Abstract
This chapter focuses on the inner workings of the Acehnese organisation, Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM), in Malaysia and the broader struggle for independence from Indonesia. It begins the work of comparing the political transnationalism of the Acehnese versus the Chins and makes an important point that cultural and historical ties with the host state does not necessarily advantage one migrant group over another, or make their experiences with the host state completely dissimilar. On the contrary, both the Chins and the Acehnese faced similar challenges and opportunities while trying to mobilise and organise in Malaysia, while largely living here as undocumented migrants.
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- 1.
Another term that is often used is ASNLF. But the more commonly used is GAM by all including those who belonged to it. Hence, throughout this thesis I refer to the organisation solely as GAM.
- 2.
While one could say the same of CNF and the Chin political agenda, the civil conflict and guerrilla warfare waged against the Burmese regime in Chin state is nowhere near the degree experienced in Aceh. Furthermore, as discussed in the previous chapter, the Chins are a much more fractured group with questions of identity and communalism still very much at the heart of Chin politics.
- 3.
Reid (2005: 336) in fact writes that the:
Acehnese appear to have written in Malay before they wrote in Acehnese. All the early Acehnese texts are in Malay or Arabic. Only in the late seventeenth century does there begin to be evidence of writing in Acehnese, which remained for the most part a language of speech and recitation.…Only in 1932, as the fear of Acehnese marrying their anti-foreign rule attitude to Indonesian nationalism began to be significant, did the colonial government switch the main medium of village primary instruction to Acehnese. Many of the educated Acehnese elite protested that this was a political manouvre to isolate Aceh, that there was not enough written in Acehnese to sustain the reading habit, and that Acehnese tradition since the days of the sultanate had always been for written education to be in Malay even if Acehnese was used to explain things orally.
- 4.
The Malay language is traced back to the Srivijaya Empire, sometime between 683 and 686 AD, with its capital located at the site of the modern-day city of Palembang in Sumatra and its sphere of influence said to have extended all along the Straits of Malacca to include the ports found in the Malayan Peninsula at the time (Reid 2005).
- 5.
The Acehnese were mainly traders in pepper and betel nut, but there are accounts of Acehnese traders trading in patchouli, shipped in from Aceh to Penang, and later exported to Egypt and France to be used in the perfume industry there (Heritage Asia Magazine, December 2003).
- 6.
This observation was made by Reid to make a point about Javanese traders in Melaka, but can be extrapolated and extended to the Acehnese as well.
- 7.
In describing the cultural make-up of the Acehnese people of the late nineteenth century, Snouck Hurgronje (1906: 24) noted that “The people of the various divisions of Great Acheh differ from one another, as may well be imagined, in numerous local peculiarities of language, manners, superstition, dress, etc. Most of these local distinctions when compared with the agreement in essential features are too insignificant to be noticed here”. Hurgronje does make a distinction between highlanders and lowlanders. But even as he alludes to this and the many different bloodlines present in Aceh, he makes the point that “we must accept that people [the Acehnese] as an established unity, and conjectures regarding its remoter origin would at this point be premature”.
- 8.
Having returned to Aceh after the signing of the MOU in 2005, Usman Hanafi died in Aceh in 2010. This interview, as with all other interviews with former GAM operatives, was conducted in Malay.
- 9.
Malik Mahmud has Singaporean citizenship as his father had resettled there after the Dutch war.
- 10.
Some prominent Malaysian politicians and businessmen of Acehnese descent include Adnan Mansor, secretary-general of UMNO, Sanusi Junid, former minister of agriculture and one of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s closest friends, Elyas Omar and Kamaruzaman Sharif, both former Kuala Lumpur city mayors, Ani Arope, Chairman of Tenaga Nasional Berhad, and Feisol Hassan, former Penang mayor, who also sat on the board of the International Islamic University.
- 11.
The official GAM publication that featured the writings and thoughts of Hasan di Tiro.
- 12.
A well-known landmark in the neighbourhood.
- 13.
From my own interviews with the Acehnese, it is clear that the practice of dividing their time between Aceh and Malaysia is very common indeed, further complicating any attempts to come up with definitive population figures for the Acehnese diaspora in Malaysia.
- 14.
Permanent residency for Acehnese in terms of how it facilitated GAM’s activities in Malaysia is a subject to which I return later in Chapter 7.
- 15.
As Miller (2008) notes, no official numbers have ever been published and there remain questions over the number of deaths.
- 16.
Scholars have noted that the violence in Aceh and the refugee situation, while largely the result of the Indonesian offensive, must also be attributed to the actions of GAM soldiers, with documented incidents of harassment, intimidation and killings of villagers. Especially targeted were those thought to be working for the Indonesian intelligence, Javanese transmigrants who were viewed as part of a plan by the central government to change the demographics of Aceh and employees of multinationals. For a fuller account, see Schulze (2004).
- 17.
The website is named after GAM’s other less commonly used name. It continued to function until the peace agreement of 2005, when it was agreed that GAM would cease all its activities including maintaining the website.
- 18.
GAM’s fundraising activities and how these intersected with the interests of the Malaysian state will be discussed further in Chapter 5.
- 19.
Short for Wali Nanggroe, a titular position ascribed to the head of the Acehnese state.
- 20.
An older section of Kuala Lumpur.
- 21.
The possible reasons for why the Malaysian state adopted this approach will be explored further in Chapter 5.
- 22.
Newspaper and Human Rights Watch reports support this account (see Indonesia: The May 3, 1999 Killings in Aceh, A Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, May 1999; Police Abuse of Power and Violence, aliran.com). However, it seems unlikely that all the 545 persons sent back to Aceh were GAM members. The figure is likely to be much smaller: a handful is the figure mentioned in the Human Rights Watch report.
- 23.
Pancasila is the Indonesian state ideology formulated by Indonesian President Sukarno that outlines the principles on which Indonesia is based.
- 24.
Muharam Idris, upon being deported back to Aceh in 1998, continued to be active in GAM and later became the panglima besar (military commander) for Aceh Besar.
- 25.
A more detailed analysis of this event as part of a broader understanding of the dialectic between the Malaysian state and GAM can be found in Chapter 5.
- 26.
- 27.
By the time this peace deal was agreed upon in 2005, an estimated 15,000 Acehnese had died as a result of the three-decade-long conflict that began with the formation of GAM in 1976 (Pan 2005).
- 28.
At the time of writing, another province-wide election had been scheduled for October 2011.
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Murugasu, S. (2017). Transnational Politics and the Acehnese in Malaysia. In: The State and the Transnational Politics of Migrants: A Study of the Chins and the Acehnese in Malaysia. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37061-7_4
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