AN INTELLECTUAL AND POLITICAL HISTORY OF LIBERATIVE JUSTICE AMONG PROMINENT MALAY THINKERS IN MALAYSIA, 1946-1986

Abstract

This thesis examines the conception of justice among Malay thinkers in Malaysia from the 1940s to 1980s. I argue that justice was understood in political terms and seek to uncover this through a historical and sociological approach, guided in particular by the social analysis of political ideas expounded by the theorist, David Miller. The period 1946 to 1986 is chosen for this study because it marked the emergence of the liberative justice discourse in Malaysia as evidenced in the writings of Ahmad Boestamam, Usman Awang, Syed Hussein Alatas, Kassim Ahmad and Syed Husin Ali. These various writers advocate the conception of liberative justice that encompasses three strands: liberative justice as freedom, liberative justice as political equality and liberative justice as democratic criticism. As such, this thesis fills a gap in the extant on the history of ideas in Malaysia that has by far paid less emphasis on local conceptions of justice and its implications.