Malaya and the World Crisis

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 786, 13 August 1954, Page 6

Malaya

and the World Crisis

by Professor

F. L. W.

WOOD

HEN in a hundred years’ time — assuming that no lunatic has meantime unleashed science’s power to destroy life on this planet-our grandsons logk back enquiringly on the past half century, what in that perspective, will appear to have been its major crises and achievements? It is easy guessing when none may check the answer; yet I suspect that Hitlerism, the triumph of atomic. science, and even the much-proclaimed cold war may find a wholly new perspective. Maybe atom bombs will have become subjects for impatiently read schoolboy essays, the tensions of Europe of no more moment than quarrels between petty Italian states before the Risorgimento, and the cold war a misunderstood prelude to one of those cosmic movements which from time to time cause human development to change direction. -For our grandchildren the inescapable and salient fact of the early 20th Century may prove to be the convulsive Tejection by the world of the tutelage imposed upon its mind and economy by a minority in Western Europe and their heirs in North America-a_ rejection made inevitable by the paradoxical combination of vitality with decline in relative strength of Western culture.

The weakness of the West may have precipitated revolt; but it was Western values that made revolt possible, and the essence of Western culture may fuse with much that is non-Western to form the dominant civilisation of the next few centuries. Or it may not. The West may use its declining strength to hold its privileged position till death or victory. In that event the new synthesis, whatever its ultimate character, will be forged in bitterness and mutual reaction. As happens so often in the greatest human crises the decision is unlikely to be deliberately made by well-informed leaders, It will more probably be hammered out in day to day actions of preoccupied men dealing with an endless flow of complex human problems or reached as a by-product of conflicts which.in themselves have only shortterm importance. The decisions which will govern our grandchildren’s lives are in part being made in London and Geneva. in Washington and Moscow and Peking. In part they are being forged on the spot in Africa and Asia where a new synthesis is being sought between East and West. In both fields -that of high politics and local : ad-ministration-one must presume that the pattern which emerges will be profoundly influenced, over a long period, by currents of opinion, particularly in Western countries. If that is not true,

( 4 4 then the West is no longer itself. Hence the extreme importance of accurate information, not only about the activities of policy-formers in capital Cities, but about what is happening —

in areas of tension. Of these areas of tension few have greater immediate importance than Malaya, whether one reckons in terms of strategy, of the finances of the sterling area, of intensity of local problems, or of proximity to further trouble. Yet it has faded from _ the headlines. Dr. Victor Purcell’ has accordingly done a major service in rushing through the press a vigorous, tightpacked, disturbing book.* Admittedly, it has been written in anger by one who believes that disastrous mistakes have been made and covered up by a screen of complacent publicity. It is rare for a Cambridge don, with such (a record im the public service, to speak so personally and so vehemently. Yet vehemence is only the climax to a scholarly presentation of material, ewhich must be patiently examined by all who take in the least seriously their problems of citizenship, If it may be-

assumed that in Korea and Indo-China, in Persia, Egypt and Burma we have reached at least a tacit basis for stability, then Malaya may well be the field where statesmen will be most urgently tested. Up to a point, Britain’s record in Malaya was excellent, and its fruit is, writes Dr. Purcell, a fund of goodwill which is by no means inexhaustible but which gives ' good hope of. co-operation in the future. Before World War II a reasonable basis had been worked out for combining British direction with an element of local influence. The system depended on the wisdom and experience of the civil service, rather than on niceties of constitutional arrangement. It depended, too, on the assumption that Malaya was a country for Malays, even though the wealth which made progress possible came largely from the labour of immigrant Chinese and __ Indians. Malaya was, in fact, becoming a plural society; but the resulting political problems were masked by the fact that, in very broad terms, government was a relatively mild and henevolent autocracvyv.

whose proceedings were not too far removed from

the will of the governed. The main political criticism of the old régime was voiced by Governor Sir Frederick Weld in 1880: "Nothing we have ‘done so far has taught [the people]

*MALAYA: Communist or Free? by Victor Purcell; Gollancz, London, 1954. English price 15/-. Dr. Purcell was born in 1896. He was a member of the Malayan Civil Service from 1921 to 1946: his positions included those of Protector of Chinese and Director-General of Information. On the liberation of Malaya he was principal adviser on Chinese affairs. After retiring from the Civil-Service he became an officer of United Nations, and was secretary to the Working Group of 12 nations on Asia and the For East. He visited Malaya for UN in 1947, and has paid two visits since then-in 1950 and 1952. He is a Chinese scholar, speaking several dialects; and he also speaks Malay. His books on the Chinese of South-East Asia are standard authorities in: their field. Since 1949 Victor Purcell has been Lecturer in Far Eastern History at the University of Cambridge.

to govern themselves; we are merely teaching them to co-operate with us and govern under our guidance." This statement, writes Dr. Purcell, could have been made with almost equal truth in 1941; yet in spite of weaknesses, he adds that, seén in perspective, "the Malaya of between the wars was free, cultivated and even glorious." Nevertheless, Malaya for just over six years has been torn by a civil war which has reached a_ stalemate, and where Western statesmanship appears to be failing as ignominiously as Western arms. That, on the critical side, is the thesis of Dr. Purcell’s book. On the positive side, he believes that he has the answer. And his anger, which at times flames from the closely-printed pages, arises from his conviction that the much publicised and praised régime of General Templer has, in fact, been an intolerable intensification in a crucial area of all the worst elements which have marred British colonial policy. Dr. Purcell’s case is clear. The terrorists can not be eliminated by force alone. If pressed they merely withdraw further into the jungle, and can without any difficulty recruit all the men they can use. They can only be eliminated by-curing the political and "economic tensions on which they live. This has nothing to do with Communism, though the terrorists preach Marxist-Leninist doctrine, with a Chinese slant; nor is it as yet a Malayan national movement. On the contrary, in Dr. Purcell’s view, it is quite essential to create a Malayan national sentiment, which cannot be done under the

wing of a military regime, however professedly benevolent. Experience — in Malaya and elsewhereshows conclusively that a "colonial" régime, however reforming, cannot win gratitude, develop responsibility, or heal communal strife. The only conceivable policy, so it is argued, is to throw power and responsibility together where they belong: to the people of the territory concerned. Admittedly. the slow build up of experienced personnel would be de sirable, but the time has passed, Delay encourages suspicion. Admittedly, too, there are economic risks, and injustices may be inflicted. Yet, Dr. Purcell argues with hammer blows, the risks are greater if we try to solve 20th Century problems by the methods of ‘Lord Palmerston. One cannot destroy the emergence of Asia merely by closing the eyes; but one can turn a gang of terrorists into popular heroes by ignorantly insisting that they represent a national movement. The new Asia is a plain fact; one could almost rephrase Dr. Purcell’s argument by saying that one must deal with it either according to the spirit of Hitler or of Burke and John Stuart Mill. He has, in fact, written a pugnacious’ appeal to the West to deal

with its human problems according to its own best thinking-humane, freedom loving, honest. If, he adds, this is also good business, is that a disadvantage? Burke would have understood the argument. On any given detail Dr. Purcell for anything I know may be wrong. Even the general argument of his book may be modified by further experience and criticism. Yet it can be ignored only at manifest peril alike to our spiritual values and material prospects. The British peoples, of whom we are one, must search their consciences and dig back into their own experiences to frame a policy in relation to the most momentous developments of our time. In dealing with Malaya, and with Asia that lies behind it, have we learnt sufficiently from our experiences with the Thirteen Colonies, with Ireland, India, Egypt, and the Dutch in South Africa? Have we faced honestly the implications of our own democratic Chistian and humane principles? Hayts we even heeded the platitude imbibed from every text-book that Western civilisation is based on science, on the dispassionate study of facts, not on the passionate demand that facts shall conform to our wishes and preconceptions? Whatever one’s judgment may be on the individual problems of Malaya, there is need for patience and wisdom as well as strength in handling the current crisis. Within the last few weeks there have emerged glimpses of common ground amid’the clash of open recrimination, and those who are to build on it must take Dr, Purcell seriously.