Oriental Tourist's Haven

Malaysia: An Oriental Tourist's Haven and an Anthropologer's Delight!
By Lopa Bhattacharya

Malaysia History:

Wikipedia, the encyclopedia says: “the history of Malaysia is a relatively recent offshoot of the history of the wider Malay-Indonesian world”. It is so because anthropologists and historians could see very little aspects culturally and linguistically, to distinguish today’s Malaysian territories from the lands of the Malay Archipelago. According to their research, today’s division of the Malay world into six different states-- Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Brunei and East Timor – is largely the result of external influences, like the Hindu India, the Islamic Middle East and Christian Europe (west), China and Japan (north-east). Besides, the most direct shipping route passing through the Strait of Malacca, Malaysia has naturally been a melting pot of trade routes and cultures. Thus, it has been found out that the geographical position of Malaysia has literally made it difficult for the Malay people to resist foreign influence and domination.

If one analyses the history of Malaysia, he can see these successive phases before the final assertion of Malay independence.

• The domination of Hindu culture imported from India reached its peak in the great Srivijaya civilisation in Sumatra (from the 7th to the 14th centuries).

• The arrival of “Islam” in the 10th century, leading to the conversion of the Malay-Indonesian world, having a profound influence on the Malay people. The Srivijayan empire broke up into smaller sultanates, the most prominent one being Melaka (Malacca).

• The intrusion of the European colonial powers and European domination: (i) Portuguese, (ii) Dutch and (iii) British, who established bases at Penang and Singapore. This triggered off the most revolutionary event in Malay history – the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824, which drew a frontier between British Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia). Thus, the division of the Malay world was established permanently.

• The British had obvious economic intentions in establishing their empire in the Malay world. In colonizing the Malay world, they had forseen financial profit, banking on the obvious attractions of Malaya, the tin and gold mines. However, soon after, the British planters started exploring the tropical plantation crops including pepper and coffee. On the other hand, there was a mass immigration of Chinese and Indian workers to meet the needs of the colonial economy. To meet the needs of a large and disciplined work-force, plantation workers, mainly Tamil-speakers from South India as well as immigrant workers from southern China were imported to the land. Thus, the Malay society suffered the loss of political sovereignty to the British and of economic sovereignty to the Chinese.