Actually there is no Malay race, says veteran writer

By Joe Fernandez

The Tamils in the peninsula are more Orang Asal than others except the Orang Asli.

Tamil schools in the Federation cannot be questioned because the first civilisation in the peninsula was Kadaram in Kedah which was a trading bridge between India and China.

The Kadaram people, Hindus from India, were the first to settle down in the peninsula after the Orang Asli. Kedah comes from kedai (Tamil for shop). There were many shops in Kadaram.

Kadaram itself means a place where there are many shops.

Chinese schools should not be questioned either. There were many Chinese traders in Kadaram.

The first people to have contact with the Orang Asli were traders from India.

The Malay (Tamil for hill) language, based on a Cambodian dialect and superimposed with Sanskrit and Pali (a Sanskrit dialect used by Buddhists) words, was created by Hindus and Buddhists from India to be the lingua franca of the Archipelago. Hence, the Malay Archipelago.

There's no such thing as a Malay race, only a Malay language.

It was the British who codified the term Malay.

Before the British, the Muslim squatter communities of illegal immigrants in the peninsula used to call themselves Bugis, Javanese, Minang, Acehnese etc etc

Article 160 of the Federal Constitution does not refer to a Malay race, only a Malay nation based on the Malay language, Islam and the culture, customs, traditions of the Nusantara Muslims in the peninsula who had to use Malay to communicate with each other and others.

The Baba Nonya, Chitty, Portuguese and Siamese in the peninsula also habitually speak Malay at home but are not recognised as Malay under Article 160 unless they become Muslims. This is further proof that there's no such thing as a Malay race.