Were the Malays immigrants?

By admin-s On Jun 5, 2014

Unlike the Chinese and Indian workers who were brought over into Malaya, the Malays emigrated voluntarily and had the intention to reside in Malaya permanently.

Mohd Hazmi Mohd Rusli and Rahmat Mohamad

Article 153 of the Federal Constitution prescribes for the safeguard of the special position of the Malays in Malaysia, the ‘sons of the soil’ (bumiputras) of the nation.

Quite recently, there have been adverse arguments that the Malays should not qualify as bumiputras as they too, were immigrants from Indonesia. Were the Malays immigrants?

Malay Archipelago

The people of the Malay race were great seafarers and had expanded their influence in the archipelagic region of Southeast Asia, popularly known as Nusantara, through a number of maritime empires that once dominated this region. The earliest Malay port that existed within Nusantara was Langkasuka, which emerged in the third century AD, a manifestation that Nusantara was not terra nullius – no man’s land. Nusantara is a large region encompassing the modern day Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, southern Thailand, southern Philippines and Timor-Leste.

By the seventh century AD, however, Langkasuka was subjugated to the dominance of the powerful Malay kingdom of Srivijaya. Srivijaya participated actively in a growing world economy at that time and prospered well by engaging in extensive commerce with traders and merchants from different parts of Asia, namely China, India and the Middle East.

The core economic and political power in Nusantara shifted from Sumatra to Java in 1293 AD. Between the 12th and 13th centuries, Majapahit replaced Srivijaya and became a foremost centre of political power and commerce in the region.

Malacca was the next kingdom to take command after the fall of Majapahit. This kingdom had a profound influence on the Straits of Malacca, so much so that the name of this once powerful sultanate is immortalised in the waterway that the sultanate dominated for more than a century.

Nusantara is also home of other kingdoms of the Malay race spanning across this region such as Riau-Lingga in the Riau Archipelago, Palembang in Sumatra, Brunei in Borneo, Yogyakarta in Java and Gowa in Makassar. The Malays were influential in Nusantara, so much so that a 19th century British naturalist, Alfred Wallace described the whole regions the ‘Malay Archipelago’.

Sultanates of Malay

European colonialism started in the Malay Archipelago with the fall of the Sultanate of Malacca to the hands of the Portuguese in 1511. Despite this, most parts of the Malay Archipelago at that time were still largely independent and people of the Malay race roamed freely throughout the region without hindrance.

The Malays are the largest ethnic group in Malaysia (then Malaya) and could be divided into two main categories. The first category is anak jati, the original settlers, having established a number of sultanates on Malaya. The existing Kedah, Kelantan, Terengganu, Perak, Johor and Pahang Sultanates are the examples of kingdoms that were formed by this group of Malays.

The second category, anak dagang, refers to the Malays that came from the Malay Archipelago, outside Malaya, with the intention of making Malaya their permanent home.

A large number of anak dagang Malays have Acehnese, Bataks, Bugis, Minang, Riau, Rawa and Javanese ancestries. They emigrated voluntarily and were not brought over into Malaya. Alongside with the anak jati Malays, the anak dagang Malays contributed significantly to the political structure of pre-colonial Malaya.

For instance, the founder of the Malacca Sultanate in 1400, Parameswara, was a Sumatran Malay. In addition, the Selangor Sultanate was established by the Bugis of Makassar in 1756 while the Minangs of Sumatra founded the government of Negeri Sembilan in 1773. During its glory in the 16thSultanate expanded its territories over to Malaya to include Kedah, Pahang and Johor.

These facts showed that before the formation of modern nations in Nusantara, the Malays were free to roam the region beyond Malaya as the whole Malay Archipelago was regarded as territories of people of the Malay race.