Bandar Perda is a development that was flagged as the Penang state government's 'most ambitious and advanced development to date' in the early 2000s. — The Star
BANDAR Perda, in Seberang Prai, Penang, is no more than 25km and about a 30-minute drive from George Town on a good day.
I was there on a weekend evening, and the commercial area was quiet. The mall nearby, dilapidated and abandoned, stuck out like a sore thumb. Opened in 2008, the Perda City Mall closed abruptly in 2016 and has been the township’s white elephant ever since. The quiet ghost town atmosphere reflects its abandonment.
I was there to meet a group of Malay youths as part of an Iman Research project.
As a think tank studying society, religion and perception, Iman Research wanted to understand how these youths saw themselves and the rest of the country, and what that meant for Malaysia’s future, fraught with polarisation.
In the many months of travelling across the Malay Heartlands up in the northern and east coast states of the peninsula, it became increasingly clear that our everyday environment influences our politics. After all, how else do we make sense of ourselves and the country if not through observing our environment and how that affects us and the people we know, directly or indirectly?
The Bandar Perda observation is crucial. In the early 2000s, the Penang state government flagged its development as its most “ambitious and advanced development to date”. The township was flagged as the “City of the 21st Century” with grand ambitions of becoming an Asean hub, incorporating a garden city concept among other sales-friendly marketing copy.
Almost 20 years later, Bandar Perda is far from its promised potential. The township is quiet; its commercial areas have little life, and it is mainly served by tertiary students around Bukit Mertajam.
This state of affairs isn’t exclusive to Bandar Perda. Most, if not all, townships across mainland Penang, especially towards the Kedah border, are underwhelming and sparsely developed. The Malay youths we spoke to, living, studying, and working on the mainland, have said the same thing: the state government has forgotten the mainland.
Penang and uneven development
Penang, specifically the island capital George Town, came up a lot in our focus groups. Many of our young respondents dislike the island for what it represents to them: They, rightfully or wrongfully, believe that it is a foreshadowing of how the Malays would be treated if a non-Malay political party became dominant.
To understand this anxiety, we must look at the state’s demographic makeup and distribution. Penang has the country’s highest number (54%) of non-Malays. Most of the non-Malay populace reside on the island and its closest adjacent mainland areas, Butterworth and Seberang Perai.
The majority of the Malays reside in Balik Pulau island-side and in localities closer to the north on the mainland, towards Kedah’s border. Incidentally, these boundaries are also where development inequality is most apparent.
The land-use distribution across Penang. — Iman research
Most industrial development is in either Butterworth, Seberang Perai, or Bayan Lepas – connected by the two Penang bridges – while high-value commercial activity occurs in the central parts of the island. The rest of the state is designated agricultural land, especially the region towards Kedah’s border.
Agriculture, while crucial to food security, is an industry that generally pays low wages, has few opportunities for social mobility, and is highly volatile as it is dependent on environmental factors.
Industrial and commercial activity, on the other hand, indicates economic development and diverse employment opportunities, which also means potentially higher-paying jobs. Flourishing industrial or commercial activity in a locality may result in a spillover in local development. An example is the decades-long oil and gas industry in Kerteh, Terengganu, which had a notable spillover into surrounding towns, as reflected in the growing property market, and local culture and commercial development. There is more promising socioeconomic development linked to industrial and commercial activity than there would generally be with agriculture.
Penang's election results against ethnic composition.
And when Penang’s land-use data is read together with local ethnic composition, it becomes clear where the electoral resentment comes in.
Constituencies with a higher non-Malay population, which were won more often than not by Pakatan Harapan, tend to have higher levels of economic activity, as evidenced by higher industrial and commercial land use.
The state government has invested in and developed areas linked to the island-mainland bridges. It isn’t a far stretch to presume that these industrial areas, linked via both Penang bridges, are for the benefit of connecting to the island residents.
On the other hand, constituencies with higher Malay populations, which notably were won by Perikatan Nasional in the recent state elections, typically have agricultural activity. While agriculture, and by extension, food security, is crucial to the long-term sustainability of the nation, it also echoes the colonial-era stereotype of the Malays being relegated to agriculture and farming while the Chinese work in industrial and commercial economies, which promise more wealth and social mobility.
This seemingly uneven economic territory, sharply drawn by race, lends to the perception that the Penang state government cares little about developing its Malay-majority constituencies and favours developing the non-Malay island side.
Urban-rural resentments
Throughout our study, our respondents observed how investment disproportionately poured into the West Coast and Southern states, resulting in an urban-rural inequality throughout the peninsula. During a blazing hot afternoon in Kangar, Perlis, a respondent shared, “There needs to be fairness in [the] distribution of resources and aid.
“There are limited job opportunities in Perlis compared with Penang. Here, there is a lot of talk about job opportunities for youths, but many end up being elsewhere [outside Perlis].... The government claims that investments come in but provides no details or outcomes of these ‘investments’.”
This urban-rural economic divide breeds the groundswell for resentment. Disenfranchise-ment is a reality among Malay youths. So when the majority of Malay youths voted for Perikatan in the 15th General Election in 2022, it wasn’t that they wanted an Islamist future. They were unhappy.
Pakatan, for decades, appeared uninterested in the Malay-majority constituencies and often expressed schadenfreude in their predicament, coupled with the fact that Umno had lost credibility as a party of principle. Perikatan, understanding this anxiety and resentment, capitalises on this. There is a prevailing belief among far-right Malays that urbanisation is done for the benefit of non-Malays.
The urban features of cities, such as high-density residences, higher cost of living, and the concentration of commercial-industrial economies, are more accessible to non-Malays. While the Malays, not being able to afford central-urban living, feel deliberately sidelined and relegated to the rural or semi-urban fringes.
Penang’s urban development, as reflected in its land-use designation, feeds into this theory.
Penang2023: Revealing the island bias
Penang2030, the state government’s development master plan launched in 2018 shows this island-centric scope. Much of the themes, language, design, and focus of Penang2023 are exclusively island-centric, especially when discussing economic, industrial, and urban development.
Penang2030 and its island-centric focus adds yet another strike in our polarising interethnic relationship, particularly between the Chinese and Malays. While this may not be the state government’s intention, decades-long narrow developmental priorities have produced the unintended effect of causing resentment among Penang Malays.
An incident best illustrating this resentment and anxiety is the recent George Town Festival promotional video gaffe that resulted in accusations of the state’s ulterior cultural erasure of the Malays.
Electorally, this has materialised none more clearly than Perikatan’s gains in the mainland constituencies.
When economic discontent and political narratives intertwine, polarisation becomes a potent space in which it can fester.
The Penang state government must acknowledge its economic and developmental neglect of the mainland constituencies.
Behind the Malay youths’ discontent is their cry for the state government to address their welfare and hometowns. After all, why shouldn’t other parts of the state have the same love shown for the island?
Aziff Azuddin is a research associate specialising in politics and urban sociology with Dialogue Action and Iman Research, a think tank studying society, religion and perception. The views expressed here are solely his own.
