Ketuanan Melayu - Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Meritocracy, and ketuanan Melayu - A New Prime Minister

A New Prime Minister

Prior to Abdullah's ascension in 2003, although ketuanan Melayu had been enunciated by several prominent Malay leaders, it had not been given a proper name. Around this time, the term "ketuanan Melayu" — "tuan" being the Malay word for "lord" or "master" — came into common usage, even entering the government-approved secondary school curriculum. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia professor of sociology Norani Othman has said that the term is evocative of "notions of enslavement," since "In Malay classical terms, the word 'ketuanan' implies lordship over captives, which is a pre-feudal concept that is out of sync in 1957, 1963 and today."

A government-approved secondary school history textbook published in 2004 by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, the government-owned publishing company, defined ketuanan Melayu as:

Semangat cinta akan apa saja yang berkaitan dengan bangsa Melayu seperti hak politik, bahasa, kebudayaan, warisan, adat istiadat dan tanah air. Semenanjung Tanah Melayu dianggap sebagai tanah pusaka orang Melayu.

Its English translation is as follows:

A passion for all that is related to the Malay race, such as political rights, language, culture, heritage, tradition and the homeland. The Malay peninsula is regarded as the Malays' land by birthright.

In 2003, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) political party Youth Information Chief Azimi Daim stated: "In Malaysia, everybody knows that Malays are the masters of this land. We rule this country as provided for in the federal constitution. Any one who touches upon Malay affairs or criticizes Malays is our sensitivities."

Although its proponents claimed that ketuanan Melayu was directly derived from Article 153 of the Constitution, the Reid Commission which drafted the framework for the Constitution had stated that the provisions for Malay privileges were to be temporary in nature, and eventually abolished, citing the only reason for their existence as tradition and economic necessity as a form of affirmative action for the Malays. Despite this, those who challenge ketuanan Melayu or "Malay rights" were still often berated, especially by politicians from UMNO. Many UMNO politicians continued referring to non-Malays as "orang pendatang" or "pendatang asing" (foreign immigrants).