|
Koleksi Tamadun Pahang
|
|
| ||||||||||||||||
| Abstract : |
| During the pre-colonial period Malay society in the Temerloh district of Pahang was characterized by fluid economic and political patterns. Neither paya (swamp rice) cultivation nor trade in forest products provided large economic surpluses to support a broad consolidation of power. Though a local aristocracy held power in Chenor, elsewhere in the district headmen who were able to mobilize the manpower necessary to exploit the available forest and land resources of the sparsely settled Pahang frontier carved out spheres of personal authority. Centers of power frequently shifted and membership in the elite circulated.
The British colonial administration's impulse to rationalize and bureaucratize ran directly counter to the fluid nature of the society. Headmen in power on the introduction of the British rule were drawn into the bureaucracy, but few descendants of those initially recognized maintained their position. Suitable candidates elevated to serve as penghulus in newly deferred territorial units during the early years of British rule were, however, accorded economic and political privileges which enabled them to become entrenched in the Malay ruling class.
The ossification seen in the political arena was mirrored in the economic. Regulation of forest produce trade, restriction of dry-rice cultivation, the registration of land titles and the initiation of land office fees inhibited mobility and diminished the economic frontiers open to most Malays. Though the introduction of rubber opened a new frontier, only a few members of the society obtained new holdings in the brief period before access was closed by colonial policy and successive restriction schemes.
The penghulu and the rural elite, dominated by the penghulu' s close kinsmen who had obtained sizeable rubber holdings, were increasingly distanced from the mass of Malays who found their economic options severely limited. After the disloca.tion of the Japanese period BritishÂeducated Malays were able to use the idiom and organiz ation of API, the youth branch of the Malay Nationalist Party, to mobilize the discontent felt particularly by the youth into an incipient movement of opposition to British colonial rule and the Malay ruling class. |
| This material may be protected under Copyright Act which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research. |