FEBRUARY 15 — How many of the 600,000 persons transported out of rural Malaya under the Briggs Plan were terrified? Gathered unceremoniously and asked to pack their belongings before being huddled into the back of military trucks for destinations unknown, the worst thoughts must have run through their minds.
It was the 1950s, after all.
Their survival of the Japanese Occupation from the 40s was largely aided by being away from towns and now another situation emerges for them to survive.
The odd photo of dwellers shuffled into vehicles in my old history textbook only accompanied the thanks to Lieutenant-General Sir Harold Briggs, Director of Operations, the father of our new villages, for his brilliant stratagem.
It spoke nothing of the feelings of those hundreds of thousands, forcibly removed en masse to counter communist insurgents.
A study of Briggs provides context to the action.
Sir Harold was a career soldier, Sandhurst graduate, fought and led men in both the first and second world war. On the battlefields of France, Egypt, Palestine, Iran, Burma among others, faced both the Germans and Japanese.
Which explains why he did not pause to implement his military plan to cut supply lines to the Malayan Communist Party. He was a soldier, not a policeman. One looks for balance, the other for victory.
Rather than investigate and act upon wrongdoers, he assumed all were guilty by association and placed them in fenced-up compounds just outside towns, watched by armed guards with strict curfews.
The guilty and those not. Communist supporters and not.
It worked. The resulting collateral damage — mental toll, loss of liberty and social imbalances — the British tolerated in order to achieve the overall objectives of the empire.
The overwhelming majority of those corralled into the camps were Chinese, over 400,000 together with Orang Asli.
Sixty-five years after the end of the insurgency or Emergency, Malaysians are back discussing new villages, not whether to rue British decisions but to ask if the world should celebrate these settlements.
The controversial minister from Perak — the biggest base of communist insurgents during our troubles — Nga Kor Ming wants Unesco, the Heimdall to heritage sites worldwide, to include seven new villages.
It’s vital to demarcate the new villages from the communists. The villages were filled with more victims than sympathisers. The camps were estimated to be ten per cent of Malayan population then, and if most of them were in cahoots with the Communists the insurgency would have mirrored far more like the Vietnamese War, a long painful defeat for the colonialist.
Here, Briggs just simplified things by indiscriminately removing all possible supply lines rather than tracking down probable accomplices.
Therefore, when evaluating the minister’s move presently, it is not a tribute to the insurgents, but a recognition of a substantial byproduct of the era, around 450 new villages.
How dare you?
The current Malaysian heritage sites under Unesco are Lenggong Valley, and the twin Georgetown and Malacca cities under cultural, with Mulu and Kinabalu parks in East Malaysia under natural. There are 10 criteria to vie for a spot. Look them up.
The Malay right is upset about the minister and the suggestion new villages are national heritage sites, let alone one the world should look up to.
Before examining their outrage, it’s appropriate to recognise six other Malaysian sites are in consideration already for recognition: Taman Negara, Niah Park, FRIM Forest Park, Gombak Quartz Ridge, Royal Belum Park and Sungai Buloh Leprosarium.
Now to their anger.
Is it the new villages’ perceived value which nauseates them, or that a Malaysian Chinese minister submitting a space synonymous with Malaysian Chinese as a Malaysian heritage site?
If there were 10 submissions from Malaysia to Unesco and the new villages only one of ten, will that appeal better to objectors?
Selangor Mentri Besar Amirudin Shari, who is not up in arms with the suggestion, but as an olive branch to cool things down said Kampung Kuang, Kundang, Kemensah, Selayang and Batu Caves from his state target Unesco heritage site status too.
So, if the new villages are inserted with a slew of other Malaysian sites for consideration, will it be less objectionable?
And Nga, Amirudin and the thousands ready to condemn or cheer heritage site nominees, should understand UNESCO reserves the right to recognise or not. Any nation can nominate any number of sites.
Though there is a charade played here, obscuring the larger norm demanded to be adhered to, when it comes to shaping Malaysia.
To the unspoken then. RAP is expected to be respected. Required Ascendancy Protocol (RAP).
How our textbooks are arranged is how leaders want the country arranged. Always Ali before Ah Chong and let’s not forget Muthu.
Ali, Ah Chong and Muthu.
It never is Ah Chong, Muthu, and Ali.
And certainly, never Ah Chong only.
Under RAP, the way to see Malaysia is through Malay ascendancy of value, prominence and numeracy. Then adjust to RRP (Required Representation Protocol). So, we look inclusive. In the days before Malaysia Baru, the most senior minister after Umno’s top two would be MCA’s senior minister — unlikely to happen again. This is how the Cabinet posters were issued.
And pretty much almost everything in politics and administration in the country, even as far as local public universities’ student representative councils.
Ali, Ah Chong and Muthu.
Better if Ali, Hasan, Ah Chong and Muthu.
In time perhaps, Ali, Hasan and Ah Chong or Muthu.
RAP established and then adjusted for RRP. Manufactured multicultural Malaysia in a sentence.
Never veer from the goal
How to recognise heritage in a place of pain?
If more than half a million people were placed under guard daily for years, then it is a place of shame, not of heritage, some argue.
A similar example helps to shine a light on that.
The United States interned around 120,000 Americans for over three years during the Second World War. Their crime? They were ethnic Japanese. The fear being that they would co-ordinate with Imperial Japan to attack the country’s west coast. They were forced into 10 camps.
Forty years later, President Ronald Reagan apologised for the action, and the US paid restitutions to the victims. Two of the camps are now national parks.
Despite their families being interned, more than 30,000 Japanese Americans served in the European theatre. Just like the many Malaysian Chinese who served in the police force or the military, fighting the communists.
Our past is complicated, and those who knowingly seek to win support and votes by reducing the past to abstractions, they are the ones who should feel shame.
It is difficult to build a nation in the best of times, it is nigh impossible in tumultuous periods, and this country is always one statement away from tumult. Some very powerful people have built their careers on perpetual identity chaos in the country, and relegate decisions to tribalism.
The new villages and Unesco storm in a tea cup is only a repeat of many other distractions. The leaders might enjoy their cemented positions due to the same being the same in Malaysia, but with every discord like this a piece of structure to our stability is removed. It’s a delicate Jenga stack they are unwittingly constructing.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
