2013/01/01 by Danny Wong Tze Ken · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography #Asian Studies and History #Vietnamese History and Culture Studies #Fell #Islam #Malay #Refugee #Faith #Politics #Government (linguistics) #Communism #Political science #Welfare #Face (sociological concept) #Peninsula #Gender studies #Sociology #History #Geography #Law #Theology #Social science #Cartography
paper · doi:10.3406/arch.2013.4389
openalex publication_date 2013/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
When Phnom Penh and Saigon fell in 1975, throngs of refugees fled Cambodia and Vietnam in the face of incoming Communist regimes in the two countries. Malaysia became a destination for many of them. However, Malaysia’s position in relations to the Indochinese refugees was clear, namely, they were to be processed and to be resettled to a third country. In spite of this, until 1985, some ten thousand among them were allowed to settle. They were Muslims or practitioners of the Islamic faith, ethnically known as Chams or Islam Kemboja. This paper sets out to investigate the reasons behind the Malaysian Government’s decision to accept these refugees and the reasons the Chams chose Malaysia. Apart from the common adherence to Islam as the main reason behind both decisions, this paper also argues that old links, both religious and political, were strongly imprinted in the minds of the Chams so much so that when Cambodia and Vietnam fell to the Communists, it was Kelantan and the Malay Peninsula that the Chams had chosen to settle in. For the first time, first-hand information from the personal papers of Mubin Sheppard, at the time Honorary Secretary of the Malaysian Muslim Welfare Organisation, was consulted to write this paper.