British Malaya Research Articles

Producing Knowledge About Malaya: Readers, Contributors, Printers, Editors, and the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in the 1950s

The creation and dissemination of knowledge about the various parts of the British Empire was an important component of the imperial mission. This article examines one of the vehicles charged with knowledge dissemination in British Malaya, the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. More specifically it focuses on the community of contributors, readers, printers, and editors that came together around the publication in the 1950s, the twilight of British rule on the peninsula. We can look at this community as a fragile web of elements or actors responsible for producing the Journal, which over the course of the decade rapidly began to unravel for a number of reasons (difficulties in conducting local research, a decline in the number of contributors as the British colonial officials left the country without being replaced, delays in publication, and a lack of skilled printers, among others) so that by the 1960s there was some doubt that the publication would survive.

Nation, Race, and Language: Discussing transnational identities in colonial Singapore,circa1930

AbstractAround 1930, at a time of rising nationalisms in China and India, English-educated Chinese and Indians in the British colony of Singapore debated with great intensity the issue of national identity. They sought to clarify their own position as members of ethnic communities of immigrant origin, while remaining individuals who identified the territory of British Malaya as their home. Readers' letters published in theMalaya Tribune, an English-medium newspaper founded to serve the interests of Anglophone Asians, questioned prevailing assumptions of how to define a nation from the perspectives of territory, political loyalty, race, and language. Lived circumstances in Malaya proved that being Chinese or Indian could encompass a range of political, cultural, and linguistic characteristics, rather than a homogenous identity as promoted by nationalist movements of the time. Through these debates, Chinese and Indians in Malaya found ways to simultaneously reaffirm their ethnic pride as well as their sense of being ‘Malayan’.

The Prison and the Anti-Colonialist in British Malaya

This article argues for the need to view imprisonment as a transformational experience for anti-colonialists in British Malaya and beyond. Colonial prisons were fertile grounds that led to the shaping and restructuring of anti-colonial sentiments. They were also spaces where new forms of collective action, compromises and adaptations emerged. As will be shown, anti-colonialists' subjectivities and positions shifted from initial feelings of fear and submissiveness upon incarceration to the articulation of collective resistance and the manifestation of attempts to subvert and destabilize the colonial structures that bore down upon them. Such circumstances led to the alteration of the everyday practices not only of the colonized, but also of those in positions of authority.

‘Second Colonial Occupation’: The United States and British Malaya 1945-1949

This article examines the development of events after the World War II and how these events influenced the decolonisation process of British Southeast Asia. Britain returned to claim its colonial possessions in Southeast Asia after the defeat of Japan and proposed the Malayan Union plan to further consolidate its power in Malaya. However, Britain’s plan was met with furious opposition from the Malays who demanded a better deal to protect their interest as natives of Malaya. This article also focuses on how the United States reacted towards the British policy in Southeast Asia. International events such as the Cold War, the fall of China to the Communists and the Korean War have deep impact on the policies of both Britain and the United States in Southeast Asia. The United States supported Britain to retain Malaya as one of its colonies and helped Britain in dealing with the Communists. The American and British policies of returning to their former colonies before World War II were also contrary to the Atlantic Charter formed by the allies during World War II. This article showed that the Western powers had no intention to immediately renounce colonialism at the end of World War II.

Science, Commerce, and Imperial Expansion in British Travel Literature: Hugh Clifford’s and Joseph Conrad’s Malay Fiction

Conrad`s novels, specifically the Lingard Trilogy- Almayer`s Folly, An Outcast of the Islands, and The Rescue- and Lord Jim, set in the Southeast Asian or Malay Archipelago can be considered travel literature that played a significant role in British imperial expansion. Conrad`s Malay novels were based not only on his experience in the region during his commercial journey but also on information from earlier travel writings about the Malays and their customs, including James Brooke`s journals. The English traders in Conrad`s novels, namely Lingard and Jim, were partly modeled on Brooke, the White Rajah, who founded and ruled the English colony on the northwest of Borneo in the 1840s. The white traders in Conrad`s novels, who act as enlightened rulers, represent the British commercial expansionism, which was obscured by the phenomenon of the civilizing mission in the late nineteenth century. On the other hand, the colonial official Clifford`s tales and novels about British Malaya demonstrate the typical travel accounts of the late nineteenth century that stress the civilizing mission over commercial exploitation. The concept of the enlightening mission was rooted in evolutionary anthropological thinking, which developed as part of the natural history in the early nineteenth century. In fact, the development of natural history, stimulating British expansion in search of commercially exploitable resources and lands, enabled travel writing as the collection of natural knowledge to become a profitable business. In Conrad, the white characters are mainly traders acting as colonial rulers, while in Clifford, they are scientific rulers with their commercial interests rarely apparent. In sum, Conrad`s novels reveal that the new imperialism of the civilizing mission is still a commercial one, which disturbs rather than contributes to the imperial expansion-in contrast to other travel literature such as Clifford`s.

The Influence of Military Materiel on Tactics and Strategy in Counterinsurgency: a Case of British Malaya

In 1965, three years before the Tet Offensive that shattered the American peoples’ final vestiges of support for the war in Vietnam, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced a massive troop increase f...

Gu Hongming as a Cultural Amphibian: A Confucian Universalist Critique of Modern Western Civilization

Intellectuals around the world debated the meaning of civilization during the World War I era. This article reexamines the life and ideas of the so-called Chinese sage Gu Hongming. Born and raised in British Malaya, Gu grew up as an English-educated Romanticist, but he ended as a staunch monarchist and eminent Confucian propagandist to the early twentieth-century Western world. In contrast to the traditional label of "cultural conservative," I propose the new concept of "cultural amphibians" to characterize Gu and his contemporary "spokesmen of the East." Because of their social "hybrid vigor" and transcultural competence at a time of rapid global transformations, these men were able to forge "authentic" identities across national, ideological, and cultural boundaries. Seemingly rooted in a cultural and ideological confrontation between the West and the non-West, their discourses on "Eastern-Western civilizations" are in fact better seen as marked by a global intellectual syncretism.

Genealogy of the Singaporean black‐and‐white house

The distinctive black‐and‐white houses from Singapore's colonial era that survive in enclaves as fine dwellings for the present‐day elite have been recognized and documented as a type. In this paper we tell the story of their cultural formation, which is one of remarkable hybridity. Various influences were brought to bear and resolved into the black‐and‐white house‐type, which was not invented ‘all at once’ in Singapore, but developed over the course of more than two centuries. We begin the story in India, when British settlers learnt from local Bengali practices to make serviceable dwellings for a climate that they found difficult. The overhanging roofs that shaded walls and the tall internal volumes were formalized with reference to European expectations of geometry and finish, and the bungalow was born. In British Malaya the bungalow was further hybridized with the house on stilts that was well known to the indigenous tradition. This produced the spatial configuration that is to be found also in the Singapore houses, with their extensive verandas on an upper floor level. Their distinctive colouring comes from a different tradition: the black‐and‐white Tudoresque style that was very popular in Britain and sometimes called ‘Old English’. This was used by the British colonizers so that they could feel more at home in surroundings that were in a far‐off foreign cultural environment.

An Imperial or a Personal Legacy?: The Rivalry of W. E. Maxwell and F. A. Swettenham in British Malaya

This paper draws together and evaluates a number of historical events that took place during the early period of British rule in Malaya, especially those involving the official duties and the personal lives of the two colonial officers under study, Frank Athelstane Swettenham and William Edward Maxwell. Information from H. S. Barlow’s book entitled Swettenham for Frank Swettenham and my own interviews and research on Maxwell’s background contribute towards an understanding and assessment of their legacies. Both wished to establish the superiority of Western culture and civilization (as part of the imperial agenda), yet they were obliged to make compromises to achieve their personal ambitions in colonial Malaya.

St John's Ambulance Brigade and the Gendering of ‘Passive Defence’ in British Malaya, 1937-42

The St John's Ambulance Brigade established itself in British Malaya in the 1930s, as part of efforts to mobilise and train the colony's subjects for civil defence as the geo-strategic climate in the Pacific deteriorated. This article demonstrates how the provision of emergency medical care was a gendered and racialised undertaking in the colonial context. Unlike the military, comprising mainly European and ‘trusted’ ethnic Indian soldiers, the realm of ‘passive defence’ was identified as a feminised undertaking for women and ethnic Chinese men who were considered to be either too vulnerable or too disloyal to bear arms. The rapid advance of Japan's military in south-east Asia violently shattered such social boundaries, as many women and non-European volunteers found themselves exposed by retreating Allied forces to the Japanese offensive and took up duties at posts from which their European supervisors had been forced to desert. Mainstream military historiography has often been highly gendered towards what is considered as the male-dominated public domain of the battlefield. In this respect, the involvement of the St John's Ambulance Brigade reveals the process in which colonial ethno-gender identities and hierarchies were being established, appropriated and subsequently subverted by the exigencies of the war in British Malaya.

The Importance of Culture in Emic Interpretations of the History of Thailand’s Southern Separatist Movement: The 'Gentlemen’s Agreement' of 1943 and the Relationship of Malaysia with the Separatists

This paper explores the role of culture in two important events in the history of the separatist struggle in the Muslim South of Thailand. The first event was the “gentlemen’s agreement” of 1943, promising Britain’s support for independence or annexation to British Malaya in exchange of military and intelligence support against the Japanese, between the traditional Melayu leadership and the British Colonial Office represented by the commander of the British forces in Malaya during World War II. Emic and etic explanations are provided from the point of view of the Melayu leadership and of the British. The second event that is discussed is more complex and involves Malaysia’s support for the separatist movement and subsequent negotiations during the 1980s between Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur leading to an agreement stipulating that Malaysia would cease aiding the separatist movement in exchange for Thailand’s support against the Communist Party of Malaya along the porous Thai-Malay border. Finally, a brief conclusion summarizes the importance of culture in the history of the separatist movement of Southern Thailand.

Planters, Estate Health & Malaria in British Malaya (1900–1940)

Planters, Estate Health & Malaria in British Malaya (1900–1940)

Exotic Flowers, Modern Girls, Good Citizens: Female Education and Overseas Chinese Identity in British Malaya and Singapore, 1900s-1950s

(2010). Exotic Flowers, Modern Girls, Good Citizens: Female Education and Overseas Chinese Identity in British Malaya and Singapore, 1900s-1950s. Twentieth-Century China: Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 25-51.

Exotic Flowers, Modern Girls, Good Citizens: Female Education and Overseas Chinese Identity in British Malaya and Singapore, 1900s-1950s

Exotic Flowers, Modern Girls, Good Citizens: Female Education and Overseas Chinese Identity in British Malaya and Singapore, 1900s-1950s

Exotic Flowers, Modern Girls, Good Citizens: Female Education and Overseas Chinese Identity in British Malaya and Singapore, 1900s-1950s

Exotic Flowers, Modern Girls, Good Citizens: Female Education and Overseas Chinese Identity in British Malaya and Singapore, 1900s-1950s

Common ground: Race and the colonial universe in British Malaya

This article explores the common bases of knowledge on race among Malay intellectuals and British scholar-officials in British Malaya. It focuses on genealogies of knowledge that not only lead back to Europe, but to contexts in the Malay Archipelago, encompassing both coloniser and colonised as agents of production of colonial knowledge on race. Race was a strategy adopted by Malay intellectuals in a colonial milieu, in line with histories and conditions before and during the period of British control over Malaya. The notion of complicities is explored in studying the interaction between British and Malay intellectuals which produced colonial knowledge on race.

Making Health Public: English Language Newspapers and the Medical Sciences in Colonial Malaya (1840s–1941)

The print and broadcast media are traditionally vital vehicles for both the transmission of information and framing of discussion on health, medicine, and diseases. However, their roles have been largely peripheral in medical historiography. In this respect, this paper explores the position of English language newspapers in colonial Malaya in identifying and disseminating epidemiological data as well as commentaries on public health issues and policies. These discussions provided a crucial platform in linking public health discourses to a more literate and influential lay public and adding to broader debates on the governance of the colony. Collectively, the articles and editorials of the print media in British Malaya were not only indicative of the extent of involvement of colonial civil society in public health. Their narratives also reflected underlying tensions between state and society in addition to sociocultural anxieties over the fluid labor and capital flows of the colonial political economy.

Making Health Public: English Language Newspapers and the Medical Sciences in Colonial Malaya (1840s–1941)

The print and broadcast media are traditionally vital vehicles for both the transmission of information and framing of discussion on health, medicine, and diseases. However, their roles have been largely peripheral in medical historiography. In this respect, this paper explores the position of English language newspapers in colonial Malaya in identifying and disseminating epidemiological data as well as commentaries on public health issues and policies. These discussions provided a crucial platform in linking public health discourses to a more literate and influential lay public and adding to broader debates on the governance of the colony. Collectively, the articles and editorials of the print media in British Malaya were not only indicative of the extent of involvement of colonial civil society in public health. Their narratives also reflected underlying tensions between state and society in addition to sociocultural anxieties over the fluid labor and capital flows of the colonial political economy.

‘Winning Hearts and Minds’: Representations of Malays and Their Milieu in the Films of British Malaya

A comparison of Malay films produced in the 1950s in the Chinese-owned, Singapore-based Malay film industry with those produced in the Kuala Lumpur-based, government-supported Malayan Film Unit (MFU) exposes many similarities in how Malays were represented on film in the lead-up to Malayan independence in 1957. While the social realist films produced in Singapore urged ordinary Malays to accept changes that were occurring in society and the films produced by the MFU reinforced government propaganda and helped develop new heroes for the nation, both traditions portrayed Malays as being very comfortable and prosperous in an idyllic rural environment.

The Sungei Buloh Leper Settlement: Illness and the Technology of Acquiescence

AbstractThe Sungei Buloh Leper Settlement in British Malaya was established in 1930. It served the purposes of housing, controlling, and curing of leprosy patients. In this paper, Foucault's thesis of disciplinary power is employed to examine the settlement's techniques of leper control and to analyse the modus operandi of the leper settlement. The analysis of this paper points to a shift of emphasis in the mid-1920s in the administration of leper settlements in Malaya, from one that exercised predominantly coercive power of control of lepers to one that used primarily persuasive means. The central argument of the paper is that the changing technique of control of lepers was mainly due to the recognition of the leper settlement as being an establishment with an ambiguous identity, hovering between a total and health institution. While resembling a total institution, the leper settlement nevertheless was not a prison, and leprosy patients, like patients in hospitals, needed to be treated as ordinary citizens both on humanitarian and legal grounds. However, the need for mandatory segregation of lepers meant some degree of compulsion was necessary. The challenge to British colonial administrators was how to maintain hegemony over the lepers with minimum use of physical force and the least violation of lepers' civil rights. The investigation of the paper points to the application of a persuasive technique of social control that encouraged the voluntary enrolment and participation of lepers in the leper settlement. To promote the voluntary admission and stay of lepers, the settlement was organised in such a way that it provided a 'natural and fair atmosphere' that was akin to the external social environment. Inmates, as a result, felt comfortably at home in the settlement.