THAT was close. Malaysians can now heave a huge sigh of relief.
The attempted “constitutional coup” against the people has been stopped in its tracks by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and the Conference of Rulers.
Lest, some self-serving politicians attempt again to “dissolve the People and elect another” per the ending line of Bertold Brecht’s poem, The Solution, younger Malaysians must know that we once lived under a state of emergency for 12 years and for very good reasons.
That state of emergency is known as the Malayan Emergency. It's a time we can still look back with pride and pain.
It was June 1948: the Federation of Malaya was a mere six months old, a fledgling political entity made of nine Malay states, Penang and Melaka.
In Malay, the federation was called Persekutuan Tanah Melayu, a term more emotive and better captured the sentiments of the Malays than the English rendering of the same.
But still, we were inching along into becoming a multi-racial country – the future Malaya.
Then the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) and its armed wing the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) struck.
The opening act
Planters were killed in cold blood in Sg Siput. Sure, the MCP had a different take on our history, having fought against the Japanese occupation.
And sure, times were so hard that ordinary working folks – tappers, mine workers, fishermen and farmers – were reduced to anger, fear and tears for themselves and their families.
The British imperialists were now the new enemy for the MCP. They had their sympathisers.
The MCP’s campaign of terror was widespread as it was ruthless. Even young school girls were recruited.
Their propaganda was unremitting. The unions were infiltrated. Gathering intelligence, they hit-and-run at will. And kept moving, becoming the invisible enemy.
The colonial government swiftly declared a state of emergency in June 1948. Battle-hardened troops were rushed in.
At its height, some 300,000 Malayans – special constables, police, home guard – were all part of securing the federation.
Spitfires flew out of bases in Singapore while bombers dropped 500lb bombs on communist forward camps and food depots.
The Malayan countryside was now a war zone. Civilians were caught in the middle like in Vietnam. There were pitched battles too, like at Bukit Kepong.
The population was subject to emergency regulations, curfews and restriction orders. Shoot on sight as well. And even a My Lai kind of massacre at Batang Kali. Some 400 internment camps or new villages surrounded by barbed wire, dotted the land.
But there were good things too: EPF, schools, clinics, libraries and radio. Above all, there was a sense of community. Malayans of all races were slowly but surely forging a national identity.
There was a sense of common purpose and destiny. Sacrifices were made by all.
The emergency lasted for 12 years, ending in July 1960. During this time, political parties were formed followed by the usual jostle for position and power.
We got our first taste of the vote: the 1955 election for the Federal Legislative Council.
Then in the middle of the emergency came independence for the peninsula. A parliament was born, not suspended. The rest as they say is history.
A real emergency reflects the will of a majority, not the other way around where a minority imposes its will on the masses.
The 1948-1960 emergency was not engineered like the one that came next in 1969.
For millions of parents at that time, mine included, life was a struggle fraught with uncertainties. Food, clothing, shelter and getting children to school were always on their minds.
But the use of the word “emergency” by the British was a deliberate one. The insurers in London will not pay out a cent for loss and damage if they had called it the Malayan War, which it was in many ways.
But the MCP and its cadres, like Covid-19, were similarly unseen and insidious.
This is what we call a life and death struggle necessitating a declaration of an emergency in which rights of citizens are suspended to ensure the survival of a nation. Not for a clique or a coterie and for your own political ends.
You, prime minister, were a year old when this emergency was imposed.
In your early years, you must have heard many stories of our country's early struggles.
Me? I was born during the emergency, in 1954, when the country was up against the wall.
My dear prime minister, we will give you a real emergency when you give us some real reasons. – The Vibes, October 26, 2020
Former planter and current entrepreneur Murale Pillai says history must be re-thought and re-taught in schools.
