Dr M’s new spin on Malays unsustainable

Malays who are not genuinely natives should not be entitled to own Malay reservation land

COMMENT

Former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, in a new spin on his ethnic Indian origins, has virtually argued in a weblog posting that the Federal Constitution allows any Syed, Mydin, Khan, Kutty and Suharto to be classified as Malay with impunity.

In Mahathir: A Profile in Courage by JV Morais, Mahathir told the author that his family on his father’s side hailed from Kerala, southwest India, and gave a detailed description of his background. There was little mention of his mother. Morais was for decades the publisher of the annual Who’s Who in Malaysia.

Mahathir cannot challenge the very foundation of the law itself and the definition of natives in the Federal Constitution and, in the process, get away with it. Students of constitutional law, working on their dissertations, should perhaps take note and make Mahathir’s comments an area of study for their PhD.

Still, if we delve into our history dispassionately, we would discover that there were two groups of “Malays” in Peninsular Malaysia by the time the British colonialists left in 1957. The first group was the “Malays” from various ethnic groups who came a long time ago from the neighbouring islands in the Malay Archipelago – named after the language and not a race – and who pushed the original Orang Asli inhabitants into the forbidding mountain terrain that straddles the peninsula as its backbone.

Being from various ethnic groups they spoke Malay as a common language since it was the lingua franca in the archipelago. Malay, which began as a dialect in Cambodia, was the language of administration, business, the marketplace and missionary activities.

It was the British who saw the need to reserve land for the Malays, along the lines of the Indian reservations in the United States, not out of any concern for them but to get them out of the way as in the latter case. These were the Malays who pushed the Orang Asli into their homes in the high mountains. Whether Malay reservation land is equivalent to the native customary rights (NCR) land in Borneo will remain a matter of debate and dispute. In the case of NCR land, “adat” enters the picture and overrides any written law that follows.

In any case, it cannot be denied that reservation land is not the land originally cultivated by the beneficiaries or the terrain for a nomadic lifestyle but was often a poor substitute. This holds true not only for the settled Malays and nomadic Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia but, at the time of the coming of European settlers, the largely nomadic Indians of America.

Self-serving rhetoric

The question that must be asked at this juncture, in a flash forward, is whether it was the intention of the framers of the Federal Constitution to allow any Syed, Mydin, Khan, Kutty and Suharto to own Malay reservation land. The answer must be in the negative. The Federal Constitution cannot be seen as going against its very raison d’etre. Only the Malays who displaced the Orang Asli, and their descendents, qualify to own Malay reservation land.

The second group of “Malays” (Suharto) were those ethnics who sought a better life in Peninsular Malaysia during the colonial administrations, that is, Portuguese, Dutch and British. They are immigrants and descendents of immigrants like the Indians, Chinese and others in Peninsular Malaysia.

Flashback, and other Muslims not from the archipelago – Syed, Mydin, Khan, and Kutty – also entered the picture at this juncture in Singapore and propagated the idea of Malay nationalism as a reaction against Chinese economic dominance. Malayalee Muslims played a leading role in this movement. All nationalism is defined by what we oppose. This is well documented in Professor William R Roff’s “The Origins of Malay Nationalism” and needs no further elaboration.

It’s clear that the other Muslims, not Malays, were trying to capitalise on Malay numbers to get more than their fair share of the economic pie. Déjà vu? Some things never change as we can see from Mahathir’s constant self-serving rhetoric.

The result of the Malay nationalism movement was Article 153 in the Federal Constitution which provides for the proportion of natives of Sabah and Sarawak, the Malays, and Orang Asli in four specific areas: intake into the civil service; intake into government-owned institutions of higher learning and training privileges; government scholarships; and reasonable promotion of the opportunities from the government to do business.

It’s said that declassified British colonial independence documents in the United Kingdom appear to imply that the special position of the natives, Orang Asli and Malays have a 15-year shelf life.

Leaving aside this question for the moment, it cannot be denied that the non-Malay communities have no issue with genuine natives, Orang Asli and Malays (excluding Suharto) benefiting – without any deviations and distortions – from Article 153 and as expressed in the New Economic Policy (1970-1990) and in the Malay reservation land policy and NCR land.

Opening the floodgates

However, no self-respecting non-Malays would agree that any Syed, Mydin, Khan, Kutty and Suharto can be classified as a Malay and go on to benefit from owning Malay reservation land and from Article 153 and the NEP.

At this juncture, we must again pause and consider what the framers of the Federal Constitution had in mind when they decided to define the term “Malay”. Patently, it will be argued that it was to prevent Malays who were all Muslims from leaving the faith “and to threaten loss of native status” for doing so. Clearly, this is against the clause on freedom of worship and the concept of being a native. The Federal Constitution cannot be seen to be contradicting itself and does not allow itself to do so.

Wasn’t the term “Malay” restricted to those who can also be considered as natives of Peninsular Malaysia – having come immediately after the Orang Asli – and not to open the floodgates of Bumiputera (sons of the soil) status to every Syed, Mydin, Khan and Kutty from anywhere in the world and Suharto?

It seems that some people want to insist that they are Malays just because they are also Muslims and habitually speak the Malay language. However, non-natives should not be allowed to claim that they are Malays and that’s a position the Federal Constitution would support. The courts, likewise, would not participate in endorsing an illegality when it comes to native status.

What Peninsular Malaysia needs is a section in the Prime Minister’s Department, like in Sabah, which would issue a verification letter to those who are natives. They would need such certification for the purpose of owning Malay reservation land, Article 153 and the NEP.

Such benefits should not go to those who are not natives by any stretch of the imagination. This is the category that Mahathir calls constitutional Malays. There’s no such Malay and even if they are considered Malay, they are certainly not natives. - FMT