Rethinking Riots in Colonial South East Asia

Abstract

Although diverse and extensive, scholarship on ethnic riots in South East Asia has given inordinate attention to the genesis, evolution and eventual suppression of such episodes of violence, while many of the available studies have been local in scope and have centred mainly on incidents in modern-day Indonesia and the Philippines. This paper takes as its point of departure some lacunae in the literature on ethnic riots in South East Asia. It seeks to initiate a shift from the study of the causes, processes and conditions that led to the outbreak of ethnic riots to a critical analysis of regional and global responses by both colonial and anticolonial actors in the aftermath. By focusing on the case of the deadly ethnic riots – commonly known as the Maria Hertogh riots – which broke out in Singapore in December 1950, and by drawing connections between local events and wider developments overseas, the paper demonstrates how the study of collective violence in South East Asia and elsewhere can be further enhanced through an analysis of the various strategies that were enacted by colonial states and by the forms of resistance and collaboration of the colonized and other non-state agencies.