Red Star Over Malaya: Resistance and Social Conflict During and After the Japanese Occupation of Malaya, 1941–46

4. The Malay Independence Movement

102 | Red Star Over Malaya CHAPTER 4 The Malay Independence Movement Comrades, Japan’s victory is not our victory. – Ibrahim Yaacob, 17 Feb. 1942* In the struggle for Malaya, the revolutionary pro-Japanese political organization, the Kesatuan Melayu Muda (KMM), or Young Malay Union, whose activities before 1941 have been discussed in Chapter 1, clearly emerged as a rival to the Malayan Communist Party (MCP). Both organizations had their own programmes to achieve power and national independence, but their aims and interests were clearly opposed to one another’s. The MCP stood for a multi-racial communist republic, and advocated equality and justice for all races, while the KMM was for “Malaya Merdeka” (Independent Malaya), which was to be joined to an independent Indonesia in a political union to be called Melayu Raya or Indonesia Raya (Greater Malaysia or Greater Indonesia).1 In such a merger Malays would be in the majority over the combined total strength of Chinese, Indians, and 102 * Mustapha Hussein, the former vice-chairman of the KMM, in a personal communication to me, dated 4 March 1984, claims that it was he, not Ibrahim Yaacob, who actually made this statement. He further alleges that Ibrahim Yaacob had “misappropriated” the statement in order to “whitewash his erroneous proJapanese policies during the war”. Ibrahim attributes the above statement to himself in the book entitled, Sedjarah dan Perjuangan di Malaya, p. 96, which he wrote under his adopted Indonesian name of Iskander Kamel Agastya. The Malay Independence Movement | 103 other races in Malaya as well as politically dominant in government. However, to insure themselves against the risks of Japanese collaboration and defeat the KMM nationalists tactically established secret and close links with the pro-Allies MCP/MPAJA. While the latter did not spurn these contacts, there was mutual suspicion and distrust between the two organizations. In fact, the KMM nationalists feared that the MCP/MPAJA would attempt to take over the country, in the event of Japan’s defeat. Likewise, the MCP/MPAJA distrusted the KMM in view of their collaboration with the Japanese, though, under its interim “united front” strategy to defeat “Japanese Fascism” and “British imperialism”, it was prepared to work and cooperate with the KMM. In this chapter we shall see how the KMM attempted to “go its own way” to achieve power and national independence with Japanese support, conscious all the while that, in the wings, lurked the MCP/MPAJA. In any assessment of the KMM’s war-time role, its single major contribution was no doubt the resurgence of Malay nationalism. It was during the build-up of international tensions over Southeast Asia in 1940 and 1941, caused by the competition for economic and military interests in the area between Japan and the Western powers, that the KMM nationalists who were anxious to topple British colonialism, were drawn into Japanese espionage activities in support of Tokyo’s plans to invade and occupy Malaya. The KMM support of the Japanese was allegedly given conditionally — in return for Japanese money and promises that Malay independence would be considered, that Malay sovereignty, religion, and customs would be upheld, and that Malay women and property would be respected. The KMM also requested Japanese support for the establishment of an independent Malaya, which was to be federated within “Indonesia Raya”.2 Japanese accounts, however, deny that any political promises had been committed, but reveal that a sum of M$18,000 was paid to the KMM leader, Ibrahim Yaacob, to purchase the newspaper Warta Malaya from Syed Hussain Alsagoff, an Arab. The terms the Japanese attached to the transaction were that the paper should be made into a subtle propaganda organ for the Japanese, that Ibrahim act as a propagandist for the Japanese “New Order in Malaya”, and that he should help Japan in the coming war against Britain and cooperate with the Japanese after they had taken Malaya.3 The KMM operated openly as a legal political organization which made little attempt to conceal its hostility towards British 104 | Red Star Over Malaya policies, but secretly it was allied to a Japanese-sponsored fifth column organization called Kame (Japanese for “tortoise”), inspired and directed clandestinely by the Japanese Consulate-General in Singapore. The KMM’s involvement in Kame was eventually uncovered by British police, who on 4 December 1941 began a series of arrests and detentions of about 110 KMM members and officials in various parts...