It is said that Malaysia's history was from the Malacca Sultanate in 1400 AD. In its victory, this sultanate territory conquered most parts of the Peninsular and the east coast of Sumatra. Malacca appears as the victory government due to the strategic position meeting point between East Asia and West Asia. Because of that, Malacca is famous for being a trading center, especially for spices in Southeast Asia. Islam which is a religion that has spread widely, also appears as the main religion of the people of Malacca because the king himself has embraced Islam.
In 1511, Malacca fell to the Portuguese's hand and this is when Tanah Melayu started as a colonial era. After that, Malaya fell into the hands of the Dutch in 1641 and finally fell back to the British's hand in 1824 through an Anglo-Dutch agreement. British colonialism is the longest colonialism. British interfered in all administrative matters that were administrated before by Malay Kings with the help of state officials. British intervention has caused unsatisfied from local civilians.
Some individuals had their own spirit to fight against the colonial but because their efforts were more individual, the resistance was easily broken by the British. Among the figures who stood up against the colonialists were Dol Said, Tok Janggut, Datuk Bahaman, Rentap, Datuk Maharajalela, Rosli Dobi, and several other figures.
The Spirit of Nationalism
In the 1920s and 1930s era, many local civilians got an education either from east or local education. As a result, the educated group appeared who started to fight for the spirit of nationalism like Tunku Abdul Rahman who gave light to the Malays who governed their own country. They were using the media such as newspapers and magazines, as a platform to spread their ideology. Some of them have formed associations such as the Young Malay Union (KMM) and Singapore Malay Union (KMS) with the aim of expelling the colonialists and forming their own government.
When they were eager to end colonialism, they were shocked by the Japanese landing at the end of 1941 which marked another era of colonialism in Malaya. Japanese colonized Malaya until 1945 before surrendering due to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Because of that, the Communist Party of Malaya (PKM) took an opportunity to take over Malaya. They were acting roughly to other people by killing and destroying public property arbitrarily, forcing the British to declare a state of emergency in Malaya (1948-1960).
The violence of the PKM did not succeed in conquering Malaya and the British returned to power. When the British returned after the Japanese occupation, they tried to introduce the Malayan Union. This introduction has met with great and comprehensive opposition from the local population. On 11 May 1946, the establishment of UMNO fueled the opposition and further sowed the seeds of the struggle towards self-government.
The Independence of Malaya
The appearance of Tunku Abdul Rahman gave a bright shine of hope to Malays at that time when his action to form the Alliance Party began to open the eyes of the British to allow the occupation of Malaya to govern its own country. The unity between the three main races namely the Malays, Chinese, and Indians showed results when the London Agreement was signed on 8th of February, 1956, given a sign that Malaya would be independent on 31st August 1957.
After independence was achieved, problems arose in relation to the establishment of Malaysia which combined Sabah, Sarawak, and Singapore. Opposition to this unification came from the People's Party of Brunei, Indonesia, and the Philippines. However, the desire to form a country called Malaysia was achieved on the 16th of September, 1963.
Faris Ikhwan is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact Newswav.
