Visions Without Heat: The Search for a Malaysian National Identity, 1948-1990

Abstract

After Perak signed the Pangkor Treaty in 1874, the Malay peninsula, with growing British presence, began to show signs of modernization. For instance, a Western system of administration was introduced. With the establishment of plantation agriculture and a large-scale tin industry, an export economy was initiated. There were also notable infrastructural developments, such as the installment of a modern communication system, which changed the landscape of the peninsula. Along with the process of modernization, one of the most pronounced social changes was the tremendous drastic influx of immigrant peoples into Malaya. This change was closely related to a major objective of British colonial rule in Malaya, which was to maximize economic profits for the home country. Motivated by this objective and biased by their stereotypes, the British attempted to keep the Malays locked in their traditional societal structures. To the British, "Malays... were lazy, unwilling to work for wages and therefore could not be considered a potential pool of labour in the colonial economy" . Accordingly, for tin mining enterprises and especially for the booming rubber industry, the British imported Chinese and Indian migrant laborers, who were assumably more industrious. As a consequence, "British Malaya" became a multi-ethnic society in the 1920s.