Malays are ‘pendatangs’ too, Gerakan delegate says
(Malay Mail Online) – All the three key races that form Malaysia’s majority — the Malays, Chinese and Indians — are immigrants or “pendatangs”, even though the Malays, as the country’s dominant ethnic group, are given Bumiputera status, a Gerakan delegate said today.
Tan Lai Soon, a delegate from Johor, told his party’s national conference that supporters of Umno who have in the past referred to the Chinese as immigrants, did not realise that even the Malays do not originate from Malaysia.
“I want to explain Malaysians’ position. The Malays, Chinese, Indians, are all pendatangs (immigrants) other than the indigenous people, Sabahans, Sarawakians — the original Bumiputera.
“So when Umno’s people say the Chinese are pendatang, they didn’t think that they are also pendatang from Indonesia,” he said during the debate session at Gerakan’s 43rd National Delegates Conference.
