Tuesday 30 October 2007

What is Malay?

my brother in law recently had an interesting post entitled 'i,Malaysian'.... This post had led to a pretty interesting series of comments on marginalisation and questioning is Malaysia truly 'muhibah'?

i was planning to blog about it myself but must stress that I have been extremely busy of late. As such, I'll just cut and paste the comment i left on his blog here below. It would probably make more sense if you read his post before reading my comment below... aiya... u mite as well read all the comments to that post...

i think there's a small community be it in blogsphere, broadwalk or whereever, where the concept of 'Malaysians' represents a harmonious multi-racial society. However only in our beloved Malaysia can the concept of race and religion mean the same. and by virtue of Article 153 / 160 of our Constitution, 'Malay' in a Malaysian context is defined as a Muslim Malaysian citizen born to another Malaysian citizen. so in other words, since my parents are Malaysian citizens, and should i wish to practice Islam, wouldn't that make me Malay?

I'm not being racist and you guys should know that I'm not one. But this master - people(slave) relationship does damper my spirit in believing that Malaysia is for Malaysians and not minus 'sians'.

For the record, i love this country and enjoyed my childhood. but the more i learn about our constitution, may 13, business privileges, AP, NEP, etc,etc... it does makes me wonder 'why' should i be a loyalist when the powers that be can say as they please in paliarment and abuse their rights.

I just conducted a course on Malaysian tax incentives etc, etc today... and explained the rationalisation of these incentives since the 1960s. Most of it was due to compete with Singapore. However i realised that we hardly achieved any targets since whereas Singapore has progressed by leaps and bounds. Now we complete with China (whom have just overtaken us)... even Vietnam is better than us. Aint that sad?

all i wanna say is that - dear powers that be - u fuckers suck! stop thinking of urself and ur birth rights and start fucking saving this country from self destruction. Amen.

it now brings us to today... i read something very interesting this morning. I have been trying to understand the logic of 153/160 etc, etc for some time now.... i'm trying understand more about where Malays came from... are they truly the owners of Malaysia... let alone the Masters of my home...

even if you wikipedia Malays and the malay achipelago, etc, etc... you'll find origins from taiwan, australnesia, etc... so question is... who came to my birth land (where i have virtually no birth rights) first???

please read this post on the Origins of the Malays.. i think the puzzle pieces are starting to fall into place....

ps: i write based on what little i know... but i write because i feel the heat... i.e. in terms of education, opportunities, work, business.... etc....

2 comments:

zewt said...

very touchy... i think we can naver question the originaliy of malay... that's the way it is here.

Algiedi said...

If you read Chinese history books, you'll know that the Malays originally came from Southern China, period. So, they are actually not the putera of the land. It would be more appropriate that the aborigines (Sakai, Dusun, negritoes etc) be accorded that status. But sad to say, my friend, that this is not the case and there's nothing you can do about it unless you move to a new place, embrace Islam, marry a Malay and mix with them and never forget to go to mosque every Friday and it might work. And if it doesn't, don't despair, persevere and I'm sure eventually your children will become a Malay one day. I have many Malay friends who are actually Iranian, Pakistanies, Indians and even Chinese.