Question

MALAY CIVILIZATION, BEFORE AND AFTER INDEPENDENCE IN MALAYSIA

Answer 1

MALAY CIVILIZATION, BEFORE INDEPENDENCE IN MALAYSIA

1. From the 7th century to the 13th century, the area fell under the sway of the Srivijaya Empire, based in southern Sumatra. This Buddhist empire controlled the entire Malacca Straits, Java and southern Borneo and became fabulously rich through trade with India and China.

2. By 15th Century, the Portuguese decided to cut out the intermediary Arabians and go directly to the source: Melaka. Reaching the Malay coast in 1509, the Portuguese were greeted warmly by the local sultan, but relations soon soured. The invaders laid siege to Melaka in 1511, capturing the city and driving the sultan and his forces back to Johor.

3. Striving with the Portuguese for control of the spice trade, the Dutch formed an allegiance with the sultans of Johor to oust the Portuguese from Melaka. A joint force of Dutch and Johor soldiers and sailors besieged Melaka in 1641 and wrested the city from the Portuguese.

4. When Napoleon overran the Netherlands in 1795, the British, fearing French influence in the region, took over Dutch Java and Melaka. When Napoleon was defeated in 1818, the British handed the Dutch colonies back.

5. In 1824, Britain and the Netherlands signed the Anglo–Dutch Treaty, dividing the region into two distinct spheres of influence. The Dutch controlled what is now Indonesia, and the British controlled Penang, Melaka, Dinding (centred around Pulau Pangkor) and Singapore, which were soon combined to create the ‘Straits Settlements’.

6. In 1896 Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang were united under the banner of the Federated Malay States, each governed by a British Resident.

7. Although official British policy was that Malaya belonged to the Malays, colonial rule radically altered the ethnic composition of the country.

8. A few hours before the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Japanese forces landed on the northeast coast of Malaya. Within a few months they had taken over the entire peninsula and Singapore.

9. The Japanese surrendered to the British in Singapore in 1945. Despite the eventual Allied victory, Britain had been humiliated by the easy loss of Malaya and Singapore to the Japanese, and it was clear that their days of controlling the region were now numbered.

10. In 1946 the British persuaded the sultans to agree to the Malayan Union, which amalgamated all the Peninsular Malayan states into a central authority and offered citizenship to all residents regardless of race.

11. Rowdy protest meetings were held throughout the country, and the first Malay political party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), was formed, leading to the dissolution of the Malayan Union and, in 1948, the creation of the Federation of Malaya, which reinstated the sovereignty of the sultans and the special privileges of the Malays.

MALAY CIVILIZATION, AFTER INDEPENDENCE IN MALAYSIA

1. Malaysia’s march to independence from British rule was led by UMNO, which formed a strategic alliance with the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) and the Malayan Indian Congress (MIC). The new Alliance Party led by Tunku Abdul Rahman, the Sultan of Kedah's son, won a landslide victory in the 1955 election and, on 31 August 1957, Merdeka (Independence) was declared. Sarawak, Sabah (then North Borneo) and Brunei remained under British rule.

2. In 1961 Tunku Abdul Rahman proposed a merger of Singapore, Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei, which the British agreed to the following year. At the 11th hour Brunei pulled out of the deal.

3. When modern Malaysia was born in July 1963, it immediately faced a diplomatic crisis. The Philippines broke off relations, claiming that Sabah was part of its territory, while Indonesia laid claim to the whole of Borneo, invading parts of Sabah and Sarawak before finally giving up its claim in 1966.

4. Ethnic Chinese outnumbered Malays in both Malaysia and Singapore and the new ruler of the island-state, Lee Kuan Yew, refused to extend constitutional privileges to the Malays in Singapore. Riots broke out in Singapore in 1964; in August 1965 Tunku Abdul Rahman was forced to boot Singapore out of the federation.

5. In the 1969 general elections, the Alliance Party lost its two-thirds majority in parliament and a celebration march by the opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP) and Gerakan (The People’s Movement) in KL led to a full-scale riot.

6. Stunned by the savageness of the riots, the government decided that if there was ever going to be harmony between the races then the Malay community needed to achieve economic parity. To this end the New Economic Policy (NEP), a socio-economic affirmative action plan, was introduced.

7. When introduced in 1971, the aim of the New Economic Policy (NEP) was that 30% of Malaysia’s corporate wealth be in the hands of indigenous Malays and Orang Asli, or bumiputra (literally, sons of the soil), within 20 years. A massive campaign of positive discrimination began which handed majority control over the army, police, civil service and government to Malays.

8. In 1981 former UMNO member Mahathir Mohamad became prime minister. Malaysia’s economy went into overdrive, growing from one based on commodities such as rubber to one firmly rooted in industry and manufacturing. Government monopolies were privatised, and heavy industries like steel manufacturing (a failure) and the Malaysian car (successful but heavily protected) were encouraged. Multinationals were successfully wooed to set up in Malaysia, and manufactured exports began to dominate the trade figures.

9. Mahathir retired in 2003 and his successor, the widely respected Abdullah Badawi, went on to lead BN to a landslide victory in the following year’s election.