Avalokiteshvara statue found in Perak, 8th-9th century bronze
The Buddha-Gupta stone dates to the 4th-5th Century CE. It was found in Seberang Perai, Malaysia and is kept in the National Museum, Calcutta, India. A replica of the stone is kept at the National Museum of Malaysia. It was dedicated by an Indian Merchant, Buddha Gupta, as an expression of gratitude for his safe arrival after a voyage from India to the Malay peninsula and is proof of the early contact through trade between India and Malaysia.
Most of us have been using the high school text book provided by the goverment as the only source of information regarding the history of our country, Malaya aka Malaysia.The hidden history of Malaysia have been manipulated alot.In this entry I would like to share some information about the real story of Malaya.The Prehistoric Malaysia may be traced back as far as 200,000 years ago from the stone tools found at Bukit Jawa, an archaeological site in Lenggong, Perak. The earliest human skeleton in Peninsular Malaysia, Perak Man, dates back 11,000 years and Perak Woman dating back 8,000 years, were also discovered in Lenggong. The site has an undisturbed stone tool production area, created using equipment such as anvils and hammer stones. The Tambun Cave paintings are also situated in Perak. From East Malaysia, Sarawak's Niah Caves, there is evidence of the oldest human remains in Malaysia, dating back 40,000 years.Hindu and Buddhist cultures imported from India dominated early Malaysian history. They reached their peak in the Sumatran based Srivijaya civilization, whose influence extended through Sumatra, Java, the Malay Peninsula and much of Borneo from the 7th to the 14th centuries.Although Muslims had only passed through Malaya as early as the tenth century, it was not until the 14th and 15th centuries that Islam first established itself on soil of Malaya. The adoption of Islam by the 15th century saw the rise of sultanates, the most prominent of which was the Malacca Sultanates.Indian influence in the region dates back to at least the 3rd century BCE. Indian traders came to the archipelago for abundant forest and marine products, and to trade with merchants from China. Both Hinduism and Buddhism were well established in the Malay Peninsula by the beginning of the 1st century. Kedah was known as Kedaram or Kataha, in ancient Pallava or Sanskrit .It was in the direct route of invasions of Indian traders and kings. Rajendra Chola, Tamil Emperor who is now thought to have laid Kota Gelanggi to waste, put Kedah to heel in 1025 but his successor, Vir Rajendra Chola, had to put down a Kedah rebellion to overthrow the invaders. The port of Malacca on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula was founded around 1400 by Parameswara, a rebel prince of the Srivijaya royal line, who was also claimed in the Sejarah Melayu to be a descendant of Alexander the Great. Expelled from Sumatra for killing the ruler of Temasek aka Singapore, Parameswara established himself in Malacca. The kingdom rapidly assumed the place previously held by Srivijaya, establishing independent relations with China, and exploiting its position to dominate the Straits to control the China-India maritime trade.Within a few years of its establishment, Malacca officially adopted Islam, and then the Raja became a Sultan. The political power of the Malaccan Sultanate helped Islam’s rapid spread through the archipelago, reaching as far as modern day Philippines, while leaving Bali as an isolated outpost of Hinduism.Sultans of Malacca became the models for all subsequent Malay rulers.It became a cultural centre, creating the modern Malay culture.The culture with a blend of indigenous Malay and imported Indian, Chinese and Islamic elements. Melaka's fashions in literature, art, music, dance and dress, and the ornate titles of its royal court, came to be seen as the standard for all ethnic Malays. The court of Malacca also gave great prestige to the Malay language, which had originally evolved in Sumatra and been brought to Melaka at the time of its foundation. In time Malay came to be the official language of all the Malaysian states, although local languages survived in many places.Because Islam was introduced by traders and not military conquest, there was no imposition of the Arabic language or Arab political customs. Since most ethnic Malays could not read the Arabic Qur'an, the local version of Islam was much less rigorous than in the Arabic world. And since the indigenous Malay rulers retained their power, the Islamic clergy did not gain the political influence it enjoyed in other parts of the Islamic world.
The closing of the overland route from Asia to Europe by the Ottoman Empire and the claim towards trade monopoly with India and southeast Asia by Arab traders, led European powers to look for a maritime route. In 1498 Vasco da Gama, sent by King John II of Portugal, found the route around the Cape of Good Hope to India, and in 1511 Afonso de Albuquerque led an expedition to Malaya which seized Melaka following a month long siege and made it the centre of Portugal’s eastern activity. The son of the last Sultan of Malacca fled to the island of Bintan where he founded a state that which became the Sultanate of Johor. By the late sixteenth century the tin mines of northern Malaya had been discovered by European traders, and Perak grew wealthy on the proceeds of tin exports. The European colonial expanded further into the region. The Portuguese gained control over the trade from the spice rich Maluku islands, and in 1571 the Spanish captured Manila.In 1607, the Sultanate of Aceh rose as the powerful and wealthiest state in Malay archipelago. Under Iskandar Muda , he extended the sultanate's control over most of Sumatra and Malay peninsula. He conquered Pahang, a tin-producing region on the Malayan Peninsula. The strength of his formidable fleet was brought to an end with a disastrous campaign against Malacca in 1629, when the combined Portuguese and Johor forces managed to destroy all his ships and 19,000 troops according to Portuguese account. Aceh forces was not destroyed, however, as Aceh was able to conquer Kedah within the same year and taking many of its citizens to Aceh. The Sultan's son in law, Iskandar Thani, former prince of Pahang later became his successor. During his reign Aceh focused on religious unity.In the early seventeenth century, the Dutch established Dutch East India Company or VOC based in west Java. From there they expanded across the archipelago, forming an alliance with Johore against their main enemies, the Portuguese at Melaka and the powerful Sultan of Aceh. In 1641, after several attempts, the VOC Johore alliance captured Melaka, breaking Portuguese power in Malaya. Portugal was left with only Portuguese Timor. Backed by the Dutch, Johore established a loose hegemony over the Malay states, except Perak, which was able to play off Johore against the Siamese to the north and retain its independence.The weakness of the Malay states in this period allowed other people to migrate into the Malay homelands. The most significant migrants being the Bugis, seafarers from eastern Indonesia, who regularly raided the Malay coasts. They seized control of Johore following the assassination of the last Sultan of the old Malacca in 1699 and Bugis took control of Selangor. The Minangkabau from center Sumatra migrated into Malaya, and eventually established their own state in Negeri Sembilan. The fall of Johore left a power vacuum on the Malay Peninsula which was partly filled by the Siamese kings of Ayutthaya kingdom, who made the five northern Malay states, Kedah, Kelantan, Patani, Perlis and Terengganu their vassals. Johore’s eclipse also left Perak as the unrivalled leader of the Malay states.Then the economic importance of Malaya to Europe grew rapidly during the 18th century. The fast-growing tea trade between China and Britain increased the demand for high quality Malayan tin, which was used to line tea chests. Malayan pepper also had a high reputation in Europe, while Kelantan and Pahang had gold mines. This established a pattern which characterised Malayan society for the next 200 years.Rural Malay population increasingly under the domination of wealthy urban immigrant communities, whose power the Sultans were unable to resist.English traders had been present in Malay waters since the 17th century, but it was not until the mid 18th century that the British East India Company, based in British India, developed a serious interest in Malayan affairs. The growth of the China trade in British ships increased the Company’s desire for bases in the region. Various islands were used for this purpose, but the first permanent acquisition was Penang, leased from the Sultan of Kedah in 1786. This was followed soon after by the leasing of a block of territory on the mainland opposite Penang known as Province Wellesley.In 1795, during the Napoleonic Wars, the British occupied Dutch Malacca to forestall possible French interest in the area. When Malacca was handed back to the Dutch in 1815, the British governor, Stamford Raffles, looked for an alternative base, and in 1819 he acquired Singapore from the Sultan of Johore. The twin bases of Penang and Singapore, together with the decline of the Netherlands as a naval power, made Britain the dominant force in Malayan affairs. British influence was increased by Malayan fears of Siamese expansionism, to which Britain made a useful counterweight.During the 19th century the Malay Sultans became loyal allies of the British Empire.
In 1824 British hegemony in Malaya was formalised by the Anglo-Dutch Treaty, the decisive event in the formation of modern Malaysia. The Dutch evacuated Melaka and renounced all interest in Malaya, while the British recognised Dutch rule over the rest of the East Indies. Penang, Melaka and Singapore were united as the Straits Settlements, ruled by a British Governor in Singapore. During the 19th century, the British concluded treaties with the Malay states, installing “residents” who advised the Sultans and soon became the effective rulers of their states. The wealth of Perak’s tin mines made political stability there a priority for British investors, and Perak was thus the first Malay state to agree to the supervision of a British resident. Johore alone resisted, holding out until 1914. In 1909 the weakened Siamese kingdom was compelled to cede Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis and Terengganu to the British. Siam retained the Sultanate of Patani, leaving a Muslim minority in southern Thailand which has been a source of much trouble for successive Thai governments. During the late 19th century the British also gained control of the north coast of Borneo, where Dutch rule had never been established. The eastern part of this region now Sabah was under the nominal control of the Sultan of Sulu, a vassal of the Spanish Philippines. The rest was the territory of the Sultanate of Brunei. In 1841, a British adventurer, James Brooke, leased Kuching from the Sultan and made himself the “White Raja” of Sarawak, steadily expanding his territory at Brunei’s expense. North-eastern Borneo was colonised by British traders, and in 1881 the British North Borneo Company was granted control of the territory under the distant supervision of the governor in Singapore. The Spanish Philippines never recognised this loss of the Sultan of Sulu’s territory, laying the basis of the subsequent Filipino claim to Sabah. In 1888 what was left of Brunei was made a British protectorate, and in 1891 another Anglo-Dutch treaty formalised the border between British and Dutch Borneo. Thus the borders of modern Malaysia were formed, in complete disregard of ethnic and linguistic factors, by the colonial powers. By 1910 the pattern of British rule in the Malay lands was established. The Straits Settlements were a Crown Colony, ruled by a governor under the supervision of the Colonial Office in London. Their population was about half Chinese, but all residents, regardless of race, were British subjects. The first four states to accept British residents, Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang, were termed the Federated Malay States: while technically independent, they were placed under a Resident-General in 1895, making them British colonies in all but name. The Unfederated Malay States (Johore, Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis and Terengganu) had a slightly larger degree of independence, although they were unable to resist the wishes of their British Residents for long. Johore, as Britain’s closest ally in Malay affairs, had the privilege of a written constitution, which gave the Sultan the right to appoint his own Cabinet, but he was generally careful to consult the British first.
The outbreak of war in the Pacific in December 1941 found the British in Malaya completely unprepared. During the 1930s, anticipating the rising threat of Japanese naval power, they had built a great naval base at Singapore, but never anticipated an invasion of Malaya from the north. Because of the demands of the war in Europe, there was virtually no British air capacity in the Far East. The Japanese were thus able to attack from their bases in IndoChina and despite stubborn resistance from British, Australian and Indian forces, they overran Malaya in two months. Singapore, with no landward defences, no air cover and no water supply, was forced to surrender in February 1942, doing irreparable damage to British prestige. British North Borneo and Brunei were also occupied.The Japanese had a racial policy just as the British did. They regarded the Malays as a colonial people liberated from British imperialist rule, and fostered a limited form of Malay nationalism, which gained them some degree of collaboration from the Malay civil service and intellectuals.Most of the Sultans also collaborated with the Japanese, although they maintained later that they had done so unwillingly.The occupiers regarded the Chinese, however, as enemy aliens, and treated them with great harshness: during the so called sook ching (purification through suffering), up to 80,000 Chinese in Malaya and Singapore were killed. Chinese businesses were expropriated and Chinese schools either closed or burned down. Not surprisingly the Chinese, led by the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), became the backbone of the Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), which with British assistance became the most effective resistance force in the occupied Asian countries. But the Japanese also offended Malay nationalism by allowing their ally Thailand to re-annex the four northern states, Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan and Terengganu that had been surrendered to British in 1909. The loss of Malaya’s export markets soon produced mass unemployment which affected all races and made the Japanese increasingly unpopular. The Malayans were thus on the whole glad to see the British back in 1945, but things could not remain as they were before the war. Britain was bankrupt and the new Labour government was keen to withdraw its forces from the East as soon as possible. Colonial self-rule and eventual independence were now British policy. The tide of colonial nationalism sweeping through Asia soon reached Malaya. But most Malays were more concerned with defending themselves against the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) which was mostly made up of Chinese, than with demanding independence from the British . Indeed their immediate concern was that the British not leave and abandon the Malays to the armed Communists of the MPAJA, which was the largest armed force in the country. During the last year of the war there had been armed clashes between Chinese and Malays and many Malays were killed by the armed Chinese communists members of the MPAJA and the returning British found a country on the brink of civil war. In 1946 the British announced plans for a Malayan Union, which would turn the Federated and Unfederated Malay States, plus Penang and Malacca but not Singapore, into a unitary state, with a view to independence within a few years. There would be a common Malayan citizenship regardless of race. The Malays were horrified at this recognition that the Chinese and Indians were now to be a permanent and equal part of Malaya’s future, and vowed their opposition to the plan. The Sultans, who had initially supported it, backed down and placed themselves at the head of the resistance. In 1946 the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) was founded by Malay nationalists led by Dato Onn bin Jaafar, the Chief Minister of Johore. UMNO favoured independence for Malaya, but only if the new state was run exclusively by the Malays. Faced with implacable Malay opposition, the British dropped the plan. Meanwhile the Communists were moving towards open insurrection. The MPAJA had been disbanded in December 1945, and the MCP organised as a legal political party, but the MPAJA’s arms were carefully stored for future use. The MCP policy was for immediate independence with full equality for all races. This meant it recruited very few Malays. The Party’s strength was in the Chinese-dominated trade unions, particularly in Singapore, and in the Chinese schools, where the teachers, mostly born in China, saw the Communist Party of China as the leader of China’s national revival. In March 1947, reflecting the international Communist movement’s “turn to left” as the Cold War set in, the MCP leader Lai Tek was purged and replaced by the veteran MPAJA guerrilla leader Chin Peng, who turned the party increasingly to direct action. In July, following a string of assassinations of plantation managers, the colonial government struck back, declaring a State of Emergency, banning the MCP and arresting hundreds of its militants. The Party retreated to the jungle and formed the Malayan Peoples’ Liberation Army, with about 13,000 men under arms, all Chinese. The Malayan Emergency involved six years of bitter fighting across the Malayan Peninsula. The British strategy, which proved ultimately successful, was to isolate the MCP from its support base by a combination of economic and political concessions to the Chinese and the resettlement of Chinese squatters into “New Villages” in “white areas” free of MCP influence. The effective mobilisation of the Malays against the MCP was also an important part the British strategy. From 1949 the MCP campaign lost momentum and the number of recruits fell sharply. Although the MCP succeeded in assassinating the British High Commissioner, Sir Henry Gurney, in October 1951, this turn to “terrorist” tactics alienated many moderate Chinese from the Party. The arrival of Lt Gen Sir Gerald Templer as British commander in 1952 was the beginning of the end of the Emergency. Templer invented the techniques of counter-insurgency warfare in Malaya and applied them ruthlessly.
Chinese reaction against the MCP was shown by the formation of the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) in 1949 as a vehicle for moderate Chinese political opinion. Its leader, Tan Cheng Lock, favoured a policy of collaboration with UMNO to win Malayan independence on a policy of equal citizenship, but with sufficient concessions to Malay sensitivities to ease nationalist fears. Tan formed a close collaboration with Tunku Abdul Rahman, the Chief Minister of Kedah and from 1951 successor to Datuk Onn as leader of UMNO. Since the British had announced in 1949 that Malaya would soon become independent whether the Malayans liked it or not, both leaders were determined to forge an agreement their communities could live with as a basis for a stable independent state. The UMNO-MCA Alliance which was later joined by the Malayan Indian Congress (MIC) won convincing victories in local and state elections in both Malay and Chinese areas between 1952 and 1955. The introduction of elected local government was another important step in defeating the Communists. After Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, there was a split in the MCP leadership over the wisdom of continuing the armed struggle. Many MCP militants lost heart and went home, and by the time Templer left Malaya in 1954 the Emergency was over. The Emergency left a lasting legacy of bitterness between Malays and Chinese. During 1955 and 1956 UMNO, the MCA and the British hammered out a constitutional settlement for anciple of equal citizenship for all races. In exchange, the MCA agreed that Malaya’s head of state would be drawn from the ranks of the Malay Sultans, that Malay would be the official language, and that Malay education and economic development would be promoted and subsidised. In effect this meant that Malaya would be run by the Malays, particularly since they continued to dominate the civil service, the army and the police, but that the Chinese and Indians would have proportionate representation in the Cabinet and the parliament, would run those states where they were the majority, and would have their economic position protected. The difficult issue of who would control the education system was deferred until after independence. This came on August 31, 1957, when Tunku Abdul Rahman became the first Prime Minister of independent Malaya. This left the unfinished business of the other British-ruled territories in the region. After the Japanese surrender the Brooke family and the British North Borneo Company gave up their control of Sarawak and Sabah respectively, and these became British Crown Colonies. They were much less economically developed than Malaya, and their local political leaderships were too weak to demand independence. Singapore, with its large Chinese majority, achieved autonomy in 1955, and in 1959 the young socialist leader Lee Kuan Yew became Prime Minister. The Sultan of Brunei remained as a British client in his oilrich enclave. Between 1959 and 1962 the British government orchestrated complex negotiations between these local leaders and the Malayan government. In 1961, Abdul Rahman mooted the idea of forming "Malaysia", which would consist of Brunei, Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore, all of which had been British colonies. The reasoning behind this was that this would allow the central government to control and combat communist activities, especially in Singapore. It was also feared that if Singapore achieved independence, it would become a base for Chinese chauvinists to threaten Malayan sovereignty. To balance out the ethnic composition of the new nation, the other states, whose Malay and indigenous populations would cancel out the Singaporean Chinese majority, were also included.Although Lee Kuan Yew supported the proposal, his opponents from the Singaporean Socialist Front resisted, arguing that this was a ploy for the British to continue controlling the region. Most political parties in Sarawak were also against the merger, and in Sabah, where there were no political parties, community representatives also stated their opposition. Although the Sultan of Brunei supported the merger, the Parti Rakyat Brunei opposed it as well. At the Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference in 1961, Abdul Rahman explained his proposal further to its opponents. In October, he obtained agreement from the British government to the plan, provided that feedback be obtained from the communities involved in the merger. The Cobbold Commission, named after its head, Lord Cobbold, conducted a study in the Borneo territories and approved a merger with Sabah and Sarawak; however, it was found that a substantial number of Bruneians opposed merger. A referendum was conducted in Singapore to gauge opinion, and 70% supported merger with substantial autonomy given to the state government.After reviewing the Cobbold Commission's findings, the British government appointed the Landsdowne Commission to draft a constitution for Malaysia. The eventual constitution was essentially the same as the 1957 constitution, albeit with some rewording. For instance, giving recognition to the special position of the natives of the Borneo States. Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore were also granted some autonomy unavailable to the states of Malaya. After negotiations in July 1963, it was agreed that Malaysia would come into being on 31 August 1963, consisting of Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore. Brunei pulled out after Parti Rakyat Brunei staged an armed revolt, which, though it was put down, was viewed as potentially destabilising to the new nation.Malaysia formally came into being on 16 September 1963, consisting of Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore. In 1963 the total population of Malaysia was about 10 million.
The closing of the overland route from Asia to Europe by the Ottoman Empire and the claim towards trade monopoly with India and southeast Asia by Arab traders, led European powers to look for a maritime route. In 1498 Vasco da Gama, sent by King John II of Portugal, found the route around the Cape of Good Hope to India, and in 1511 Afonso de Albuquerque led an expedition to Malaya which seized Melaka following a month long siege and made it the centre of Portugal’s eastern activity. The son of the last Sultan of Malacca fled to the island of Bintan where he founded a state that which became the Sultanate of Johor. By the late sixteenth century the tin mines of northern Malaya had been discovered by European traders, and Perak grew wealthy on the proceeds of tin exports. The European colonial expanded further into the region. The Portuguese gained control over the trade from the spice rich Maluku islands, and in 1571 the Spanish captured Manila.In 1607, the Sultanate of Aceh rose as the powerful and wealthiest state in Malay archipelago. Under Iskandar Muda , he extended the sultanate's control over most of Sumatra and Malay peninsula. He conquered Pahang, a tin-producing region on the Malayan Peninsula. The strength of his formidable fleet was brought to an end with a disastrous campaign against Malacca in 1629, when the combined Portuguese and Johor forces managed to destroy all his ships and 19,000 troops according to Portuguese account. Aceh forces was not destroyed, however, as Aceh was able to conquer Kedah within the same year and taking many of its citizens to Aceh. The Sultan's son in law, Iskandar Thani, former prince of Pahang later became his successor. During his reign Aceh focused on religious unity.In the early seventeenth century, the Dutch established Dutch East India Company or VOC based in west Java. From there they expanded across the archipelago, forming an alliance with Johore against their main enemies, the Portuguese at Melaka and the powerful Sultan of Aceh. In 1641, after several attempts, the VOC Johore alliance captured Melaka, breaking Portuguese power in Malaya. Portugal was left with only Portuguese Timor. Backed by the Dutch, Johore established a loose hegemony over the Malay states, except Perak, which was able to play off Johore against the Siamese to the north and retain its independence.The weakness of the Malay states in this period allowed other people to migrate into the Malay homelands. The most significant migrants being the Bugis, seafarers from eastern Indonesia, who regularly raided the Malay coasts. They seized control of Johore following the assassination of the last Sultan of the old Malacca in 1699 and Bugis took control of Selangor. The Minangkabau from center Sumatra migrated into Malaya, and eventually established their own state in Negeri Sembilan. The fall of Johore left a power vacuum on the Malay Peninsula which was partly filled by the Siamese kings of Ayutthaya kingdom, who made the five northern Malay states, Kedah, Kelantan, Patani, Perlis and Terengganu their vassals. Johore’s eclipse also left Perak as the unrivalled leader of the Malay states.Then the economic importance of Malaya to Europe grew rapidly during the 18th century. The fast-growing tea trade between China and Britain increased the demand for high quality Malayan tin, which was used to line tea chests. Malayan pepper also had a high reputation in Europe, while Kelantan and Pahang had gold mines. This established a pattern which characterised Malayan society for the next 200 years.Rural Malay population increasingly under the domination of wealthy urban immigrant communities, whose power the Sultans were unable to resist.English traders had been present in Malay waters since the 17th century, but it was not until the mid 18th century that the British East India Company, based in British India, developed a serious interest in Malayan affairs. The growth of the China trade in British ships increased the Company’s desire for bases in the region. Various islands were used for this purpose, but the first permanent acquisition was Penang, leased from the Sultan of Kedah in 1786. This was followed soon after by the leasing of a block of territory on the mainland opposite Penang known as Province Wellesley.In 1795, during the Napoleonic Wars, the British occupied Dutch Malacca to forestall possible French interest in the area. When Malacca was handed back to the Dutch in 1815, the British governor, Stamford Raffles, looked for an alternative base, and in 1819 he acquired Singapore from the Sultan of Johore. The twin bases of Penang and Singapore, together with the decline of the Netherlands as a naval power, made Britain the dominant force in Malayan affairs. British influence was increased by Malayan fears of Siamese expansionism, to which Britain made a useful counterweight.During the 19th century the Malay Sultans became loyal allies of the British Empire.
In 1824 British hegemony in Malaya was formalised by the Anglo-Dutch Treaty, the decisive event in the formation of modern Malaysia. The Dutch evacuated Melaka and renounced all interest in Malaya, while the British recognised Dutch rule over the rest of the East Indies. Penang, Melaka and Singapore were united as the Straits Settlements, ruled by a British Governor in Singapore. During the 19th century, the British concluded treaties with the Malay states, installing “residents” who advised the Sultans and soon became the effective rulers of their states. The wealth of Perak’s tin mines made political stability there a priority for British investors, and Perak was thus the first Malay state to agree to the supervision of a British resident. Johore alone resisted, holding out until 1914. In 1909 the weakened Siamese kingdom was compelled to cede Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis and Terengganu to the British. Siam retained the Sultanate of Patani, leaving a Muslim minority in southern Thailand which has been a source of much trouble for successive Thai governments. During the late 19th century the British also gained control of the north coast of Borneo, where Dutch rule had never been established. The eastern part of this region now Sabah was under the nominal control of the Sultan of Sulu, a vassal of the Spanish Philippines. The rest was the territory of the Sultanate of Brunei. In 1841, a British adventurer, James Brooke, leased Kuching from the Sultan and made himself the “White Raja” of Sarawak, steadily expanding his territory at Brunei’s expense. North-eastern Borneo was colonised by British traders, and in 1881 the British North Borneo Company was granted control of the territory under the distant supervision of the governor in Singapore. The Spanish Philippines never recognised this loss of the Sultan of Sulu’s territory, laying the basis of the subsequent Filipino claim to Sabah. In 1888 what was left of Brunei was made a British protectorate, and in 1891 another Anglo-Dutch treaty formalised the border between British and Dutch Borneo. Thus the borders of modern Malaysia were formed, in complete disregard of ethnic and linguistic factors, by the colonial powers. By 1910 the pattern of British rule in the Malay lands was established. The Straits Settlements were a Crown Colony, ruled by a governor under the supervision of the Colonial Office in London. Their population was about half Chinese, but all residents, regardless of race, were British subjects. The first four states to accept British residents, Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang, were termed the Federated Malay States: while technically independent, they were placed under a Resident-General in 1895, making them British colonies in all but name. The Unfederated Malay States (Johore, Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis and Terengganu) had a slightly larger degree of independence, although they were unable to resist the wishes of their British Residents for long. Johore, as Britain’s closest ally in Malay affairs, had the privilege of a written constitution, which gave the Sultan the right to appoint his own Cabinet, but he was generally careful to consult the British first.
The outbreak of war in the Pacific in December 1941 found the British in Malaya completely unprepared. During the 1930s, anticipating the rising threat of Japanese naval power, they had built a great naval base at Singapore, but never anticipated an invasion of Malaya from the north. Because of the demands of the war in Europe, there was virtually no British air capacity in the Far East. The Japanese were thus able to attack from their bases in IndoChina and despite stubborn resistance from British, Australian and Indian forces, they overran Malaya in two months. Singapore, with no landward defences, no air cover and no water supply, was forced to surrender in February 1942, doing irreparable damage to British prestige. British North Borneo and Brunei were also occupied.The Japanese had a racial policy just as the British did. They regarded the Malays as a colonial people liberated from British imperialist rule, and fostered a limited form of Malay nationalism, which gained them some degree of collaboration from the Malay civil service and intellectuals.Most of the Sultans also collaborated with the Japanese, although they maintained later that they had done so unwillingly.The occupiers regarded the Chinese, however, as enemy aliens, and treated them with great harshness: during the so called sook ching (purification through suffering), up to 80,000 Chinese in Malaya and Singapore were killed. Chinese businesses were expropriated and Chinese schools either closed or burned down. Not surprisingly the Chinese, led by the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), became the backbone of the Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), which with British assistance became the most effective resistance force in the occupied Asian countries. But the Japanese also offended Malay nationalism by allowing their ally Thailand to re-annex the four northern states, Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan and Terengganu that had been surrendered to British in 1909. The loss of Malaya’s export markets soon produced mass unemployment which affected all races and made the Japanese increasingly unpopular. The Malayans were thus on the whole glad to see the British back in 1945, but things could not remain as they were before the war. Britain was bankrupt and the new Labour government was keen to withdraw its forces from the East as soon as possible. Colonial self-rule and eventual independence were now British policy. The tide of colonial nationalism sweeping through Asia soon reached Malaya. But most Malays were more concerned with defending themselves against the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) which was mostly made up of Chinese, than with demanding independence from the British . Indeed their immediate concern was that the British not leave and abandon the Malays to the armed Communists of the MPAJA, which was the largest armed force in the country. During the last year of the war there had been armed clashes between Chinese and Malays and many Malays were killed by the armed Chinese communists members of the MPAJA and the returning British found a country on the brink of civil war. In 1946 the British announced plans for a Malayan Union, which would turn the Federated and Unfederated Malay States, plus Penang and Malacca but not Singapore, into a unitary state, with a view to independence within a few years. There would be a common Malayan citizenship regardless of race. The Malays were horrified at this recognition that the Chinese and Indians were now to be a permanent and equal part of Malaya’s future, and vowed their opposition to the plan. The Sultans, who had initially supported it, backed down and placed themselves at the head of the resistance. In 1946 the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) was founded by Malay nationalists led by Dato Onn bin Jaafar, the Chief Minister of Johore. UMNO favoured independence for Malaya, but only if the new state was run exclusively by the Malays. Faced with implacable Malay opposition, the British dropped the plan. Meanwhile the Communists were moving towards open insurrection. The MPAJA had been disbanded in December 1945, and the MCP organised as a legal political party, but the MPAJA’s arms were carefully stored for future use. The MCP policy was for immediate independence with full equality for all races. This meant it recruited very few Malays. The Party’s strength was in the Chinese-dominated trade unions, particularly in Singapore, and in the Chinese schools, where the teachers, mostly born in China, saw the Communist Party of China as the leader of China’s national revival. In March 1947, reflecting the international Communist movement’s “turn to left” as the Cold War set in, the MCP leader Lai Tek was purged and replaced by the veteran MPAJA guerrilla leader Chin Peng, who turned the party increasingly to direct action. In July, following a string of assassinations of plantation managers, the colonial government struck back, declaring a State of Emergency, banning the MCP and arresting hundreds of its militants. The Party retreated to the jungle and formed the Malayan Peoples’ Liberation Army, with about 13,000 men under arms, all Chinese. The Malayan Emergency involved six years of bitter fighting across the Malayan Peninsula. The British strategy, which proved ultimately successful, was to isolate the MCP from its support base by a combination of economic and political concessions to the Chinese and the resettlement of Chinese squatters into “New Villages” in “white areas” free of MCP influence. The effective mobilisation of the Malays against the MCP was also an important part the British strategy. From 1949 the MCP campaign lost momentum and the number of recruits fell sharply. Although the MCP succeeded in assassinating the British High Commissioner, Sir Henry Gurney, in October 1951, this turn to “terrorist” tactics alienated many moderate Chinese from the Party. The arrival of Lt Gen Sir Gerald Templer as British commander in 1952 was the beginning of the end of the Emergency. Templer invented the techniques of counter-insurgency warfare in Malaya and applied them ruthlessly.
Chinese reaction against the MCP was shown by the formation of the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) in 1949 as a vehicle for moderate Chinese political opinion. Its leader, Tan Cheng Lock, favoured a policy of collaboration with UMNO to win Malayan independence on a policy of equal citizenship, but with sufficient concessions to Malay sensitivities to ease nationalist fears. Tan formed a close collaboration with Tunku Abdul Rahman, the Chief Minister of Kedah and from 1951 successor to Datuk Onn as leader of UMNO. Since the British had announced in 1949 that Malaya would soon become independent whether the Malayans liked it or not, both leaders were determined to forge an agreement their communities could live with as a basis for a stable independent state. The UMNO-MCA Alliance which was later joined by the Malayan Indian Congress (MIC) won convincing victories in local and state elections in both Malay and Chinese areas between 1952 and 1955. The introduction of elected local government was another important step in defeating the Communists. After Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, there was a split in the MCP leadership over the wisdom of continuing the armed struggle. Many MCP militants lost heart and went home, and by the time Templer left Malaya in 1954 the Emergency was over. The Emergency left a lasting legacy of bitterness between Malays and Chinese. During 1955 and 1956 UMNO, the MCA and the British hammered out a constitutional settlement for anciple of equal citizenship for all races. In exchange, the MCA agreed that Malaya’s head of state would be drawn from the ranks of the Malay Sultans, that Malay would be the official language, and that Malay education and economic development would be promoted and subsidised. In effect this meant that Malaya would be run by the Malays, particularly since they continued to dominate the civil service, the army and the police, but that the Chinese and Indians would have proportionate representation in the Cabinet and the parliament, would run those states where they were the majority, and would have their economic position protected. The difficult issue of who would control the education system was deferred until after independence. This came on August 31, 1957, when Tunku Abdul Rahman became the first Prime Minister of independent Malaya. This left the unfinished business of the other British-ruled territories in the region. After the Japanese surrender the Brooke family and the British North Borneo Company gave up their control of Sarawak and Sabah respectively, and these became British Crown Colonies. They were much less economically developed than Malaya, and their local political leaderships were too weak to demand independence. Singapore, with its large Chinese majority, achieved autonomy in 1955, and in 1959 the young socialist leader Lee Kuan Yew became Prime Minister. The Sultan of Brunei remained as a British client in his oilrich enclave. Between 1959 and 1962 the British government orchestrated complex negotiations between these local leaders and the Malayan government. In 1961, Abdul Rahman mooted the idea of forming "Malaysia", which would consist of Brunei, Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore, all of which had been British colonies. The reasoning behind this was that this would allow the central government to control and combat communist activities, especially in Singapore. It was also feared that if Singapore achieved independence, it would become a base for Chinese chauvinists to threaten Malayan sovereignty. To balance out the ethnic composition of the new nation, the other states, whose Malay and indigenous populations would cancel out the Singaporean Chinese majority, were also included.Although Lee Kuan Yew supported the proposal, his opponents from the Singaporean Socialist Front resisted, arguing that this was a ploy for the British to continue controlling the region. Most political parties in Sarawak were also against the merger, and in Sabah, where there were no political parties, community representatives also stated their opposition. Although the Sultan of Brunei supported the merger, the Parti Rakyat Brunei opposed it as well. At the Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference in 1961, Abdul Rahman explained his proposal further to its opponents. In October, he obtained agreement from the British government to the plan, provided that feedback be obtained from the communities involved in the merger. The Cobbold Commission, named after its head, Lord Cobbold, conducted a study in the Borneo territories and approved a merger with Sabah and Sarawak; however, it was found that a substantial number of Bruneians opposed merger. A referendum was conducted in Singapore to gauge opinion, and 70% supported merger with substantial autonomy given to the state government.After reviewing the Cobbold Commission's findings, the British government appointed the Landsdowne Commission to draft a constitution for Malaysia. The eventual constitution was essentially the same as the 1957 constitution, albeit with some rewording. For instance, giving recognition to the special position of the natives of the Borneo States. Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore were also granted some autonomy unavailable to the states of Malaya. After negotiations in July 1963, it was agreed that Malaysia would come into being on 31 August 1963, consisting of Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore. Brunei pulled out after Parti Rakyat Brunei staged an armed revolt, which, though it was put down, was viewed as potentially destabilising to the new nation.Malaysia formally came into being on 16 September 1963, consisting of Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore. In 1963 the total population of Malaysia was about 10 million.
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