YOURSAY 'We need not only a political revolution but a revolution of the mind. Only then can we trust wholly what an academician says.'

Ferdtan: Universiti Sains Malaysia scientist Zafarina Zainuddin's 'proto-Malays are the origin of the human race' is only true in Bolehland. Elsewhere in the world, they believe in different history.

Before you declare your findings to Malaysians, get some credentials from respectable genealogical authorities overseas. Then only you talk.

We just don't believe in our intelligentsia anymore - their integrity has gone ‘kaput' beyond redemption. We see political motive everywhere.

We need not only a political revolution but a revolution of the mind. Only then can we trust wholly what an academician says without questioning his or her motive and integrity.

Vijay47: I just love this new school subject, ‘Present History'.

So according to conference deputy chairperson Zaharah Sulaiman, the female version of Khoo Kay Kim, people who were living in Africa moved to the Sunda Shelf, morphing into the Proto-Malays.

This proves that mankind as we know it descended from these Proto-Malays. Hey, don't ask me to explain the logic, I am only the piano player.

Zaharah, to continue your theory, what happened to the guys in Africa?

Hello: I don't like to throw a spanner in the works. As with everything that is even slightly connected with Umno-BN and with this RM1.4 million grant from the Umno-BN government, I am highly suspicious of this conference on the origin of the Malay race.

It seems to me that Umno-BN is trying to make a case for ‘ketuanan Melayu'. I would believe this if the papers were submitted by internationally recognised anthropologists the world over, and they accept the studies' conclusion.

Is this a mind game to boost the ego of the Malays? It would be very pitiful if these studies are refuted later.

Solaris: "The genes of the Malays in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore tested showed 14 percent Indian component.

"‘This is very preliminary, and we need to do more sequencing to determine if this is really Indian but it seems to be from Northern India, from the Bay of Bengal,' said Oxford genetic anthropology expert Stephen Oppenheimer."

It may be preliminary to you, Oppenheimer, but the gene flow from Indians to Malays has been confirmed by YS Teng and SG Tan in their paper, ‘Genetic evidence of gene flow from Indians to Malays' (Journal of Human Genetics Volume 24, Number 1, 1-8, DOI: 10.1007/BF01890105) in 1978.

Another thing that has been confirmed is that the occurrence of specific rare variants PHI 3-1, LDH Calcutta-1 and Madras-1, and Hb S, as well as the gene frequencies of adenylate kinase and haptoglobin in Malays and Indians also confirms that the 14 percent Indian component is not only specific to Indians of the Bay of Bengal but also those of Indians from Tamil Nadu, South India, whose largely untainted majority of descendants are still found in this country.

This is unsurprising as Teng and Tan wrote, "Indians appeared in Malaysia early in its history. Sustained contacts often resulted in racial admixture."

The introduction of Madras-1 (LDH B) genetic variants into the receptive Proto-Malay gene pool could have begun as early as 1025 or 1026 when King Rajendra Chola 1 of the Chola dynasty of Coromandel, South India, conquered Gangga Negara (Perak) and ordered his men to go forth and multiply.

Manjit Bhatia: Soon this conference of Malaysian experts, backed by the RM1.4 million grant by the Higher Education Ministry (aka Malaysian taxpayers' money), will also announce that Big Foot is a proto-Malay and that he/she is real and not a myth or legend of Umno's imagination.

And I like this bit from USM scientist Zafarina, when she says: "Malays have genetics which originate from the Malay land" reignites the "Malay spirit... so that people will be proud to be Malays".

This sounds very fishy to me. It sounds like someone already knows what outcome is needed and then proceeds to 'find' the hypothesis and testing to make the fit so as to lend validity to the project.

YF: Didn't we study in our history books that modern Malays are from the Southeast Asia mainland regions and that the Orang Asli are the original inhabitants?

If you take the genes of all the Umno folks, you will find Arab, Chinese, European and Indian blood in them. So what is a Malay today? Rojak .

Geronimo: History says that Malays originated from Yunan, China. Now we hear another version. So which is which?

Okay, okay, just like Hang Tuah, this is just another myth, a kind of a 'syiok sendiri' presentation. Let's have hardcore facts, verified by world renowned archaeologists.

Not Convinced: According to this new ‘out of the Malay archipelago' theory, the Asian races originated from the Malay stock.

So does that mean that Chinese and Indians are Malay?

Cannon: The Umno fascists need to underpin their ideology of racial supremacy (ketuanan Melayu) just like the Nazis propagating the myth of the origin of the German race from a master Aryan race to justify the conquest and subjugation of the European nations by the Germans.

The origins of the human race, according to Umno, is as believable as Jack and the Bean Stalk.

Lin Dan Hot: I don't get it. Why did the Africans suddenly turn into Malays?

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