Discuss THE Impact OF British Colonization ON Malaya PDF

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DISCUSS THE IMPACT OF BRITISH COLONIZATION ON MALAYA

The british colonization on Malaya started in 1786 when Francis Light acquired Penang from Sultan of Kedah. At that time, there were still colonial competition happening in Malaya. The competition finally came to a stop when the Anglo-Dutch Treaty was proposed. The treaty was a treaty between the British and Dutch about the division of the regions between them. According to the treaty, Dutch surrended Melaka to British and British gives Sumatra and all regions below the Malay Peninsula to Dutch. In 1895, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang were constituted as a federation protected Malay states. On the other hand, the colonies of Malacca, Penang and Singapore were organised as the Straits Settlements. However, Japanese later invade Malaya in 1941, and only after they surrendered in 1945, the British resume their administration in Malaya.

There are several impact of British colonization on Malaya. There are good impacts and bad impacts. The good impacts are of that the British colonization gives better education system to Malaysia. The British introduced English education system, a system that is recognized by the Cambridge System for its quality. This system is still being used till today. The new education that was introduced was a better education system for the people rather than the Malay education of that time. Even though the British made the education system only applicable up to the primary school only, it was still a better education for the improvement of the people of Malaya at that time. The British also open opportunities for the people to continue their studies until tertiary education.

The second good impact of the British colonization is that it flourishes Malaysia's economy. Malaya's rubber, oil palm estates and tin mines at that time were made open to a larger scale of industrial establishments. This can be seen with the tradings and selling of the raw materials to other countries. Even if it is used for the British's benefits only, it actually improves Malaysia's economy in a way that is by expanding Malaysia's range of marketing into world wide. The British also improves the infrastructures and facilities in Malaysia by replacing or upgrading the old ones with the new ones. For example, the schools are upgraded with more facilities for making it into a better educational environment and construct new roads and railways. In short, they mended the economy into becoming a better and civilized one.

Despite all of the good impacts the British colonization have given to Malaya at that time, there are still some bad impacts of the colonization. Even though in one eye, it sees that the British was trying to improve the economy by boosting the rubber, oil palm estates and tin mines into a world wide market, but, on the other eye, it sees that actually, the British exploited Malaysian natural resources to maintain their empire in light of the Industrial Revolution.

The British also disrupted racial relations and institutionalized racial ideology. For example, the British planted anti-japanese ideology into the people. Also, discrimination towards races can also be clearly seen. The Chinese were involve with the modern sector in the cities and mining areas, the Indians were forced to worked as a labourer and only live in estates meanwhile the Malays were allowed to do traditional farming and live in rural areas just like how they have been living before. The Malays were actually given better treatments than the other races. This situation had caused social divide between the races.

Last but not least, the British changed the political system. The Kings' power were reduced and almost lost their power oevr their own state. All of the executive powers were passed over to the residents that have been assigned to each state when the Resident system and Advisory system were implemented. The Kings only had power in the matters that are regarding Islam and Malay customs only.

In conclusion, the British colonization on Malaya have had good impacts and bad impacts. We can't actually say that the bad impacts are more than the good ones because the good impacts are still being used till today and its a fact that it did partially improve our country into being a more civilized one. We can say though, that the varous impacts is what makes the Malaysia we have today....