Pure Malay?

I love this letter to malaysiakini by Jamiliah Kassim titled These people are not pure Malays.

In the land where the terrible word ‘non’ is used regularly, even by the 'nons' themselves (like kaytee), to denote a second class citizenship, as in non-Malay, non-Muslim, non-bumiputera, non-UMNO, and last though not least non-sense, Jamiliah has upped the ante.

Jamiliah, asserting herself as an ‘anak Melayu jati’ (pure Malay) wrote (extract):

In recent years, we can see a lot of ‘non Malays’ appearing in Umno as leaders. By ancestry, these people are not pure Malays. They managed to change their identity by using Islam.

As an ‘anak Melayu jati’, I would like to voice out a grievance on behalf of our whole Malay community.

We know well that these people are not sincere in that they can even disregard and disrespect their ancestors and join the Malay race.

Their motive is to enjoy privileges of the Malays. And Umno doesn't bother to do much on this. We are desperate regarding this policy of simply allowing people to change their race through conversion to Islam and even offering citizenship to Indonesians who are later made bumiputeras as well.

Where is the standing of the ‘anak Melayu jati’ or ‘bumiputera’? Tell us where on this earth can a person change his or her race through religion except in Malaysia? It is ridiculous.

Wow … but who or what is a ‘anak melayu jati’? Is there such a person as a 'pure Malay'?

Jamiliah explained:The word ‘bumiputera’ is a combination of ‘bumi’ and ‘putera’ which should be construed as the ‘anak cucu’ to this land. Bumiputeras should be defined as: ‘Anak anak Melayu yang nenek moyang telah bermastautin di bumi Tanah Melayu sebelum kemerdekaan, biarpun agama yang dianuti bukan Islam’.*

* loose translation: Malays whose ancestors were domiciled in Malaya before Merdeka (Independence in 1957), even if their religion wasn't Islam

No more Johnny and Jeannie-come-lately ... eh? Though I am impressed by her '... biarpun agama yang dianuti bukan Islam’.

I am reminded of a former girlfriend who informed me rather arrogantly, when I first knew her, that she was ‘pure Sinning*, a Toisan nui of the nth degree of purity.

* one of the southern Chinese ethnic stock

Like all good bf I chatted up her mum to get on to her good side, and inadvertently found out that ‘Auntie’ was Cantonese – hahahahaha!

Her Royal Haughtiness, the Toisan nui was humiliated, and never quite forgive me for ‘accidentally’ discovering her mixed ethnic stock – oh yes, for that she 'punished' me severely at times, but it was rather enjoyable when I teased her as 50% Sinning – 50% Canto, and God alone knows how many of those percentages could have been of other ethnic stock, considering she has really large beautiful round eyes.

I suspect that Jamiliah is one of the following: (1) ........ (2) ........ (3) ........ - I decided not to jot down my suspicions ;-) you work it out yourself.