The Malaysian Peninsula

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the fundamental and historical conflicts between the majority Malays and the minority Chinese communities in the Malaysian peninsula. The paper presents a history of the region, with a focus on political issues. The paper examines the discrimination of the minority communities in Malaysia. The paper explores ethnic relations in Malaysia with regard to economics, religion, and education.

From the Paper:

"Some Chinese traders had settled in the country of Malaysia for centuries before other Chinese ethnic groups joined them in the 19th and 20th centuries. Although there has been an intermixture among the Chinese and other political minorities and the Malays as the political majority population, the Chinese have managed to preserve their cultural distinctions from the Malays, basically through religion and language. The Chinese use the Chinese language as distinguished from the Malay language and practice Buddhism, as differentiated from the Malays who are Muslim. The Chinese are grouped into the rural poor sector and the urban commercial sector, the latter being more economically capable and productive than the majority Malays. There have been these fundamental and historical conflicts between the majority Malays and the minority Chinese communities. The British ruled the peninsula and Singapore through the Chartered Company in Sabah and the Brooke family in Sarawak The Japanese Occupation made these conflicts worse during the last World War, during which the Malays sided with the Japanese against the British colonial rule and the Japanese mistreated the Chinese, who rebelled against them and formed the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army or MPAJA. When Japan lost the War, the MPAJA took violent actions in establishing control over the peninsula. The Chinese rural poor sector supported it and its succeeding organization, the Malayan Communist Party or MCP, founded in 1948."

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