Malaysia
Malaysia's multi-racial society contains many ethnic groups. Malays
comprise a majority of just over 50%. By constitutional definition,
all Malays are Muslim. About a quarter of the population is ethnic
Chinese, a group which historically played an important role in
trade and business. Malaysians of Indian descent comprise about 7%
of the population and include Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and
Christians. Non-Malay indigenous groups combine to make up
approximately 11% of the population.
Population density is highest in peninsular Malaysia, home to some
20 million of the country's 27 million inhabitants. The remaining 7
million live on the Malaysian portion of the island of Borneo in the
large but less densely-populated states of Sabah and Sarawak. More
than half of Sarawak's residents and about two-thirds of Sabah's are
from indigenous groups. |
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The early Buddhist Malay kingdom of Srivijaya, based at what is now
Palembang, Sumatra, dominated much of the Malay peninsula from the
9th to the 13th centuries AD. The powerful Hindu kingdom of
Majapahit, based on Java, gained control of the Malay peninsula in
the 14th century. Conversion of the Malays to Islam, beginning in
the early 14th century, accelerated with the rise of the state of
Malacca under the rule of a Muslim prince in the 15th century.
Malacca was a major regional commercial center, where Chinese, Arab,
Malay, and Indian merchants traded precious goods.
Drawn by this rich trade, a Portuguese fleet conquered Malacca in
1511, marking the beginning of European expansion in Southeast Asia.
The Dutch ousted the Portuguese from Malacca in 1641. The British
obtained the island of Penang in 1786 and temporarily controlled
Malacca with Dutch acquiescence from 1795 to 1818 to prevent it from
falling to the French during the Napoleonic war. The British gained
lasting possession of Malacca from the Dutch in 1824, through the
Anglo-Dutch treaty, in exchange for territory on the island of
Sumatra in what is today Indonesia.
In 1826, the British settlements of Malacca, Penang, and Singapore
were combined to form the Colony of the Straits Settlements. From
these strongholds, in the 19th and early 20th centuries the British
established protectorates over the Malay sultanates on the
peninsula. During their rule the British developed large-scale
rubber and tin production and established a system of public
administration. British control was interrupted by World War II and
the Japanese occupation from 1941 to 1945.
Popular sentiment for independence swelled during and after the war.
The territories of peninsular Malaysia joined together to form the
Federation of Malaya in 1948 and eventually negotiated independence
from the British in 1957. Tunku Abdul Rahman became the first prime
minister. In 1963 the British colonies of Singapore, Sarawak, and
Sabah joined the Federation, which was renamed Malaysia. Singapore's
membership was short-lived, however; it left in 1965 and became an
independent republic.
Neighboring Indonesia objected to the formation of Malaysia and
began a program of economic, political, diplomatic, and military
"confrontation" against the new country in 1963, which ended only
after the fall of Indonesia's President Sukarno in 1966. Internally,
local communists, nearly all Chinese, carried out a long, bitter
insurgency both before and after independence, prompting the
imposition of a state of emergency from 1948 to 1960. Small bands of
guerrillas remained in bases along the rugged border with southern
Thailand, occasionally entering northern Malaysia. These guerrillas
finally signed a peace accord with the Malaysian Government in
December 1989. A separate, small-scale communist insurgency that
began in the mid-1960s in Sarawak also ended with the signing of a
peace accord in October 1990. |
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