Women Guerrillas in the Malayan Communist Insurgency

Abstract

Abstract This article discusses the motivations that led Malayan women to join and fight for the Malayan Communist Party (mcp) via memoirs by the survivors as well as interviews conducted with them. While male mcp members tend to emphasize the glory and righteousness of the Party’s struggle by portraying themselves as willing but passive participants, memoirs of female Party members instead reveal their reasons for becoming fighters to be largely circumstantial. Their reminiscences also tend to be more introspective when recounting their past as a communist guerrilla but were largely unapologetic for their past actions. At the same time, like their male comrades, these women were staunch supporters of the Marxist cause, and some had even worked their way up to leadership positions. Nevertheless, they rarely identify themselves as Marxists, preferring to see themselves as nationalists fighting to establish a just and progressive Malayan nation.