Bibliography
Alatas, Syed Hussein. "The Myth of the Lazy Native: A study of the image of the Malay, Filipinos and Javanese from the 16th to 20th century and its function in the ideology of colonial capitalism", p.117. Frank Cass and Company Ltd., 1977. The quoted paragraph in full is as follows: Let us first consider the image of the lazy Malay. It struck us as odd that a people who, in the words of Raffles, "is so indolent, that when he has rice, nothing will induce him to work", could be continuously engaged in war and piracy against formidable opponents. The history of the Malays from the 16th century onwards was full of internal as well as external conflicts. As a matter of fact the Malays were the most harassed people. No region in South East Asia had been attacked and occupied by so many forces from so many parts of the world. The Portuguese, the Dutch, the Siamese, had all attacked and occupied certain parts of the Malay Peninsula. We may also mention the attack of Acheh and the Bugis raids. If the Malays were that lazy they would have lost their independence long ago. The fact that the British succeeded in occupying Malaya through diplomacy, while those using force failed, was partly the result of the activity and alertness of the Malays.