Communism in its Malaysian Setting

Abstract

On September 16, 1963, before a huge crowd in Merdeka Stadium in Kuala Lumpur, Tunku Abdul Rahman, till then prime minister of Malaya, handed the flag of the new Federation of Malaysia to his Army captain son, who slowly hoisted it aloft, marking the birth of Asia’s newest nation. The formation of Malaysia out of the separate political entities of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah (British North Borneo) also marked the overcoming of frequently grave misgivings on the Tunku’s part. But now, with the creation of the Federation having become its premier, Rahman vowed to defend “the sovereignty and independence of Malaysia together with our new brothers” in Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah, “for all time.”¹ One hundred and one pigeons were symbolically released from their cages in Merdeka stadium that day, but most of the birds, probably confused by their surroundings, fluttered uncertainly and soon returned to the ground. Not just the superstitious were filled with foreboding that the new state also might be unable to soar aloft. In a little less than two years these forebodings began to be proven true. On August 9, 1965, the state of Singapore, after a prolonged political crisis between its premier Lee Kuan Yew and the Tunku’s own party, left the Malaysian Federation (evicted would perhaps be better word for it), and new, strong secessionist tendencies at once became apparent in Sarawak and Sabah as well.