'Malays will lose their country, be lost in the world' - Dr M
SHAH ALAM - Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Malays were not only at risk of losing the country but were at risk of being lost in the world if 'Tanah Melayu' is destroyed and replaced by a multiracial country, a Malaysian Malaysia.
He claimed Malays have lost many territories, and the current flow shows Malays will not remain as one race.
"All the major estates owned by the colonialists have been bought by the rich. Estates owned by the government from other government lands are also sold to rich parties, and most were non-Malays.
"Even the rulers couldn't be influenced by the Malays either in the end. Either we are looking into the regions that are no longer controlled by Malays, or the fate of the Malays is looking grim.
"We have seen it and can examine what happened to the Malay lands now owned by non-Malays. Look at it and take note," he said in a statement on Wednesday.
He explained that the Malaysian experiment was first introduced by the British in the Malayan Union, but it was rejected, and the same proposal was made by the People's Action Party (PAP), but it was also rejected in the 1964 General Election (GE).
"Now DAP, with the support of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) and Amanah, once again introduced the same goal, which is that Malaysia is not a country originally from Malay land but is a multi-ethnic country.
"There's never been a case of immigrants or their descendants who were granted asylum in a country demanding the country that granted them citizenship be changed to become a country of immigrants, a multiracial country.
"That's the meaning of Malaysian Malaysia. The Malay nation must be changed to become a multiracial Malaysia. Tanah Melayu would be destroyed and replaced with Malaysian Malaysia," he said.
Dr Mahathir said it was up to the Malays to rethink whether the situation in the multiracial country would benefit them or not.
He added that the Malay Proclamation did not intend to snatch away the rights of others; it only wanted fairness.
"It is the recognition of this Peninsular as Tanah Melayu, accepting immigrants and their descendants as an absorbed nation, such as the people of Arab, Indian, Pakistani, Indonesian, and others absorbed into the Malay nation. Accepting Malay as the national language.
"For immigrants and their descendants who want to maintain their identity with their country of origin, the treatment of them is surely different from the treatment of the original population and those who fully accept the language and culture," he said.
