War Memory and the Making of Modern Malaysia and Singapore

Chapter 11: Conclusion

334 War Memory and the Making of Modern Malaysia and Singapore Chapter 11 Conclusion Memories of the war and Japanese Occupation have played a signi- ficant part in the moulding of modern Malaysia and Singapore at the individual, community and national levels. This period encompassed so many traumatic events — from British surrender, through the sook ching, to Sino-Malay clashes at the war’s close — that it seared itself onto people’s memories. It also left a diversity of perspectives and commemorative desires that at first looked irreconcilable. Some individuals were left with gaping holes in their lives — as Chinese fathers and sons never returned from Japanese “screening” in 1942, and Indian and Malay labourers never returned from the BurmaThailand Death Railway after 1945. Relatives of the dead sought the commemoration of their loss, and compensation from or even revenge upon the perpetrators and Japan. But others sought the glorification of the INA or KMM (both of which sided with Japan); or of Dalforce, the Malay Regiment, the MPAJA, or Force 136 (which all sided against Japan). Even within individual ethnic groups (most of which had significant subdivisions), people had vastly different memories of the war period. We have traced how community and state leaders responded by trying to suppress some war memories and shape others, so that they could forge myths (stories with a didactic purpose, however true or false) about the war. One of the themes to emerge from this is the malleability of stories about the past, as states and communities seek to nuance their “collective memory”. Chapter 3 showed how Europeans, faced with their appalling failure in 1941–1942, rewrote the story of the POW and internee experience to emphasise the heroism, stoicism, and imperial characteristics which allegedly demonstrated European superiority, even as captives. 334 Conclusion 335 This telling of the story warped, for instance, the presentation of the Changi Murals. It also emphasised that the fall of Singapore had been a necessary, and temporary, sacrifice: something required to facilitate the ultimate victory of the British Empire, and so of good over evil. Indeed, where the story of Breavington’s attempt to save his colleagues from execution in 1942 is concerned, it took on chameleon characteristics. The story changed in details and meaning according to the narrator. When told by Reverend Lewis Bryan, he had tried to save three men and died reading the Bible. When narrated in an Australian poem, he had perished after trying to save just one colleague, with a picture of his loved one in one hand, and his opposite arm around his “mate”. His story, like so many other wartime events, took on the qualities of a palimpsest: a document where the original is written over, but still exists in some trace form. At least Europeans could generally agree on who their heroes were. They could even agree to incorporate loyalist Asians and Eurasians, such as Elizabeth Choy and Sybil Kathigasu — into their canon of herovictims . Chinese were less united. Initially, it is true, the story of Overseas Chinese unity in defence of China and Chinese embraced Dalforce, Force 136 and the MPAJA. But in reality, this unity papered over vastly different visions of the future, as contrasting as communism and towkay (rich Chinese businessman) capitalism. These differences surfaced in the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960), which led to years of guerrilla fighting. In this, the communists targeted not just Europeans, but also the capitalist and traditionalist Chinese supporters of the MCA. This struggle replicated itself in the realm of memory, with the MPAJA being gradually downplayed in ceremonies, and their remembrance driven underground. Chinese community leaders instead built up Lim Bo Seng, essentially a pro-Nationalist Overseas Chinese businessman — as a Malayan hero. In both Malaysia and Singapore, the role of communism was thus de-stressed. The state in both cases had the power to dominate or colour the official level of commemoration. But neither state tried to totally suppress war memory in any part of this period. The degree of trauma (the sook ching, the Death Railway, the postwar inter-ethnic clashes) and exhilaration (the INA, the stirring of Malay nationalism, and the embrace by some of the Japanese seishin or spirit) made simple suppression impractical. The two states therefore tried to harness, or at least accommodate, some of the most passionately felt community memories. In the case of Malaysia, this was achieved by a model of plural commemoration, [18.117.107.90...