The Orang Asli: Aboriginal Policies in Malaysia

Abstract

W A WITHIN THE ETHNIC MOSAIC that comprises Malaysia, the aborigines of the peninsula are today both the most deprived and under-represented community in the country. Although these people make up only 0.7 percent of the population of Malaysia, they pose major dilemmas for government policy, and raise complex issues that affect inter-ethnic relations in the country as a whole. Their extreme poverty poses a major impediment the government's promise in its New Economic Policy to reduce and eventually eradicate poverty.' Furthermore, the controversial issues of Malay special rights and Bumiputra (indigenous) rights become even more complex and contentious if applied these aboriginal peoples whose claim indigenous status antedates all other communities. Finally, the issue of their eventual integration into society or their continued separate identity in a multi-ethnic Malaysian society raises important symbolic issues of political alignment and ethnic balance in the country as a whole. Their small numbers and their relative political impotence thus belie their relative significance as a proving ground for government intentions on many sensitive, controversial and complex ethnic, religious and developmental issues.