by Peter Church
The Pangkor Treaty thus pioneered the formula by which the British would achieve authority in the peninsular states. Constitutionally, the states would be “protected” sovereign states, retaining their rulers. Practically, the Resident (or, in some cases, “Adviser”) could extend his control as far as the British wished. By the 1880s, not only Perak but Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, and Pahang were under such a system. In 1896 these states became the Federated Malay States (FMS) with their federal administrative centre at Kuala Lumpur, a young city growing out of a tin‐mining camp.
In 1909, Thailand relinquished its imperial claims to the northern Malay states of Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, and Trengganu, and Britain moved to install Advisers in these states. In 1914, Johor was also obliged to accept an Adviser, despite its long record of satisfactory administration. Johor and the northern states were not brought under federal administration and became the Unfederated Malay States (UMS). Even so, by the second decade of the 20th century the British had begun to talk about “Malaya”—that term disguising a constitutional hotchpotch of Crown colony (the Straits Settlements) and nine protected sovereign states, four of which were federated and five not.
In northern Borneo, meanwhile, two unique—indeed, eccentric—expressions of British colonialism had emerged at the expense of the sultanate of Brunei. Brunei was impoverished in the 19th century and further weakened by bitter factionalism within its ruling class. In 1840, a British adventurer, James Brooke, was recruited to quell a revolt in the Sarawak river region, at the sultanate's western extremity. Between 1841 and 1843 Brooke acquired full possession of the region and made the town of Kuching his base. From there, he, and his nephew and successor as “White Rajah,” Charles Brooke (ruler 1868–1917), expanded their territory eastward, establishing Sarawak's final borders shortly after the turn of the century. Brunei would be left as two small enclaves within Sarawak.
Several factors propelled the Brookes' expansionism, the most important being Brunei's poverty and the dispersal of power in the sultanate, which made the piecemeal acquisition of territory for small sums relatively easy. In addition, in the 1840s the British navy saw James Brooke as an ally in its efforts to stamp out piracy in South‐East Asian waters. Brooke was backed on several occasions by intimidating displays of British naval power when dealing with Brunei. From the 1850s, British support was withheld from the Brookes, for fear that such private imperial ventures might embarrass Britain, but this made no difference. The Brookes had their own source of intimidating power—large contingents of Dayak warriors. They also had an idealistic rationale for their advance, believing that they were developing a unique experiment in efficient and benevolent government for native peoples.
Competition would add further urgency to Charles Brooke's expansionism from the 1870s. In 1877–1878, a British business consortium acquired the rights to most of the territory of Sabah, to Brunei's east, from Brunei and from the sultanate of Sulu in what is now the southern Philippines. (Here was the origin of a dormant but still unresolved dispute over Sabah between the Philippines and Malaysia. The Philippines, as successor state to Sulu, claims that Sulu merely “leased” rather than “ceded” its rights in Sabah.) By 1881, the business consortium had persuaded the British government to charter a company, financed by shares, to administer the Sabahan territories, hopefully at a profit. Thus Sabah became British North Borneo, and was governed by the British North Borneo Chartered Company.
Charles Brooke was outraged. During the 1880s and 1890s there was fierce competition between him and the Chartered Company over the Brunei territories that remained unceded. In 1888, Britain moved to guarantee that at least the core lands of the sultanate should survive, making Brunei a British protectorate. In 1906, Brunei received a British Adviser, with powers similar to those of Residents in the Peninsular states. By then Brunei had newfound economic significance; large oil deposits had been located in Brunei Bay.
THE COLONIAL ERA
On the peninsula, the extension of British control met with some opposition but it was soon quelled. The British now set about creating an environment for economic expansion. The tin industry which had boomed in the 1840s continued to grow, moving from Chinese to Western control with the arrival of capital‐intensive mechanisation in the 20th century. In the first decade of the 20th century, rubber cultivation boomed. By 1930, two‐thirds of the cultivated land on the peninsula would be under rubber.
Malayan tin and Malayan rubber would dominate their respective world markets, and despite their price instability, would make the peninsula one of Britain's most valued imperial possessions. The success of these commodities meant that economic diversification was limited. Crops such as pepper, sugar, and coffee were largely swept aside by rubber after 1900. Some limited progress was made with palm oil, pineapples, and timber in the more cautious 1920s and 1930s. No significant industrialisation occurred. However, the road and rail networks which the British established formed the basis for a good communications infrastructure. Chinese activity in such areas as finance, transportation, construction, petty industry, and retail trading was also establishing a strong base for the area's economic future.
Chinese immigration swelled in the colonial era, pulled by the economic opportunities opening up and pushed by the dire conditions in China. The British left Chinese immigration uncontrolled until 1930, when the Great Depression ended any demand for additional labour. Meanwhile, the British had also recruited Indian labour. The Chinese and Indians had always been regarded as transients, but by the 1930s significant numbers had either decided to settle or lacked the ability to return to their homelands. The 1931 census revealed that Malays no longer formed the majority in the total population of the Malay States and Straits Settlements. This was despite another aspect of immigration to the Peninsula in this era—the arrival in substantial numbers of Malay‐Muslim people from various parts of the archipelago.
Divisions between Malays, Chinese, and Indians, already culturally profound, were deepened by British perceptions and policies. Racial stereotyping meant that the Malays were effectively excluded from the modernising economy. Their upper class was encouraged to think about an English public school–style education and a career within the branch of government which administered the Malays. Ordinary Malays were envisaged as rice farmers and fisher‐folk, and their vernacular education was tailored to such humble goals. The growing towns and cities of colonial Malaya, predominantly populated by Chinese, became alien places to most Malays. Meanwhile, the Chinese were subject to a separate branch of government and managed their own education systems, in Chinese languages or English. Most Indians were effectively subjects of the rubber estates on which they laboured; their children received Indian‐language education.
Such separation of the communities made the emergence of nationalism, in the sense of a pan‐ethnic movement, unlikely. Prior to World War II, the British in Malaya were virtually unbothered by the sort of anticolonial sentiment disturbing other Western colonies in Asia. Divisions within Malaya's communities furthered this state of affairs. Most Malays still tended to be loyal to their particular state and sultan. The Chinese were divided by differences of clan and dialect, and by the battle between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party in China.
However, education in various forms was beginning to produce people within each of the ethnic communities who were not content to leave the future entirely to the British. Amongst Malays, pan‐Malay and pan‐Muslim attitudes were stirring in the 1930s, heralding strong Malay political organisation later. A few Malay radicals believed that the peninsula should become part of the Indonesia envisaged by the nationalists of the Netherlands East Indies. The Communist Party of Malaya, founded in 1930, was mainly Chinese in membership and in the 1930s mainly interested in events in China, but it had begun to analyse the potential for revolution in Malaya. Many Indians were gaining political confidence from news about the struggle against the British on the subcontinent. Soon, war would accelerate d
ramatically the significance of these political awakenings.
Meanwhile, Sarawak and British North Borneo were quiet backwaters of the colonial world. Both had experienced major rebellions against the imposition of white authority, but resistance had been largely put down by 1900. Thereafter, change was slow. Neither territory attracted more than minor economic development, and the Brooke government (from 1917 under the third raja, Vyner Brooke) and the Chartered Company always survived on tight budgets. The Brookes made a virtue of that fact by arguing that they were deliberately protecting their subjects from the evils of modernisation. The provision of education was extremely limited in both territories, much of it being left to Christian missions.
In one regard—that of racial stereotyping—the theory of administration in Sarawak conformed closely to British theory in the peninsular states. In Brooke's eyes, Sarawak's Malay‐Muslims would provide native administrators, the immigrant Chinese (over 30 percent of the population by the early 20th century) would drive the commercial economy, while the Dayaks (Ibans) would remain within their traditional culture, except in the matter of headhunting, for which the administration substituted police and military work. The Chartered Company, by contrast, was relatively relaxed in its dealings with its ethnically diverse population. It welcomed administrative and commercial talent from any group, and allowed complex intercommunal relationships to flourish. The communal rigidities of Sarawak and the peninsular states did not, therefore, develop to the same degree in Sabah.
JAPANESE OCCUPATION
Japanese forces attacked British Malaya on December 8, 1941. Singapore, the supreme symbol of British power in South‐East Asia, fell on February 15, 1942. Sarawak and British North Borneo were occupied without a shot being fired. Over three and a half years of Japanese occupation would follow, until British military administrators returned in August/September 1945. The principal results of these years were devastation of the prewar economy, a much more politicised populace, and a much more divided populace.
The Japanese presented themselves to Malay‐Muslims as their patron, respectful of Islam and of Malay culture. They fostered pan‐Malay consciousness and gave Malays new opportunities in administration. They also encouraged those young Malay radicals hoping for links with the Indonesian nationalists, though few Peninsular Malays supported them and the idea would not get far. Japanese regard for the Malays was thrown into question in 1943 when they handed over the four northern Malay states to Thailand. However, these states would return to British control in 1945.
The Chinese were treated by the Japanese as war enemies, often with appalling brutality. Not surprisingly, Chinese formed the majority of the underground resistance forces which developed in the peninsula and in the Borneo territories. The peninsular forces were known as the MPAJA (Malayan People's Anti‐Japanese Army), and were to a large degree controlled by members of the CPM (Communist Party of Malaya).
The Indians of Malaya, by contrast, were encouraged by the Japanese to focus their political thoughts on India. Many young Malayan Indians were recruited for service in the Japanese‐sponsored but ill‐fated INA (Indian National Army).
THE POSTWAR PERIOD
When the British returned in 1945, they quickly subdued the open intercommunal hostilities which had flared at the war's end. They were aware, however, that there could be no going back to the complacency of prewar days. Alongside the massive reconstruction of the economy, they also set about fundamental administrative reform. In 1946, Sarawak and British North Borneo—the latter particularly badly damaged by war—were acquired from their former owners and finally became the full responsibility of Britain. On the peninsula, the British introduced a plan for “Malayan Union,” uniting administratively the Malay States, Penang and Melaka (though not Singapore) and giving all residents equal rights of citizenship.
Malays from all states were galvanised by the blithe disregard for states' rights and Malay preeminence over the immigrant peoples. UMNO (United Malays National Organisation) was swiftly formed in protest, and the British were forced to abandon the idea of union. However, in subsequent talks, UMNO agreed to a federal administrative structure, and to citizenship for non‐Malays who filled certain strict criteria. The Federation of Malaya was launched in 1948.
In the same year, the CPM attempted revolution, using guerilla warfare tactics and drawing on the experience and organisation gained during the war in the MPAJA. The British declared a state of emergency (the event became known as “the Emergency”) and developed counterinsurgency policies which, crucially, won the support of the majority of the population. By the early 1950s, CPM terrorism had been reduced to a minor problem, though Emergency regulations were not lifted until 1960. One permanent result of the Emergency was a highly centralised federation, the states having relinquished most of their sovereign powers so that the crisis could be handled efficiently.
ALLIANCE GOVERNMENT AND INDEPENDENCE
During the Emergency, the British promised self‐government for Malaya, though at the time it was not clear how this could be achieved in a way acceptable to all communities. Attempts to establish multiracial political parties met with little success. The largest and best‐organized party in Malaya, UMNO, was exclusively for Malays. The peril of politicised ethnic rivalry loomed large.
Beginning in 1952, however, a formula for potentially stable self‐government was worked out. This was the Alliance, a coalition of three communal‐based parties. UMNO represented the Malays. The Chinese were represented by the new and politically conservative MCA (Malayan—later Malaysian—Chinese Association). The Malayan—later Malaysian—Indian Congress (MIC) represented the Indian community. The Alliance testified to the pragmatic good sense, diplomatic skills, and political generosity of its founders, supremely Tunku Abdul Rahman, UMNO leader and first prime minister until 1970. Hugely successful at national elections in 1955, the Alliance achieved merdeka (independence) for the Federation of Malaya in 1957. The new nation's democratic parliamentary system and its legal system were broadly derived from British models.
The Alliance was not without its flaws, leaving unresolved many issues which Malaysia is still working out. It was a pact, or bargain, between three communal élites which gave the economically weak Malays access to political and administrative power while assuring the other communities of respect for their interests. The Malays were offered a degree of “positive discrimination” but Alliance government basically left the socioeconomic imbalances between communities to be worked out by laissez faire forces. In addition, questions of national cultural integration were left largely unresolved. Malay preeminence was acknowledged in the adoption of Islam as the national religion, in the form of monarchy devised (the nine hereditary state rulers would elect a king from their number every five years), and in making Malay the national language, but the application of the national religion and language to the daily lives of non‐Malays was extremely circumscribed. It was believed that interethnic suspicions were running too high for such issues to be determined at once.
THE CREATION OF MALAYSIA
Ethnic issues dominated the formation of the Federation of Malaysia. First mooted in 1961, Malaysia was envisaged as a merger of Malaya with Singapore, Sarawak, Sabah (then still British North Borneo), and perhaps the sultanate of Brunei. In the event Brunei remained apart but, after cautious negotiation, the other territories established Malaysia on September 16, 1963.
The new nation was a delicate exercise in ethnic arithmetic. The non‐Chinese majorities of the Borneo states helped balance the inclusion of the predominantly Chinese Singapore, but Singapore entered Malaysia with many constitutional, political, and administrative issues left unresolved. Tensions escalated and, in August 1965, Tunku Abdul Rahman and Lee Kuan Yew signed a separation agreement.
THE 1969 CRISIS
The 1960s saw Malaysian democracy at its most open, and a number of parties engaging in vigorous criticism of the Alliance. The most notable opposition parties were Pas
(Parti Islam Se‐Malaysia, originally PMIP, Pan‐Malayan Islamic Party), and DAP (Democratic Action Party). Pas was dedicated to building an Islamic state in Malaysia and appealed to Malay voters who saw UMNO as being compromised by Western and non‐Islamic influences and too ready to bargain with the non‐Malays. The DAP picked up support mainly from Chinese voters unhappy with the conservative and Malay‐dominated Alliance.
Political passions ran high during the general election campaign of May 1969. The results appeared to diminish the absolute control over government which the Alliance had previously enjoyed. Violent clashes erupted in Kuala Lumpur between perturbed Malays and celebratory Chinese. The riots lasted four days and caused several hundred deaths and heavy destruction of property. A state of emergency was declared, with government placed effectively in the hands of a body coordinating military and police action, the National Operations Council (NOC). Some observers feared that Malaysian democracy was dead. This did not prove to be the case, but the rage and trauma did lead to substantial political changes.
UMNO AND BARISAN NASIONAL GOVERNMENT
Government by NOC ended in 1971 and government by federal cabinet, based on parliamentary voting strength, was restored. But the level of political freedom allowed to critics of government policy in the 1960s did not return. Conciliation and consensus‐building were to remain a key feature of the Malaysian political scene, but now non‐Malays were left in no doubt that their bargaining position was weaker than it may have seemed before May 1969. The Malaysian government now adopted much more frankly the character of a primarily Malay government of a primarily Malay nation. Malay interests became paramount in the formulation of government goals and policies. UMNO became, unapologetically, the dominant political party in Malaysia and was to increase its power further over the next two decades.
