IPOH, 5 Aug 2009: Malay Malaysians and the Malay rulers cannot be separated and whoever thinks that the country’s constitutional monarchy is no longer relevant is a traitor, the 4B Youth Movement said.
Its general secretary Datuk Wira Jamaluddin Abdul Rahim added that such a person was also trying to stoke Malay sentiment.
“If there are Malays who have such an opinion, then it is most regrettable,” he said.
Jamaluddin was commenting on the concern expressed yesterday by Information, Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim on the emergence of a group who conceived the constitutional monarchy as no longer relevant. The group also apparently perceived Malaysia to be a socialist nation.
Jamaluddin said Rais’s statement was most appropriate because the emergence of such a group, if left unchecked, could affect the harmony, peace and prosperity enjoyed by all communities since independence.
He said history had proven that the constitutional monarchy had succeeded in uniting the people.
He suggested that the Education Ministry strengthen the History syllabus to ensure that present and future generations had a better understanding of the history of the country’s independence and the monarchy’s role. — Bernama
Azizi Khan says
Any Malay Malaysian [thoughts] that the monarchy belongs solely to the Malay Malaysians are outmoded, outdated and irrelevant. All races have accepted and pledged their allegiance to the monarchy.
Any person who proclaims the monarchy belongs to the Malays are not only stoking racial sentiment but undermining the superiority of Malaysia’s constitutional monarchy.
AK.
monarchy says
If all else fails, I guess it’s time the rulers take drastic action in breaking up Malaysia. Let it be the end of Malaysia.
D Lim says
I am very disappointed with this type of talk. The implication here is simple: Malay rulers rule Malaysia hence so do the “Malays”. It would be interesting to define ‘Malays’ in the context of Malaysia which is made up of “East Malaysia” which does not have a Malay ruler!
This is Datuk Wira’s warning to “non-Malays” that Malaysia is not their home but “theirs and theirs alone”. How sad… is this the way forward to build togetherness? It’s like a child saying to another, “it’s mine, mine, mine… because I happen to be born here first”. Can someone tell me since East Malaysia does not have rulers to begin with, should the constitutional monarchy apply to them?
Gopal Raj Kumar says
The monarchy at every level of social and cultural and political life, whether it be in Malaysia or the United Kingdom, is symbolic of certain beliefs and the aspirations of its people.
In a place like Malaysia, the symbolism takes deeper meaning and is significantly more relevant to Malay Malaysians because of the religious-cum-cultral nexus between sultans, their subjects, and the nation as a whole through the office of the king or Agung.
So it is parochial from the state level to a broader level to the nation […].
The sultans in Malaysia and the office they hold are a lot deeper rooted in traditions of the Malays than that of say the monarchy in a place like the UK.
To undermine the role of or to understate or to belittle the significance of the role and relationship of sultans to their subjects (especially the Malays to whom there is an inextricable historic and cultural nexus) is dangerous and unnecessary.
The threat and sensitivity being felt by the majority of Malay Malasyians is justified in this respect.
There is a growing push by non-Malay Malaysians and their tokenistic minority Malay followers to undermine the role of the monarchy because of unpopular decisions taken of late by sultans in the exercise of their discretionary powers (vested in them by the constitution of the state and federation).
Any people, whether or not in the majority (as is the case with the Malays in Malaysia), faced with a challenge to their heritage and culture would resist and do so punitively.
Regardless of the removal of the privy purse in India after that country gained its independence from the British in 1948, the Maharajahs and their descendants as well as the descendants of various sultans and Nizams still hold temporal power in that country which no amount of constitutional barrier can eradicate or sever.
It is as is the case in Malaysia with the sultans, more in the character of a power that’s clerical and sacred rather than a power that’s simply secular in character by a definition that’s liimited in its interpretation (the English language is incapable of an appropriate choice of words capable of translating what that relationship between the sultan and his Malay subjects are).
Perhaps theirein lies the difficulty for us as non-Malay [Malaysians] to udnerstand why the role of the sultan is so vital and important to the concept of nationhood and community to Malay Malaysians and to their survival.
Democratiziya says
The institution of the Malay rulers is enshrined in our constitution. It belongs to Malaysians, not to one particular race.
However the acts of the rulers are not above the “Opinion Review” of the rakyat. The rulers, under the constitution, must act bipartisan and be SEEN to act bipartisan.
cis says
Should read: “He suggested that the Education Ministry strengthen the PROPAGANDA syllabus to ensure that present and future generations had a better understanding of the (my)story of the country’s independence and the monarchy’s role.” I have seen the so-called history “mutate”. Let’s compare the history book of 1970s and now….