MELAYU WERE FORMERLY ORANG ASLI WHO HAD LEFT THE JUNGLES.
…LET THE NON-MELAYU AND NON-MUSLIM CULTURAL AND POLITICAL GROUPS PARADE THEM TO PUTRAJAYA AND CARRY PLACARDS.
By Mansor Puteh
ATTEMPTS TO DEFAME THE MELAYU HAVE TAKEN THE MATTER BACK TO THE JUNGLES.
THE TRUTH IS THAT THE ORANG ASLI THAT WE STILL HAVE TODAY HAVE REMAINED AS THEY WERE BECAUSE THEY WERE LEFT DEEP IN THE JUNGLES AND CWOULD NOT ACCEPT CHANGE TO BECOME MELAYU.
AND WHY DO THE ORANG ASLI IN MALAYSIA SUDDENLY FEEL THEY HAD BEEN LEFT BEHIND?
THE REASON IS BECAUSE THEY ARE THOSE WHO SUDDENLY FIND THEM INTERESTING ENOUGH TO PROVE HOW THE MELAYU ARE NOT THE ORIGINAL PEOPLE OF THE LAND – THE BUMIPUTERA.
THIS IS A BLATANT LIE CREATED BY THOSE NON-MELAYU ESPECIALLY WHO THINK THEY CAN ‘USE’ THEM TO CREATE A CONFUSION ON THE ACTUAL HISTORY OF THE MELAYU.
The Melayu are also Orang Asli. Their descendants are also Orang Asli.
The only reason why the Melayu today do not look like the Orang Asli that we know of is because our ancestors had decided to leave the jungles and accept modernity.
I’m sure there are some Chinese and Indians in Malaysia whose ancestors who were also from the Native tribes in India who had left the flock to emigrate to the cities and other town centers and converted to Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism so they do not know where their ancestors had originated from leaving those small groups of Natives who are still in the in the jungles or deserts to be what they are today.
For the same reason, there are also many Americans who also have Native ancestry which they had long forgotten because they had become so assimilated and look every inch an American like the others.
So it is not surprising to find how many Melayu today whose ancestors who were mostly tribes who lived near the river banks and coasts, so they were able to go with the flow, especially with the new influences they were able to get from the others.
The opening of Melaka was a major factor that led many Orang Asli then to become less so and became Melayu.
When Parameswara first came to Melaka in 1400 there were twenty people and they could be described as Orang Asli. But not long later, they became more modern.
Their counterparts who were living deep in the jungle did not even know that Parameswara had visited and established Melaka. They were so busy with their own lives as nomads going from one place to the other until fairly recently when they were ‘discovered’ by scholars.
Now they are being ‘rediscovered’ by social, cultural and political activists who now want to parade them to Putrajaya and everywhere so they can be used to challenge the status quo of the Melayu.
The Orang Asli will become Melayu if they leave the jungles and accept the modern way of life. They speak good Melayu over the other languages and dialects. And if they convert to Islam they become Melayu.
Only a few who choose to convert to the other religions or still maintain their original beliefs will look like the original Orang Asli. And it is this group of people whom the activists are targeting.
Unfortunately, if the Orang Asli convert to other religions instead of Islam, and if they also choose to speak in English and behave like the other non-Melayu, their Orang Asli identity will disappear especially if they marry the non-Melayu.
Their children will not have any memory of living in the jungles. They only know the type of life they have been accustomed to.
So in the end, the modernization of the Orang Asli will be bad for them. Bad like what those who had left the jungles long ago and who had become Melayu and Muslims.
In the end, the Orang Asli will become no more than objects to be pitied and displayed in museums.
They have been paraded to Putrajaya and are encouraged to spout slogans. But it is all for pure entertainment since the activists are only interested to use them for their own sinister propaganda.
They are mostly the non-Melayu – the Chinese and Indians.
But don’t the Chinese and Indians also know that their ancestral lands of China and India also have their own Orang Asli groups, who are not even known by the outside world today?
They have been left behind by development and are still happy with their lot.
There are some Chinese activists who like to talk about the ‘systematic or institutionalize discrimination’ that the Orang Asli had to suffer, which resulted in them losing their identity.
What sort of identity that the Orang Asli have that can be of any use to anyone other than to the anthropologists, historians and cultural experts?
The language or dialects of all the Orang Asli tribes including those in Sabah and Sarawak are too weak to be used for the modern age. They can be studied but cannot be used for other than social communication.
If the Melayu language has been often charged for being inflexible, and it cannot expand, what more with those dialects?
In fact, more and more Orang Asli kids and their elders do not speak in their native dialects even with each other. If they do they still have to infuse them with Melayu words so much so that they do not sound Orang Asli anymore.
Just listen to the radio programs that are said to be in those dialects and one can find how easy it is for us to understand what they are saying all the time since most of the words they use are Melayu with a smattering of Orang Asli words in between.
But why are the Orang Asli suddenly feeling compelled to come up to show their faces and let everybody else hear their protests?
They are doing all this at the insistence of the non-Melayu activists who now fear that their dwindling numbers are being further reduced when more and more Orang Asli leave the jungles and become Melayu.
Even as it is the population of the Melayu is fast expanding, yet, the number can further increase with the inclusion of the Orang Asli becoming Melayu and Muslims.
So Malaysia is not like America, Australia or New Zealand all of which have their Natives. Whereas in Malaysia the major race, the Melayu are also the original people of the land – the Bumiputera just like the Natives in Sabah and Sarawak.
So it ironic as well as pathetic that the non-Melayu are now starting to use the Orang Asli today to challenge the status quo of the Melayu in Malaysia just to try and prove that they are not as original as the Orang Asli.
They are also trying to dissociate the Melayu from Malaysia so their immigrant history can be put aside and their own status quo be said to be the same as that of the Melayu in Malaysia.
Unfortunately, their latest attempt at defaming the Melayu fails miserably yet again.
And no, they cannot use the Orang Asli to do the bidding for them. Because the Orang Asli today are too few in numbers compared to the Orang Asli who had become Melayu and Muslims so even if they have discontentment of their own they still cannot exert themselves without their voices and protests being drowned by the voices of the majority who had become Melayu and Muslims many centuries earlier.
If there are people today who look down on the Orang Asli, they are those who do not want them to modernize and accept the choice of the majority of them who had morphed into being
Melayu and Muslims so that they can still remain as they are, living like nomads and becoming objects of pity.
So those who are bent on using and parading the Orang Asli in all their paraphernalia to Putrajaya and getting them to shout slogans and carry placards, ought to remember this and not forget that their ancestors had lived deep in the jungles, so they were not able to modernize to become Melayu and Muslims like the majority of the people in this country.
And the very fact that they are now slowly leaving the jungles will prove in the near future how close they are to the Melayu, a race that incorporates all the native groups in the Melayu World or Nusantara Melayu.
The attempts and efforts of these non-Melayu and non-Muslim cultural and political groups to use the Orang Asli will backfire. On the contrary, it will help with the cause of the Melayu and Islam in the country the more their issues are raised and debated.
And the more they do that the more they will find how far and alien they are to these groups and how close they are to the Melayu and Islam.
These groups are indeed not doing themselves a service in a sense but to the Melayu and Islam. It’s good that they do not realize this and their folly.
So let them continue to parade the Orang Asli to Putrajaya…
By Mansor Puteh
ATTEMPTS TO DEFAME THE MELAYU HAVE TAKEN THE MATTER BACK TO THE JUNGLES.
THE TRUTH IS THAT THE ORANG ASLI THAT WE STILL HAVE TODAY HAVE REMAINED AS THEY WERE BECAUSE THEY WERE LEFT DEEP IN THE JUNGLES AND CWOULD NOT ACCEPT CHANGE TO BECOME MELAYU.
AND WHY DO THE ORANG ASLI IN MALAYSIA SUDDENLY FEEL THEY HAD BEEN LEFT BEHIND?
THE REASON IS BECAUSE THEY ARE THOSE WHO SUDDENLY FIND THEM INTERESTING ENOUGH TO PROVE HOW THE MELAYU ARE NOT THE ORIGINAL PEOPLE OF THE LAND – THE BUMIPUTERA.
THIS IS A BLATANT LIE CREATED BY THOSE NON-MELAYU ESPECIALLY WHO THINK THEY CAN ‘USE’ THEM TO CREATE A CONFUSION ON THE ACTUAL HISTORY OF THE MELAYU.
The Melayu are also Orang Asli. Their descendants are also Orang Asli.
The only reason why the Melayu today do not look like the Orang Asli that we know of is because our ancestors had decided to leave the jungles and accept modernity.
I’m sure there are some Chinese and Indians in Malaysia whose ancestors who were also from the Native tribes in India who had left the flock to emigrate to the cities and other town centers and converted to Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism so they do not know where their ancestors had originated from leaving those small groups of Natives who are still in the in the jungles or deserts to be what they are today.
For the same reason, there are also many Americans who also have Native ancestry which they had long forgotten because they had become so assimilated and look every inch an American like the others.
So it is not surprising to find how many Melayu today whose ancestors who were mostly tribes who lived near the river banks and coasts, so they were able to go with the flow, especially with the new influences they were able to get from the others.
The opening of Melaka was a major factor that led many Orang Asli then to become less so and became Melayu.
When Parameswara first came to Melaka in 1400 there were twenty people and they could be described as Orang Asli. But not long later, they became more modern.
Their counterparts who were living deep in the jungle did not even know that Parameswara had visited and established Melaka. They were so busy with their own lives as nomads going from one place to the other until fairly recently when they were ‘discovered’ by scholars.
Now they are being ‘rediscovered’ by social, cultural and political activists who now want to parade them to Putrajaya and everywhere so they can be used to challenge the status quo of the Melayu.
The Orang Asli will become Melayu if they leave the jungles and accept the modern way of life. They speak good Melayu over the other languages and dialects. And if they convert to Islam they become Melayu.
Only a few who choose to convert to the other religions or still maintain their original beliefs will look like the original Orang Asli. And it is this group of people whom the activists are targeting.
Unfortunately, if the Orang Asli convert to other religions instead of Islam, and if they also choose to speak in English and behave like the other non-Melayu, their Orang Asli identity will disappear especially if they marry the non-Melayu.
Their children will not have any memory of living in the jungles. They only know the type of life they have been accustomed to.
So in the end, the modernization of the Orang Asli will be bad for them. Bad like what those who had left the jungles long ago and who had become Melayu and Muslims.
In the end, the Orang Asli will become no more than objects to be pitied and displayed in museums.
They have been paraded to Putrajaya and are encouraged to spout slogans. But it is all for pure entertainment since the activists are only interested to use them for their own sinister propaganda.
They are mostly the non-Melayu – the Chinese and Indians.
But don’t the Chinese and Indians also know that their ancestral lands of China and India also have their own Orang Asli groups, who are not even known by the outside world today?
They have been left behind by development and are still happy with their lot.
There are some Chinese activists who like to talk about the ‘systematic or institutionalize discrimination’ that the Orang Asli had to suffer, which resulted in them losing their identity.
What sort of identity that the Orang Asli have that can be of any use to anyone other than to the anthropologists, historians and cultural experts?
The language or dialects of all the Orang Asli tribes including those in Sabah and Sarawak are too weak to be used for the modern age. They can be studied but cannot be used for other than social communication.
If the Melayu language has been often charged for being inflexible, and it cannot expand, what more with those dialects?
In fact, more and more Orang Asli kids and their elders do not speak in their native dialects even with each other. If they do they still have to infuse them with Melayu words so much so that they do not sound Orang Asli anymore.
Just listen to the radio programs that are said to be in those dialects and one can find how easy it is for us to understand what they are saying all the time since most of the words they use are Melayu with a smattering of Orang Asli words in between.
But why are the Orang Asli suddenly feeling compelled to come up to show their faces and let everybody else hear their protests?
They are doing all this at the insistence of the non-Melayu activists who now fear that their dwindling numbers are being further reduced when more and more Orang Asli leave the jungles and become Melayu.
Even as it is the population of the Melayu is fast expanding, yet, the number can further increase with the inclusion of the Orang Asli becoming Melayu and Muslims.
So Malaysia is not like America, Australia or New Zealand all of which have their Natives. Whereas in Malaysia the major race, the Melayu are also the original people of the land – the Bumiputera just like the Natives in Sabah and Sarawak.
So it ironic as well as pathetic that the non-Melayu are now starting to use the Orang Asli today to challenge the status quo of the Melayu in Malaysia just to try and prove that they are not as original as the Orang Asli.
They are also trying to dissociate the Melayu from Malaysia so their immigrant history can be put aside and their own status quo be said to be the same as that of the Melayu in Malaysia.
Unfortunately, their latest attempt at defaming the Melayu fails miserably yet again.
And no, they cannot use the Orang Asli to do the bidding for them. Because the Orang Asli today are too few in numbers compared to the Orang Asli who had become Melayu and Muslims so even if they have discontentment of their own they still cannot exert themselves without their voices and protests being drowned by the voices of the majority who had become Melayu and Muslims many centuries earlier.
If there are people today who look down on the Orang Asli, they are those who do not want them to modernize and accept the choice of the majority of them who had morphed into being
Melayu and Muslims so that they can still remain as they are, living like nomads and becoming objects of pity.
So those who are bent on using and parading the Orang Asli in all their paraphernalia to Putrajaya and getting them to shout slogans and carry placards, ought to remember this and not forget that their ancestors had lived deep in the jungles, so they were not able to modernize to become Melayu and Muslims like the majority of the people in this country.
And the very fact that they are now slowly leaving the jungles will prove in the near future how close they are to the Melayu, a race that incorporates all the native groups in the Melayu World or Nusantara Melayu.
The attempts and efforts of these non-Melayu and non-Muslim cultural and political groups to use the Orang Asli will backfire. On the contrary, it will help with the cause of the Melayu and Islam in the country the more their issues are raised and debated.
And the more they do that the more they will find how far and alien they are to these groups and how close they are to the Melayu and Islam.
These groups are indeed not doing themselves a service in a sense but to the Melayu and Islam. It’s good that they do not realize this and their folly.
So let them continue to parade the Orang Asli to Putrajaya…
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