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We have to learn from what little can be gleaned and some deductive speculation. This period of war and insurrection set the stage for our present struggles as well as our current confusion. The communist insurrection obviously failed, but it has ramifications that continue to haunt us today and perhaps even far into the future and may explain the government’s obsessive fear of aged and perhaps toothless ex-communists. Besides, we also need to know why they lost to such an extent that some people of all races today reminisce almost lovingly about their old colonial masters.

The revolution in Russia in 1917 was originally a bourgeois revolution against the Czar. This was quickly followed by the world’s first ever successful communist revolution as they took advantage of a Russia weakened and an unpopular government made impotent by war. They claimed their revolution to be a socialist revolution and that it was proletarian internationalist in character in accordance with Marxist doctrine.

As the communist popularity and ideology spread, China and then Vietnam quickly launched their own revolutions, but these could hardly be called socialist; as these countries were not even industrialized to any minor degree, consequently not even possessing a proper proletariat. Their revolutions were called “Maoist” – based on peasants and nationalist in character. (China does not even call itself a socialist republic, but a “people’s” republic.)

By the time communist ideology reached Malaya, it was vapour thin and riddled with “high falutin” ideological and theoretical language. The idealistic young men and women had to rely on a Vietnamese called Lai Tak to teach them about communism and proletarian internationalism. Consequently, when they took up arms during WW2 to fight Japanese invaders, they were initially not fired by nationalism but by internationalism. This fact alone explains why it is possible for communists to work together in cooperation with a colonial power (Britain) against the Japanese (hence appearing to protect the existing colonial power against a new invader rather than letting these two fight between themselves), as by this time, the Soviet Union had joined the Allied Powers against the Axis Powers.

There is a similarity with the situation in China, as the early communists had to rely on Comintern advisors for guidance. It was only after many disastrous setbacks and when Mao gained greater influence that the Chinese revolution changed course and became more peasant-based and nationalistic rather than worker-based and internationalist.

The Malayan communists never made this change until it was way too late. They were nationalists only by accident, not by design. Even after Lai Tak was exposed as a double agent of the British and then subsequently the Japanese, the Malayan communists, unlike the Vietnamese, never learnt any lessons about relying on themselves rather than on foreigners. Apparently, foreigners who knew theory but lacked knowledge of ground conditions continued to be better respected than locals who knew ground conditions but did not know theory. The train was on the wrong track and after the war, during the Emergency, it continued to chug along the wrong track; all the time relying on Mao’s strategy of “surrounding the cities from the countryside” but never really understanding why. They never seriously tried to win the support of the rural population until it was too late. They fought a nationalistic anti-colonialist war without galvanizing the whole population for it.

This made it exceedingly simple for the British and later UMNO to accuse them of being Mao’s puppets. The Malay-Chinese divide was being opened up with bullets and bombs as well as British cunning at divide-and-rule and festering mistakes of the anti-colonialists.

It was only after China told the Malayan communists that they had to be nationalists first and internationalists second, by withdrawing material support, that the realization sunk home and they took to nationalism like ducks to water. Sadly for them, it was way too late. Mistakes like these cost lives unnecessarily – as Malayans fought Malayans to the bitter end.

While the Malayan communists relied on the nationalism of many of the Chinese in Malaya, more out of accidental necessity than design, UMNO was deliberately fanning the flames of Malay nationalism. Neither of the 2 nationalisms was constructive. Malayan Chinese nationalism was directed more towards China and only vaguely sensed about its true destiny in the Malayan homeland. Malay nationalism was about affecting the transfer of power from British into Malay hands, but more directed against fear of Chinese domination and perhaps even vaguely about joining with Indonesia to form Greater Indonesia.

It must be realized that Malaya at this time did not form a single united political or even national identity – it comprised the Federated Malay States, The Unfederated Malay States (most of which had only recently been passed from Siamese suzerainty into British influence and control as trade-off for a railroad!) and the Straits Settlements apart from huge groups of transitory as well as permanent indentured labour and immigrants. Like India, Malaya too was a British creation. Malaya, originally, was a rojak mix of loyalties, whichever one claiming more ascendancy, originality or purity is difficult to assess. Chinese nationalism was as new and as blemished as Malay nationalism.

The above is a wholly incomplete and insufficient story of the hopes, ideals and struggles of a people who originally called themselves Chinese or Indians or Malays or Bugis or Minangkabau or Kelantanese or Siamese, but who later became Malayans and still later – Malaysians. The mistakes they made were mostly not done out of evil or ill-intent, but conditioned by circumstances of mass migrations, war and anti-colonial revolt - a confusing time in a fast-changing country.

However, if the Malaysians of today refuse to learn from history and the mistakes of the past, hopes and aspirations will turn into evil intent. The Malay-Chinese divide will become unbridgeable. Malaysia will turn into a failed state. Malaysia will return to its rojak mix of competing and maybe even antagonistic loyalties.

The Malayan communists made the mistake of not including the bulk of the rural population in their anti-colonial struggle. Will UMNO now make the mistake of not including the bulk of the urban population in the competitive struggle for survival in a globalized world? The communists failed to unite Malayans into a single people. Did they want to in the first place? Can UMNO succeed? Does it want to?

The Malay claim for Ketuanan and supremacy has to be toned down and the Chinese claim to be born and bred (and loyal to boot) in Malaysia cannot just end there. It must take into account the legitimate hopes and aspirations of the Malays as well. One community ignoring the existence of the other and trampling on each others’ aspirations will lead us nowhere, if not into purgatory.

By batsman

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