Thinking Critically On The Meaning of "Tanah Melayu"

 Thinking Critically on the Meaning of “Tanah Melayu”

M. Bakri Musa

June 2, 2025

Excerpt #13 from my book Qur’an, Hadith, And Hikayat:  Exercises In Critical Thinking

 

Consider the current nationalistic orgies of Malay political rhetoric:  Tanah Melayu Untuk Melayu (Malay Land for Malays). That phrase is bandied around with abandon, and being applauded with gusto. We want to be anointed Tuans (lords) in Tanah Melayu. That emotion-laden assertion, as expected, causes much angst among non-Malays.

 

         Even if there were to be a political entity called Tanah Melayu or Dunia Melayu (Malay World) once, it would take considerable concept stretching to assert that today’s Malaysia is the successor.

 

         Then there is the issue of who is a Malay. As per the constitution as well as general acceptance, a Malay is one who habitually speaks the language, practices its culture, and is a Muslim. A Muslim from Java or Mamak from Kerala coming to Malaysia yesterday and who could speak Malay as well as adopt the trappings of the culture would be considered a Malay. He could then join UMNO (United Malay National Organization), and become Prime Minister if he were to be corrupt and wily enough.

 

         We could trace how “Malay” we are through genetic analysis if you want to waste your money on such silly “scientific” tests. Silly because there is no such Malay or any racial genes, only statistically-associated traits. Race is more a social construct. Visit Northern Malaya. The “Malays” there look no different from the Tamils in Kerala but they are UMNO stalwarts.

 

         If Tanah Melayu were to belong to only Malays simply by virtue of its name, then consider the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. President Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America does not materially change the reality. It simply means wasted funds to reproduce new American atlases and school texts.

 

         Many consider Tanah Melayu of yore to include Singapore and a good portion of Southern Thailand (Pattani). Would those real estates be part of their version of today’s Tanah Melayu? Would champions of Tanah Melayu go further and have non-Malays be declared illegal immigrants and deported? Do that and China would not just stand by idly. If the Japanese could overtake the country on bicycles, imagine what a powerful modern China could do!

 

         Just thinking (critically or otherwise) about those possibilities would give pause to even the most belligerent chauvinist Malay.

 

         Even if we were to accept the premise that Tanah Melayu is the land of the Malays, does anyone really think that the average Malay could claim those virgin jungles and cut down the valuable old-world hardwood trees, or mine those precious rare earths? Or claim ownership to the luxury condos in Bukit Kiara? 

 

         If by statutes or some magic those precious assets could be given only to Malays, rest assured that ordinary Malays would not be the beneficiaries. In fact, those precious jungles have already been claimed and denuded by rapacious sultans and UMNO warlords. The average Malay gets nothing, except perhaps a free Hajj trip thrown in here and there. Meanwhile they suffer the consequences, as with floods and landslides because of the ensuing environmental degradations.

 

         Malays must be reminded, and often, that under earlier Malay rule before Western colonization intruded into our world, the rakyat (citizens) owned nothing. Instead, they were properties of the sultans. Slavery was very much the norm in precolonial Malaysia. The only saving grace was that, unlike Blacks in America who were enslaved by Whites, Malays were enslaved by our own kind, if indeed that was any consolation.

 

         If not for British colonization that abolished orang hamba in my culture and later afforded me a superior education, I would be doomed to be orang hamba (slave) in my kampung.

 

         The very fact that we are asking those questions, as with the meaning of “belong” and “Tanah Melayu” sensitizes and forces us to examine the assumptions we have consciously or unconsciously made. At the minimum the exercise would make us pause and ponder, making us less likely to be swayed emotionally by the seductive but destructive shrill calls of “Tanah Melayu untuk Melayu!”

 

         That is what critical thinking does. It makes one less likely to swallow the salesman’s slick spiel as much as the wily politician’s chauvinistic chanting.

 

         The only way to make Malaysia, or at least the Peninsular portion, be the land of the Malays as a practical reality and not merely the fantasy of the Ketuanan Melayu types would be to improve national schools where the students are exclusively Malays. Execute that and then watch Malays become more competitive and have our share of entrepreneurs, professionals, and tradesmen. Then we could be Tuan even in lands other than Tanah Melayu. If we are not, then we are destined to remain as orang hamba even in our own Tanah Melayu. No amount of shouting and sloganeering nor umpteen “Melayu Berdaulat” (Malay Sovereignty) rallies would alter that harsh reality. Sovereignty, like respect, has to be earned and not handed over on a silver platter.

 

Next:  Double Blind Studies In Solving Social Problems