Anti-Malay sentiment
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Anti-Malay racism refers to the sentiments or judgments against ethnic Malays. This is common in nations where ethnic Malays are the minority, such as Singapore and Thailand, but it is also occurs in multi-racial nation of Malaysia, where the Malays are the majority.
Thailand
In southern Thailand, particularly the province of Pattani, it is the home of the ethnic Malays in the country. In the 18th century, after the Thais captured the Malay-dominated provinces in the south from the Sultanate of Kedah and Kelantan, the Malays were sinced forbidden to speak their native tongue as well as practicing Islam, and were forced to worship Buddha and speak Thai. Malays in Thailand today are simply referred to as "Thai Muslims". [citation needed] In the past, it is believed that Malay-speakers were looked upon with suspicion, as the Thais consider it the language of a group of rebels in Thailand. At present, there are Muslim separatists in southern Thailand demanding that the Malay-Muslim dominated provinces are granted independence, and the bombings in southern Thailand are claimed to be done by these Malays. Since then, some people from communities and even the Thai officials have become suspicious of the Malay Muslims in southern Thailand - fearing that any one of them can be a terrorist. Thus, "Islamophobia" in Thailand is associated with "anti-Malays", since that the great majority of Muslims in Thailand are ethnic Malays. [citation needed] Thaksin had declared a militant law Recently on the news, there had been killings of innocent people that include the Thai Muslims in the south. Prime Minister Thaksin was blamed for this action. The King was totally appalled with this action. [1][2][3]
Singapore
Singapore was once a thriving Malay fishing village prior to British colonisation, of which it was administered under its so-called founder Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819. Under the British administration, influx of immigrants came to Singapore, particularly from China and India. Since Singapore's separation from Malaysia in 1965, it became an independent Chinese-dominated nation. Since then, the status of Malays in Singapore has become no better than their counterparts in Malaysia, where ethnic Malays are given special privileges to improve their lives by getting scholarships to further their studies in university so that they can contribute a lot to the Malaysian economy. Thus, this has demonstrated the Singaporean Malays' inability to contribute much to the Singaporean economy, being the bottom rung of the Singaporean society, and on the average, having poorer education than the Chinese, Indian and other ethnic communities. In Singapore, it is not easy to find Malays with scholarship. According to a 1980 statistics, they made up only 1.5 percent of all university graduates and 2.5 percent of students enrolled in higher education. [4] It is believed that the ethnic Malays are not given scholarship unless they consider themselves Arabs or some other non-Malay ethnic groups.
Malaysia
The Malays are the dominant indigenous group in Malaysia. The nation's government has provided all indigenous groups the rights to scholarship and provide them other developments, such as electricity and running water in the rural areas. However, they referred to as the "lazy and non-progressive race" by some Malaysians of immigrant ancestry and, especially by the ethnic Chinese. This is possibly the fact that the Chinese have been dominant in the Malaysian economy and that some of them have looked down on the indigenous people, seeing that these natives depend so much on the government and do not have the independent mind to run their lives.
Australia
The Malays were first brought to Australia as slaves under Alexander Hare in 1826 ot Cocos Island. There was no evidence of the first Malays to land on the Australian mainland and the islands in the east coast until the 19th century. By 1875, there were 1,800 Malay pearl divers working in Western Australia itself. Despite the Malays contribution to the Australian economy as labourers, the Malays experienced hostility from the local Europeans:
"Vice and vice-disease statistics…[revealed]…the terrible moral and social consequences of the admixture of Kanakas, Chinese, Malays and Aborigines in the far North…[the former's] presence makes…[the latter's] doom certain". [5]
Indonesia
In Indonesia, there have been racial riots between ethnic Madurese and Malays, along with the Dayaks and even Chinese, in West Kalimantan. The ethnic violence began in late December 1996 for six weeks, and it was reported to have 300 deaths during these clashes. [6] The conflict is believed to have been mainly behind the Indonesian government's "transmigration plan", where the Madurese were granted deforestation rights to clear lands for palm oil cultivation, and this in turn conflicted with the Dayak tribes' traditional way of life, due to the destruction of large portions of the jungle.