Who Are The Sultans?

By John Doe

I've written so much about Malacca. I've quoted and quoted till the cows came home, and still Malaysians don't get it. One of my longer pieces, "Demise of Malacca" had its Bibliography almost as long as the piece itself, and some people who made comments asked for the source(s) instead. Are Malaysians that blind? Do they not know what is a bibliography?

( http://www.malaysia-today.net/mtcolumns/letterssurat/35605-the-demise-of-malacca ) Google this and read all those nonsensical comments made in other copy-paste-blogs, and see if one can identitfy who UMNO's cybertroopers are.

Let's go back to Sejarah Melayu today, and look for the identity of the Sultans of Malacca, in "Parameswara is a certified Keling".

( http://malaysia-today.net/mtcolumns/letterssurat/43394-parameswara-is-a-certified-singaporean-keling-not-a-joke ) FMT got it partially wring when they wrote Kedah, not Malacca, the oldest kingdom, in reference to Parameswara's origin.

( http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2011/09/10/kedah-not-malacca-the-oldest-kingdom/ )

Sejarah Melayu clearly describes how Parameswara was a Keling from Singapore, with much reference to his Hindustani roots to Alexander the Great. Or was it "Alexander the Gay?"
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvRWUCfAPs0 )

I hate quoting from Wiki, no academician in his right mind would. No academician quotes from Blogs either. However, here is the ONE TIME, which I will make a reference to Wiki, and it is in relation to Srivijaya. Search "Srivijaya" under Wiki, (as some UMNO blogger insisted that I do.)

What does the Srivijaya Wiki-Entry state? "No modern Indonesians, not even those of the Palembang area around which the kingdom was based, had heard of Srivijaya until the 1920s..." Note that at every "important point" it's missing a real reference. See if you can count how many "citation Needed" there are in this entry.

The majority of the quotes comes from "Munoz, Paul Michel (2006). Early Kingdoms of the Indonesian Archipelago and the Malay Peninsula" Great guy as he is, few people know that Munoz is actually a retired French Sailor living in Singapore. If you want Munoz to be the MAIN reference to a "Glorious Melayu Kingdom, but am sorry that I cannot offer you any tangible evidence for it", then so be it. I will quote however, from one of the very links contained in this particular Wiki entry, and here is it's link:

http://epress.anu.edu.au/austronesians/austronesians/mobile_devices/ch15s05.html

It came in, under entry number 4 of the Wiki Srivijaya-References section. This is an "edu site". And the big name present is Prof Dr Peter Bellwood, of ANU. So this must be good, right? And I quote:

"... Now, apart from the absence of any trace of Old Malay literary works, we also find hardly any architectural remains from the Śrīwijaya period.... Considering the fact that there are also no traces of literary works from this great empire, the conclusion seems to be that either the greatness of Śrīwijaya is merely another myth, comparable to that of Prapañca’s Majapahit (Supomo 1979), or that the rulers of Śrīwijaya had entirely different priorities ... "

Apparently, even from their own "arsenal of references", it becomes clear that Srivijaya could have very well been a myth, as claimed by their "certified panel authors". So, there, you have it. My ONE AND ONLY ONE reference to Wiki, and it's only to bash the entry black and blue.

So, bite the bullet, and source your info from either "dot edu" sites (meaning certified institutions of education), or take it from real books themselves. You can ceremoniously flush Malaysian History Textbooks into the Jamban, because they are nothing but full of crap. Just look at how Museum Negara displays tags errors in myRetarded Museum Negara piece:

( http://malaysia-today.net/mtcolumns/letterssurat/42756-muzium-negara )

And note how I questioned "Why is the Sultan of Johor classified in the Penjajah Section of Museum Negara".

UMNO called the Malaysian Sultans "Children of Prostitutes and Beggars" when they made the remark about "Pendatangs"
( http://www.malaysia-today.net/mtcolumns/guest-columnists/37699-beggars-and-prostitutes ) Some blog writer classified the Sultan as "Sultan dan Raja mereka (Malaysia) sama ‘kaum’ dengan orang gaji Indonesia-nya." translated as "The Sultans of Malaysia are of the same race as the servants whom Malaysians employ".

To answer the titled-question, "Who are the Sultans of Malacca?" If one chooses to use Sejarah Melayu as reference, then one must come to the conclusion that the Sultans are descendants of "Alexander the Gay", (or is it Alexander the Great Gay?), heavily mixed with Kling, and Chinese, and Turkish, and should be called "Sultan Truly Asia". Is this what Ketuanan is about? Want to throw Sejarah Melayu out?

Sure, along with it goes a huge lot of myths, such as the Sultan's marrying Hong Li-Po, because she is certainly NOT mentioned in ANY Ming Dynasty records. So, again, who is Hong Li-po again? A Prostitute? That would certainly justify UMNO's calling of "Prostitutes and Beggars". Unfortunately, they did not know that they were calling the Sultanate just that. UMNO would indeed be calling the Sultanate, as "Children of Prostitutes and Beggars". How does one spell "Les Majeste" again? Fortunately ISA is being deconstructed, however, we will wait to see how Malaysia can use the new laws to arrest these name-calling UMNO-guys.

In the meantime, assuming Sejarah Melayu is correct, I can imagine a drooling Saiful gleefully collecting pictures of "Alexander the Gay", and placing them next to pictures of Malaysian Sultans, with his lustful thought that they are really of ONE AND THE SAME BLOOD !! Enough with all this nonsense !! Let's get rid of Allahyarham-UMNO once and for all, and reach for the REAL History instead. In the meantime, I must get back to my research.

Shalom