Contrary to popular belief, the ‘Lepak Malay’ did not just emerge organically from the popular consciousness like mushrooms after rain.

Neither is it an insidious invention by ‘yellow cowards‘ seeking to oppress/exploit other races for economic gain, as some scholars have suggested.

According to the late, celebrated Malaysian Sociologist Syed Hussein Alatas, this ‘myth of the lazy malay’ dates back almost 200 years to colonial times, when the British and the Dutch first realised that Southeast Asia’s resources could make them really, really rich.

In his book The Myth of the Lazy Native, Professor Alatas gives us various examples from the 18th and 19th century, when European observers first began describing Malays with terms like ‘lazy’, ‘indolent’ and ‘disinclined to work’.

Here is Frank Swettenham, British Resident of Selangor, describing the local population. Along with courage, excellent swimming skills, and an absence of ‘servility’, he says: “The leading characteristics of the Malay of every class is an disinclination to work.”

Hugh Clifford, full-time British Resident of Pahang and part-time fiction author, concurs. He writes: “Less than one month’s fitful exertion in twelve, a fish basket in the river or in a swamp, an hour with a casting net in the evening, would supply a man with food. A little more than this and he would have something to sell. Probably that accounts for the Malay’s inherent laziness; that and a climate which inclines the body to ease and rest, the mind to dreamy contemplation rather than to strenuous and persistent toil.”

Mr. Clifford and Swettenham were not alone. Our beloved Sir Stamford Raffles said of the “lazy Malay” that “he is so indolent, that when he has rice, nothing will induce him to work.”.

Other commentators in 1901 have said that “the Malay of the peninsula were the most steadfast loafers on the face of the earth” because “for nine-tenths of his waking hours… he sits on a wooden bench in shade and watches the Chinaman and the Indian build roads and railways.”

As the good professor rightly points out, anyone who does spend 90% of his or her waking hours sitting on a bench would surely have fallen dead by the third week. This is not science or anthropology. These so-called observations are half-baked racist stereotypes born of prejudice and transformed into fact by mindless repetition.

Evidence for the not-lazy and not-lepak Malay are evident in simple facts such as:

1. The existence of a Malay merchant class, which was only wiped out after the British and Dutch established monopolies in the region.

2. Subsistence agriculture like fishing or padi planting variety was undeniably hard work. Even if it was less visible to the British, who were concentrated in urban areas.

3. The colonialists’ own writings, which are full of statements that contradict their own claims of laziness. If Malays were indeed lazy, they certainly would not make for ‘industrious’ or ‘superior’ naval crew, nor would it make any sense for them to engage in constant war with colonising forces.

But if such stereotypes are evidently false, then how did they come about?