Thursday, October 16, 2008

We Are All Immigrants

Our ancestors may have walked here from Australia many millions of years ago or they may have arrived here by ship or overland from India or China or as far away as Arabia, Turkey and Europe.

What difference does it make? Were the Malays here before the Melanaus or the Ibans? The Ibans in fact migrated to Sarawak from Kalimantan or Dutch Borneo in the 1600s. Didn't some Chinese come here some 500 years ago even before some Indian Muslims whose fathers arrived less than 100 years ago and who suddenly became more Malay than the Malays? Many Malays of Javanese, Bugis and Sumatran descent came here a mere 200 years ago, and some even later. What difference does it make? We are all immigrants.

We now share this great land and have to live together with each other peacefully and harmoniously. Why should some Malays - especially the Malayans and particularly those from UMNO - bully the rest of us, merely to fulfil their own selfish and greedy agendas, which, it must be added, not all Malays share?

We are all immigrants and we are all Malaysians, but if the Malayans (of the ruling elite) insist on mistreating the rest of us, then I'm a Sarawakian first.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Of course it makes a lot of difference, religion matters the most here in Malaysia.

chapchai said...

Religion matters the most because the politicians have made it so!

Anonymous said...

One's ethnicity is, at best, a socio-politico or 'cultural' construction, which basically means there is no such thing as a primordial Iban, Malay, Kayan or whatever, let alone vague ethnicities like "Chinese" and "Indian". By 'vague', I mean it neither culturally nor even historically represent a homogeneous group of nations. Neither does one's ethnicity, let alone 'origin'.

If it has to be my area of preference when it comes to this 'issue' I'd rather stick to linguistic (not language) and archaeological research rather than the 'cultural' aspects of it. In other words, I'd rather play around with the whole idea of 'lapita' or 'proto-austronesia' than "culture" (ie. religion, ethnicity, political affiliation, etc.)

Anonymous said...

there you go. keep it up! we Sarawakians dont accept racism.

Anonymous said...

politician always play race card to gain popularity.

AnakBumi

Anonymous said...

Including this blogger. He has been a bloody racist. Look at what he wrote about DPM.

Al Tugauw said...

It's only fiction.

Anonymous said...

lets quit malaysia. it brings us no benefit. i am sick of it.

Anonymous said...

Let's kick the stupid BN out of sarawak land.

Anonymous said...

There are some ruins in Lembah Bujang which are around 1500 years old. The people in this area were of Hindu & Buddhist origin. Pre-Malays.
Please look up Wikipedia.

The Pallava Kings had an outpost in Kedah from the 4th to the 9th century AD.

When the Pallava Kings lost the war in India, they migrated into China. There they inter-married with the Chinese and eventually became known as another "orang asli" grouping in the Yunan area. These Yunanese people later migrated via the sea to Philippines, and thence to Malaya. There was another Yunanese migration along the river, and later via the coastal route to Malaya via Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, etc.

Go learn History, and read it to please. Please also understand that BTN has re-written history, removing facts about Hang Tuah & his relatives inclusive of Hang LiPo.

Bob