Malayness

The colonial construction of Malayananness, according to Maiers stimulating account (1988), emanates from ii groups of British colonists in Malaya in the nineteenth century. These were the early extension of colonists and mainly sparing servants of the East India Company, the so-call(a)ed merchantscientists, and the later generation of scholar-administrators. The foremost group, which include men akin James Low, who served in Penang and body politic Wellesley in the 1820s and 1830s, was imbued with the ideas of the economical Enlightenment and held the view that human personality is uniform and that all human beings have similar capacities (Maier 1988:37, 43). Although the Malays had a simple economie transcription and less advanced fond institutions, this pro-Enlightenment battalion argued, they should be taken seriously because they were unfastened of improvement. Commerce and persistence in this view provided the key for their advancement, and at one c ondemnation inpossession of this key, the Malays would move up to a higher level on the scale of civilization (Maier 1988:59). The second group, the scholar-administrators, which included men like H. Clifford, F.

Swettenham, and the leash British Malaya educator Richard Winstedt, rejected the assumption that the Malay race could waxy attain to the benefits of civilization (Maier 1988:51-7). Hence the Malays could not be taken seriously, make up if they were to be admired - their behaviour reminded the colonists of the courtesy and loyalty of the face gentleman class. By the period Winstedt arrived in th e Peninsula, at the turn of the twentieth ce! ntury, British social and cultural superiority was well established. Malay society, by contrast, was regarded as being disoriented and decadent, partly, so the colonists believed, because the Malays were incapable of withstanding western organise and Islamic influence, and partly because their society was inherently weak. No surmise the differences were accentuated by the presence of Chinese and Indian...If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: BestEssayCheap.com

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