Emergency?

Malaya in 1947 seemed like a powderkeg to those in Whitehall tasked with managing its affairs. The creation of the Malayan Union, which guaranteed authority over religious matters to the Sultans and created a definition of citizenship designed to exclude non-Malays, satisfied the Sultans and their rural Malay supporters. However, the consequent disenfranchisement of much of the Chinese and Indian populations which made up half the population of Peninsular Malaya led to an increase in already strained ethnic tensions. However, the far more concerning issue for the British colonial administration was the massive postwar rise in labor activity, especially among primarily Chinese mine and plantation workers (though the issues of labor unrest and citizenship could not exactly be unlinked).

Whispers in the Mountains

During the war, the Japanese occupiers had persecuted the Chinese population due to their suspected sympathies with their original homeland. Simultaneously, the British established a military alliance with the Malayan Communist Party and its armed wing, the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army, which were overwhelmingly composed of Chinese. With British aid, MPAJA operatives were trained and dispersed throughout the country in the waning days of the Battle of Malaya, and these cadres formed the core of the MPAJA insurgency. During the war, the MCP organized extensively among the Chinese population — while the Chinese overwhelmingly lived in cities and towns due to their status as entrepreneurs and contract laborers, a large number of Chinese (over 500,000) fled for the rural hills and mountains due to Japanese oppression. These refugees came to be known as the “squatters,” and their support for the MCP was particularly strong.

After the Japanese defeat, the MPAJA had agreed to lay down its arms, as the MCP had hoped to achieve its goals through peaceful political struggle. MCP supporters used their considerable support among the Pan-Malayan General Labour Union to launch a series of massive strikes advocating for better working conditions and greater political rights for the Chinese-Indian working class. Combined with the continuing state of unrest in the rural areas, in large part due to the British failure to re-integrate the squatters into urban society, and by early 1947 Malaya seemed primed for a major confrontation between the left and the British authorities. Public unrest and acts of violence against plantations and mines increased, while the patience of the MCP decreased with every British attempt at repression. The creation of the Commonwealth of Malaya seemed to be the final blow. The MCP and its allied organizations like the Malayan Nationalist Party and All-Malayan Council of Joint Action had rallied around a platform of equal rights for all Malayans, and their defeat and the subsequent loss of much of their voting power meant it was unlikely that they would ever take power.

Turnaround

However, in November 1947, as tensions were seemingly beginning to boil over, the situation reversed dramatically. The British colonial government, led by the new Governor-General Edward Gent, apparently had a change of heart with regards to the issue of citizenship. With the help of extensive lobbying from the British, the Union government passed the Civil Rights Act of 1947, essentially reversing the entire basis of the Commonwealth of Malaya by granting non-Malays equal access to the coveted right of citizenship (in fact, a reversion to the original proposals for the Commonwealth). The abrupt u-turn enraged the Malays while giving the MCP hope that their political efforts were not in vain. Soon, while many disputes between the Chinese-based left and the British remained unresolved, the MCP had adopted a strategy of forestalling armed struggle, cautiously backing the Civil Rights Bill, and seeking additional negotiated gains, while the Malay political movement, enraged at being hoodwinked, had shifted to outright hostility towards the British.

Malays, under the banner of the newly formed United Malays National Organization, the first big-tent Malay nationalist organization, organized a campaign of popular protest and civil disobedience against British rule. Ethnic Malays by and large refused to participate in the new Union government, while under pressure from nationalists every reigning Sultan withdrew their support for the Commonwealth as long as the Civil Rights bill was still law, putting the very legal existence of the Union in rather dubious territory. UMNO street demonstrations took place in the urban centers of Peninsular Malaya often ended up clashing with opposing groups of Chinese trade unionists, leading to large riots which have injured hundreds and damaged dozens of buildings and businesses. While the violence has not reached the level of coordinated ethnic strife, many families have begun preemptively moving to friendlier, more homogenous neighborhoods, in effect ethnically cleansing many parts of Kuala Lumpur and Penang. UMNO leader On Jaafar has publicly called for absolute resistance to the new constitution until the “rights of Malays are restored,” including measures such as blockades of major roads, rail stations, and ports, a walkout by all Malay public servants, including police and personnel of the Malay Regiment, call that the vast majority of Malays have heeded.

While the Malay population is economically weak, their actions have caused considerable disruption to the British colonial enterprise, as shipments of key export goods are delayed, valuable work hours and property are lost to urban unrest, and the government is crippled. The threat on the left flank, while temporarily diminished, has also not disappeared. Trade union and squatter activism continues to disrupt society, and the British about-face has invigorated the previously rather limp-wristed left-wing nationalist movement, pushing them to demand greater concessions, including a concrete path towards independence. This is especially significant for the British domestic situation because Malaya is the second largest contributor to the Sterling Area’s dollar account, with a dollar trade surplus of over $200 million. Malayan exports of tin, rubber, and tea are thus vital for keeping the pound on track for eventual convertibility.

The AMCJA, the primary moderate, multiethnic party within the pro Civil-Rights political movement, have reiterated their (modified) People’s Constitutional Proposals as the only viable path towards a stable, loyal, and just Malaya. Representing the moderate position of equal rights combined with concessions towards Malay identity, they are as follows:

• A united Malaya including Singapore

• A popularly elected Central Government and popularly elected State councils

• A citizenship granting equal rights to all who made Malaya their permanent home and the object of their undivided loyalty (Granted already)

• Malay Rulers to have real sovereign power responsible to the people through popularly elected Councils

• Special provisions for the advancement of the Malays politically, economically and educationally

• Malay to be the official language

• A national flag and anthem

• Melayu (Malay in Malay) to be the title of any proposed citizenship and nationality in Malaya

• Foreign affairs and defence to be the joint responsibility of the government of Malaya and the government of Great Britain

• A Council of Races to be set up to block any discriminatory legislation that is based on ethnicity or religion

The MCP has so far abstained from making more extreme demands than their allies, but pressure within their organization is mounting to make their official program one of immediate, or at least rapid independence, together with abolition of the Sultans, increased labor rights, and major land reforms to settle the squatter population and redistribute or communalize plantation land.

The British, while having succeeded in partially quelling the fire burning on their left, have only managed to set a new blaze on their right. And no one seems to be quite sure whether the Commonwealth can weather the inferno….

TLDR:

• Look Patrick, we stopped the Emergency!

• The MCP have warmed to the British somewhat, but that doesn’t mean they’re friendly.

• The previously rather apathetic Chinese and Indians have politically mobilized, together with their few Malay allies, to support the Civil Rights Act and the Commonwealth.

• The Malays are… not happy.