‘Immigrants’ seditious?

I noticed that certain parties in Malaysia seem to have big problems with the word ‘immigrants’ right now.

Look, if they are so sensitive about it, they should ask the government to remove the word ‘immigrants’ and any other meaning associated with it from our history books. The government should make that highly seditious word disappear from our Malaysian history. The government should do that if that will make them happy. After all, we are all Malaysians and Malaysians should help fellow Malaysians be happy.

Now, the task of removing the word ‘immigrants’ and its references from our history books might take months and even possibly years but it is not entirely impossible. Before we do that to our history books, why don’t we remove the word ‘immigrants’ and its references from Wikipedia first.
…The growth of tin and gold mining and associated service industries led to the first influx of foreign settlers into the Malay world – initially Arabs and Indians, later Chinese – who colonised the towns and soon dominated economic activities. This established a pattern which characterised Malayan society for the next 200 years – a rural Malay population increasingly under the domination of wealthy urban immigrant communities, whose power the Sultans were unable to resist…

…All these industries required a large and disciplined labour force, and the British did not regard the Malays as reliable workers. The solution was the importation of plantation workers from India, mainly Tamil-speakers from South India. The mines, mills and docks also attracted a flood of immigrant workers from southern China…

…Since the Malay Sultans tended to spend well beyond their incomes, they were soon in debt to Chinese bankers, and this gave the Chinese political as well as economic power. At first the Chinese immigrants were nearly all men, and most intended to return home when they had made their fortunes. Many did go home, but many more stayed. At first they married Malay women, producing a community of Sino-Malayans or baba people, but soon they began importing Chinese brides, establishing permanent communities and building schools and temples…

Source: Wikipedia – History of Malaysia
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1 comments:

Dilip Mutum said...

The same thing is happening here in the UK as well. However, it usually refers to recent foreign arrivals. Another difference is in the way the term "immigrant" is used, referring to MALAYSIANS who have been in Malaysia for generations. Over here in the UK, only racist right wing people use that kind of tone.

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