This was the most significant period of history in Malaysia as the European domination brought in cheap labour from China and India to meet the needs of the colonial economy. Soon the Malays became a minority in their own country and the seed or resentment and anger had been planted, but it would take many more years before the Malays won back the independence of their country. In the meantime the Chinese and Indian immigrant workers became neutralised Malaysians and began to trade and run small business further setting back the Malays.
The British colonised and ran the country as the Malayan Federation, which included Singapore and set about institutionalising the country with their civil service structure and developing rubber and other agri-based industries. It took a strong military response from the British and many concessions from both the Malays and the Chinese to bring the Communist insurgency to an end, 1n 1957, and the Federation of Malaya was founded. Six years later, in 1963, Malaya acquired the British territories in North Borneo and Singapore and became known as Malaysia. A few years later the Singapore, consisting of a large Chinese population, parted ways with Malaysia and became an independent country. The troubles for Malaysian had not yet ended and in 1969 things came to a head with fierce racial fights between the Malays and the Chinese. The completion of the Petronas Towers made the country proud to host the world’s tallest building for more than a decade and the modern city of Kuala Lumpar mirrors this. A policy of affirmative action to empower Malays has been in place since the seventies with mixed results. The changes did cause resentment but the outcome is a modern multi-cultural and multi racial country that can stand proud in the face of international competition. | 
