soon after, the british empire began to take interest in the other malay states and the rest is, of course, history.

would malaysia be different if great-great granddad didn’t write that letter to singapore in 1871? i guess the british empire would have come into the picture anyway, later if not sooner. with them having a stronghold on penang, malacca and singapore, i say that it was inevitable that the british would come.

and who knows what would happen if raja abdullah decided to chuck the letter asking for help into the muddy waters of sungai perak? the picture that was the history of malaysia under british rule would have been painted differently, although probably no less volatile than what it already was.

selamat menyambut kemerdekaan 48 tahun, malaysia.

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i read with interest an article about a hawaiian tune being similar to negaraku in today’s issue of the star. negaraku was adapted from the state of perak’s official anthem. the story went that when HH paduka sri sultan sir idris went to england to see queen victoria, the palace officials wanted to know if perak had a state anthem. my great granddad, raja mansur ibni sultan abdullah, who was the sultan’s aide-de-camp, simply hummed the tune of terang bulan to the bandmaster, which he had listened to in the seychelles, played by bands in the gazebos. according to this site, the tune was a then popular french melody composed by pierre-jean de béranger.

this is why i got so incensed when some bright spark decided to change the anthem to a march beat a few years ago. thankfully, negaraku is back to what it was before. the original anthem was majestic (like god save the queen – okay, not the sex pistol’s take lah!), and in no way lembab.

just what were these people thinking?

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