By Ooi Kee Beng
Malaysia`s Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak, in the run up towards celebrating Malaysia`s 50th anniversary on August 31st tried recently to justify continued affirmative action for the Malay majority by claiming that they had suffered over 400 years of colonisation before independence, and were therefore a race in need of prolonged governmental aid.
Part of the background for his inventiveness lies in the fact that opposition to the New Economic Policy in Malaysia has been increasing, and occurs in tandem with mounting evidence of shocking incompetence in the judicial, executive and legislative arms of government.
Furthermore, Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi`s administration seems to be gearing itself for general elections to be announced anytime after the end of the fasting month in mid-October. Thus, here on in until such elections are held, politics in Malaysia will have to be understood as part of an opaque process of vote-angling.
Be that as it may, the bending of facts has to be noted where possible. General elections and opportunistic speeches come and go, but historical details have to be maintained.
So how long was the Malayan peninsula colonised? I suppose the only way the claim that the Malayan peninsula was colonised for over 400 years is comprehensible at all is to use the Portuguese attack on Malacca in 1511 A.D. as the starting point.
Politics in Southeast Asia before the arrival of the Europeans concerned maritime trade and not the territorialism of nation states. And so the attack on Malacca, followed by the dispersal of princes who then set up new centres of trade and power, was far from unique in Southeast Asia. In fact, that was how entrepot states rose and fell in the region.
Successful ports were prone to attacks from competitors, and surviving aristocrats would flee and found new ports from where they would again set up shop, as it were, to attract business and wealth.
Malacca itself was founded, as were several other kingdoms in that period, by princes and aristocrats fleeing the sack of mighty Crivijaya in Sumatra.
The Malay states as we know them would not have come into being if the Portuguese had not captured Malacca and in the process dispersed its princes and supporters, who then founded new ports throughout the peninsula and the archipelago.
Brunei, Aceh and even Pattani to a lesser extent, were examples of states that replaced Malacca, benefiting greatly from the latter`s demise. They played a game of balancing stronger powers in the south and north, including Ming China, against each other.
Modern Perak came into being in 1528 A.D., founded by Sultan Muzaffar Shah, the eldest son of Sultan Mahmud Shah, the last Malaccan sultan. Being rich in tin, Perak was continuously threatened, first by the Dutch, and then by Achehnese, Bugis and Thais. British intervention stopped the latter from annexing the state in 1820 A.D. It was only as late as 1874 A.D. that British influence on the peninsula took a decisive step forward through the Pangkor Treaty, which placed a powerful adviser in the Perak court.
Modern Johor was founded by another fleeing prince, Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah II, the second son of Sultan Mahmud Shah.
When the Dutch captured Malacca from the Portuguese in 1641 A.D., it was done with support from the Johor sultanate. Subsequently, Johor managed to free itself from harassment from the Acehnese and the Portuguese. Although Malacca was never recaptured, Johor managed to reassert itself in Pahang and soon took over Malacca`s role as the major port on the Straits of Malacca. The Dutch, wishing to make Batavia its central port in the Far East, allowed Johor to flourish despite entreaties from the Dutch government in Malacca to destroy Johor.
In the 18th century, Bugis settlers fleeing protracted wars in the Sulawesi became a force to be reckoned with in the Straits of Malacca. They managed to withstand the forces of Johor and soon gained sovereignty over what soon became the state of Selangor.
British control over Penang in 1786 A.D., Singapore in 1819 A.D., and Malacca in 1824 A.D., and the subsequent formation of the crown colony of the Straits Settlements in 1826 A.D., though highly significant, were not tantamount to a colonisation of peninsular political culture.
Twenty-two years after the Pangkor Treaty was signed, the Federated Malay States came into being, grouping Perak, Selangor, Pahang and Negri Sembilan together. This occurred only six decades before Merdeka. The Unfederated Malay States was formed only in 1909 A.D. after Siam handed over control of Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan and Trengganu to the British. Johor joined as late as 1914 A.D., just before Europe became preoccupied with warfare on home ground.
The complex history that followed the fall of Malacca paradoxically tells of the political pro-activeness of the Malays. These were not colonised peoples or states, and were controlled by Europeans to very varied degrees. Indeed, the very founding of UMNO itself in 1946 A.D., notably in Johor, illustrates the capacity of the Malays to come together, and offers evidence that they were not as subjugated by and subservient to the colonial master as would have been the case if they had been suppressed in an effective sense for over 400 years.
Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak, in arguing that the Malays suffered several centuries of colonialism and were therefore unable to survive without governmental aid in modern times, risks denying the strength and the sense of purpose that the Malays exhibited throughout their chequered history and in their resistance of the Malayan Union. The latter project, started in 1946, was indeed a British attempt at exercising central control over the Malay states.
The enduring effect of colonialism in Southeast Asia was not so much the result of long-term subjugation of peoples as it was the disruption of traditional trading patterns to suit the metropolitan economies of Europe. If there is any long-lasting role that the Association of Southeast Asian States (ASEAN) is destined to play today, it is the re-enactment of intense intra-archipelagic trade and the acknowledgement of the rich cultural dynamics that existed between Southeast Asia`s many peoples.
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Ooi Kee Beng is a Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore. He is the author of, The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail and his Time (ISEAS, 2006).
Source: OpinionAsia.org
