to the development of the nation. History serves as ground for being able to forecast the future. This interpretation is different from a short summary of Panrita in the Ensiklopedia sejarah dan kebudayaan Melayu (Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka 1999: 274), where Panrita is merely described as being an “autobiographic novel”. If we instead follow Mana Sikana’s observation that the intention of Panrita is constructive in the sense of a positive contribution to the future development of Malaysia, Shahnon Ahmad’s religious postulation that Malay science fiction literature should keep the image of human beings intact, as they are the highest creature at the side of God, appears significant.
In the context of this paper, the Islamic layer of meaning in Panrita (1993) might be a good departure point to reflect on the nexus between the project of a transformation of Malay culture, as already expressed in Mahathir Mohamad’s The Malay dilemma (1970), the role of reason, logic, science and technology, and the continuing rootedness in a religious system of beliefs, which appears to be central to the deep impact of the (extended) Mahathir era on Malay and Malaysian society. Among the many scholars that have contributed to these discussions is notably Shamsul Amri Baharuddin, e.g. in various media publications re-published in the book Budaya yang tercabar (2007). Related aspects have been also reflected in the various Days of Literature (Hari Sastera) during the (extended) Mahathir era, e.g. as published in Syed Hussein Alatas et al. (1984), which represents the papers of the Day of Literature 1978 on the theme of “Malay literature and Islam”.Footnote 62 However, as the topic is of paramount importance for the discussions of Malaysia’s cultural transformation during the (extended) Mahathir era, it cannot be discussed comprehensively in this paper with its limited scope.
As the final point of this paper, I would only focus on an aspect of the Malay discourse on the transformation of Malay culture since the 1970s, namely that it contained an anti-colonial and de-colonial gesture, e.g. in the attempt to search for non-Western concepts of science and mathematics. In this context, the numerous publications by Shaharir Mohamad Zain can be seen as exemplary (e.g. Shaharir Mohamad Zain 2018 and ibid., ed., 2021). As he communicated to the author in personal communication, his academic horizon was largely shaped by the change from English to Malay as a medium of instruction in schools and universities, that took place in the 1970s, as an important complementary dimension to the overall NEP strategy.Footnote 63 The young generation of Malays should learn about the world of science and technology in Malay language, adding to their new agency. Shaharir Mohamad Zain took this as a life-long inspiration for research on Malay ethnoscience and ethnomathematics, trying to determine pre-colonial units of measurement and of scientific constructs.
Relating these Malay discourses from the 1970s onward to a new English-language term such as “technoenvironments”, as proposed by Kurfürst and Padmanabhan (2026, in this volume) could be an interesting venture, provided that the language and reflective gesture of that theoretical discourse is not restricted to English and the Anglosphere only – given the post-colonial language struggle against the dominance of English in parts of Southeast Asia. This poses the question whether “lingkungan teknikal” or a similar term could be of any help for the further discussion of Malay science fiction during the Mahathir era. In this context, it is relevant that already in 2013, Sohaimi Abdul Aziz proposed in a Malay-language publication for the field of Malay literature the term “teknoteks” and suggested that the new digital technological possibilities for literary production and criticism, including hypertext, require a theoretical reassessment of pre-digital approaches. In this regard, “technoenvironments” (lingkungan teknikal) could be a broader theoretical concept that includes and builds on the literature-centric “teknoteks” (technotext), if it also considers and apprehends previous theoretical concepts published in Malay.
Conclusion
This article traces imaginations of science and technology in Malaysian literature of the so-called Mahathir era (1981-2003). In that period, the Malaysian government pursued the strategy to intensively develop the country’s economy in the direction of a “Knowledge Economy”, accompanied by a “Knowledge Society”. The ultimate objective was to transform Malaysia into a fully developed country by 2020, as formulated in Mahathir’s “Vision 2020” (Wawasan 2020), which was launched in 1991. This context of a highly ambitious national emphasis on science and technology informed state agencies and institutions such as the Ministry of Education and the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka to launch campaigns in order to popularise science and technology, including through science fiction youth novels, as well as drawing competitions for science fiction cartoons imagining Malaysia by 2020.
As a case study, I analyze a random sample of science fiction youth novels from Malaysia published between 1979 and 2003 and collected by the author at a used book market in Penang in 2009. Obviously, this random sampling can only serve as a first inquiry into the subject.
All of the books are written in Malay, yet, as the former library stamps document, some were also held by Chinese secondary schools, indicating their appeal to young Malaysians of all backgrounds. Most of these novels employ some aspect of space travel as a basic plot, yet one novel is focused on a time machine, namely Projek 2020 by Samsuri A. Hamid (1994). In this story, where a fictitious Prime Minister is depicted as the mastermind and motor behind Malaysia’s success in science and technology, a professor from a national laboratory has developed a time machine and tries it out in an experiment with his grandchildren. However, the time-machine malfunctions, and the grandchildren find themselves amidst the historical fight of a national hero from Kelantan, Tuk Janggut, against the British colonisers, in the late 19th century. The physical resistance in the past is therefore evoked in the illustration of how important the efforts of the current Malaysian government are to make the country a leading power in the field of science and technology, at par with Japan, America, and France.
In addition to the youth novels, Malaysian literature written for adults from the Mahathir era also contains elements of science fiction. In this article, I focus on the novel Panrita by the National Laureate Arena Wati from 1993. Just like in many of the youth novels, space travel serves here as plot structure; however, in Panrita, that travel to a distant alam roh (world of spirits or souls) is combined with elements of the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, as well as religious and philosophical reflections about the journey as a metaphor for life. Written and published amidst the strong emphasis of the Malaysian government on a high-tech journey to the status of a fully developed nation by 2020, Panrita can also be seen as part of the conversation about the spiritual and theological dimension of that enormous social and cultural transformation, going beyond the broad connections between “Vision 2020” and the scientific imaginaries in the analyzed youth fiction, including the novel Projek 2020.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this article for their invaluable comments, as well as Martina Padmanabhan and Sandra Kurfürst for organising this Special Issue, including through internal peer-review rounds (thanks also to Wolfram Schaffar and Amanda Rath for their comments!).
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