My Thought

04 Dec 2009 1 Comment

by TLT in menyusur di akar

Let us face this fact : Malay privileges as enshrined in the Federal Constitution is the price the non-Malays have to pay for the rights and protection of common nationality they have gained, which notion is a great loss to the Malays who earlier enjoyed exclusive citizenship on this glorious land.

If you find Malay privileges difficult to accept, try history. To understand the reasoning behind the provisions of the Federal Constitution, in is inevitable that we go back to the historical antecedents and the original intention of the framers of the Federal Constitution; ie the Reid Commission 1956 consisting of Lord Reid (Chairman), Sir Ivor Jennings, Sir William McKell B Malik (India) and Justice Abdul Hamid (Pakistan).

I have a feeling that the inclusion of the provisions of the Malay privileges as envisaged by the Reid Commission was originally entirely for political reasons. There was no consideration as to racial economic segregation whatsoever already prevalent during that time. The inclusion was merely to pacify the Malays for the deep wound the British had caused in conferring rights and liberties of citizenship to the non-Malays.

Therefore the provisions and notion of Malay privileges in its original form was entirely political. The commission in its wisdom had never foreseen that the entire sacred document would fail to stop the economic unrest within the plural society which had already started to build then.

The next time I pen down my thought under this category I am going to propose to you that whatever effort you make to achieve national integration has to be based on everyone’s understanding and acceptance of what I propose in the first paragraph herein.