Dear Editor,
TO SAY that Sabah belongs to the defunct Sulu Sultanate is absolute nonsense. A Sultan is the spiritual head of the local ummah. Muslim sultanates in southeast Asia were not territorial in the western sense.
A Sultan confined himself to collecting tolls along the waterways.Today, by law, you are not allowed to collect tolls along the waterways.
What the Sultan of Brunei had in Sabah was the 'right' to collect tolls along the waters in northern Sabah. He handed over this right to the Sultan of Sulu for his help in resolving a palace dispute in his favour.
The Sulu Sultan was at that time already collecting tolls along the waterways in eastern Sabah. The Sabah Interior, deep in Dusun country, was neither under the Brunei or Sulu Sultans.
In Peninsular Malaysia, it was the British who stopped the sultans from collecting tolls along the waterways, drew the boundaries for them so that they would have territories to 'rule', recognised them and gave them a regular state pension to compensate for the loss from collecting tolls along the waterways.
Peninsular Malaysia is actually the southern half of the Kra peninsula and historically part of the Thai kingdom after the first kingdoms, Hindu, fell.
Who drew the border between Thailand and Peninsular Malaysia? The British. Before the British, the border of Thailand was down south in Tumasik (Singapore).
The British fought two wars with the Siamese to hack away Peninsular Malaysia from the Thai kingdom to plant rubber and mine tin.
If we look at the Federal Constitution, the Malay-speaking communities in Peninsular Malaysia are not listed as Natives of Peninsular Malaysia. The Federal Constitution merely defines who is a Malay.
The term Bumiputera does not exist in the Federal Constitution. It's a bullshit political term coined by Umno to cover up for the fact that the Malay-speaking communities in Peninsular Malaysia are not Natives of Peninsular Malaysia.
The Malay-speaking communities in Peninsular Malaysia speak Malay because it's the lingua franca of the islands in southeast Asia. Hence, the Malay archipelago which means an Archipelago where the Malay language is spoken as the lingua franca.
In fact, the Malay-speaking communities in Peninsular Malaysia are by race either Bugis, Javanese, Minang and so on. There's no such thing as a Malay race although there is a Malay language.
Malay was originally a dialect from the hill country in Cambodia. It was developed by Hindu and Buddhist missionaries and used for the purpose of spreading their language, for trade, administration and education.
The first mention of Malay is Malaiur (hill country in Tamil in Sumatra in the Jambi province). Malai in Tamil means hill.
The Tamils call a Malay-speaking male as malaikaran (male from the hills) and a female as malaikari (female from the hills). This talk of rumpun Melayu by Umno is plain political bullshit.
In Kerala, the people are known as Malayalee (people of the hill). Mahathir is a Malayalee who suddenly started calling himself a malaikaran.
Best Regard,
JOE FERNANDEZ
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