Pengalaman

saya pernah bekerja di malaysia, saya ingin berbagi cerita pengalaman saya. di perbatasan Brunei Darussalam dan sarawak ada district yang namanya Liembang, di sana terkenal sekali terutama laki-laki Brunei kalau sedang bercanda menyebut nama itu langsung riuh membincangkannya (pada masa itu saya masih bekerja di Brunei) kenapa ? karena banyak perempuan indonesia muda yang dijual jadi pelacur, yang pada mulanya ingin bekerja di malaysia sebagai TKW, pernah saya diajak bos ke Liembang alasannya hendak survey barang untuk bisnisnya Bos, karena saya staffnya saya setuju ikut, di sana saya hampir diperkosa, tapi tak sampai, Bos saya sempat menunjukkan kepada saya perempuan Indonesia yang dijadikan pelacur itu, mereka dikurung dalam teralis besi, kemudian para buaya darat menunjuk mana perempuan yang diinginkan, atau di antar ke kamar hotel si buaya darat, saya melihat perempuan itu menunduk sayu, dia cantik sekali Bos saya bilang dia dari Surabaya (Bos saya sudah langganan)sepupu ipar saya laki-laki bujang punya ceritaq juga, dia beli perempuan di liembang mungkin melihat muka sepupu ipar saya seperti orang baik (sepupu ipar saya tidak punya agama jadi tidak paham apa itu berzina dosa) perempuan itu menangis minta di bawa lari dari Liembang, tidak mau melacur, tapi karena sudah dijaga bodyguard ia tak dapat lari, sepupu ipar itu orang Malaysia, karena suami saya orang Malaysia, saya orang jawa, saya malu sebagai bangsa Indonesia, ada bangsa saya yang dijual padahal sudah tahun 2006 pada masa itupernah saya waktu di kota Kinabalu, Sabah jalan-jalan pada malam hari bersama temen orang Indonesia juga, saya malu sekali, sampai saya pakai baju kurung baju melayu biar orang mengira saya bukan orang Indonesia, banyak sekali perempuan jawa berkeliaran pakai baju seksi, mereka main kucing-kucingan dengan polis Malaysia ditangkap karena meresahkan masyarakat menggoda para buaya darat, mereka bercakap-cakap saya dengar pakai bahasa jawa, saya ingin berteriak bagaimana ini saudara-saudara bangsa Indonesia adakah keluarga mereka tahu ?dan kita bangsa Indonesia prihatin tidak? di bis waktu saya jalan-jalan di Sibu mendengar ada laki-laki Malaysia bercerita dia banyak melepaskan perempuan Indonesia dia bawa lari dikasih uang untuk kembali ke Indonesia, ada yang dia nikahi, dia bilang dia mau menengok istri, ke sekian diIndonesia yang juga dia lepaskan dari cengkraman bapak/mak ayam, orang Malaysia juga ada yang berbuat baiklah contohnya itu tadi

Malaysia (English Version)

country of Southeast Asia, composed of two noncontiguous regions: Peninsular, or West, Malaysia on the Malay Peninsula and East Malaysia on the island of Borneo. Malaysia has a total area of 127,584 square miles (330,442 square kilometres), which includes about 265 square miles of inland water. Of this total, Peninsular Malaysia constitutes about 50,810 square miles and East Malaysia about 76,510 square miles. The capital is Kuala Lumpur, located in west-central Peninsular Malaysia.
Peninsular Malaysia occupies most of the Malay Peninsula south of latitude 6°40′ N. To the north it is bordered by Thailand, with which it shares a land boundary of some 300 miles (480 kilometres). To the south, at the tip of the peninsula, is the island republic of Singapore, with which Malaysia is connected by a causeway. To the southwest, across the Strait of Malacca, is the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
East Malaysia consists of the states of Sarawak and Sabah and is separated from Peninsular Malaysia by some 400 miles of the South China Sea. These two states occupy most of the northwestern coastal part of the large island of Borneo and share a land boundary with the Indonesian portion (Kalimantan) of the island. Within Sarawak is a small coastal enclave containing the sultanate of Brunei.
Malaysia, a member of the Commonwealth, represents the political marriage of territories that were formerly under British rule. When it was established on Sept. 16, 1963, Malaysia was composed of Malaya (now Peninsular Malaysia), Singapore, Sarawak, and Sabah. In August 1965 Singapore seceded from the federation and became an independent republic.
The land
Relief

The long, narrow, and rugged Malay Peninsula extends to the south and southwest from Myanmar and Thailand. The Malaysian portion of it is about 500 miles long and—at its broadest east-west axis—about 200 miles wide. About half of Peninsular Malaysia is covered by granite and other igneous rocks, one-third is covered by stratified rocks older than the granite, and the remainder is covered by alluvium. At least half the land area is more than 500 feet (150 metres) above sea level.
Peninsular Malaysia is dominated by its mountainous core, which consists of a number of roughly parallel mountain ranges aligned north-south. The most prominent of these is the Main Range, which is about 300 miles long and has peaks rising to elevations of more than 7,000 feet. Karst landscapes—limestone hills with characteristically steep, whitish gray sides, stunted vegetation, caves created by the dissolving action of water, and subterranean passages—are distinctive landmarks in central and northern Peninsular Malaysia. Bordering the mountainous core are the coastal lowlands, 10 to 50 miles wide along the west coast of the peninsula but narrower and discontinuous along the east coast. Settlement and development have taken place primarily along the west coast.
East Malaysia is an elongated strip of land approximately 700 miles long with a maximum width of about 170 miles. The coastline of 1,400 miles is paralleled inland by a 900-mile land boundary with Kalimantan. For most of its length, the relief consists of three topographic features. The first is the flat coastal plain. In Sarawak, where the coastline is regular, the plain averages 20 to 40 miles in width, while in Sabah, where the coastline is rugged and deeply indented, it is only 10 to 20 miles wide. Inland from the coastal plain is the second topographic feature, the hill-and-valley region. Elevations there generally are less than 1,000 feet, but isolated groups of hills reach heights of 2,500 feet or more. The terrain in this region is usually irregular, with steep-sided hills and narrow valleys. The third topographic feature is the mountainous backbone that forms the divide between East Malaysia and Kalimantan. This region, which is higher and nearer the coast in Sabah than in Sarawak, is composed of an eroded and ill-defined complex of plateaus, ravines, gorges, and mountain ranges. The summits of the ranges are between 4,000 and 7,000 feet. Mount Kinabalu, at 13,455 feet (4,101 metres) the highest peak in Malaysia, towers above this mountain complex.
Drainage
Peninsular Malaysia is drained by an intricate system of rivers and streams. The longest river—the Pahang—is only 270 miles long. Streams flow year-round because of the constant rains, but the volume of water transported fluctuates with the localized and torrential nature of the rainfall. In the western part of the peninsula such heavy rainfalls may occur at any time of year, but in the eastern part they are more likely to occur during the northeast monsoon (November to March). Prolonged rains often cause floods, especially in areas where the natural regimes of the rivers have been disrupted by uncontrolled mining or agricultural activities.
As in Peninsular Malaysia, the drainage pattern of East Malaysia is set by the interior highlands, which also form the watershed between Malaysia and Indonesia. The rivers, also perennial because of the year-round rainfall, form a dense network covering the entire region. The longest river in Sarawak, the Rajang, is about 350 miles long and is navigable by shallow-draft boats for about 150 miles from its mouth; its counterpart in Sabah, the Kinabatangan, is of comparable length but is navigable for only about 120 miles from its mouth. The rivers are important because they provide a means of communication between the coast and the interior. Settlement also has taken place along the rivers, as it did on the peninsula in an earlier period.
Soils
The soils of both portions of Malaysia have been exposed for a long period of time to intense tropical weathering, with the result that most of their plant nutrients have been leached out. Soils typically are strongly acidic and coarse-textured and have low amounts of organic matter. Any organic matter when exposed to weathering is rapidly oxidized, and the soils consequently become even poorer. Soil erosion is always a danger on sloping ground, where such additional measures as building contour embankments or planting protective cover crops are required.
Only a small proportion of the soils of Peninsular Malaysia are fertile; regular applications of fertilizers are therefore necessary in order to sustain crop yields. Generally, soil conditions in Sarawak and Sabah do not differ greatly from those on the peninsula. Of these three regions, only Sabah has appreciable areas of fertile soils. These are found in particular in the southeastern coastal areas, where the parent material from which the soil is formed is composed of chemically basic volcanic materials.
Climate
Both peninsular and insular Malaysia are in the same latitudes and are influenced by similar airstreams. They consequently have high temperatures and humidities, heavy rainfall, and a climatic year patterned around the northeast and southwest monsoons. The country is influenced by eight or nine major airstreams flowing from the northeast, the south, and the west; the advance and retreat of these airstreams are responsible for the division of the climatic year into four seasons. These are the northeast monsoon (from November or December until March), the first intermonsoonal period (March to April or May), the southwest monsoon (June to September or early October), and the second intermonsoonal period (October to November). The onset and retreat of the two monsoons are not sharply defined.
Malaysia has an equatorial climate, but the narrowness and topographic configuration of each portion—central mountainous cores with flat, flanking coastal plains—facilitate the inland penetration of maritime climatic influences. In addition, the monsoons further modify the climate. The northeast monsoon brings heavy rain and rough seas to the exposed coasts of southwestern Sarawak and northern and northeastern Sabah. The southwest monsoon, however, affects mainly the southwestern coastal belt of Sabah. Floods are common, especially along the west coast of Sabah. Neither peninsular nor insular Malaysia is in the typhoon belt, but their coasts occasionally are subject to the heavy rainstorms associated with squalls.
Temperatures are uniformly high throughout the year. On the peninsula, they average 78° to 82° F (25° to 28° C) for most lowland areas. In coastal areas in East Malaysia, minimum temperatures range from 72° to 76° F (22° to 24° C), and maximum temperatures from 88° to 92° F (31° to 33° C); temperatures are lower in the interior highland regions. The mean annual rainfall on the peninsula is approximately 100 inches (2,540 millimetres); the driest location, Kuala Kelawang (formerly Jelebu), near Kuala Lumpur, receives about 65 inches of rain per year, while the wettest, Maxwell's Hill, northwest of Ipoh, receives some 200 inches annually. Mean annual rainfall in Sabah varies from 80 to 140 inches, while most parts of Sarawak receive 120 inches or more per year.
Plant life
The characteristic vegetation of Malaysia is dense, evergreen rain forest. Rain forest still covers about half of the peninsula and some three-fourths of Sarawak and Sabah; another fraction is under swamp forest. Soil type, location, and altitude produce distinctive vegetation zones: tidal swamp forest on the coast, freshwater- and peat-swamp forest on the ill-drained parts of the coastal plains, lowland rain forest on the well-drained parts of the coastal plains and foothills up to an altitude of about 2,000 feet, and submontane and montane (lower mountain-type) forest above that elevation. The highly leached and sandy soils of parts of central Sarawak and the coast support an open, heathlike forest known locally as kerangas forest.
The flora of the Malaysian rain forest is among the richest in the world. There are some 8,000 species of flowering plants, of which at least 2,500 are trees. An acre (0.4 hectare) of forest may have as many as 100 different species of trees, as well as shrubs, herbs, lianas (creepers), and epiphytes (nonparasitic plants that grow on other plants and derive nourishment from the atmosphere). The forest canopy is so dense that little sunlight can penetrate it. As a result, the undergrowth usually is poorly developed and—contrary to popular belief—is not impenetrable. Much of the original rain forest has been destroyed by severe wind and lightning storms, by indigenous peoples clearing it for shifting cultivation, or by clearances made for agricultural or commercial purposes. When such cleared land is subsequently abandoned, coarse grassland, scrub, and secondary forest develop.
Animal life
The forests and scrublands are inhabited by a large variety of animal life. Mammals on the peninsula include the elephant, tiger, seladang (or Malayan gaur, a massive wild ox), Sumatran rhinoceros, tapir (a hoofed and snouted quadruped), wild pig, and many species of deer, including the pelandok, or chevrotain (a small, deerlike ruminant). Crocodiles, monitor lizards, and cobras also are indigenous to the country, while the green sea turtle and the giant leathery turtle nest regularly on the beaches of the east coast.
Animal life in East Malaysia is even more varied than it is on the peninsula. In addition to the peninsular species, East Malaysia is also the home of the fast-disappearing orangutan and rhinoceros, the sun bear (also called the honey bear), and the unique proboscis monkey—a reddish tree-living species. There also are vast numbers of cave swifts, whose nests are regularly collected and sold as the main ingredient of bird's nest soup.
Settlement patterns
The people of Malaysia are predominantly rural. Their settlements are similar in appearance and pattern to those of their rural counterparts elsewhere in Southeast Asia. The basic unit in both East and Peninsular Malaysia is the kampong (village, or community of houses), consisting of dwellings on stilts.
The houses of Peninsular Malaysia usually are built of wood, and traditionally they have a thatched roofing called atap that is woven from the leaves of the nipa palm (a species also used for basketry); increasingly common are roofs of corrugated metal. Each house is surrounded by a grove of coconut palms and banana, papaya, and other fruit trees. The four main types of Malay settlement—fishing villages, paddy (wet-rice) villages, cash-crop villages, and mixed-crop villages—despite their variations, conform to the same basic pattern. Most other rural settlements on the peninsula are associated with peoples who have settled in the country since the early 19th century. The earliest of these were the mining camps, which sprang up in the tin fields in the west. Some have since grown into large towns, but others—especially in the Kinta River valley—still remain small. The British introduced the plantation system of agriculture, and the subsequent cultivation of rubber and the oil palm changed the face of rural Peninsular Malaysia. Added to the landscape was the plantation, or estate, settlement, typically a group of buildings consisting of the processing factory and storehouse, the labourers' quarters, and the manager's house.
New Villages represent a type of settlement that is unique to Peninsular Malaysia. These originally were simply groups of buildings that were established as defensive sites near roads between 1948 and 1960, during the Emergency, the formal name for the period when the British administration was engaged in suppressing the communist guerrilla uprising. With the end of the Emergency in 1960, some of the New Villages were abandoned, but most of them became permanent settlements. A more recent and significant government program has involved the resettlement of poor Malays into forest areas, which are cleared and planted in rubber trees and oil palms; since the mid-1950s, more than 100,000 families have been resettled.
About three-fourths of the population of East Malaysia is still rural, and it is in the rural areas that the greatest variety of settlement types is encountered. This variety is a direct reflection of the considerable ethnic diversity of the population and of the fact that indigenous as well as immigrant groups are settled in the rural areas. The non-Malay indigenous ethnic groups—including the Iban (Sea Dayak), Bidayuh (Land Dayak), Kenyah, Kayan, and Murut—are thinly scattered in the foothill country and, to some extent, in the coastal lowlands as well. They are primarily shifting cultivators and live in locations on or near riverbanks. Their traditional dwelling is the longhouse, which is more commonly found in Sarawak than in Sabah. Each longhouse is raised on stilts and is composed of a number of rooms, known as bileks; each bilek houses a family. A longhouse can grow by accretions of related families, and an Iban longhouse may in time reach a length of 40 or more bileks. Some groups, such as the Melanau of Sarawak and the Kadazan of Sabah, have abandoned the longhouse settlement form, adopting instead the single-family dwelling of the Malays.
The Malays and Melanau of East Malaysia share many common characteristics with their rural counterparts on the peninsula. They tend to be riverine and coastal peoples, with an economy based on agriculture and fishing. Many live in kampongs set in the midst of coconut palms, mangroves, or other swamp trees. Their houses generally are built on stilts. The Melanau live in the large delta swamp region between Bintulu and Rajang. The rural Chinese in Sarawak have settled in the region between the coast and the uplands, usually in homesteads strung along both sides of the roads, where they grow cash crops in smallholdings. Their houses are commonly built at ground level and thus are easily distinguishable from the stilt-raised dwellings of the indigenous peoples.
The cities and large towns of Peninsular Malaysia were built up during the colonial and postcolonial periods and are distributed mainly in the tin and rubber belt along the west side of the peninsula. The towns are associated with mining, purchasing, processing, distributing, exporting, and administrative functions, and each town usually performs several of these functions. Some towns are located at coastal or riverine sites, emphasizing the early importance of water transport, while more modern towns have been built in inland areas served by road, rail, and air transport.
There is a growing number of satellite towns such as Petaling Jaya (outside Kuala Lumpur), although most of the towns of Peninsular Malaysia are unplanned, having grown up around small nuclei. Urban land use generally is mixed, and buildings are put to multiple uses. Streets, built for a more leisurely era, are narrow and often congested. In the larger centres, such as Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, and George Town (Pinang, or Penang), distinct central business districts similar to those in Western cities have emerged. These are characterized by heavy population and traffic densities, high land values, and a concentration of shopping, banking, insurance, entertainment, and other facilities.
Urbanization in East Malaysia has proceeded slowly. Only a small percentage of people live in towns. The largest towns are Kuching, Sibu, and Miri in Sarawak and Sandakan, Kota Kinabalu, and Tawau in Sabah. The large towns invariably are located on coastal or riverine sites. The layout and appearance of these towns are markedly similar: a wharf area, rows of Chinese shop-houses in the central business districts, more substantial buildings in the governmental administrative area, and one or more timber and atap kampongs built on the riverbanks.
The people
The population of Malaysia is unevenly divided between Peninsular and East Malaysia, with the vast majority living in Peninsular Malaysia. The population shows great ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and religious diversity. A significant distinction is made between indigenous peoples (aborigines and Malays, collectively often called bumiputra) and immigrants (primarily Chinese and South Asians). In addition, there are important differences among the indigenous peoples themselves and among religious groups.
Ethnic composition, languages, and religions
The Malay Peninsula, situated at one of the great maritime crossroads of the world, has long been the meeting place of peoples from other parts of Asia. As a result, the population shows the ethnographic complexity typical of Southeast Asia as a whole. In general, there are four groups of people, given in the order of their appearance on the peninsula: the Orang Asli (aborigines), the Malays, the Chinese, and the South Asians. In addition, there are small numbers of Europeans, Americans, Eurasians, Arabs, and Thai.
The Orang Asli constitute the smallest group and can be divided ethnically into the Jakun, who speak an archaic Malay, and the Semang and Senoi, who speak languages of the Mon-Khmer language family. They are primarily adherents of traditional religions, but a number have been converted to Islām.
The Malays originated in different parts of the peninsula and archipelagic Southeast Asia. They constitute about two-thirds of the population and are politically the most important group. They share with each other a common culture, speak a common Austronesian language—Malay (officially called Bahasa Malaysia), which is the national language—and are overwhelmingly Muslim. Adherence to Islām is regarded as one of the most important factors distinguishing a Malay from a non-Malay, and the number of Malays who are not Muslim is negligible. Minor differences in dialect, culture, and physical characteristics are noticeable among the Malays living in the south in Johor state, on the east coast in the states of Kelantan and Terengganu, and on the west coast in the states of Negeri Sembilan, Perak, Kedah, and Perlis.
The Chinese, who make up about one-third of the peninsular population, originally migrated from southeastern China. They are ethnically homogeneous but are less homogeneous than the Malays in language and religion. Several different dialects are spoken, notably Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka, and Hainanese. Thus, it may be necessary for two Chinese to converse in Mandarin Chinese, English, or Malay. A minority, the Baba Chinese, speak a Malay patois, although otherwise they remain Chinese in customs, manners, and habit. The Chinese do not have a dominant religion; most of them, while subscribing to Confucian moral precepts, are either Buddhist or Taoist. A small minority is Christian.
The peoples from South Asia—Indians, Pakistanis, and Tamils from Sri Lanka—constitute about 10 percent of the population of Peninsular Malaysia. Linguistically, they can be subdivided into speakers of Dravidian languages (Tamil, Telugu, Malayālam, and others) and speakers of Indo-European languages (PunjāĠī, Bengali, Pashto, and Sinhalese). Numerically, the Tamil speakers are the largest group. Most of the Indians and Sri Lankans are Hindu, while the Pakistanis are predominantly Muslim. Some Indians have been converted to Christianity. The Sikhs, from the Punjab, adhere to their own religion, Sikhism.
The population of East Malaysia is ethnographically even more complex than that of Peninsular Malaysia. The government has tended to oversimplify the situation in Sarawak and Sabah, officially recognizing only some of the dozens of ethnolinguistic groups in those two states. The main ethnic groups in Sarawak are the Chinese, various speakers of mutually unintelligible Austronesian languages including the Iban (Sea Dayak), the Malays, the Bidayuh (Land Dayak), and the Melanau.
The Chinese of Sarawak, like those on the peninsula, originally came from southeastern China. The relative size of each dialect group is reversed, however, as speakers of Hakka and Fu-chou (Hokchiu) in Sarawak outnumber those speaking Cantonese and Hokkien. As in Peninsular Malaysia, nearly all the Chinese of Sarawak follow Confucianism and practice Buddhism or Taoism.
The Iban are the largest and most important indigenous group in Sarawak. Their origins are obscure, but traditionally they were headhunters. The Iban are a homogeneous people speaking a language described as a type of pre-Islāmic Sumatran Malay. Most of them live in the interior uplands, where they are longhouse dwellers practicing shifting cultivation. They have a distinctive culture, in which nearly every activity is influenced or governed by their animist religious beliefs.
The Malays of Sarawak are a heterogeneous group of people, among whom only a few are of peninsular origin. Most are the descendants of aboriginal peoples who since the mid-15th century have converted to Islām and adopted the Malay way of life. Although ethnically diverse, they are culturally homogeneous, speaking a common language and practicing Islām.
The Bidayuh live in hill country, most being found in the far western portion of Sarawak. Although all are of the same ethnic group, they speak a number of different but related dialects that to some extent are mutually intelligible. The majority of the Bidayuh practice traditional religions, but Christian missionaries have made some converts among them.
The Melanau differ ethnically from the Sarawak Malays, but their dialects, which are distinct from Malay, do not differ sufficiently to constitute a barrier to communication. The great majority of Melanau are Muslim, with the rest (except for a small number of Christians), following traditional religions. Other indigenous peoples—including the Kenyah, Kayan, Kedayan, Murut, Kelabit, Bisaya (Bisayah), and Punan—contribute much to Sarawak's ethnic and cultural diversity.
Sabah also has a kaleidoscopic mixture of peoples. The largest groups are the Kadazan, Chinese, Bajau, and Murut, while a significant proportion consists of such indigenous peoples as the Kedayan, Orang Sungei, Bisaya, Sulu, and Tidong. Europeans, Eurasians, Malays, Indonesians, Filipinos, and South Asians make up the remainder.
Kadazan society consists of a number of tribes, each speaking a dialect that the others can understand. The great majority of Kadazan are animists, although a significant proportion are Christian and a small number are Muslim. Most of the Chinese are Hakka-speaking, the other important dialects being Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew, and Hainanese. The Bajau are not a cohesive community, as they are split into two main groups: sedentary agriculturists living on the north coast and those who live by the sea on the east coast. Most are Muslim, but not all of them can communicate with each other. The Murut of Sabah are descended from the same people as the Kadazan and are ethnically different from the Murut of Sarawak. They are shifting cultivators. Although they are divided into subtribes, their languages are mutually intelligible. Most follow traditional religions, with a significant minority being Christian.
Demographic trends
The average life expectancy in Malaysia has increased significantly since the end of World War II. Death rates for all groups are less than half of what they were in the late 1950s, and infant mortality rates also have declined sharply. Mortality rates tend to be lower in towns and cities, where there are better health services; since the Chinese usually are urban dwellers, their death rates are lower than those for the country as a whole. Birth rates have declined significantly since the 1960s, but the rate of natural increase has remained high.
Before World War II, there was a free flow of people to and from both Peninsular and East Malaysia, and the rate of population growth was greatly influenced by a net surplus from in-migration. A series of laws passed since 1945, and particularly after the political separation from Singapore, now restricts the entry of immigrants from all countries. Thus, immigration is no longer a major cause of population growth.
The major area of population concentration in Peninsular Malaysia is an axis of economic development on the west side of the peninsula. Much smaller concentrations are found in the Kelantan and Terengganu river deltas in the northeast. The remainder of the peninsula—the interior uplands and most of the east—generally is sparsely populated. Slightly more than half the population of the peninsula's urban centres is Chinese, and about one-third is Malay; Indians and Pakistanis make up most of the remainder.
The population density of East Malaysia is considerably less than that for the peninsula. As in the west, the main concentrations are along the coasts and rivers. In Sarawak the heavy concentration of people in the southwest makes this region the most important in East Malaysia. The population is similarly clustered on the coast in Sabah, but riverine settlements are less important than in Sarawak. As on the peninsula, the urban population is predominantly Chinese.
The economy
Malaysia's economy has been transformed since 1970 from one based primarily on the export of raw materials (rubber and tin) to one that is among the strongest, most diversified, and fastest-growing in Southeast Asia. Primary production remains important: the country is the world's largest producer of rubber and palm oil, exports considerable quantities of petroleum and natural gas, and is one of the world's largest sources of commercial hardwoods. Increasingly, however, Malaysia has emphasized export-oriented manufacturing to fuel its economic growth. Using the comparative advantage of a relatively inexpensive but educated labour force, well-developed infrastructure, political stability, and an undervalued currency, Malaysia has attracted considerable foreign investment, especially from Japan and Taiwan.
The focal point of this growth has been the manufacture of electrical and electronic products and textiles, which together have become one of the most important sources of export earnings. The success of the manufacturing effort has been reflected by the development of a variety of heavy industries, including steelmaking and automobile assembly—the latter implemented through a Malaysian-Japanese joint venture. Peninsular Malaysia, especially the urban area of Kuala Lumpur and the rest of the developed area along the western side of the peninsula, accounts for nearly all of the country's manufacturing output.
Since the early 1970s the Malaysian government has championed a social and economic restructuring strategy, first known as the New Economic Policy (NEP), that seeks to strike a balance between the goals of economic growth and the redistribution of wealth. Traditionally, the Malaysian economy has been dominated by the country's Chinese and South Asian minorities. The goal of the NEP has been to endow the Malays and other indigenous groups with greater economic opportunities and to develop their management and entrepreneurial skills. Official economic policy also has encouraged the private sector to take a greater role in the restructuring process. A major component of this policy has been the privatization of many public-sector activities, including the national railway, airline, automobile manufacturer, and telecommunications company.
Malaysia's systems of public finance—auditing and organization of accounts, parliamentary control, and revenue collection—are generally based on British principles. The primary role of the country's fiscal system is to raise revenue for governmental expenditure, rather than being a mechanism to manipulate the pace of economic activity, the level of employment, or prices. The greater part of government revenues are raised by taxation—roughly equally divided between direct (income) taxes and indirect taxes (e.g., customs and excise duties).
Malaysia's rapid economic expansion has created a great demand for additional labour for the manufacturing and service sectors. The labour shortage has tended to increase wages. Nonetheless, there has been a relatively limited flow of workers from East to Peninsular Malaysia despite the economic incentives, prompting interest in recruiting foreign workers.
Resources
Malaysia is rich in mineral resources. The major metallic ores are tin, bauxite (aluminum), copper, and iron. A host of minor ores found within the country include manganese, antimony, mercury, and gold. The production of tin formed one of the main economic pillars upon which the country's development effort has been built. It is found largely in alluvial deposits along the western slopes of the Main Range in Peninsular Malaysia, with smaller deposits on the east coast of the peninsula. Malaysia's most valuable mineral resources, however, are its reserves of petroleum and natural gas. The major fields are all offshore, off the east coast of the peninsula and off Sarawak. Malaysia also has large reserves of coal, peat, and wood, and it has considerable hydroelectric potential.
Agriculture
Agriculture, forestry, and fishing were the traditional basis of the Malaysian economy. Their contribution to the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) gradually has declined from roughly one-third in 1970 to less than one-fifth. These three activities still engage the largest percentage of the workforce, but the proportion is diminishing.
The main food crop, rice, is grown on small farms. Despite the widespread advances brought about by the introduction of improved plant varieties and chemical fertilizers and pesticides (the so-called Green Revolution), rice production has declined. The main causes of this have been unfavourable weather conditions and the loss of farm labour to urban manufacturing jobs, the latter situation having the effect of reducing the amount of land that can be worked. As a result, the country is not self-sufficient in rice production and must make up the shortfall with imports, chiefly from Thailand. Shifting cultivation is practiced primarily in East Malaysia.
The most important cash crops are palm oil and rubber. Together these account for a significant (though declining) proportion of Malaysia's commodity exports. The production of palm oil and rubber has been subject to considerable fluctuations in the price of these commodities, which has resulted in a decline in the number of plantations. Palm oil has become more important than rubber in terms of value. Also important are cocoa, pepper, and coconuts.
Forestry and fishing
The extensive forests of both Peninsular and East Malaysia are heavily exploited for their timber. The lowland evergreen tropical rain forest is the principal forest formation of commercial importance, being rich in species of the economically valuable Dipterocarpaceae family. Sarawak and Sabah account for the greater part of all timber production. Concern has been raised, however, about the pace of deforestation caused by the combination of shifting agriculture and intensive logging operations in East Malaysia. Attempts have been made to curtail log exports from the region and to substitute wood-based industries, such as the manufacture of plywood and furniture. Logging remains important in Peninsular Malaysia, although much of the easily accessible timber has been cut. The region also has a long history of careful forest management and conservation, and the effects of deforestation there have not been as serious.
Traditionally, most of Malaysia's fish catch has been from the shallow seas off its coasts, where the water's nutrient levels—and hence its productivity—generally have been low. In the 1970s the country's fishing industry was modernized, notably by the addition of trawlers and mechanized fishing boats. This allowed the more abundant offshore fish resources to be tapped, leading to a dramatic increase in catches. Malaysia has become a major fishing nation, even though production peaked in about 1980 and much of the fishing industry has remained confined to the overexploited shallow onshore waters. Aquaculture production also has increased, although the country's potential has remained largely undeveloped.
Mining and power
Extractive industries still contribute significantly to Malaysia's GDP. Tin output has declined dramatically since the 1970s, however, because of the depletion of readily accessible alluvial deposits, rising mining costs, and fluctuating demand in the world tin market. Petroleum production has increased in importance, as has the production of liquefied natural gas; together they account for a major portion of the country's commodity export earnings. Of some importance are copper, bauxite, and iron, although production of these ores has varied greatly with fluctuations in world markets. Iron output has declined as high-grade deposits have been depleted. Malaysia's bauxite production is centred near Johor at the south end of the peninsula, while the nation's copper comes from western Sabah.
Malaysia's petroleum resources constitute the major energy source for power generation. The country's proven reserves of coal and peat are not economical to mine and have remained largely unexploited. Wood and charcoal were the traditional domestic fuels, but in the urban areas they have been displaced by bottled gas. Hydroelectricity accounts for more than one-fourth of all energy production, but most of this generating power is concentrated on the peninsula; the abundant rainfall and steep gradients of the rivers in the interior highlands offer good opportunities for further exploitation in both portions of the country.
Industry
Manufacturing has undergone rapid expansion since the 1970s and has become the leading edge of Malaysia's economic growth. It now accounts for the largest share of the country's GDP, although primary activities still employ more workers. Growth has been especially notable in industries assembling electronic equipment, electrical machinery, and appliances and those making chemical products and textiles. The main development goal has been the manufacture of goods for export, with a lesser emphasis on import substitution. One strategy designed to promote manufactured exports has been the establishment of a number of free trade zones, which have provided duty-free access to imported raw materials and semifinished parts and numerous investment and export incentives. Industrial estates also have been established in less-developed parts of the country to stimulate manufacturing and to balance industrial growth, but manufacturing capacity has remained highly concentrated. The country's heavy industries—more important politically than economically—generally have been saddled with excess capacity and high production costs. Increasingly, development strategy has shifted to the promotion of small and medium industries that manufacture their own parts and acquire technology from more economically developed countries, the aim being to move beyond the stage of assembly-only manufacturing.
Finance and trade
Malaysia has an active and growing financial sector, which has been encouraged by government policies that promote foreign investment, market competition, and the privatization of publicly held enterprises. Banking and insurance are regulated by the state-run Bank Negara Malaysia. The state permits a variety of banking activities, including a semipublic bank that operates on Islāmic financial principles. Kuala Lumpur has a commodities exchange and a stock exchange.
Malaysia's export structure has shifted dramatically since 1970, from one dominated by rubber and tin to one in which manufactured goods now account for more than half of all export earnings. Electrical and electronic products constitute the largest proportion of exported manufactures. Commodities exports, however, remain important. Imports are dominated by machinery and other manufactured goods. Malaysia's chief trading partners are Japan, Singapore, and the United States. Such newly industrialized Asian countries as South Korea and Taiwan account for a growing share of trade. Malaysia is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and trade with other ASEAN nations (outside of that with member Singapore) also is increasing.
Transportation
Malaysia's transportation systems have been improved considerably since independence, although demand generally has outstripped capacity. In addition, much more attention has been given to developing the infrastructure of Peninsular Malaysia than that of East Malaysia. The peninsula's road network includes high-speed express highways and numerous hard-surfaced secondary roads; it is especially well-developed in the major industrial states. The road network in East Malaysia is much less extensive, with fewer paved roads. Malaysia's small railway system, confined primarily to the peninsula, is of much less significance than its roads.
River transport is of great importance in East Malaysia, especially in Sarawak. Malaysia's long and accessible coastlines have long fostered maritime trade. Several ports, notably George Town and Port Kelang on the Strait of Malacca, have become major container-handling facilities. Numerous other ports have been developed, including Kuantan on the eastern coast of the peninsula, Kuching in Sarawak, and Kota Kinabalu in Sabah. Air transport has grown rapidly, with passenger traffic increasing especially on the peninsula. An internal air network connects all Malaysian states, and Kuala Lumpur and Pinang have international airports.
Administration and social conditions
Government
Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy with a nonpolitical head of state, or yang di-pertuan agong (“paramount ruler”), who is elected from among nine state hereditary rulers for a five-year term. The federal legislature consists of the Senate (Dewan Negara) and the House of Representatives (Dewan Rakyat). The federal government also has a prime minister and cabinet, an independent judiciary, and a politically neutral civil service.
The powers of the federal parliament are relatively broad and include the authority to legislate in matters concerning government finances, defense, foreign policy, internal security, the administration of justice, and citizenship. The state legislatures, however, retain responsibility for issues pertaining to Islāmic law and for matters regarding personal and family laws affecting Muslims, as well as for land laws. The constitution also provides that some issues may be addressed either by the federal or by a state legislature.
The House of Representatives functions in a manner similar to that of the British House of Commons. It has a membership of 180, of which 132 are from Peninsular Malaysia, 27 from Sarawak, and 21 from Sabah. Members are elected to office from single-member constituencies by a simple majority to terms of five years. The Senate has a membership of 69; of these, 43 members are appointed by the yang di-pertuan agong on the recommendation of the prime minister (including 2 from the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur and 1 from the federal territory of Labuan), and the other 26 are elected—2 from each of the 13 states—by the state legislative assemblies. Voting in either house is by a simple majority, but amendments to the constitution require a two-thirds majority. A bill passed by both houses and sanctioned by the yang di-pertuan agong becomes a federal law.
The yang di-pertuan agong appoints a prime minister from the members of the House of Representatives. On the advice of the prime minister, the yang di-pertuan agong then appoints the other ministers who make up the cabinet. The number of ministers is not fixed, but all must be members of the federal parliament.
Each state of Malaysia has its own written constitution, legislative assembly, and executive council responsible to the legislative assembly and headed by a chief minister. Several Malay states—Johor, Kedah, Kelantan, Pahang, Perak, Selangor, and Terengganu—have hereditary rulers (sultans). The raja (king) is the ruler in Perlis, and the yang di-pertuan besar (“chief ruler”) in Negeri Sembilan. The heads of state of Melaka, Pulau Pinang (Penang Island), Sarawak, and Sabah—known as yang di-pertuan negeri—are appointed to office. The ruler of a state acts on the advice of the state government. The constitution provides for parliamentary elections and for elections to state legislatures, to be held at least every five years.
Political parties
Malaysia has a multiparty political system, and since about 1970 it has held free elections and changed prime ministers peacefully. Party affiliation generally is based on ethnicity, though less so than at independence. Malaysian political life is dominated by the National Front (Barisan Nasional), a broad coalition of ethnically oriented parties that long has been controlled by the United Malays National Organization. The main opposition parties are the Democratic Action Party (consisting primarily of Chinese), the Muslim Unity Movement (a coalition of pro-Islāmic parties), and the Sabah People's Union. The Communist Party of Malaya and the offshoot Malaysian Communist Party are illegal opposition parties.
Justice
The constitution of Malaysia, which is the supreme law of the country, provides that the judicial power of the federation shall be vested in two High Courts, one in Peninsular Malaysia and the other in East Malaysia, and also in subordinate courts. Above the High Courts is the Supreme Court (Mahkamah Agung), with jurisdiction to hear and determine appeals from decisions by any High Court. The supreme head of the judiciary is the lord president of the Supreme Court.
Each High Court consists of a chief justice and a number of other judges—up to 33 in Peninsular Malaysia and up to 8 in East Malaysia. The High Court has unlimited criminal and civil jurisdiction and may pass any sentence allowed by law. Below the High Court are the subordinate courts, which consist of the Sessions Courts and the Magistrates' Courts. Both these lower courts have criminal and civil jurisdiction—criminal cases coming before one or the other court depending on the seriousness of the offense and civil cases depending on the sum involved. In addition, there are religious courts in those Malay states that are established under Islāmic law. These courts are governed by state—not federal—legislation.
Armed forces
The Malaysian armed forces have increased in strength and capability since the formation of Malaysia in 1963. After the withdrawal of British military forces from Malaysia and Singapore at the end of 1971, a five-nation agreement between Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, and Great Britain was concluded to ensure defense against external aggression. The ASEAN also provides additional regional security.
The armed forces consist of an army, navy, and air force. The army is the most experienced and the largest of the three, constituting about four-fifths of all military personnel. The Royal Malaysian Navy concentrates mainly on defending the long indented coastlines and narrow waters of the country. The Royal Malaysian Air Force has combat aircraft, as well as many transport aircraft and helicopters.
The states of Malaysia inherited from their common colonial past an internal security system based on the British model. The police force is well trained and combats not only crime but also armed insurrections.
Education
The federal government provides free, noncompulsory primary and secondary education. Primary-school enrollment is nearly universal on the peninsula but is lower in Sabah and Sarawak. The number of students advancing to the secondary level has increased considerably. Institutions of higher learning include the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, the University of Science, Malaysia, in Pinang, the National University of Malaysia in Bangi, and the International Islāmic University in Petaling Jaya. Enrollment in higher education also has increased, and many Malaysian students have studied abroad.
Health and welfare
The general level of health has improved considerably since World War II, which has contributed significantly to the decline in death and infant-mortality rates. The country is free from many of the diseases that plague tropical countries, although such diseases as malaria are still a problem in rural areas. Health conditions and health facilities vary among the component states, being better in Peninsular Malaysia than in Sabah and Sarawak. Health services generally are better in the towns and cities than in the rural areas. Segments of the rural population continue to rely on traditional rather than modern medicine for treatment. Most of the modern health services are provided by the government. Welfare services, however, are provided by both government and private agencies and include relief programs for poor, elderly, and handicapped individuals.
The multicultural character of the population of Malaysia is visibly reflected in the wide variety of houses, which range from the traditional longhouses and stilt houses of the rural peoples to examples of modern high-rise architecture in the cities. Housing shortages are rare in rural areas, but squatter settlements are common in the larger towns and cities. A governmental housing authority has had success in establishing low-cost housing in urban areas.
Certain groups of people, especially in Sarawak and Sabah, live by hunting, gathering, fishing, and simple farming, thereby reducing somewhat the number of wage earners in the total economically active population. Because of the increasing pressure of population on the land, however, there is a growing tendency for young people to seek employment in manufacturing. Since wages in the manufacturing sector are significantly higher than those in agriculture, labour shortages continue to prevail in the rural economy. Industrialization has drawn increasing numbers of workers from the countryside to the cities and has created a greater demand for skilled workers.
Cultural life
Malaysia is a melting pot of several major cultural traditions that stem from archipelagic Southeast Asia as well as from China, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West. Malay culture and Bornean culture are indigenous to the area. In the first one and a half millennia AD, indigenous Malay culture in the Malay Peninsula and in other parts of Southeast Asia was strongly marked by pre-Islāmic Indian and early Islāmic influences. Indian contact with the Malay Peninsula extended from about the 2nd or 3rd to the late 14th century, exerting a profound influence on religion (Hinduism and Buddhism), art, and literature. Islām, introduced to Malacca (now Melaka) in the 15th century, soon became the dominant religion of the Malays. The introduction of Western cultural influences in the 19th century affected many aspects of Malay life, especially in technology, law, social organization, and economics. Contemporary Malay culture is thus multifaceted, consisting of many strands—animistic, early Hindu, early and modern Islāmic, and, especially in the cities, Western—and the collective pattern is distinct from other cultures and recognizably Malay.
Unlike the early Chinese traders who settled in Malacca and George Town (now Pinang) and were partially assimilated (at least to the extent of adopting the Malay language), the Chinese who emigrated in large numbers to the Malay Peninsula in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were usually transients who established self-contained communities. Chinese cultural influence has consequently been minimal. The Chinese immigrants themselves, moreover, did not form a homogeneous group. Their culture in Malaysia has its roots in the culture and civilization of prerevolutionary China, with modifications brought about by local circumstances and environment.
Most of the Indians and Pakistanis originally came as labourers to work in the coffee and rubber plantations. Like the Chinese, they also were mainly transients (until World War II), living in closed communities and remaining virtually unassimilated.
The communities of Malaysia have been affected by British colonial rule and Western cultural influences, especially in education and institutional forms. Traditions and cultural institutions have been least affected in the rural areas—in eastern Peninsular Malaysia and in the interior of East Malaysia—while the cities have been the focus of the most rapid cultural changes.
The arts
External cultural influences have made the least impact in music, dancing, literature, and the decorative arts. In East Malaysia the indigenous cultural background includes no written history or literature. Architecture is little developed, and the principal art forms are dancing and handicrafts, represented notably by the textiles handwoven by the Punan tribe, cloth made by the Bajau people, patterned rattan mats and basketwork, and wood carvings. Particularly on the peninsula, the artistic manifestations of Malay culture are mainly in literature, music, dancing, and the decorative arts. Painting and sculpture are poorly developed, primarily because Islām does not encourage the representation of the human form. Examples of Malay decorative arts include batik cloth (cloth hand-dyed by using a special technique), silverware, the handmade kris (a short sword or heavy dagger with a wavy blade), wood carving, and basketwork. Malaysian Chinese culture is derived from Chinese civilization and is represented by literature, drama, music, painting, and architecture. Some Malaysian artists—of Malay, Chinese, and Indian origin—also have begun to produce new, synthesized, and distinctively Malaysian art forms, especially in painting and architecture.
Press and broadcasting
The newspapers are all privately owned (many by political parties) and vary greatly in circulation, quality of reporting, and news coverage. Among the educated groups, the press is the principal source of information. The radio is relied on in remote rural areas. Television, however, is the most popular medium among all language groups.
Ooi Jin Bee Thomas R. Leinbach
History
Because the Malay Peninsula links mainland and archipelagic Southeast Asia and because Malaysia is characterized by a geographic division, the history of the present-day country can be understood only within a regional framework and as part of the wider context of the western archipelago zone. The Strait of Malacca (Melaka) bisects this realm and long has constituted a crossroads for peoples, cultures, and trade passing through or taking root in the area. Influences from China, India, the Middle East, and, later, Europe followed the maritime trade. Malaya (Peninsular Malaysia) and Sarawak and Sabah (East Malaysia) have shared many historical patterns, but each region also has developed in unique ways.
The rise of Indianized states
Malaysia's prehistory remains insufficiently studied, but bone and artifact discoveries at the Niah Caves site in northern Sarawak confirm modern human habitation in the region that may date to 40,000 years ago. The vast cave complex contains an almost unbroken succession of human frequentations and occupations, including a unique sequence of the evolution of stone tools that persisted until some 1,300 years ago. Malaya has been inhabited for at least 6,000 to 8,000 years, archaeologists having unearthed evidence of Stone Age and early Bronze Age civilizations; Neolithic culture was apparently well-established by 2500 to 1500 BC. Traditional historiography postulated that successive waves of peoples, who now are the modern Malays, migrated into the region from China and Tibet during the 1st millennium BC, pushing earlier inhabitants into the western Pacific or remote mountain enclaves. More recently it has been suggested that instead the southward migration consisted of small groups who imposed their culture and language and created new ethnic fusions.
Small Malayan kingdoms appeared in the 2nd or 3rd century AD, a time when Indian traders and priests began traveling the maritime routes and brought with them Indian concepts of religion, government, and the arts. Over many centuries the peoples of the region, especially the royal courts, synthesized Indian and indigenous ideas, making brilliant and selective use of Indian models—including Hinduism and Mahāyāna Buddhism—in shaping their political and cultural patterns. The most significant complex of Indianized temple ruins has been found around Kedah Peak in northwestern Malaya. The peninsula and northern Borneo both lacked broad, fertile plains and were unable to support the pattern of densely populated classical Southeast Asian civilizations that flourished in Cambodia and Java. Although knowledge is scant and is based chiefly on Chinese written sources, it does appear that perhaps 30 small Indianized states rose and fell in Malaya, mostly along the east coast, during the 1st millennium AD. The most important of these states, Langkasuka, controlled much of northern Malaya. Malaya developed an international reputation as a source of gold and tin, populated by renowned seafarers. Between the 7th and 13th centuries many of these small, often prosperous peninsular maritime trading states may have come under the loose control of Śrīvijaya, the great Sumatra-based empire. At various times the Cambodian Angkor and Javanese Majapahit empires and the Tai Ayutthaya (Ayudhia) kingdom also claimed suzerainty in the region. The early states left a living legacy, traces of which can still be found in the political ideas, social structures, rituals, language, arts, and cultural practices of Malay Muslims.
Although development was slower in more remote, less fertile northern Borneo, Sarawak had entered the Iron Age by AD 600. Archaeological excavations in the Sarawak River delta reveal many ancient sites containing evidence of both ironworking and an enormous trade with China and the Southeast Asian mainland. The local peoples exchanged edible bird's nests, rhinoceros horns, hornbill ivory, camphor, spices, wood, and other goods for Chinese ceramics, metal, and probably clothing. Neolithic boatbuilders along the east coast of Sabah already were involved in extensive interregional trade at about the same time; the maritime peoples of the area called the territory the “land below the wind” because it lay south of the typhoon belt.
The advent of Islām
By the late classical period a new religion, Islām, was filtering quietly into the region from outside, carried chiefly by Arab and Indian merchants. From the 13th through 17th century Sunnite Islām spread widely, coming from the Middle East via India. It offered an egalitarian message that challenged the power of the traditional elites and a complex theology that held much appeal for peasants and merchants in the coastal regions. The spread of Islām was intimately linked to the florescence of the great Indian Ocean maritime trading routes that connected China through the Strait of Malacca to India, the Middle East, and East Africa. Over these routes Indonesian spices, Malayan gold, and Chinese silks and tea traveled to Europe, sparking interest there in reaching the sources of these riches.
The arrival of Islām coincided with the rise of the great port of Malacca (now Melaka), established on Malaya's southwest coast by Sumatran exiles about 1400. The Indianized king—who sensibly and successfully sought a tributary relationship with powerful China—converted to Islām, becoming a “sultan” and hence attracting Muslim merchants. Soon Malacca became Southeast Asia's major trading entrepôt, while at the same time it gained suzerainty over much of coastal Malaya and eastern Sumatra. Malacca served as the main centre for the propagation of Islām as well as the eastern terminus of the Indian Ocean trading network. At its height in the late 15th century, Malacca hosted some 15,000 merchants from many countries, including Chinese, Arabs, Persians, and Indians; there were said to be more ships in the harbour than in any other port in the known world, attracted by a stable government and a policy of free trade. The Chinese admiral Cheng Ho called at the port several times in the first decades of the 15th century as part of the great Ming naval expeditions to the western Indian Ocean. Malacca's political and religious influence reached its height under Tun Perak, who served as prime minister (1456–98) after defeating the expanding Thai in a fierce naval battle; during his service Islām became well-entrenched in such districts (and subsidiary sultanates) as Johor, Kedah, Perak, Pahang, and Terengganu.
The mostly Islāmicized people of the Malacca area began calling themselves “Malays” (a likely elite reference to earlier Śrīvijayan origins). Thereafter, the term Malay applied to those who practiced Islām and spoke a version of the Malay language; identity and behaviour, rather than descent, became the criteria for being Malay, so that previously animist and Hindu-Buddhist peoples of various origins could identify themselves (and even merge) with the prestigious Malays. Over time a loose cultural designation became a coherent ethnic group spread throughout Malaya, northern and western Borneo, eastern Sumatra, and the smaller islands in between, a region that can be termed the “Malay world.” Islām, however, came to overlay the earlier beliefs, so that, before the rise of religious reform movements in the 19th century, few Malays were orthodox Muslims. Hindu-influenced ritual remained important for the elite, and animist spirits were richly incorporated into Islāmic folk beliefs.
Early European intrusions
The fame of Malacca as the crossroads of Asian commerce had reached Europe by the beginning of the 16th century. The Portuguese, who for a century had been seeking a sea route to the Orient, finally arrived at Malacca in 1509, inaugurating a new era of European activity in Southeast Asian history. Although many Southeast Asians, including the inhabitants of northern Borneo, experienced little Western impact before the 19th century, Malaya was one of the first regions disrupted. In 1511 a Portuguese fleet led by Afonso de Albuquerque captured Malacca. Since fewer merchants chose to endure the high taxes and the conquerors' intolerance of Islām, Malacca languished under Portuguese control. Indeed, the undermanned Portuguese barely repulsed repeated assaults by the dynamic sultanate of Aceh (Acheh) of northern Sumatra. Aceh had leaped into the political vacuum created by Malacca's downfall; during the 16th and early 17th centuries Aceh was deeply involved in peninsular affairs, warring against various sultanates and at times controlling some or most of them. The Dutch, who replaced the Portuguese as the dominant European power in Southeast Asia, seized Malacca in 1641; they tried to revive trade, but the city never recovered its earlier glory.
An emphasis on the often complex politics of the peninsula in the post-Malacca years obscures other significant developments. Sultanates continued to be created throughout the Malay world. Usually they were situated at the mouth of a major river and sought to control trade to and from the interior, which often was populated by seminomadic peoples such as the aboriginal Orang Asli of Malaya and the various indigenous peoples of Borneo. Newer, dynamic sultanates—such as Riau-Johor, Kedah, and Brunei (on Borneo's northwest coast)—took over some of the trading functions of Malacca and flourished for several centuries. Islām reached Sarawak and Sabah in the 15th and 16th centuries; many coastal peoples converted, but the interior remained largely animist until the 20th century. Malay political control spread, with the Brunei sultans laying claim to much of what is today Sarawak and Sabah—although their actual power seldom reached much beyond the coastal zone. Attempts by Brunei to control the interior often failed, especially after the aggressive, head-hunting Iban people commenced their migrations into Sarawak from western Borneo (16th through 18th centuries). The Siamese came to control some of the northern Malay sultanates, and the southernmost part of present-day Thailand still has a predominantly Malay Muslim population. The Malay sultanates included many, often feuding chiefdoms, and wars between—or within—sultanates occasionally erupted. Europeans considered the sultanate system politically unstable, but it reflected a chronic situation in which states constituted hierarchical but fluctuating spheres of influence that ruled over mobile populations.
During the 17th century many Minangkabau people migrated from western Sumatra into southwestern Malaya, bringing with them a matrilineal sociocultural system by which property and authority descended through the female side. They elected their chiefs from among eligible aristocratic candidates, a model that has been incorporated into contemporary Malaysia's selection of a king. Later the Minangkabau formed a confederation of nine small states (Negeri Sembilan). The political pluralism of Malaya in the 18th century also facilitated large-scale penetration of the peninsula by the Buginese, a people from southwestern Celebes (Sulawesi) with a well-earned reputation as maritime traders. Buginese immigrants established the sultanate of Selangor in the mid-1700s and also gained dominance in the vigorous sultanate of Johor, at the southern tip of the peninsula, a prosperous trading entrepôt that attracted Asian and European merchants. Despite continuous movement of peoples from the archipelago into the area, Malaya and northern Borneo remained sparsely populated into the early 19th century. Many present-day Malays are descendants of immigrants from elsewhere in archipelagic Southeast Asia who arrived after 1800. Indeed, immigrants from Java, Celebes, and Sumatra demonstrated a tendency to merge with the existing Malay community over time, a process that steadily accelerated with the rise of Malay nationalism and vernacular education in the 1930s. Some of the customs brought by Minangkabau, Javanese, and other immigrants are still practiced in districts where they settled, contributing to the many regional variations of Malay culture and language.
The colonization of Malaysia
Malaya
Except for Malacca, there was little Western influence in Malaya and northern Borneo until the late 18th century, when Britain became interested in the area. The British sought a source for goods to be sold in China, and in 1786 the English East India Company acquired Penang (or Pinang) Island, off Malaya's northwest coast, from the sultan of Kedah. The island soon became a major trading entrepôt with a chiefly Chinese population. British representative Sir Stamford Raffles occupied Singapore Island off the southern tip of the peninsula in 1819, acquiring trading rights in 1824; a strategic location at the southern end of the Strait of Malacca and a fine harbour made Singapore the centre for Britain's economic and political thrust in the peninsula. The British attracted Chinese immigrants to the sparsely populated island, and soon the mainly Chinese port became the region's dominant city and a major base for Chinese economic activity in Southeast Asia. By then the major industrial capitalist power in Europe, Britain next obtained Malacca from the Dutch in 1824 and thereafter governed the three major ports of the Strait of Malacca, which collectively were named the Straits Settlements. The British Colonial Office took direct control in 1867.
With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the full effect of European technological superiority swept over Southeast Asia. The feuding Malay states were little prepared, with the exception of Johor, which was led by the modernizing sultan Abu Bakar. The other state administrations generally were weak and failed to cope with their mounting problems, including the steady immigration of Chinese. By the early 19th century, the Chinese—who were being driven to emigrate by increasing poverty and instability in their homeland—began settling in large numbers in the sultanates along the peninsula's west coast, where they cooperated with local Malay rulers to mine tin. The Chinese organized themselves into tightly knit communities and formed alliances with competing Malay chiefs, and Chinese factions fought wars with each other for control of minerals. Chinese settlers also established towns like Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh, which later grew into major cities. The Chinese and Malays increasingly became leading elements in an inadequately integrated sociopolitical structure, a framework that produced chronic communal friction.
British investors were soon attracted to Malaya's potential mineral wealth, but they were concerned about the political unrest. As a result, local British officials began intervening in various Malayan sultanates by the 1870s, establishing political influence (sometimes employing force or the threat of force) through a system of British residents (advisers). Initial intervention into Malayan internal affairs was crude and incompetent; the first British resident to Perak was murdered by Malays outraged at his assertive actions. Gradually, the British refined their techniques and appointed more able representatives; notable among these was Sir Frank Swettenham, who in 1896 became the first resident-general of a Malay federation of Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, and Pahang, with Kuala Lumpur as the capital. By 1909 the British had pressured Siam into transferring sovereignty over the northern Malay states of Kedah, Terengganu, Kelantan, and Perlis. Johor was compelled to accept a British resident in 1914. These sultanates remained outside the federation. Britain had now achieved formal or informal colonial control over nine sultanates, but it pledged not to interfere in matters of religion, customs, and the symbolic political role of the sultans. The various states kept their separate identities but were increasingly integrated to form British Malaya.
Sarawak
Sarawak's history also entered a new stage when the English adventurer James (later Sir James) Brooke intervened in a revolt against Brunei control and was appointed raja (governor) of the Sarawak River basin in 1841 by the Brunei sultan. Brooke inaugurated a century of rule by a remarkable English family and a new form of imperial endeavour. Simultaneously traditional Bornean potentates, benevolent autocrats, and cautious modernizers, the Brookes viewed themselves as protectors of Sarawak's people. Brooke spent his final years consolidating his control of surrounding districts and defending his government against various challenges. Although the first raja's political and financial position was often precarious, Sarawak eventually acquired the status of an independent state under British protection. Relations with Britain, however, were often strained, chiefly because of a consistent Brooke policy of incorporating territory at the expense of the declining Brunei sultanate. The present boundaries of Sarawak were achieved by 1906, but by then the once-powerful Brunei also had become a British protectorate.
Sabah
Sabah (North Borneo) was the last region to be brought under British control. In the early 1700s Brunei transferred its claims over much of Sabah to the sultan of Sulu, but, except in the northeast, actual Sulu power remained limited. Occasional resistance to Brunei or Sulu influence, as well as extensive coastal raiding and confusion of suzerainty, invited Western interest beginning in the 18th century. Despite short-lived American activity in the 1860s, British power proved most decisive. Britain had already acquired the offshore island of Labuan from Brunei by 1846. They gained a toehold in Sabah proper in 1872 when a British merchant, William Cowie, founded an east-coast settlement at Sandakan on lease from Sulu. By 1881 the British had obtained rights to much of Sabah and launched the British North Borneo Company, which, based in Sandakan, ruled the British protectorate from 1881 to 1941. The company operated the state in the interest of its shareholders but was only moderately prosperous, because of high overhead and poor management; its 60 years of rule, however, established the economic, administrative, and political framework of modern Sabah.
The impact of colonialism
The British presence in the region reflected several patterns: direct colonial rule in the Straits Settlements, more indirect control in some of the east-coast Malay sultanates, and family or corporate control in Borneo. Regardless of the political form, however, British rule brought profound changes, transforming the various states socially and economically. The Brookes and the North Borneo Company faced prolonged resistance before they consolidated their control, while occasional local revolts punctuated British rule in Malaya as well. In Sarawak in 1857, for example, interior Chinese gold-mining communities nearly succeeded in toppling the intrusive James Brooke before being crushed, while Muslim chief Mat Salleh fought expanding British power in Sabah from 1895 to 1900. The Brookes mounted bloody military campaigns to suppress head-hunting and to forcibly incorporate the autonomy-loving Iban, and similar “pacification” campaigns were carried out in Sabah. Those who resisted British annexation or policies were portrayed by colonialists as treacherous, reactionary rebels; but many of them are now hailed in Malaysia as nationalist heroes.
British administration eventually achieved peace and security. In Malaya the Malay sultans retained their symbolic status at the apex of an aristocratic social system, although they lost some of their political authority and independence. British officials believed that the Malay peasants needed to be protected from economic and cultural change and that traditional class divisions should be maintained. Hence, most economic development was left to Chinese and Indian immigrants, as long as it served long-term colonial interests. The Malay elite enjoyed a place in the new colonial order as civil servants. Many Malayan and Bornean villagers were affected by colonial taxes, however, and were forced to shift from subsistence to cash-crop farming; their economic well-being became subject to fluctuations in world commodity prices. Much economic growth occurred; British policies promoted the planting of pepper, gambier (a plant producing a resin used for tanning and dyeing), tobacco, oil palm, and especially rubber, which along with tin became the region's major exports. Malaya and British North Borneo developed classic extractive, plantation-based economies oriented to the resource and market needs of the industrializing West.
British authorities in Malaya devoted much effort to constructing a transportation infrastructure, in which railways and road networks linked the tin fields to the coast; port facilities also were improved to facilitate resource exports. These developments stimulated growth in the tin and rubber industries to meet world demand. The tin industry remained chiefly in immigrant Chinese hands through the 19th century, but more highly capitalized, technologically sophisticated British firms took over much of the tin production and export by World War II. The rubber tree was first introduced from Brazil in the 1870s, but rubber did not supersede the earlier coffee and gambier plantings until near the end of the century. By the early 20th century thousands of acres of forest had been cleared for rubber growing, much of it on plantations but some farmed by smallholders. Malaya became the world's greatest exporter of natural rubber, with rubber and tin providing the bulk of colonial tax revenues.
The British also improved public health facilities, reducing the incidence of some tropical diseases, and they facilitated the establishment of government Malay and Christian mission (mostly English-language) schools; the Chinese generally had to develop their own schools. These separate school systems, however, helped perpetuate the pluralistic society. Some Chinese, Malays, and Indians benefited from British economic policies, while others enjoyed no improvement or saw living standards drop. Government-sanctioned opium and alcohol use provided a major revenue source in some areas.
Between 1800 and 1941 several million Chinese entered Malaya (especially the west-coast states), Sarawak, and British North Borneo to work as labourers, miners, planters, and merchants. South Indian Tamils were imported as the workforce in Malayan rubber estates. Malays accounted for 90 percent of Malaya's population in 1800, but by 1911 they constituted only about 60 percent. A pluralistic society was developing, with most Malays in villages, Chinese in towns, and Indians on plantations. Colonial authorities skillfully utilized “divide and rule” tactics to maintain their control. Through enterprise, organization, and cooperation, many Chinese became part of a prosperous, urban middle class that controlled retail trade. The various ethnic groups generally lived in their own neighbourhoods, followed different occupations, practiced their own religions, spoke their own languages, operated their own schools, and later formed their own political organizations. Some mostly ethnically oriented nationalist currents stirred in Malaya, Singapore, and Sarawak by the 1930s. Malay groups either pursued Islāmic revitalization and reform or debated the future of the Malays in a plural society, while Chinese organizations were oriented toward political trends in China.
The Borneo states experienced many of the same changes. Sir Charles Brooke, who governed Sarawak from 1868 to 1917, succeeded his uncle, passing the state on to his son, Charles Vyner de Windt Brooke (ruled 1917–46); they furthered the Brooke pattern of personal rule. Chinese immigrants came in response to economic incentives, and by 1939 they accounted for a quarter of the state population. The Brookes involved the Malay elite in government. Sarawak society came to be characterized by a three-way division: most Malays in government or fishing; most Chinese in trade, labour, and cash-crop farming; and most Iban in the police force or shifting cultivation. Gambier and pepper were planted, with Sarawak becoming the major world supplier of the latter crop. Later, rubber became dominant, and an oil industry developed. Most cash-crop agriculture remained in smallholdings rather than following the plantation pattern characteristic elsewhere. Christian missionary activity and church, Chinese, and Malay schools generated sociocultural change. In the 1930s both the Chinese and Malay communities experienced rising ethnic consciousness as personal rule began to erode.
The North Borneo Company in Sabah contrasted with the Brookes. It concentrated on developing an extractive economy for the benefit of its shareholders, based mostly on Western-owned tobacco and rubber estates and forest exploitation. Christian missions facilitated change among non-Muslims. Immigrant Chinese and Indonesians provided a plantation workforce. Both the Brookes and the company created single states out of many local societies, but they tolerated little open political activity.
Political transformation
The occupation of Malaya and Borneo by Japan (1942–45) during World War II generated tremendous changes in those territories. Their economies were disrupted, and communal tensions were exacerbated because Malays and Chinese reacted differently to Japanese control. The Japanese desperately needed access to the natural resources of Southeast Asia; they invaded Malaya in December 1941, having neutralized American military power in Hawaii (Pearl Harbor) and the Philippines, and shortly controlled the peninsula, Singapore, and Borneo. Pro-communist, predominantly Chinese guerrillas waged resistance in Malaya, and a brief Chinese-led revolt also erupted in North Borneo. In many places increasing politicization and conflict within and among ethnic groups developed as a result of economic hardship and selective repression; the rule of the Brookes and of the North Borneo Company was permanently undermined, while in Malaya some Chinese and Malays saw that British domination was not inevitable. Nonetheless, most people welcomed the Japanese defeat in 1945.
After the end of the war, Sarawak and North Borneo became British crown colonies, but Sarawak faced a turbulent political situation. Many Malays opposed the termination of Brooke rule and Sarawak's cession to Britain; the resulting sociopolitical divisions persisted for years. With the establishment of the British North Borneo colony, the capital was moved to Jesselton (now Kota Kinabalu). Some local self-government was introduced in Malaya. The major generator of political organizing, however, was a British proposal to form a single Malayan Union, incorporating all the Malayan territories except Singapore, that would diminish state autonomy and accord equal political and citizenship rights to non-Malays. A tremendous upsurge of Malay political feeling against this plan, led by Dato Onn bin Jaʾafar, resulted in the creation in 1946 of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) as a vehicle for Malay nationalism and political assertiveness. Strikes, demonstrations, and boycotts doomed the scheme, and the British began to negotiate with the UMNO about the Malayan future.
The negotiations resulted in the creation of the Federation of Malaya in 1948, which unified the territories but provided special guarantees of Malay rights, including the position of the sultans. These developments alarmed the more radical and impoverished sectors of the Chinese community. In 1948 the Communist Party of Malaya—a mostly Chinese movement formed in 1930 that had provided the backbone of the anti-Japanese resistance—went into the jungles and began a guerrilla insurgency to defeat the colonial government, sparking a 12-year period of unrest known as the Emergency. The communists waged a violent and ultimately unsuccessful struggle supported by only a minority of the Chinese community. The British struggled to suppress the insurgency by military means, including an unpopular strategy that forcibly moved many rural Chinese into tightly controlled New Villages. Although this policy isolated villagers from guerrillas, it also increased the government's unpopularity. The British finally achieved success when, under the leadership of British high commissioner Sir Gerald Templer, they began addressing political and economic grievances as well, increasingly isolating the rebels. Promising independence, British officials began negotiating with the various ethnic leaders, including the UMNO and the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA), formed in 1949 by wealthy Chinese businessmen. A coalition consisting of the UMNO (led by the aristocratic moderate Tunku Abdul Rahman), the MCA, and the Malayan Indian Congress contested the national legislative elections held in 1955 and won all but one seat; this established a permanent political pattern of a ruling coalition—known first as the Alliance Party and later as the National Front—that united ethnically based, mostly elite-led parties of moderate to conservative political leanings, with the UMNO as the major force.
On Aug. 31, 1957, the Federation of Malaya achieved independence (merdeka) under an Alliance government headed by Tunku Abdul Rahman as prime minister. Singapore, with its predominantly Chinese population, remained outside the federation as a British crown colony. The arrangement tended to favour the Malays politically, with UMNO leaders holding most federal and state offices and the kingship (yang di-pertuan agong) rotating among the various Malay sultans, but the Chinese were granted liberal citizenship rights and maintained strong economic power. Kuala Lumpur became the federal capital.
New currents also were emerging in Borneo. Colonial rule succeeded in rebuilding and expanding the economies of the two colonies, with rubber and timber providing the basis for postwar economic growth. Health and education facilities only slowly permeated outside the towns. Political consciousness began to spread, however, as elections were held for local councils. During the 1950s the development of radio broadcasting and newspapers particularly stimulated the Kadazan community to become involved in Sabah politics, while, in Sarawak, Chinese and Malay leaders formed the first political parties there—some espousing multiethnic identities—in expectation of independence. Political activity accelerated with the mooting of the proposal for a federated Malaysian state by Malayan and British officials in 1961, and new parties formed in Sabah representing the Kadazan, Chinese, and Muslim communities. Statewide elections were held in Sabah and Sarawak, with most of the parties accepting independence through merger with Malaysia; that sentiment increased after the Philippines claimed Sabah, based on former Sulu suzerainty.
British leaders proposed a Malaysian federation as a way of terminating their now burdensome colonial rule over Singapore, Sarawak, and Sabah, even though these states were historically and ethnically distinct from Malaya and from each other. It was in many ways to be a marriage of convenience. Malaya was closely linked economically with bustling Singapore, and the Malays felt a kinship to the various Muslim groups in Borneo. Tunku Abdul Rahman believed the federation could defuse potential leftist Chinese activity while balancing the Chinese majority in Singapore with the non-Chinese majorities of the Borneo states. Malaya already contained a Chinese minority of nearly 40 percent, with Malays barely in the majority there. Hence, on Sept. 16, 1963, the Federation of Malaysia was formed, with Sarawak and Sabah (East Malaysia) shifting from a Bornean to a peninsular orientation. Brunei, which had been invited to join, chose to remain a British protectorate and later became independent as a small, oil-rich Malay sultanate.
Malaysia
The new, hurriedly formed nation faced many political problems, including a period of Indonesian military opposition that ended in 1966, sporadic communist insurgency in Sarawak, periodic East Malaysian disenchantment over Malayan domination and federal policies, and the secession of Singapore from the Federation (at Malaysia's urging) in 1965. The latter event resulted from increasing friction between the mostly Malay federal leaders and the mostly Chinese state leaders, especially Singapore's independent-minded chief minister, Lee Kuan Yew, who disagreed on national goals. Under Lee's autocratic direction and freewheeling economic policies, Singapore became a highly prosperous but tightly controlled city-state, and relations with Malaysia gradually improved. Both countries became founding members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1967.
The secession of Singapore allowed the UMNO to exercise more influence over federal policies, even if it did not end political uncertainties. Communal tensions on the peninsula following a heated election generated riots and a nationwide state of emergency in 1969–70. Many non-Malays resented the government's attempts to build national unity and identity, such as increasing the use of the Malay language in education and public life. Government policies aimed at redistributing more wealth to Malays, as well as a growing Islāmic revival, particularly worried the Chinese. The New Economic Policy, launched in 1971 and renewed as the New Development Policy in 1991, was designed to greatly increase Malay wealth and economic potential. Beginning in the late 1970s, the Islāmic fundamentalist revival, or dakwah movement, increasingly attracted the support of young Malays who had become alienated by the growth of a Westernized, materialistic society, and this generated divisions within Malay society. Rural development policies reduced poverty rates, but large pockets of urban and especially rural poverty persisted, with many regional and ethnic inequities in the distribution of wealth. Radical critics of the government (including communists, socialists, Islāmic militants, and progressive intellectuals) were politically marginalized or sometimes detained.
For Sarawak and Sabah, politics within Malaysia has proved a turbulent experience. The decision to join was made in haste, and many people continued to resent the loss of their autonomy, especially control over growing petroleum revenues. Political crises have occurred periodically in Sarawak, although it has been governed since 1970 by a Malay-dominated, pro-federal but multiethnic coalition that represented a triumph of peninsular alliance-style politics. By the mid-1980s, however, some Iban leaders had challenged the coalition for being too accommodating to wealthy Malay and Chinese interests. The government encouraged the assimilation of Sarawak society with that of the peninsula and dramatically increased the exploitation of timber resources, sometimes at the expense of powerless interior peoples. Sabah politics also have proved to be contentious, with chronic tensions between Muslim and non-Muslim groups. Between 1967 and 1975 Chief Minister Tun Mustapha ruled the state with an iron hand, co-opting or repressing opponents, promoting Islām, and challenging federal policies. The multiethnic coalition that replaced Mustapha continued to preside over rapid economic growth purchased by the exploitation of Sabah's bountiful natural resources. Communal tensions surfaced again in 1987, when a Christian Kadazan-led party swept into power and followed policies opposed by federal leaders. Although peninsular sociopolitical patterns increasingly influenced Sabah and Sarawak, the states remained unique within the Malaysian system.
Since 1963 Malaysia has maintained a quasi-democratic parliamentary political system that includes regular elections and moderate political diversity but also some restrictions on civil liberties, including a ban on public discussion of “sensitive” issues. Tunku Abdul Rahman was succeeded as prime minister by Tun Abdul Razak in 1970. On Abdul Razak's death in 1976 another UMNO leader, Datuk Hussein Onn, replaced him. In 1981 Mahathir bin Muhammed became prime minister, the first nonaristocrat to hold that office. Mahathir's assertive style and controversial policies generated a major split in the UMNO; in 1988 Mahathir outmaneuvered his opponents, dissolving the UMNO and forming a new Malay party, UMNO Baru (New UMNO). Government and business leaders have managed to develop a prosperous, diversified economy, although commodity exports have remained important and certain areas have experienced severe environmental problems. Malaysia's literacy rates have risen dramatically, and the government has constructed an extensive public education system. The large and expanding urban middle class has become increasingly multiethnic, with a growing percentage of non-Malays fluent in the national language. Although development policies have been criticized as lacking ethnic and regional balance, Malaysia nonetheless has achieved considerable success at creating national unity and sociopolitical stability out of deep regional and ethnic divisions.

Craig A. Lockard
Additional Reading
R.S. Milne and Diane K. Mauzy, Malaysia (1986), is a comprehensive overview. Ooi Jin-Bee, Peninsular Malaysia, new ed. (1976), offers a good geographic overview of the country. James C. Jackson, Sarawak (1968), is one of the few quality studies of the state. Studies of Malaysia's people include Judith Nagata, Malaysian Mosaic: Perspectives from a Polyethnic Society (1979); Kernial Singh Sandhu, Indians in Malaya: Some Aspects of Their Immigration and Settlement (1786–1957) (1969); Heather Strange, Rural Malay Women in Tradition and Transition (1981); Heng Pek Koon, Chinese Politics in Malaysia: A History of the Malaysian Chinese Association (1988); and James V. Jesudason, Ethnicity and the Economy: The State, Chinese Business, and Multinationals in Malaysia (1989). Raj Kumar, The Forest Resources of Malaysia, Their Economics and Development (1986); and S. Robert Aiken et al., Development and Environment in Peninsular Malaysia (1982), focus on both environmental concerns and economic development. Other economic studies include Mohamed Ariff, The Malaysian Economy (1991); and George Cho, The Malaysian Economy: Spatial Perspectives (1990). See also E.K. Fisk and H. Osman-Rani (eds.), The Political Economy of Malaysia (1982); and Gordon P. Means, Malaysian Politics: The Second Generation (1991).
Thomas R. Leinbach The best comprehensive history of Malaysia is Barbara Watson Andaya and Leonard Y. Andaya, A History of Malaysia (1982). A good survey is John Gullick, Malaysia: Economic Expansion and National Unity (1981). Both of these works are stronger on Malaya than on the Borneo states. Steven Runciman, The White Rajahs: A History of Sarawak from 1841 to 1946 (1960); and Robert Pringle, Rajahs and Rebels: The Ibans of Sarawak Under Brooke Rule, 1841–1941 (1970), provide excellent coverage of the Brooke era. Among the few detailed accounts of ancient Malaya, Paul Wheatley, The Golden Khersonese: Studies in the Historical Geography of the Malay Peninsula Before AD 1500 (1961, reprinted 1973), remains a classic work. Leonard Y. Andaya, The Kingdom of Johor, 1641–1728 (1975), is a fine analysis of that sultanate. Lim Teck Ghee, Peasants and Their Agricultural Economy in Colonial Malaya, 1874–1941 (1977), treats economic history during the colonial era. William R. Roff, The Origins of Malay Nationalism (1967), is a stimulating work that explores Malay society in the colonial years. Victor Purcell, The Chinese in Malaya (1948, reissued 1967), though somewhat dated, remains the only general survey. R.S. Milne and Diane K. Mauzy, Politics and Government in Malaysia, rev. ed. (1980), is particularly good on the late colonial and early independence periods.