ISSN: 2222-6990
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The Western colonization of the Malay world, especially around the 19th century, invited various perspectives with regard to the native community. In accordance with the ‘white supremacy’ belief, colonial scholars viewed the natives as people who had to be guided and led because of their inherent weaknesses and poor practices in life. Thus, in an effort to consolidate their hegemonic power in the colonies, there emerged a string of various negative stigmas towards the colonized communities, such as the ‘lazy and stupid Malays’, to reflect that they were people who loved to indulge themselves and waste their time. People such as Stamford Raffles, Frank Swettenham and Hugh Clifford were among the Western scholars and administrators who were responsible for assigning negative connotations to the Malay community. The question is: did the opinions of these Western colonialists represent their perception of a handful of Malays or the entire community? Was their perspective independent of their bias as the colonizing power? What were their reasons for labelling the Malays as ‘lazy or stupid’? With this in mind, the objective of this study is to identify the Western perspective of the ‘lazy Malay’ and to analyse that perspective according to Malay humorous tales. Using the method of text analysis, the study used four Malay humorous tales (Cerita Jenaka Melayu); Pak Pandir, Pak Kaduk, Pak Belalang and Si Luncai. The findings of the study clearly showed that the West was biased in their perspective of the communities that were colonised by them. Thus, this study was able to prove that the Western perspective of the ‘lazy and stupid Malays’ was only intended to undermine the dignity and self-respect of the colonized community. In conclusion, through the literary works alone as a medium to capture the image of the community, all the negative perceptions with regard to the native peoples can be dealt with and explained rationally.
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In-Text Citation: (Hamdan & Annuar, 2020)
To Cite this Article: Hamdan, R., & Annuar, A. B. (2020). Countering the Western Perspective of The ‘Lazy and Stupid Malay’ Based on Malay Humorous Tales. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 10(12), 137–148.
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