Early Malay nationalism before Malaysian independence did not exist as a united and organised political movement prior to World War II. The concept of ketuanan Melayu (Malay hegemony) was largely irrelevant at the time, as the Chinese and Indians, who formed almost half of the population, did not see themselves as citizens of Malaya. A report by the British Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in the early 1930s found that "the number of non-Malays who have adopted Malaya as their home is only a very small proportion of the whole population". Malay nationalism first appeared in the early 1900s, with the Kaum Muda (Youth Group) — a group of Malay Islamic scholars — publishing articles advocating independence for Malaya and Indonesia as one Greater Indonesia.
Read more about Early Malay Nationalism: Early 20th Century, The Malayan Union, Towards Independence, Possible Causes
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or nationalism:
“I got a little secretarial job after college, but I thought of it as a prelude. Education, work, whatever you did before marriage, was only a prelude to your real life, which was marriage.”
—Bonnie Carr (c. early 1930s)
“The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war.”
—Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986)