Wednesday, April 29, 2009

NONE OF THEM WERE MUSLIMS

In 1948, British forces in Malaya killed twenty four unarmed civilians. The perpetrators were all vindicated by British authorities, it being asserted that the soldiers had no choice but to shoot them to prevent the unarmed men fleeing into the jungle. Their village was subsequently set on fire, and the survivors prevented from burying the dead for a week.


The British government is not unduly concerned about this event.
The Malaysian government has shown scant interest in raking it up.
It is not an issue.


The victims were not Muslims.


They were Chinese Malayans.


After the world war, Britain was concerned with placating the restless Malays and assuring themselves of a source for rubber and tin. The Chinese Malayans, who had resisted the Japanese, were less important in the grand scheme of things than the Malays, who had quiescently collaborated with the Japanese.
Neither the British nor the Malays were concerned with justice for the Chinese Malayans, who had been particularly brutalized by the Japanese occupiers, or with including the Chinese Malayans in future power structures of the soon-to-be independent Malay state, choosing instead to 'reward' them for their stubborn resistance to the Japanese by a policy of ethnic exclusionism (the seed for apartheid policies against Chinese in modern Malaysia).
This, probably more than anything else, led to an emergency that lasted twelve years.

The Chinese community had been robbed and repressed by the Japanese, the Malays had collaborated, and were well rewarded. When the British returned, the Malays loyally collaborated again, to very great advantage.
Many of the Malayan Chinese consequently saw little choice but to join the insurgency.

The men of the village of Batang Kali who were killed by the British were not Muslims but Chinese. In the eyes of the British, that meant that they were almost certainly rebels. And in the eyes of the Malays, they were Chinese.

Both of those qualities were good reasons to execute them. The British were fighting a war, the Malays were profitably collaborating with the strongest party.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8025383.stm


From that article:

"Four of the Scots Guards gave sworn testimony, confirming that the shootings took place, confirming that the victims were unarmed. "
"We were kept away for a week and when we returned we found the bloated bodies, half eaten by animals."



[More data here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batang_Kali_massacre and here: http://dapmalaysia.org/all-archive/English/2004/jul04/bul/bul2460.htm]


I can understand the British authorities being unenthusiastic about re-examining the facts.
No ex-colonial power is glad to have its misbehaviour highlighted.
The British, French, and Dutch insist that their role in the East was that of enlightened bringers of civilization, law, and order, and that colonialism only benefitted the natives, who were incapable of administering themselves according to the standards of the civilized world. And who really wishes to dispute that?

I can also understand why the Malaysian authorities are not overly concerned - these were not Muslims, and therefore by the standards of Malaysia they can not really count for much.
Besides, there is no point in encouraging ANY sense of grievance among the Chinese. Surely that only leads to trouble?


I'm just noting that this was a war crime. One of many war crimes committed by the colonial powers in the years after the world war - thousands of people were killed or tortured in the eastern territories during the last gasps of the British, French, and Dutch empires.
This is just another war crime which our friends and allies (the former colonial powers) would rather forget. Why bring up dead issues?
After all, they lost their empires.
I also note that the survivors are now few in number, old and frail. When the last of them has died and still no justice has been done, the official version of events will stand. The victims will only be remembered as 24 among the tens of thousands of "communists" killed during the insurrection.
Seeing as so few Muslims died, compared to so many Chinese, the victory was without a doubt well worth it. Especially for the Malays.
And they are wonderful people, the Malays.

5 comments:

DEATH BY NOODLES said...

You almost sound like Grant Patel.
Have you been infected?

Unknown said...

WAR CRIMES? I'VE GOT YOUR WAR CRIMES RIGHT HERE:

Speaking of war crimes, just today, 4/29/09, Judge Garzon of the Spanish court, ordered a "torture investigation" of the "Bush Six" (Albert Gonzalez et al) and said that he will ask for the indictment of all persons connected with the US policy of torture to which Obama recently admitted. Judge Garzon has a long list of additional names going as high as Condoleeza Rice and Dick Cheney, all of whom are now at criminal risk. If the Spanish court finds cause, the accuseds will be invited to attend a trial in Spain. If they refuse to attend, Judge Garzon will ask for their extradition and will ask for "international arrest warrants" to be issued so that if any of the persons sought should enter any country that is a signatory to the "Torture Treaty" (not the US, we never signed but something like 152 other countries agreed to it), then that person will be subject to arrest and a criminal trial in Spain.

I'm struck by the arrogance of Judge Garzon and the irony that these grandiose proceedings come to us from the very cradle of torture, the Land of the Spanish Inquisition, which developed novel methods of torturing tens of thousands of Jews and ex-Jews and saw to the burning at the stake of a reported 32,000 Jews who converted to Catholicism but who admitted under torture that they really didn't mean it-- they were still practicing Jews.

The legal action in question, by the way, was brought on behalf of five Spanish citizens who are Muslims and who were allegedly tortured at the hands of the US. Judge Garzon once sought to try each of the five as terrorists, but when it was learned that the evidence against them was obtained through torture, Judge Garzon dismissed all charges against them; they are now plaintiffs... or, rather, victims.

I don't often shed many tears for the Bush administration, but Judge Garzon has brought my blood to a boil with his hubris. I sincerely doubt that the Obama administration will be extraditing Condi, Dick or Alberto... or anyone else in the near future. Oh, I forgot to mention... the US and Spain do not have an extradition treaty between them.

How has this world ever survived thus far without the help of Judge Garzon? What a joy it must be to live with his Honor. Shades of Torquemada!

Bob

GRANT!PATEL! said...

You almost sound like Grant Patel.
Have you been infected?

Don't ANYBODY dare mention swine flu!!!



---Grant Iamporkiam

Unknown said...

It must be contagious... I used to be a nice little man.

Bob

GRANT!PATEL! said...

I am still a nice little man. But I got better.



---Grant Patel

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