Malayland

What does it mean to be Malay in the 21st century? This question is especially relevant in a country like Malaysia, where identity politics is frequently highlighted and closely policed by the state. Sixteen years after the publication of I Am Muslim, Dina Zaman returns with her new memoir, Malayland, a reflection on what it means to be Malay and Muslim in 21st century Malaysia.

Dina embarked on Malayland during the Covid pandemic in an effort to understand the anger and frustrations of her fellow ethnic Malays who were fighting against enemies, real and imagined, and a new world order imposed by a virus that killed over seven million people globally. Growing up in a Malaysia where Malay anger seethed and bubbled under the many nightclubs in 1980s Malaysia–a time where secularism had putatively killed the Malay Muslim heritage–Dina traces the roots of contemporary radicalism to the 1998 Reformasi movement which set the nation on a new, more extremist path.

Today race and faith are discussed and embraced frenetically, where hateful extremism is hidden under the rhetoric of nationalism, where young Malaysians are zealously asserting their political and birth identities in social media. The sense of irony and humour that Malaysia was once known for is now perhaps irretrievably lost. Malayland is a reflective book: memories and flashbacks of a childhood filled with earthquakes, spooks and a sense of wonderment and curiosity about a country that is fighting for a desired identity.