Whose Merdeka, whose struggle do we celebrate?

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your say 'I was told that Malaysia gained independence without any blood being spilt. Now it's said that many local heroes died fighting the colonialists.'

Mat Sabu: Tunku may not be PM if there was referendum

FairPlay: With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps Umno should not have 'entangled' themselves with PAS deputy president Mat Sabu. Whether we agree with him or not, Mat Sabu has given us the opportunity to look at history from a different perspective.

Disgusted: Onn Jaafar wanted to have a united Malaya. He did not want race-based parties. He advocated opening Umno to all races.

However, some chauvinistic Malay leaders in Umno, including Tunku Abdul Rahman and Abdul Razak Hussein, did not want that to happen out of fear that they would lose out to the non-Malays. Therefore, he was defeated in an internal power struggle and resigned in 1951 to form the Independence of Malaya Party (IMP).

If Onn Jaafar had his way, today we would be a united country without us defining ourselves as Malay, Chinese, Indians, etc - just Malaysians like Indonesians, Thais, Singaporeans and Filipinos.

Umno created the racial divisions and our current racial problems, which were given an impetus by Abdul Razak and accelerated by Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Now we're heading down the slippery road to destruction because of the bigotry of the ruling elites.

AkuMelayuIslam: I'm so confused, I was told that Malaysia gained independence "tanpa sebarang tumpah darah" (without any blood being spilt). Now it is said that many, many local heroes died fighting the penjajah (colonialists) for ‘kemerdekaan'.

And I've been told that our first PM was the happiest PM in the world - smoking cigars, betting on horses, drinking wine.

Whose history is the right one? Should I celebrate ‘hari kemerdekaan berdasarkan sejarah dari kaca mata Umno'? Ahli sejarah, tolong jelaskan. But you politicians, just shut up.

Anak Sabah1: The problem is that the majority of Malaysians do not know their country's history. They just do not know what they do not know, which is very sad. All they read is the government-controlled newspapers.

2cts worth: Truth has to be told whether it hurts or not. Mat Sabu is absolutely right that the Merdeka celebrations solely belongs to Umno. Look at the streets - not a single flag is being flown on the cars. It is a real shame that the respect for the ruling party has evaporated.

Zico: Dr Burhanuddin Helmy would perhaps have won a referendum had one been organised before 1951. However, after the first nationwide municipal election that year, there was no doubt Tunku Abdul Rahman was the most popular local leader.

DannyLoHH: No one will know for sure, but Mat Sabu does raise one very solid point: that freedom fighters like Burhanuddin Helmy and Ahmad Boestamam deserve their rightful place in history to be honoured for their contributions in forcing the British to grant Malaya its independence.

Anna: Slowly but surely, the tempurung (coconut shell) is being lifted and the poor katak (frog) is at last beginning to see the real world. Very interesting times ahead in Bolehland, indeed.

Restless_Native: If you go through the letters flying between Whitehall and Kuala Lumpur in those days, you will discover some startling truths:

1. Nobody "fought" for independence. The Brits, smarting from their experiences in post-independence India and Africa, were trying to offload Malaya in 1955 - two years before Merdeka. It is as if the Malaysians were themselves who hesitated and deferred it by two years.

Hence, nobody fought the Brits for independence. All this rubbish about heroes and the fight for independence is pure fantasy. Chin Peng was in it for himself. His people killed many thousands of innocent Malaysians, including my uncle who was in the police force;

2. The Tunku was indeed a "playboy" - drinking, smoking, gambling, etc. But for all that, he was the only true Malaysian who thought for all races. Nobody has since been like him. The rest of the Malaysian ‘leaders' after Tunku were/are just riff-raff;

3. Onn Jaafar had the backing of the Brits (not Tunku), and the Brits saw Onn as the "only true leader".

So Mat Sabu is correct on most counts.

Brahman: Mat Sabu should not get too carried away. Chin Peng took up an armed revolution to free Malaysia from the British so that he can impose his belief in communism as the country's system, instead of democracy.

British High Commissioner Henry Gurney was a servant of the Crown, thus he was implementing orders given by the Crown i.e. the British Parliament of the day.

One was fighting to introduce his beliefs in a political ideology, the other was following orders. There is a distinct difference.

Is there a good guy? Who is the good guy - Chang Kai Shek or Mao Zedong? In China, the communists won, so Mao has been revered there till this day. But Chiang Kai Shek is revered in Taiwan. So who is the good guy? It's the ones who ‘win'.

Not Convinced: One of the main reasons why the Baling peace talks broke down was the refusal by Tunku to agree to recognise the Communist Party of Malaya so that the outlawed party could take part in the democratic process.

Instead, he wanted CPM disbanded and for the communists to join existing political parties. Had Tunku agreed to that, Malaysia could have followed the Indian example where the communist party contest in elections.

Do190811: It would be very interesting to know the feelings of those students who scored ‘A' in history by memorising all that twisted 'history'.

 


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