Who are Orang Malaya?

Dear Anonymous

Thank you for your comment and your protest is well taken.

Actually it is not a broad swipe at orang Malaya. I have stated that I have nothing against orang Malaya per se. You see when a Chinese from Malaya comes to Sabah, we call them Chinese. When an Indian comes to Sabah we call them Indian. As you can see there is no reference to Chinese or Indian Malaya. Therefore orang Malaya refers to orang Melayu from Malaya.

All orang Malaya be they Melayu, Chinese or Indians see Sabah as a land of opportunity. Unlike the Melayu, the Chinese and the Indians genuinely comes to Sabah to work and prosper. Through hard work they get their rewards. It’s different with the Melayu orang Malaya, they come to Sabah with a preset mind that they have a right over everything. Perhaps this is because of the Eugenic philosophy of “Ketuanan Melayu” that the leaders from Malay have been drumming into their head. Even the Melayu in Sabah are not treated as equal, to them we are of a lower class Melayu. In terms of religion, they try very hard to make us believe their religious belief is even better than the Arabs. If we practice it with them, it is a sure ticket straight to haven. But we see it as religious zealotry and it does not fit into our society or the way of life that we have been practicing all these while.

They said they come to Sabah because they want to help and save us from our leaders’ excesses. Yet most projects are given to “KL company” while our locals are marginalized, even the local leaders are often by-passed. Some Sabahans are lucky to be just a by-stander; those unlucky ones are given sub-sub-contract from “KL company” end-up they often get their fingers burnt. It is very unfortunate the Director of JPPS in Sabah has more authority over federal funded projects than our own YBs.

Almost all of the teachers from Malaya are put in the urban areas, while local teachers are pushed out into the rural areas. Teachers from Malaya are given housing allowance, while the local teachers send to the rural areas are not even given decent housing. There was an incident where a female local teacher has to share a Kongsi (labour lines) with mainly male immigrants because there are no teacher’s quarters. No thank you to our Kris waving Minister of Education.

Often time when these orang Malaya arrive in Kota Kinabalu you can hear them saying “oh, I have just come from Malaysia”. Excuse me but without Sabah and Sarawak there is no Malaysia, only Malaya. The rest of orang Melayu Malaya is staying back in Malaya ensuring and helping the elite orang Malaya to stay in office all because of the Eugenic philosophy of “Ketuanan Melayu” which I believe similar to Hitler’s “Master Race”.

So my dear friend do you honestly think that I have made a broad swipe at orang Malaya?

A.G.Mustakim