A Different Concept and Perpective of Malay (Malaysia vs Indonesia)

mamathir

A good analysis why we have different concept and perpective of Malay with Indonesia ...

Who is Malay?
By Au Waipang

A month or two ago, a reader of Yawning Bread sent me an email which mentioned a blog that she shared with her husband. I took a quick look at the blog and saw an interesting diary note about the husband going to Singapore‘s Immigration department, demanding to change his race as recorded in his official registration documents.

He had been recorded as Malay, but being born in Java, he didn‘t see himself as Malay, and eventually, after some difficulty, managed to get the records changed to ‘Javanese‘.

To the average Joe, Ahmad or Tan Ah Lian in Singapore, this would be quite a strange episode. Most people here have bought into the political construction of ‘Malay‘ as espoused by Malaysian politics, which is to use the term very broadly encompassing all native peoples in Malaysia and Indonesia, perhaps as far east as the Maluku islands.

How odd that someone born in Java does not consider himself Malay! Doesn‘t he look Malay? Doesn‘t he have the skin complexion of Malay? Doesn‘t he speak Malay-Indonesian?

It now compels us to step out from the political construction of ‘Malay‘ into asking what, anthropologically, ‘Malay‘ means.

The Early Migration

According to a paper, The search for the origins of ‘Melayu‘, by Leonard Y Andaya, published by the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, October 2001, the first groups of humans, some of whom eventually became Malays, began migrating out of Taiwan in 4000 – 3000 BCE. Others have suggested eastern China as the springboard.

They first went over to Luzon and other Philippine islands and then by about 2000 BCE, reached northern Borneo. Other groups drifted southwards to Mindanao, Sulawesi, the Maluku, and eventually Eastern and Central Java.

It is the group that reached Borneo that interests us. By around 1500 BCE, they had reached the western side of that island, and it is believed by researchers studying the languages of the native tribes still there, this was where an early form of the Malay language, proto-Malay, first emerged.

From the western coast of Borneo, a new wave of migration, from 1500 - 500 BCE, took them across the Karimata Straits and the Java Sea to Sumatra and the Western tip of Java. With time, they moved on up the Straits of Malacca, settling the Malayan Peninsula, as indicated by the paprika arrows in map above.

One can guess from the routes taken, that these groups of people, starting off from Taiwan or eastern China, were seafaring folk, and for centuries, their settlements were never far from the coast or riverine routes.

However, the archipelago that they came into was not entirely uninhabited. In places, they met pre-existing populations of two kinds: a much darker race related to the Australian Aborigines, and another group which researchers call the Southern Mongoloid, as their facial features look Asian rather than Aboriginal. No doubt some interbreeding took place, but by and large, the pre-existing populations were pushed into the interiors.

[ Last edited by  mamathir at 8-12-2008 08:26 PM ]

mamathir

Hahahaha ....... this is aboslutely true ... the Malay culture began in Sumatra, not in Tanah Melayu ...

"There is a general consensus that Malay culture began with the Crivijaya kingdom, the first significant polity to use Malay. This kingdom was situated in southeast Sumatra"

[quote]The Beginning of Malay Culture

Language is one thing, genetic ethnicity is another, but culture is a separate thing again. There is a general consensus that Malay culture began with the Crivijaya kingdom, the first significant polity to use Malay. This kingdom was situated in southeast Sumatra.

A number of stone inscriptions dating form the 7th Century found near Palembang

mamathir

Hahahaha ...... again 100% true ..... no objection !!!

"Malacca had a brief flowering of about 100 years before the Portuguese came and conquered it. However, to this day, the Malaysian national story uses the Malacca state as the launching pad of Malay and Malaysian identity."

"In my conversations with Indonesians, I get the feeling that their national pride comes from wanting to be a modern country, free from colonialism to be sure, but also free from a feudal past. Except for their pride in Majapahit as a golden age of a Javanese empire whose power touched most other archipelagic islands, they don憈 need references to historical grandeur to know who they are. Their modern romantic references are firstly to the heroic resistance to the Dutch colonisers and secondly a common vision that united different ethnic groups from thousands of islands into a modern secular republic.

Malacca had a brief flowering of about 100 years before the Portuguese came and conquered it. However, to this day, the Malaysian national story uses the Malacca state as the launching pad of Malay and Malaysian identity."

By doing so, it displaces the origins of the Malay people and culture from the Sumatran side of the Straits of Malacca to the Malayan side, and downgrades the contribution of Crivijaya (which lasted some 6 or 7 centuries) in favour of the later and shorter-lived Malacca. The fact that the peninsula was perhaps more Mon-Khmer than Malay prior to the 14th century has largely been erased. The fact that the peninsula was marginal to the Malay cultural world (though part of the trading network) prior to the founding of Malacca has also been wished away.

Instead, the revised history paints the Malay rulers and Malay society on the Peninsula as indigenous, when in truth, they were gradual transplants from the other side of the straits, over an existing, but pre-historic population whose origins are uncertain.

Another possible motivation for using Malacca as the starting point for the Malay story is that Malacca was the first Malay kingdom to be Muslim. Although Aceh had become Muslim before, the Acehnese were distinct from the Malays. Perhaps the need to essentialise the Islamic facet to Malay identity makes it problematic to give Buddhist Crivijaya and other preceding Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms their due as the first flowering of Malay civilisation.

Sumatra never ceased being Malay and memories of the glory of Crivijaya never faded. Polities on that island continued to flower, claiming descent from that golden age. The Malay Siak kingdom on the Sumatran coast had a rival text to Malacca憇, called Hikayat Siak. The Minangkabau in central Sumatra also had theirs, also called the Sejarah Melayu, while Aceh in the north became as vigorous a trading state as Malacca. It too wrote its own national story to buttress its claim to political, economic, religious and literary leadership of the region -- the Hikayat Aceh.

All these texts contest the Malaccan claim as inheritor of the Crivijayan lineage.

Indonesian scholars place more emphasis on these rival texts than Malaysians, but it is hard to say the contest is still going on the same way as before.

The chief difference is that modern Indonesia is much more than Sumatra. In fact, Java dominates the Indonesian landscape, politically, economically and culturally. The Indonesians are more concerned with what it means to be Indonesian, while the Malaysians are still concerned with what it means to be Malay.

The way they frame their national languages tells you a lot.

Language

In Malaysia, the national language is Malay; in Indonesia, it is Indonesian. The Malaysians tend to assert that Malay and Indonesian are merely different varieties of the same language, while the Indonesians tend to treat them as separate, albeit related, languages. The result of this attitude is that the Indonesians feel little need to synchronise their language with Malaysia and Brunei, whereas the Malaysians are keener to coordinate the evolution of the language with the Indonesians. Why this difference? Where does the truth lie?

In my conversations with Indonesians, I get the feeling that their national pride comes from wanting to be a modern country, free from colonialism to be sure, but also free from a feudal past. Except for their pride in Majapahit as a golden age of a Javanese empire whose power touched most other archipelagic islands, they don憈 need references to historical grandeur to know who they are. Their modern romantic references are firstly to the heroic resistance to the Dutch colonisers and secondly a common vision that united different ethnic groups from thousands of islands into a modern secular republic.

Malaysia憇 emotional needs are different. First of all, the Malays form only a slight majority (if one excludes the native peoples of Borneo) in their own country. There is a need for reaffirmation of their identity against the older civilisational legacies that the Chinese and Indian communities in Malaysia can boast of. Thus, there is a tendency to over-romanticise Malacca for their origins and a tendency to create a picture of a bigger Malay world, encompassing all of Indonesia as well.

This rubs off onto Singaporeans, giving rise to the way we see all people of the archipelago, Javanese included, as Malays.

[ Last edited by  mamathir at 9-12-2008 07:59 AM ]

mamathir

Being a Malay (and also Moslem)  is most important for Malaysians ... No objection ...

Indonesian did not know our concept of Malay race, Bangsa Melayu and Dunia Melayu ...  For them being Indonesian is more important rather than Malay, Javanese, Sundanese etc...

"From the Indonesian side, it is probably a 憂o

mamathir

Are we "victim" of the political manipulation by our gov't since our independence ?  

Any comment ....

dCrook

no lah, the only victim is those newly arrived indon je..

jf_pratama

Woooow .... ternyata Malaysia didirikan dan dibangun dengan cara memanipulasi sejarah ... Konsep Bangsa Melayu, Ketuanan Melayu dan  Dunia Melayu ternyata hanya bersifat "artificial" dan "propaganda" saja .... tapi kemudian dianggap sebagai sebuah "kebenaran" oleh sebagian besar orang Malaysia (seperti yang saya lihat dan amati di forum cari.com ini) ..

mo-mo

lama dah aku selidik benda nih....  tapi bila diutarakan, bnyk org dlm forum ni marah..  mcm2 buku dah aku baca...

jf_pratama

Originally posted by mo-mo at 11/12/2008 07:38
lama dah aku selidik benda nih....  tapi bila diutarakan, bnyk org dlm forum ni marah..  mcm2 buku dah aku baca...

Buka dan diskusikan saja di forum ini ... Saya ingin tahu lebih banyak lagi mengenai issue ini dan juga ingin tahu mengapa pihak kerajaan Malaysia melakukan ini semua ?

dCrook

this concept dah lama digunakan oleh orang melayu untuk beratus tahun lamanya, why suddenly nak bising? Orang malaysia telah dimelayukan oleh Srivijaya, tetapi kami tetap membezakan diri kami melalui negeri. Jadilah orang kelantan, patani,kedah etc. Sesetengah negeri ni pulak ada sultan yang berdarah Bugis, sumatera, tapi mereka tetap mengatakan diri mereka melayu. So what?

Hehe, i'm sorry for your un-puas hati-ness..

p.s : drop the act lah, we all know mamathir and jfpratama tu sama

jf_pratama

Dugaan anda ini ada-ada aja .....

Saya ingin tahu mengapa pihak kerajaan lebih menonjolkan Kerajaan Malaka sebagai awal sejarah modern Malaysia ?  Sedangkan sebelumnya sudah ada kerajaan lainnya yang lebih awal di sermenanjung seperti Ligor, Langkasuka dsb.. (seperti yang saya baca di www.asianfinest.com) ..

Saya seperti halnya orang-orang Indonesia lainnya awalnya kaget dan heran mendengar istilah-istilah Bangsa Melayu, Dunia Melayu dan Kepulauan Melayu yang sering disebut/didiskusikan di forum ini .. sesuatu istilah yang sulit kami pahami karena nggak pernah kami dengar di Indonesia ....

Saya juga heran mengapa orang Melayu di Malaysia lebih bangga menjadi orang Melayu (+ islam) jika dibandingkan menjadi orang ataupun Bangsa Malaysia ?

dCrook

saya bersetuju dengan pendapat kamu kenapa kerajaan melaka sahaja yang diagung2kan. Like all the other threads that u have created, jawapan dia hanya ada 2 kemungkinan :

1. Banyak dokumen menceritakan tentang kewujudan melaka, dan peninggalan masih ada dalam budaya melayu malaysia sehingga kini cthnya, kebudayaan istana, undang2 etc berbanding dengna kerajaan melayu purba di semenanjung seperti langkasuka,tembralingga, kota gelanggi etc. Dokumen mengenai kerajaan ini masih sedikit.

2. Melaka = Islam

Salahkah kita bangga dengan leluhur kita? Seperti orang cina dan india yang bangga dengan civilization mereka, kenapa pula kami tak boleh?Mengenai islam, saya rasa ia luka lama apabila melaka dijajah portugis, portugis terlampau kejam sehingga memaksa force conversion. mungkin disebabkan ini orang2 melayu mensinonimkan diri mereka dengan islam, sehingga orang2 iban, dll yang memeluk islam menggelar diri mereka melayu.

hakeemm

Maaf kalau saya menginterupsi perdebatan Malaysia & Indonesia.. Saya boleh masuk perdebatan ini juga? haha. Saya dari Brunei.

Kalau Brunei.. falsafah kita adalah MELAYU ISLAM BERAJA, which is similar to malaysia kalau melayu harus Islam (Beraja means monarchy ..) Kalau disini, MIB itu sangat ketara for muslim and for non-muslim too. Kalau di sekolah, muslim and non-muslim semua harus pakai tudung/songkok. And banyak lagi lah.

So i think the sejarah is similar to Malaysia (srivijaya and etc) except the politic parts ketuanan melayu, pribumi and etc..