Ketuanan Melayu - Pre-independence - Possible Origins of ketuanan Melayu

Possible Origins of ketuanan Melayu

According to many historians, the root cause of ethnic strife and ketuanan Melayu was a lack of mixing between the Malays and non-Malays. An exception to this were the Straits Chinese, who managed to assimilate reasonably well, despite the assimilation taking 600 years including intermarriage. According to the Ming Shi-lu, the ancestors of the Straits Chinese were "gifts" given to the Sultan of Malacca as a recognition of both bilateral ties between the Ming Dynasty and the sultanate, and of Malay sovereignty. At the time, most were rich merchants during British rule instead of manual labourers and many habitually spoke Malay, dressed in the Malay style, and preferred Malay cuisine.

The British educational policies segregating the different races — providing minimal public education for Malays, and leaving non-Malays to their own devices — did not help matters. The Malays, predominantly rural-dwellers, were not encouraged to socialise with the more urban non-Malays. The economic impoverishment of the Malays which set them apart from the better-off Chinese also fanned racial sentiments.

Another contributing factor to ketuanan Melayu was the World War II Japanese occupation. The war "awakened a keen political awareness among Malayan people by intensifying communalism and racial hatred". Japanese policies "politicised the Malay peasantry", intentionally fanning the flames of Malay nationalism. Two Malay historians wrote that "The Japanese hostile acts against the Chinese and their apparently more favourable treatments of the Malays helped to make the Chinese community feel its separate identity more acutely..." A foreign commentator agreed, stating that "During the occupation period ... Malay national sentiment had become a reality; it was strongly anti-Chinese, and its rallying cry 'Malaya for the Malays'..."