May 2022

Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: After World War II, powerful Malaysian nationalist forces began pressing Britain to grant the archipelago its independence. Britain began the process, but beginning in 1948 mostly Chinese rebels led by the Malayan Communist Party conducted a bloody insurrection known as the Malayan Emergency. Commonwealth troops alongside Malayan nationals put down the rebellion, but it took a dozen years. With the end of the uprising Britain’s rule was over and a federated state was created which included Peninsula Malaysia, North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore. Singapore departed in 1965 and the remaining government is a federal constitutionally elected monarchy made up of thirteen states and three federal territories. The capital and largest city is Kuala Lumpur though much of the federal administrative apparatus is located 25 kilometers south in the planned city of Putrajaya.

Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Malaysia occupies the severe southeastern point of the Eurasian continent and lies athwart some of the richest, most traveled shipping lanes in the world. The indigenous Malay population was supplemented through commercial connections with Indian and Chinese traders sometime around the first century CE. The result is that just over 20% of the population of 30,000,000 is of ethnic Chinese descent. Hinduism and Buddhism were adopted by the native population until the arrival of Islam in the 1300s and today, with Muslims constituting around 60% of the population, Islam is the official faith of Malaysia, though freedom of religion is a constitutionally protected right.