Kota Kinabalu: State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said those who criticised him for saying that natives in Sabah, including Kadazan, Dusun and Murut are part of the Malayan race should study their materials before doing so."Just google 'rumpun melayu' and you will get your answer. You misunderstood me because you did not do your research. That is the problem. It was not made out of thin air, nor was it for political reasons!
"The Malay stock is an incident of history. Those living in the Malay archipelago from the peninsula, Indonesia, Borneo up to the Philippines," he said.
According to studies on anthropology, Borneans including Kadazandusun, Murut, Iban, Bidayuh and Dayak are grouped under the Malayo-Polynesian group, one of two groups of the Austronesian family.
The other group is the Formosan in Taiwan such as the Amis, Atayal, Bunun and Paiwan.
The Malayo-Polynesian group also include Polynesians such as the Maori, Native Hawaiians and Samoans. Masidi further explained that grouping Sabah natives under the Malayan group does not make them Malays.
"Stock and race are two different things. So I do not know what is so controversial about my statement.
If it is a controversy, then they should be condemning all the historians and anthropologists that have been writing about this for the last 200 years.
"So my advice is, read, get the knowledge. Don't condemn me just because you look at it as a political issue rather than as knowledge. This concept is nothing new.
Go out and learn."
On Saturday, during the Umno Youth and Puteri Umno meeting in Ranau, Masidi said that Sabahans are also included as Malays when referring to the concept of "Rumpun Melayu (Malay stock)" and people should change their perception about Umno.
He had said while the people in the peninsula called themselves Malays, the true sense of Malay people is "all of us".
His statement received much criticism on social media who accused him of trying to entice indigenous people into joining Umno. There is even a cartoon depicting him and others proclaiming themselves Malays.
"This is like the French complaining for being called Europeans, Germans complaining for being called Europeans.
But they are Europeans, aren't they? So, I don't know what else to say to this," he said.
