By the time the Europeans arrived Singapore had long since declined:

> However, by the time the Portuguese arrived in the early 16th century, Singapura had already become "great ruins" according to Alfonso de Albuquerque.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Singapore

How far back and how much context is required for a simple narrative to not constitute lying? And for a narrative about national origin, is it not also misleading to insinuate that successive settlements and polities constitute a singular, shared history?

And Europeans were not the first colonial powers to land on and assert control over the peninsula. In fact, the incumbent Muslim powers the Europeans encountered had colonized the peninsula only a couple of centuries beforehand. Aboriginal peoples (pre-history "colonizers") still live in Malaysia, and they're still as isolated and impoverished by the state as they were before Europeans arrived. Malaysia even has its own Plymouth Rock-like monument (on the coast somewhere near Malacca, IIRC), and it's not where Europeans first stepped ashore. And it seems a little odd to presume Singaporeans would identify with the political and social history of their Malay and aboriginal predecessors when Singapore, a majority Chinese community, was kicked out of Malaysia precisely because of racist and xenophobic sentiments of many Malays.

The racial politics of Malaysia and Singapore are at least as complicated as in the US if not more so. I count South Africa and Malaysia as the two countries where racial politics are not only as complicated, but open and explicit as in the US, and like the US the relationship between European colonizers and the "native" groups constitutes only a portion of that complexity. Many other countries have similarly diverse groups, but usually one group is unchallenged in its power and there's very little open discourse about the subject. But contemporary anti-colonial rhetoric whitewashes (figuratively and literally) all of this.

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hirako2000 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Not sure about Singapore but Malaysia's racism is not complicated. It is discrimination into law. It makes things rather clear. About discourse of course there is not discussion to have.

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mansarip 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

a major factor is the lack of societal assimilation.

with separate schooling systems, many Malaysians grow up in ethnic silos, which fundamentally hinders national unity even beyond any legal framework

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SanjayMehta 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The most amusing part of Malaysia's discrimination is in the term "bhumiputra," which is Sanskrit for "son of the soil," but today it's used for Malay muslim.

All these lands were Dharmic originally, all the way to Japan, before the various cults arrived.

	▲	hirako2000 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		We are all migrants. No exception.

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teleforce 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>Aboriginal peoples (pre-history "colonizers")

What nonsense, colonizers do not live and settle there for thousand of years. Would you called majority Japanese now a colonizers since the originally come from Korea/China and before them they were people there?

>Singapura had already become "great ruins" according to Alfonso de Albuquerque.

Albuquerque was the first European colonial who conquered Malacca in the early 16th CE, later Dutch and then British. They all came because they wanted to bypass what they considered "trading bottleneck" created by Ottoman, the most powerful maritime empire in the Mediterranean and Europe for many centuries.

The local authorities most probably very well deployed a typical scorched-earth strategy to prevent the Albuquerque to fully utilize Singapore infrastructure. The British did exactly this to most part of Singapore including totally damaging the very important causeway when the were defeated by Japanese in the mid 20th CE. Fun facts, the world busiest causeway still not return to the its original sophisticated design with elegant pass-thru water design until today, thus pollution side effect are still happening and not being solved [2].

[1] Scorched earth:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_earth

[2] Why Singaporeans Are Fleeing to Malaysia Every Weekend | AB Explained [video]:

https://youtu.be/vUWOhAs5rTs

	▲	wahern 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Would you called majority Japanese now a colonizers since the originally come from Korea/China and before them they were people there? Depending on context, yes, especially considering that (AFAIU) there still exist identifiable (socially, not just genetically) ethnic groups on the Japanese archipelago who predate that colonization event, and who still experience forms of ostracization typical of such colonization. There'd be no cognitive dissonance for me because I refuse to internalize a definition of colonialism that tacitly presumes European exceptionalism and supremacy through a sort of reverse White Man's Burden logic of moral accountability and historical criticism. For the same reason, I recognize that groups we (i.e. westernized, globalist, cosmopolitan, what-have-you types) typically call aboriginal in a homogenizing, undifferentiating manner were often colonizers themselves thousands of years ago, displacing other aboriginal groups that may or may not still exist today. There are multiple such groups in Southeast Asia. And the first such modern human aboriginal group may have colonized an area occupied by pre-modern, archaic humans. (Or possibly vice versa!) Buying into the logic of modern anti-colonialism critical theory is not required to appreciate and criticize the harms European colonization inflicted and continues to inflict. But rejecting that logic might be a prerequisite to recognizing and appreciating the exact same dynamics and harms that played out and still play out today among non-European ethnic groups.
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	▲	BurningFrog 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Here is a piece of history trivia. Not trying to have an argument. > they wanted to bypass what they considered "trading bottleneck" created by Ottoman The Ottomans didn't exactly close the Silk Road, but they made it harder and more expensive to use it. But the major reason for the maritime routes taking over the cargo traffic was that it's much more efficient to sail to Asia with your cargo than to walk it on camels. So when the Portugese found the way around Africa and landed in Calcutta on May 20 1498, the trade patterns changed forever.