War Memory and the Making of Modern Malaysia and Singapore

Chapter 9: Memory and Nation-Building in Malaysia

Memory and Nation-Building in Malaysia 255 Chapter 9 Memory and Nation-Building in Malaysia This chapter deals with war commemoration in Malaysia from 1967. This was the first year when the state no longer relied on massive British military assistance for its survival, following Indonesia’s formal ending of its 1963–1966 Confrontation of Malaysia, in August 1966.1 It was also the first full year for the state’s new National Monument, the Tugu Negara, which opened on 8 February 1966. The date for commemorating the country’s fallen in all previous conflicts had also changed by now, from Remembrance Day in November, to Hari Pahlawan (Warriors or Heroes Day) on the first Sunday of August. It would eventually settle upon 31 July, this being the anniversary of the official end of the Malayan Emergency. Every year on Hari Pahlawan, dignitaries and members of the security forces would gather around the Tugu Negara, with its statue of five Malay warriors standing over two slain communist fighters. The front page of the Straits Times described the ceremony held at the Tugu Negara on Sunday 4 August 1968. At 0900 hours, the Malaysian flag was lowered. Eight buglers, from the 3rd Malaysian Rangers and the Royal Malaysian Police, sounded the last post. For 15 minutes, wreaths were laid for various units, and then a poem of peace or Doa Selamat was read out. Finally, the flag was raised again, and the parade marched off. In that year, ceremonies elsewhere — in Penang, Ipoh and Teluk Anson (today’s Teluk Intan) — still used the old, colonial-era cenotaphs, but with the new date. The Straits Times’ front page ran the story alongside a photograph, in which a Malay Regiment soldier stands in front of the national monument, head bowed, as a wreath is laid.2 The period around Heroes Day also became the new focus for raising funds to 255 256 War Memory and the Making of Modern Malaysia and Singapore assist veterans (in succession to 11 November as “poppy day”),3 and for related activities by the Ex-Services Association of Malaysia (now known as Persatuan Bekas Tentera Malaysia, PBTM). While the PBTM represented all ethnicities, it excluded anyone who had fought under communist leadership, whether as anti-Japanese guerrillas in 1942– 1945, or in the Malayan Emergency.4 So a new postcolonial form of national monument, a new date, and a new form of commemoration had emerged. This was matched by the expansion of Malaya (independent on 31 August 1957) to Malaysia (formed 16 September 1963 by the addition of Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak). With Singapore’s separation on 9 August 1965, Malaysia settled into its final form, as 13 states and settlements. By 1967, then, Malaysia had settled into its enduring postcolonial form, and into an equally entrenched mode of politics. Cheah Boon Kheng has argued that the latter revolved around a core “Malay nationstate ”. The state was taken to embody and represent ketuanan Melayu (Malay political primacy), with subordinate accommodation of other communities’ interests.5 This primacy was entrenched in the political force which held uninterrupted power from independence. That force was the Alliance of three communal parties (Malay, Chinese and Indian), reinvented in 1973 as the broader Barisan Nasional. The Alliance/Barisan was a combination of one predominant Malay party — the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) — with multiple parties representing other communal groups. The constitution and various political pacts, as well as electoral logic, ensured that UMNO remained dominant, and Malay rights as the Bumiputra or sons of the soil remained legally entrenched. In return, other communities were able to secure concessions by elite accommodation within the Alliance/ Barisan. They also gained from the nature of the political pact, which assumed that Malaysia was, and would continue to be, a plural society. That is, a society where different groups meet in the marketplace but do not “mingle”, but rather retain their distinct cultures and ethnicities. That assumption meant that, while Malay — as Bahasa Melayu — remained the National Language, and Malay culture the predominant flavouring for national institutions, other communities continued to be left spaces for their own cultures and languages. Independence did not result in homogenisation. Hence, Chinese- and Tamil-language primary schools continued, alongside Malay-language national schools. More importantly, for us, it meant that separate Chinese and Indian death- Memory and Nation-Building in Malaysia 257 scapes and commemoration continued...