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Ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy): power and the deep state in Malaysia

By Murray Hunter - posted Wednesday, 21 August 2019


Ketuanan Melayuis still the philosophical basis of all policy making within government today. Members of the prominent elite like Tun Daim Zainuddin stand up from time to time to defend the need for maintaining the NEP, be it in some modified form.   

The narrative of Ketuanan Melayu is a fiction designed to keep its perpetrators in power. Those who benefit the most are the ones who shout out about the need for the NEP.

The history of Malaysia has been completely rewritten to suit the elite and preserve the feudal status quo. The British negotiated the Merdeka constitution from Malaya with the royals and elite of Malay society, while the voices of the rakyat or people were totally glossed over. Massive national protests and a civil disobedience movement fought against the Merdeka constitution. Opposition movements proposed a more egalitarian constitution, which was totally ignored by the royals, Malay elite, and British. On 18th June 1948 the British rounded up protest leaders and held them without trial.  

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Total de-classification of the May 13 documents would totally destroy the mythology the government created as the foundation of Ketuanan Melayu. There is a distinct possibility, if the British Embassy dispatches at the time are correct, that many of the elite, some still alive today, would be incriminated in instigating the incident. This is perhaps the real reason the Rome Statute ratification was sabotaged.

Today Malaysia is still chained to a feudal like society with a super-rich elite at the top. The last election didn’t change that. Ignorance is the key to perpetuating the myths that are keeping Ketuanan Melayu in place, allowing the continuing plundering of the nation that has been going on since British times.

Malaysia is still colonized, just by a different group.  The different races making up Malaysia are kept divided to prevent true nationhood. This is the tragedy of Malaysia.

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This article was first published in the Asia Sentinel.



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About the Author

Murray Hunter is an associate professor at the University Malaysia Perlis. He blogs at Murray Hunter.

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