In Sri Lanka's ethnic cocoon, the minority Malay population is searching for more political space to voice their socio-economic rights.

An estimated 50,000 Malays, descending mainly from the Indonesian archipelago and southern Malaysia, are one of the minorities amongst the country's 20 million population. In post-war Sri Lanka, the Malays are worried that their social-political mobility would be stifled without proper political representation in the island's multi-ethnic make-up, as many are still thought to be in the economically-backward segment. "About 30 per cent of the Malays are middle-class citizens while 60 per cent live under very difficult circumstances, living below the poverty line.

"The ones who are in the second category (60 percent) don't have a regular income or proper housing, access to universities while government jobs are also difficult to come by because of jobs being allocated according to their ethnic proportion, and Malays being less than one per cent (of the population)," Sri Lanka Malay Association president, Iqram Cuttilan, told Bernama in the capital.

In the island state, Singhalese make up 74 per cent of the population, 12 per cent are Tamils, while another 12 per cent are Moors (the Muslim community which is made up of the Moors, Malays and Indian Muslims). The Malays, who were brought into Sri Lanka as soldiers by the Dutch in the late 1600s, still profess Islam, speak the Malay language, and continue to preserve their own culture and heritage of their forefathers.

But now, a new generation of Malays want to be equally represented in mainstream Sri Lankan society, which to some degree, has been ethnically polarized. "We are lobbying the government to nominate a Malay MP to represent Malays in Parliament. We are not being heard in parliament, the minority rights cannot be articulated now," said Iqram.

The Malays have assimilated well into Sri Lankan society and have lived side by side with the other ethnic groups for decades. Many are multi-lingual, with Singhalese, Tamil, Malay and English widely spoken among the community. But their voices remain muzzled.

The island which had been torn apart by ethnic conflict for the past 30 years, ever since a Tamil separatist group took up arms against the Sri Lankan establishment, demanding a separate homeland for its two million people.

The war ended last May but even during the contest last week to appoint the country’s sixth presidential, votes of unhappy Tamils (in the north) and Muslims (in the east) clearly swung towards the opposition, once again signalling their dissatisfaction at being marginalized in the decision making process.

This more than ever has given the government a clear warning that the people, especially of the north and east, Malays together with their Tamil and Muslim brothers and sisters are not at all happy and the sooner the government takes notice to solve their problems and listen to their voices the better it would be for them.

(Bernama)