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Presentation of a Felda scheme
Defining the peasantry
Felda settlers versus malay peasants
Emergence of a new community
Josiane L. Massard
The line of reflection l wish to investigate aims at providing ethnographic data that could answer the following questions: Are Malaysian settlers involved in FELDA schemes still part of the Malay peasantry? To what extent do they constitute a new socio-economic group? What are the signs that such a group has entered a stabilization stage, in other words, is this group capable of reproducing itself as such? Before beginning the discussion, it is necessary to describe briefly the organization of a FELDA scheme.
In 1956-one year before Malaysia reached independence-the Federal Land Development Authority was created by a federal ordinance. It was meant to promote rural development in what was then Malaya (present-day Peninsular Malaysia) by opening new land for the benefit of the poor, mainly rural, Malays. To this day it remains the biggest land development agency in the country, having opened almost 276 schemes and settled more than 103,000 families on an area covering over 650,000 ha. Besides the fact that some schemes are planted in oil palm and others in rubber or in cocoa,' all are organized on a similar basis. The scheme where I have where I have been conducting research since 1982 may serve as an example.2
It comprises two phases, Phase I and Phase II. The two phases count respectively 328 and 121 settlers and cover 1,320 ha and 493 ha. The first is divided into 15 blocks and the second into 6. Forest felling began in October 1969 and December 1970; trees were first planted in June 1970 and August 1971 and started to bear fruit in September 1973 and November 1974. House construction had been completed by then, and this is when settlers began to move in. Two years later, piped water was brought to the scheme and in 1982, settlers' houses were equipped with electricity. Starting in 1975, a day clinic with a government midwife in residence was opened, a kindergarten, and a primary school were constructed, a mosque was built, and a FELDA co-operative general store was organized; later, another federal agency, MARA, built a row of shops which are rented and managed by settlers as coffee shops or sundry shops. 3
Each of the 21 blocks is divided into lots, the number of which varies from 19 to 26 depending on the block considered. Each lot covers an area of 4 ha and is allocated to a settler on an individual basis. The settler is responsible for tree and soil maintenance according to a calendar planned by the FELDA technicians living on the scheme; he has to collect the fruit bunches, making two or three rounds a month depending on the season. In between rounds, he must prune the trees, spread fertilizer, and keep the undergrowth clear with the help of herbicides. As to loading the fruit onto lorries and carrying it to the processing factory, this is done by a small team of three to four settlers. The maintenance of access roads is done on a block basis, that is, all the members of the block must participate.
In fact, all the lots in one particular block form a continuous area and the profits within a block (computed from the total weight of fruit collected) are divided up into as many equal shares as there are lots or block members, no matter the quality or amount of individual labour; in other words, not in accordance with the settler's individual production in his lot.
On entering the scheme, the settlers know they will have to repay the loan to FELDA by monthly instalments deducted from their income during a fifteen year period.4 The debt, estimated at 51,200 Malaysian ringgit5 per settler in 1984 (Government of Malaysia 1984), covers the expenses incurred in clearing the land, planting the trees and attending to them before the settlers' arrival, and building the houses.6 Besides locally based trade, there are other fields of non-agricultural activities, mainly outside the scheme, that many of the settlers are involved in in addition to or instead of the maintaining of their lots.
Initially, the block was meant to be not only a work unit but also a residential unit. The latter objective was not entirely achieved because of personal preferences or of social tensions, and neighbourhoods may include one or a few households whose head belongs to another block. While the whole of the planted area amounts to 1,823 ha, the inhabited area covers 149 ha. Each of the 449 settler households occupies a house located on a 1,000 m2 lot, where people are encouraged to grow vegetables and plant fruit-trees for domestic consumption.
The Scheme and the Outside World
Being located 30 km away from Kuantan, the capital town of Pahang State, the scheme is within its sphere of influence. The town offers a wide range of commercial, educational, and health services. As far as settlers' income is concerned, part of it is derived from part or full-time employment outside the scheme, mainly in or around the town area, in the same way that consumption patterns exhibit a tendency for shopping to be done in town when average to important items (from clothing to furniture or motorcycles) are involved. This entails only a forty-minute ride by bus7 or private car.8 The co-operative buses take the settlers' teen-age children to high school, located either in another and larger nearby FELDA scheme or in town. In 1985, a public telephone booth was set up in the centre of the village area. It is located close to the clinic and this enables the midwife to call for an ambulance from town in case of an emergency. It can also be used by settlers and is a further means of communication with the outside world.
Communication with the rest of the country and the outside world in general is also achieved via the national radio and television network; all settlers own a radio and a TV set. Moreover, a sizeable proportion of the male settlers is literate and quite a few of them read a Malay daily newspaper.
Bearing in mind the above picture of the scheme organization and regional integration, we can now turn to a general evaluation of the settlers as a community.
Asking whether FELDA settlers are still part of the Malay peasantry implies a preliminary question concerning our definition of the word peasant. Although it might be useful to review the various meanings the word peasant has been endowed with since the category emerged as a possible subject of analysis in the first half of the nineteenth century-social scientists who specialize in so-called peasant studies indulge in such periodic updating,9 or, as one of them put it, in "conceptualizing and deconceptualizing" (Shanin 1979)-such is not the purpose of this paper. I will only draw upon such sources to outline briefly my own position. Peasants are sometimes defined in terms of occupational and economic qualifications. De Koninck, for one, regards them as "small scale family based agricultural producers" (1984, 271). Yet such a definition fails to convey cultural and political dimensions. As to Wolf's definition, I find it unsatisfactory for other reasons;10 while conveying, although implicitly, cultural and political dimensions, it is too restrictive in economic and occupational terms; not only does Wolf exclude non-agriculturalists such as fishermen but he also keeps out of the peasant category two groups of people who work on the land, the landless labourers and those "who participate fully in the market" (Wolf 1969, 15).11 Instead, I would favour a more comprehensive definition such as Shanin's,12 which has the advantage of covering the social, economic/occupational, cultural, and political dimensions which I feel are part and parcel of the concept.
Yet I still find inadequacies in Shanin's definition, and more precisely with the second item. I think one can no longer stick to a subsistence orientation and, following de Koninck (1986), one should broaden it to include both commercial and subsistence orientations. Moreover, I find Shanin's occupational specificity too narrow, and, following Firth (1950), in order to give proper place to the social and cultural dimensions, I feel one should include among peasants other rural dwellers such as fishermen and craftsmen; it is because peasants constitute and belong to a living community that one cannot admit the exclusion of such non-agricultural occupations. Further, as Firth rightly argued, such clear-cut categories do not always exist in practice, at least not in the Malaysian context (Firth 1950, 503).13
To sum up, one would argue that peasants share a family based economic tie with a village territory, from which most of them derive the main part of their livelihood. They are part of a specific village culture, and they occupy a subordinate social position within a state structure. At the same time, they form a political force that has to be reckoned with.
Expressed in such encompassing terms, this definition fits the Malaysian peasantry. It seems to have been taken for granted by most observers of Malay society, as the phrase "Malay peasants" is taken to be synonymous with "Malay villagers," in the anthropological literature at least. The importance thus granted to the cultural factors (the fact that Malay peasants are part of both a village culture and a village community) justifies the above discussion, which would otherwise appear as mere theoretical juggling.
In attempting to determine whether FELDA settlers are peasants, one ought to go through the literature written by social scientists on the Malay peasantry on the one hand and that dealing with FELDA settlers on the other. It is interesting to note that neither body even raises the labelling issue; studies dealing with the Malay peasantry do not mention FELDA settlers in one way or another (Firth 1950; Fatimah Halim 1980; Wan Hashim 1983; Zawawi 1984). De Koninck is the only author who clearly takes sides by including FELDA settlers among Malay peasants (de Koninck 1986),'4 while Zulkifly's position is ambiguous; he implicitly treats them as a distinct category when he writes about "the peasantry and the smallholder sector" (Zulkifly 1983, 43-44), yet his smallholder sector includes the village rubber smallholders. In my view, the latter cannot be regarded as distinct from peasants, while the land tenure system in FELDA schemes makes equating settlers with village smallholders debatable.15
As to the studies devoted to FELDA settlers (Alladin Hashim 1979; Abu Hassan Othman 1982; Rokiah Talib 1983; Singh 1968; Bahrin and Perera 1977; Bahrin 1981, 1982; Yui Huen Kwan 1980), none tackles the issue of their structural relationship with (other?) Malay peasants.16
The next step towards answering the initial question involves the processing of our own ethnographic data in the light of the four dimensional definition outlined above.
To start with, the first criterion as expressed by Shanin (1971, 14), "the family farm as the basic unit of multi-dimensional social organization," poses problems. In FELDA schemes, while the nuclear family does represent the basic social and residential unit, it does not act as a working unit, at least in oil palm schemes; the male settler is the main, if not the only, producer as women are physically unable to handle the fruit bunches, which can weigh up to 50 kilos or even more. Besides, as stated earlier, the income generated by the settler's labour is not directly proportional to the latter because of the block system that treats income and production on a team basis. In the same way, while each settler is meant to work within the limits of a particular piece of land," it would be difficult to regard this as "family land," not only because-during the period of repayment of the loan at least-the relationship to the land is closer to share tenancy than to a full ownership right but because such land has neither been transmitted via kinship ties nor been bought from a known individual; neither has it been gained from the forest by the personal efforts of the settler himself. Put another way, the legal relationship that ties the settler to the land is mediated via FELDA, whereas in a Malay village community the land either belongs to the cultivator himself or to some person whom he knows; the mediator is not an anonymous entity. We will come back shortly to the crucial problem raised by the tenure of land in FELDA schemes.
The occupational criterion that is part of the definition of peasantry being rather flexible, it still applies to FELDA settlers' work; although specialized to the extreme, work in the scheme is clearly agricultural. 18
However, questions emerge when one considers the identification of peasants with a traditional culture which includes a village community. One of the decisive factors of Malay village culture is a pattern of residence organized along kinship ties and according to a specific perception of the natural environment (e.g. the role of the river19 or of the sea front in the location of the village). In FELDA schemes, the residential organization has no social basis, and the actual location has nothing to do with the people's worldview. Malay culture plays no part in the location of dwellings in relation to each other or in relation to the natural environment.
Further-and here we come back to land to make a basic point-even though such was not the case before the advent of British colonialism, land is a commodity in a Malay village, and, if one may say so, it is a "living" commodity. It has both a historical and a socio-economic value. It has a historical value in the sense that the cultivated territory as a whole tells the story of a settlement process for a given community, and each particular lot tells the story of a long line of individuals, of their efforts, their failures, and other biological data, such as the number of their dependents, etc. Moreover, land has socio-economic aspects because it can and does circulate; it can be divided, taken away, accumulated, or rented, and as such it is a medium of communication between villagers, a medium that is ruled by a complex host of social forces including customary law.
In FELDA schemes, land is allocated on an individual basis, but even when the loan has been totally repaid,20 it never becomes private property as it does in a village. Until now, the agency has been granting a form of group ownership; for the future, it seems to be in favour of a shareholding system. Whatever alternative, the settler only acquires the right to maintain one lot: the latter cannot be divided up or sold or rented, and nothing but the main crop can be grown on it. Yet, as long as the settler lives on the scheme, he can have his agricultural work carried out by someone else, whether a settler or not, or he can choose one from among his heirs to succeed him. However, if he decides to move out of the scheme, he forfeits any right to the land, both plantation and house lot, as well as to the house itself. Land is thus immobilized,21 "deep-frozen" into an artificial equality, insensitive to the passage of time and to the impact of socio-economic forces, and, as Raison wrote, "such a systematic immobilization can prevent the scheme from ever having a life of its own" (Raison 1968, 62). Yet, as the same author himself admits, such a tight control on land is a necessary condition of land settlement schemes if one wants them to be successful ventures both for the organizing agency and for the settlers (Raison 1968, 61). This is only one aspect of the rigid economic supervision generally exerted on settlers' activities which further results in a curtailing of spontaneous community dynamism.
Such restriction is especially conspicuous in the political sphere. The only avenue for settlers' representation is the institution of the block leaders (ketua belok), who are elected by and amongst the block members. In traditional villages, leaders enjoy religious significance (being orang lebai, "pious men," or imam, prayer leaders) and/or economic status (being landowners and sometimes cattle owners or civil servants); such criteria play very little part in the selection of block leaders. One could argue that ex officio members of the JKKR-the scheme development body-conform to the socalled traditional qualifications, being school head, government midwife, scheme policeman, however, apart from the school imam, who is both an ex officio JKKR member and a settler, none of the other officials (who are posted on the scheme) really shares the settlers' needs and problems, and none has any reason to defend the settlers" claims if any come to their notice. As to the block leaders who do sit on the JKKR as well, few of them have the assets deriving from education and official position that the other JKKR members possess, and because of that, most of them lack the oratory selfconfidence and competence of the latter.
The block leader, then, plays the rather vulnerable part of a go-between, ever open to criticism, and when he fails to satisfy the expectations of either party (his fellow block members or FELDA cadres), he is no longer accepted. Tensions sometimes run so high that resignation is the only alternative left open. It also happens that a particular block can be managed smoothly. Yet, in all cases, the block leader is in a rather uncomfortable position from which he derives no prestige. In fact, it is worth noting that most block leaders are "ordinary" settlers in a further sense: they are often satisfied with the income obtained from plantation work and do not necessarily look for extra income, they may not even be the most industrious settlers in their respective blocks.22 So neither in economic nor in political terms can the block leader meet the conditions required to be a "leader of men" (penimpin), and the settlers are not assured of effective representation. The scheme community thus lacks some of the factors that usually permit the development of political life in spontaneously organized settlements.23
It seems, therefore, that the major attributes of a peasant community are lacking-land mobility, cultural integration into the natural environment, reflection of the social order in the spatial distribution of the population, political dynamism. It is thus at least questionable to use the label peasants when discussing FELDA settlers.
If one closely observes everyday life on a FELDA scheme, there are signs that point to the emergence of other forms of integration and dynamism. One pertains to the economic sphere, more precisely, to the extra sources of income. Both FELDA cadres and settlers admit that plantation work is not a full-time activity, even though they may disagree with regard to the average work-load required.24 While the purpose of the organizing agency was to generate an above-poverty-line income for settlers-and this has been achieved-most of the settlers (at least in the scheme where I am conducting field-work) look for additional sources. They work either within the scheme as shopkeepers or as labourers on other people's lots, or outside. In the latter case, they can hire themselves out on a daily basis on neighbouring schemes that are being developed or they can work in town, in factories, on building sites, or with other private employers, for whom they are lorry- or bus-drivers or security guards. They can also find employment with the nearby Urban Council. A large majority of the settlers thus raise their standard of living, on a temporary or permanent basis, with a part- or full-time job that, in most cases, leaves them free to continue working on their lots.
Such a diversification of sources of revenue has obvious effects: It strengthens the commitment of settlers, who are less liable to think of leaving the scheme as it gives them one more reason to stay. It also acts as a "buffer" in case the price of the main crop falls on the world market. Further, the rise in living standard often results in the enlargement and improvement of the settler's house, and settlers may think twice before moving out of a house into which they have invested and for which they can expect no refund.25 Another consequence of side jobs is the return of socio-economic diversification, putting an end to the artificial equality introduced at the beginning and to the immobility that might have resulted from it. Undertaking extra activities is a conduit not only for extra assets, it also encourages settlers' initiative and energy and, at the same time, implies that the scheme no longer runs the risk of being a ghetto in the area where it is implemented.
The occupational flexibility permitted the settlers thus leads to the beginning of an economic integration within the area where the scheme is located. The extra income generated further enables the settlers to indulge in expenditures that not have been possible if they depended only on their regular income. This, in turn, means taking part in the consumption process, which stimulates the regional and national economies.
All this points to the fact that FELDA land schemes have an economic stability and dynamism of their own. Even though such dynamism cannot be attributed directly and solely to plantation work, it is indirectly related to it in the sense that it is rendered possible by the involvement of the settlers in the scheme.
There is yet another sphere of ethnographic observation that seems to point towards stabilization. While carrying out fieldwork, in order to estimate individual settlers' economic achievements as compared to that of their close kin, I collected occupational data on their parents, siblings, and married children. The survey revealed that 75% of the settlers have close kin involved in FELDA land schemes; 45% have one or more siblings on FELDA schemes; 20% have either parents or married children deriving their income as FELDA settlers, and 35% have both siblings and parents or married children thus engaged. Such figures have their limitations inherent in the fact that they were collected within one scheme only. Still, they show that the commitment to FELDA is not just a temporary phenomenon; it is spread widely not only within one generation but is observable within two, sometimes even three, generations, which implies that the decision to enter a scheme is based on personal experience. The process already has some measure of historical depth. This shows a deliberate wish to reproduce not only a means of livelihood but also an original life-style that is distinct from both the urban and the traditional (rural) ways of life.
We have also begun to gather data concerning the settlers' children's affinal ties; the sample here is not broad enough to provide percentages, but it shows that quite a number of the settlers' children do intermarry. The settlers' community thus provides a pool of possible marriage partners, more so within one particular scheme but involving different schemes too. If one accepts the fact that marriage ties are grounded in trust which in turn derives largely from shared experiences and values, this growing trend would point to the emergence of a sense of belonging. The latter combined with the tendency to follow one's kin's commitment to FELDA point with some certainty to a developing sense of identity.
The few ethnographic references selected above should have shown that the questions raised are relevant to the study of land development in Malaysia. The questions should also point to areas of further inquiry.
By combining a state-controlled agriculture with liberal economic forms, FELDA has definitely come up with an original model of rural development. Its cost in land and capital resources may make it difficult to reproduce in other tropical for the same reasons, it cannot be indefinitely extended in Malaysia. Yet it has already reached such a scale that leaders and planners alike want to make sure it offers a viable alternative to both urban migration and rural stagnation.
Once enough data have been gathered, it ought to be possible to define accurately the specificities of FELDA communities, including their structural relationships with traditional Malay peasants and, more broadly, with the rest of Malaysian society, as well as to the State and its representatives. So far, they seem assured of economic success, and some conditions are already present to provide for regional integration. Further studies should indicate their chances of reaching internal dynamism, in both political and sociological terms.
1. From 1986 onwards, it was intended that crops would be
distributed on all FELDA schemes in the following fashion: 70% in
oil palm, 14% in rubber, and 17% in cocoa (New Straits Times
2. This oil palm scheme is located near the east coast of West Malaysia. Thanks to funds granted by the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, I have been able to carry out field-work during three successive periods: July-August 1982, JulyAugust 1984, and July-October 1985.
3. MARA, Majlis Amanah Rakyat, or "Council of Trust for Indigenous People"; aim, according to the Prime Minister's Office, is to provide 'various forms of assistance, guidance, and other support services to bumiputra ['native'] entrepreneurs to ensure greater success in their business ventures" (Government of Malaysia 1984, 281).
4. In practice, the period is often extended to 18 or 20 years.
5. In 1985, one Malaysian ringgit was equivalent to US$2.2.
6. In 1980, the loan amounted to only 15,000 ringgit (Yui Huen Kwan 1980, 72).
7. Either on a bus operated by a private outside company or on a bus owned by the settlers' co-operative.
8. About 10% of the settlers have bought second-hand cars during the past two years.
9. For a few of the more recent reviews, see Isaac 1974; de Koninck 1984; Shanin 1971; Wan Hashim 1983; Wolf 1969; Zawawi 1984.
10. "I therefore define peasants as populations that are existentially involved in cultivation. . . as long as they are in a position to make the relevant decisions on how their crops are grown" (Wolf 1969, xiv).
11. I am also rather sceptical regarding the notion of "autonomous" decisions as applied to cultivation. What is its scientific validity? Whether one is speaking in economic or political terms, what type of criteria should one use to measure "autonomy," especially when the group concerned is in a subordinate position (Wolf 1969)?
12. - The peasant family farm as the basic unit of multi-dimensional social organization.
- Land husbandry as the main means of livelihood directly providing the major parts of the consumption needs.
- Specific traditional culture related to the way of life of small communities.
- The underdog position-the domination of the peasantry by outsiders (Shanin 1971, 14-15).
13. In fact, historically, at least before the advent of British colonialism, Malays depended more on collecting and trading forest products than on sedentary agriculture (see Benjamin 1985; Dunn 1975).
14. Raison, while not dealing with the theoretical issue, also treats all participants in land settlement schemes as "peasants" (Raison 1968).
15. The same confusing label, "smallholders," is applied to settlers by government officials (Government of Malaysia 1984).
16. In none of these studies is the word "peasant" used in reference to FELDA settlers, who are exclusively referred to as "settlers."
17. The need for a personal tie with a bounded territory was emphasized by Tungku Shamsul Bahrin (1977, 44, 46) and more recently by De Koninck (1984).
18. With the vulnerability to world market demands that such a dependence implies. The settlers themselves are aware of the risk: in September 1985, when India, until then Malaysia's single biggest customer, decided to switch part of its order to Indonesia (New Straits Times 1985a), they expected their income to decline.
19. Concerning such cultural integration and social organization of village territory, see Massard 1983.
20. Recently, 15 schemes were thus "transferred" to settlers who had paid off their debts (New Straits Times 1985c).
21. Or, as Tungku Shamsul Bahrin wrote, "its pattern is not evolutionary" (1977, 64).
22. Although Raison observed that in controlled land settlement "authority is not based . . . on traditional rules," he asserted that "new authorities [would be based] on economic strength" (1968, 74); this has not yet become the case in FELDA schemes.
23. On the other hand, one should not overestimate political autonomy in traditional Malay villages; as in other rural areas, political life is strongly influenced by city-based federal parties.
24. While FELDA cadres give a 12 to 14 day-a-month bracket, the settlers argue that 15 to 20 days are necessary.
25. Another argument settlers often put forward as a reason for not leaving the scheme even though income may be below their (sometimes high) expectations is the credit extended by the FELDA co-operative store; it can be as high as a low-season monthly payment, that is, up to 300 or even 400 ringgit per month.
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New Straits Times. 1985a. "Blow to palm oil trade with India." 9 September.
------. 1985b. "Agriculture may get shot in the arm." 14 October.
------. 1985c. "FELDA transfers 15 schemes to settlers." 24 October.
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Singh, S. 1968. "An evaluation of three land development schemes in Malaysia." The Malayan Economic Review, 13 (1): 89-100.
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