A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad Read Online Free Page B
Author: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad
does not extend the right to own Malay reserve land [2] to those of Arab origin.
That legal definition became necessary when people without any Malay characteristics or connections began claiming to be Malay in order to enjoy certain Malay rights such as ownership of reserve land. That was when the Malay states were British protectorates. But when the Malayan Union was proposed in 1946, the British wanted to grant the descendants of immigrant Indians and Chinese the same citizenship status as that of the native Malays. In consequence, the question of definition became all the more crucial.
My family and I have always fulfilled those formal criteria. But I am a Malay not just on paper. I am also a Malay in sentiment and in spirit. I identify completely with the Malays and their problems, their past and their present, their achievements and failures. I do not do so sentimentally and uncriticalIy, but thoroughly and thoughtfully. On many occasions I have criticised the Malays for taking the easy way out, for their general lack of desire for self-improvement and for their tendency to be dependent on others. I have confronted the comforting illusions they retreat into when they become afraid of challenges that they face as individuals and as a people. I have even written books on the subject. I have always had my reasons for these frequent expressions of disappointment. They were often outbursts due to my frustration, but they were also strategic. They were intended to provoke the average Malay to improve himself, to stand poised, confident and able, instead of leaning on crutches like affirmative action. I still believe, as I did when I put forth that challenge, that a change in the Malay value system is necessary. No one can deny that the Malays have been instrumental in making Malaysia what it is today because of their good and generous character. Whatever their lack of expertise and skill, to my mind their great strength has been their willingness and ability to work with others.
So great was their capacity for acceptance that at one time, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, they had become, or were on the verge of becoming, a minority in their own country. If not for an accident of history—namely the Great Recession of the 1930s, which not only discouraged immigration into the country but also led many long-resident foreigners to return to India and China—the Malays could have lost Malaya completely. But by the late 1940s, as a result of events recounted elsewhere in this book, the situation had changed entirely. The war discredited the British and their assumed right to rule. It had lit a new spark of Malay determination. When the British returned after World War II, they tried to impose the Malayan Union, whose citizenship provisions would no longer recognise the Malays as the historic people within the Malay lands. This triggered the appearance on the political stage of a new force that could not be denied—a sleeping giant, Malay nationalism, stood up as UMNO.
For a long time, the Malays of the Peninsula had hospitably acceded to the arrival and the claims of immigrant non-Malays. Now, after some 450 years of colonisation, the Malays stood their ground, but not selfishly. Rather, once they had been assured recognition of their own historic position, they proved themselves able to work with others to build a prosperous and thriving nation in less than 50 years. Others may have had a special talent for commerce and business enterprise. We Malays demonstrated our own distinctive aptitude for social harmony and public administration. That has been the basis of the country’s success.
Many other lands that the ethnic Europeans colonised experienced a protracted and violent struggle for liberation. But the Malays appear to have accepted colonisation and foreign domination with equanimity. There was some resistance and a few uprisings, notably in Perak where the British Resident J.W.W. Birch was assassinated at
That legal definition became necessary when people without any Malay characteristics or connections began claiming to be Malay in order to enjoy certain Malay rights such as ownership of reserve land. That was when the Malay states were British protectorates. But when the Malayan Union was proposed in 1946, the British wanted to grant the descendants of immigrant Indians and Chinese the same citizenship status as that of the native Malays. In consequence, the question of definition became all the more crucial.
My family and I have always fulfilled those formal criteria. But I am a Malay not just on paper. I am also a Malay in sentiment and in spirit. I identify completely with the Malays and their problems, their past and their present, their achievements and failures. I do not do so sentimentally and uncriticalIy, but thoroughly and thoughtfully. On many occasions I have criticised the Malays for taking the easy way out, for their general lack of desire for self-improvement and for their tendency to be dependent on others. I have confronted the comforting illusions they retreat into when they become afraid of challenges that they face as individuals and as a people. I have even written books on the subject. I have always had my reasons for these frequent expressions of disappointment. They were often outbursts due to my frustration, but they were also strategic. They were intended to provoke the average Malay to improve himself, to stand poised, confident and able, instead of leaning on crutches like affirmative action. I still believe, as I did when I put forth that challenge, that a change in the Malay value system is necessary. No one can deny that the Malays have been instrumental in making Malaysia what it is today because of their good and generous character. Whatever their lack of expertise and skill, to my mind their great strength has been their willingness and ability to work with others.
So great was their capacity for acceptance that at one time, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, they had become, or were on the verge of becoming, a minority in their own country. If not for an accident of history—namely the Great Recession of the 1930s, which not only discouraged immigration into the country but also led many long-resident foreigners to return to India and China—the Malays could have lost Malaya completely. But by the late 1940s, as a result of events recounted elsewhere in this book, the situation had changed entirely. The war discredited the British and their assumed right to rule. It had lit a new spark of Malay determination. When the British returned after World War II, they tried to impose the Malayan Union, whose citizenship provisions would no longer recognise the Malays as the historic people within the Malay lands. This triggered the appearance on the political stage of a new force that could not be denied—a sleeping giant, Malay nationalism, stood up as UMNO.
For a long time, the Malays of the Peninsula had hospitably acceded to the arrival and the claims of immigrant non-Malays. Now, after some 450 years of colonisation, the Malays stood their ground, but not selfishly. Rather, once they had been assured recognition of their own historic position, they proved themselves able to work with others to build a prosperous and thriving nation in less than 50 years. Others may have had a special talent for commerce and business enterprise. We Malays demonstrated our own distinctive aptitude for social harmony and public administration. That has been the basis of the country’s success.
Many other lands that the ethnic Europeans colonised experienced a protracted and violent struggle for liberation. But the Malays appear to have accepted colonisation and foreign domination with equanimity. There was some resistance and a few uprisings, notably in Perak where the British Resident J.W.W. Birch was assassinated at
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