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Sunday, August 23, 2009

Malaysia - Malaya, Singapore, Borneo

31 August is the day we celebrate independance.

We were no one in no where and has nothing to start with ... ( at least not significant enough to leave any political trails. But there are significant geographical and historical trails thao )

Then ships started to travel along strait of Malacca. Ships docked, habour built, we soon evolve into a civilization of our own. Most new activities were introduced by people who came down from the ships, mostly China and India. The locals were called Malays.

Natural resources were soon found to be abundant, mainly were mining and plantation. Hence colonization started, slaves were used to harvest natural resources, the locals were hired to administer. Malaya became the LARGEST tin and rubber producer in the world.

British took over since 18th century. The 'goverment' running our lands is British Malaya. During that period, communist was the major anti-goverment force, wanted to fight for independance so they said.

During world war 2, Japan took over by force and sinificantly leave an effect that colonization era is over. Hence British wanted to help us gain our independance but didn't want to transfer power to the communists who had been fighting for it. Malayan Union was formed and eventually its the Federation of Malaya gained the independance on 31 August 1957. A British educated goverment servant was named the father of independance because he was the one who worked closest with the colonist. We are one of the most unique countries in the world who gain our independance without as much blood as it was in other places. We talked our way to freedome or basically we were given our freedom by the British.

Indonesia on the other hand was considered ahead of us by declaring their own independance as soon as Japanese left and before the Dutch came back.

Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo, also under the care of British were much slower on the other hand. They were just more primitive and had no ability to politically manage themselves, at least thats what the British was thinking. These are the land of conflicts too, respectively claimed by Indonesia, Brunei and Philipines.

But time was running out, the British had to leave soon because they were the last colony in the region. So all three join the land of Malay and formed Malaysia on 16 Sep 1963. Singapore was later kicked out on 1965.

All these are just less than 3 generations away. My grand father migrated from China to North Borneo to fix trucks. During high schools, I had school mates who migrated from Philipine. As far as their previous education is concerned, North Borneo was still a part of Philipine. In one accidental fire, my philipine classmate Gilbert lost his life when helping to put off the fire ...

So Malaysia is 46 years old by 16 Sept, how mature can Malaysia be ? Probably at best as mature as I am ?

31 August is the day we celebrate independance ...
Malaysia is the land of Malay ...
Islam is the religion of the country ...

Celebrating independance doesn't mean we forget about Borneo. Land of Malay doesn't mean non Malay have to leave. Enforcement of Islam as country's religion doesn't mean other religion has to be surpressed. Raising keris doesn't mean I have to raise my sword.

How mature can the 46-year-old Malaysia be ? Probably not as mature as I am.

If there are no politicians, there are no racism ...

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