THE last few years, there have been concerted attempts to deny and erase the history of the Melayu in Singapura. The Melayu are accused of being migrants from Indonesia or Malaysia.
This attempt to remove our status is cynical at best. We should first recognise that both, Malaysia and Indonesia are products of decolonisation.
The parts of Melayu Raya that were colonised by the British became Malaysia. Those that were colonised by the Dutch became Indonesia.
But both of them are part of the Malay world. They are one nation.
The Melayu are indigenous to the region. The same goes for Singapura.
For us to understand the status of Melayu in Singapura, we need to realise that Singapura exists as part of the larger Malay world. This Malay world is made up of a Peninsula that stretches from the southern states of modern Thailand to Johor Bahru and the thousands of islands in the archipelago.
For a Melayu to move from one island to the next and still remain within Tanah Melayu is normal. Travelling by sea was the common mode of transportation within our lands. We moved by sea as any other nation would have moved by carriage or train.
It does not mean we are not indigenous to any part of the Malay world. To reject a Melayu and remove his rights to the land because he moved to Singapura island from Jawa is like saying someone from Tampines who moved to Jurong as not having any rights because he is not from Jurong.
We exist as part of the Malay world. This Malay world includes Singapura, Malaysia, Indonesia, Moroland, Brunei.
As Lily Zubaidah Rahim argued,
“Historical records suggest that the Malays initially migrated to the Malay Archipelago from the Asian mainland between 2,000 – 5,000 BC. Within the Archipelago, historians have recorded extensive movement of indigenous Malays from one rumpun (group, region within the larger ‘Nusantara’) to another… The fact that a Majapahit Hindu prince, Sang Nila Utama, and his descendants could establish royal houses in Temasek and Malacca from the thirteenth century and then base themselves in the Riau Islands is illustrative of the relative ease in the cultural integration and mobility of Malays from one rumpun within the ‘Nusantara’ to another…
In a study pertaining to Singapore Malay identity, Nurliza Yusuf observed that Singapore Malays possessed a strong indigenous and regional identity that emanates from their acute consciousness of Singapore’s place in the ‘Nusantara’ or Malay World. The Pan-Malay consciousness was aptly articulated by one of her informants in the following way: ‘The Malay Archipelago is like a big house. The Malays in Singapore hanya tukar bilik dan bukan tukar rumah (are merely changing rooms and not changing houses).”
Zulfikar Shariff
Reference: Rahim, Lily Zubaidah. The Singapore dilemma: The political and educational marginality of the Malay community. Oxford University Press, USA, 1998. pp 14-15
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