Kedah Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor has denied that his recent speech in Jempol, Negeri Sembilan, was intended to question the citizenship status of non-Malays in Malaysia.
The Perikatan Nasional (PN) election director said his remarks were consistent with historical views expressed by British figures including Oliver Stanley, Lord Killearn and Lord Ogmore regarding Malaya and the historical position of the Malay community.
Sanusi said these historical statements shared the same central idea — that Tanah Melayu has long-standing historical, political and cultural ties with the Malay community.
He pointed to the existence of the Malay states, the Malay language, Malay customs and traditions, Islam as a key element of the region’s history, the institution of the Malay Rulers and the historical use of the term Federation of Malaya as evidence of those ties.
“My speech was not an extraordinary or new idea. It merely restated, in today’s political context, views that were openly expressed in the British Parliament as early as 1946,” he said in a statement on Monday.
He added that his remarks closely reflected speeches delivered by Oliver Stanley on March 8, 1946, Lord Killearn on April 13, 1949, and Lord Ogmore on July 29, 1957, arguing that his comments should be assessed based on their full context and intended meaning rather than his political position.
Sanusi came under fire after reportedly saying during a Perikatan Nasional campaign ceramah in Negeri Sembilan last Thursday that Malays only have Tanah Melayu, while other ethnic groups have countries historically linked to their ancestral origins.
The remarks sparked controversy, with critics claiming they implied that the citizenship of non-Malay Malaysians was being questioned.
Rejecting the criticism, Sanusi urged the public not to interpret his speech as a call to expel, reject or deny the citizenship of Chinese and Indian Malaysians.
He maintained that such interpretations ignored the broader context of his speech, which focused on the historical relationship between the Malays and Tanah Melayu, as well as his concerns over the economic and political position of the Malay community.
Sanusi also said official Hansard records from 1946, 1949 and 1957 showed that the concept of Tanah Melayu as the historical homeland of the Malays had long been recognised in British parliamentary records, insisting that it was not a new political narrative created by him.
