Dr M: Malay claim to country stronger than Orang Asli’s
By Shannon Teoh, The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, March 11 — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad yesterday said the Orang Asli did not have more rights than the Malays to claim Malaysia as their own, as they did not set up their own states and governments.
The former prime minister said giving Orang Asli greater rights to claim Malaysia as their own would be like handing back the United States, Australia and New Zealand to the Native American, Maori and aborigine natives of those countries respectively.
“In Malaysia, the Orang Asli are as much citizens of the country as are the people of other races. They had never set up their own states and governments,” he wrote in his blog yesterday.
Malaysia’s longest-serving prime minister said that when Europeans and even the Japanese occupiers came to Malaysia, they had dealt with and acknowledged the Malay governments.
Dr Mahathir, who is now patron of right-wing Malay rights group Perkasa, has been vigorously defending the special position of Malays of late, and last week dismissed claims that Malays are immigrants just like Chinese and Indians.
Although admitting his Indian roots, he argued that Arabs, Indians and Indonesians who adopted the Malay language, practised Malay culture and embraced Islam have become constitutional Malays through assimilation.
“I would not say I am a Malay or Malaysian of ethnic Indian origin. My mother tongue and home language is Malay, my culture and tradition is Malay and I am a Muslim. The constitution defines a Malay as a person who habitually speaks Malay, practises Malay custom and tradition and is a Muslim,” he had said.
In yesterday’s posting, Dr Mahathir said that it “could be” the case that Orang Asli had populated Peninsular Malaysia before the Malays but argued that world history showed this did not accord them immutable claim to the land.
“If we consider that the Orang Asli have more rights to claim Malaysia as their own then we should acknowledge and respect the rights of the Red Indians, the Maoris, the Australian aborigines and all the other aborigines to be given back the land we now call America, Australia, New Zealand, etc.
“Perhaps in recognition of their rights, they are now not so ill-treated and killed as they were when the Europeans seized their lands. But this is not the same as declaring that the countries belong to the people originally found there,” he said.
