"Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question." - Albert Camus

***

"One example was during the period of the Sultanate of Melaka. According to its maritime law, it was possible for anybody who was fishing on a boat in the Melaka harbour to catch anything caught by his fishing hook, including the wife of a captain. So if you were to catch the wife of a captain with your fishing hook, you could have her."

"I once had a visitor in my office in NUS in the early 1970s. This man had a problem. Apparently, his problem was a lost brother. I asked him where his brother was lost. In all seriousness, he told me that his brother was lost in the Kallang River. I became curious. How can you get lost in the Kallang River where everybody can see you wherever you go? Apparently, he believed that he has a twin brother who was a crocodile. Although this is something which does not harm other people, I am sure it will harm him. He may be spending unnecessary time on the problem. I do not know whether he is sane. But then you will be very surprised that there are thousands of people who believe him. If I were to take him to Rembau, Kuala Pulai and Seremban and meet the people there, thousands would believe him."

--- The New Malay: His Role and Future / Syed Hussein Alatas (1996)


"In the early post-war years a series of articles appeared in Singapore's English-language press about the plight of poor Malay farmers and fishermen by a then little known writer. This C.H.E. Det is now better known as Mahathir Mohamad."

--- Other Malays: Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in the Modern Malay World / Joel S. Kahn.


"In Singapore 98 per cent of Malays are Muslims. Malays make up 99.3 per cent of the total Muslim population in Singapore (1980 Population Census of Singapore, Department of Statistics"
I always thought the former figure was more than 99% and the latter 95% at most, but then these statistics are outdated.

"Since the PAP's inception in 1955, its democratic socialist label has always been vague... Particularly after Singapore's expulsion from Malaysia in 1965, the PAP government began to gravitate from its earlier democratic socialist platform which aimed 'to abolish the inequality of wealth' (Petir, 1958: 2)... Indicative of its ideological metamorphosis, the PAP's democratic socialist ideal of creating 'a more just and equal society' was formally discarded in the party constitution in 1982... Compared to the parsimonious social welfare expediture of the state (Ramesh, 1992), its generous spending on various elite programmes has been justified in cold instrumentalist terms."

"The [HDB] ethnic residential quotas have ensured that the Chinese remained the numerically and electorally dominant community in all constituencies. Far from establishing a multiracial environment in all public housing estates, constituencies such as Hougang, where the Chinese make up approximately 80 per cent of the total population, have been allowed to remain Chinese residential enclaves. The contradictory logic underpinning the ethnic residential quotas was noted by Tremewan (1994: 66): 'By this logic, a block which has 87 per cent Chinese residents is not a racial enclave but a block which has 26 per cent Malay residents is a racial enclave.' Whilst the emerging Malay residential enclaves have been vigilantly nipped in the bud in the name of multiracialism, the strong Chinese residential enclaves in public housing estates like Hougang have remained. Moreover, the exclusive private residential estates off Holland Road and Bukit Timah Road where Malays are negligibly represented have not been the focus of the government's concern. The policy also contradicts the PAP government's exhortations for greater family support, filial piety, and the maintenance of traditional culture as the quotas can hinder those who wish to live near their families...

Rabushka's (1971: 91-107) study found that it was common for people living in ethnically homogeneous areas to adopt favourable attitudes towards other ethnic groups. Further, people who resided in ethnically mixed areas but did not mix with other ethnic groups also were found to hold negative attitudes towards others. He postulated that physical proximity coupled with superficial interaction across ethnic lines may in fact lead to heightened contempt for other ethnic groups... physical ethnic proximity in large cities may well engender 'mutual revulsion' and a heightening of ethnocentrism."

"Given the reliance of the Malay based party PKMS on Malay electoral support, the GRC requirement has effectively prevented the party from contesting in the GRC constituencies... The GRC system has tended to discourage ethnic minority candidates in the GRC team from raising politically sensitive issues specific to the ethnic minority community in order to avoid accusations of ethnic chauvinism and weaken the GRC team's electoral support from the dominant ethnic community. Thus, under the multiethnic slating regime, ethnic minority candidates tend to be pressurized into focusing on neutral national issues that are not specific to the concerns of the ethnic minority community... during the 1991 electoral campaign in the marginal Eunos GRC, the Workers Party candidated Juffrie Mahmood was accused by the PAP leadership and the media of pandering to communal politics and ethnic chauvinism... [Goh Chok Tong and Lee Hsien Loong] have acknowledged that their allegations of communalism against Juffrie helped to clinch the critical votes required to win the marginal Eunos ward."

--- The Singapore dilemma : the political and educational marginality of the Malay community / Lily Zubaidah Rahim.


"The researcher's status as a young, white mother was unthreatening, yet curious enough to the Malay housewives that they were willing to invite her in and answer questions."

"The strongest challenge to the assumption that the household is an income-pooling unit has come from women's studies. Feminist analysis has refuted the thesis that the household is a non-exploitative, intrinsically democratic and co-operative unit operating in the interests of all its members."
Creationist analysis also shows that Evolution is false.

"There has been discrimination both for and against Malays during Singapore's history... The Malays were positively favoured as employees bythe British, particularly in the uniformed services (army, police, fire) and in some related clerical, transport, and personal services. In 1957, almost 20 per cent of Malay working men were employed in the uniformed services... Malay youth were not called up for National Service during the 1970s, and some were still not being called up in 1984. Those who were called up claimed to be placed only in menial capacities, and always excluded from the airforce, commando, and tank units which are the key units in Singapore's defence system.

There was an unfortunate side effect to the non-recruitment of Malays into National Service. Employers in Singapore are generally unwilling to recruit or train young male workers who have not completed National Service or obtained exemption papers as these youths can be called up at any time. Since Malays were not officially exempted from National Service, Malay youths were uable to obtain apprenticeships or regular jobs, and many were forced into an extended limbo period of about ten years from ages 14 to 24... [this] was in part responsible for the high percentage of Malay youths who became involved in heroin abuse during the late 1970s."

"In his study of Malay and Chinese workers in large Singapore establishments, Deyo (1983: 223) found that there is no basis for the belief that Chinese workers are more materialistic, hard-working or ambitious than Malay workers"
Any introductory statistics student can point out that this study suffers from selection bias.

"When not making general, ethnic statements, Malays draw distinctions between different types of Chinese. Malaysian and Indonesian Chinese and the Peranakan (descended from early Chinese settlers) are often thought to be more courteous, having learned from the Malays, while Singapore Chinese... are known as 'hill Chinese' and felt to be the most coarse and 'low class'."

"[Some] Malay contractors... claim to have their bids consistently undercut by Chinese competitors, convincing them that the Chinese firm is making a loss with the intention of eliminating the Malay enterprise."
And the polio vaccine is meant to make them sterile.

"Entrepreneurs felt that all other Malays, whether traders, customers, kin, or neighbours, were jealous of their success and were engaged in schemes to cause their downfall. Malay entrepreneurs described the attitude of other Malays towards them as jealous (iri hati), angry (panas hati), dissatisfied (tidak puas hati), upset (sakit hati, susah hati), encious (sakit mata), or evil (busuk hati)... One entrepreneur with an established retail outlet stated that 'if you have two Malay shops side by side, selling the same product, but one has more customers because he is more friendly, the other will be envious and upset; so he will lower his prices to sell at a loss, until both shops are bankrupt, but he will feel satisfied'. Besides competition from other entrepreneurs, Malay businessmen or women often feel threatened by gossip or rumous the Malay public may spread about them, or by witchcraft which can harm them physically and prevent them from continuing to do business."
Maybe this is the myth of the jealous native.

"One established trader chose to site his shop far away from areas of intensive Malay settlement because 'there are too many Malays there, they get jealous and try to put a curse on you, or say you are mean and spread stories about you'. A woman involved in petty retail was equally explicit: 'I don't sell my things here in the kampong. I have a lot of friends, especially other races, and I sell to them. Round here there are too many stories.' Other traders prefer to do business with Malays, but avoid their own neighbourhood."

"The assumed social, moral, and ethnic bond that links all Malays, and that is held to characterize them as Malays, makes it impossible for any Malays to conduct pure business relations within their own community."

"The widespread and deeply held belief among Malays in Singapore is that their problems and disadvantages have been imposed on them on a racial basis by the Chinese majority... There is no doubt that some discrimination does occur, but it is also the case that the tendency to see Singapore society as divided on racial lines, and Malay disadvantages as stemming from race, has distracted Malay attention from the process of economic differentiation, which also has a great impact in shaping the conditions of their daily lives."

--- Malays in Singapore: Culture, Economy, and Ideology / Tania Li