Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WWII
A few hours before the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Japanese forces
landed on the northeast coast of Malaya. Within a few months they had taken over the en-
tire peninsula and Singapore.
Although Britain quickly ceded Malaya and Singapore, this was more through poor
strategy than neglect. Many British soldiers were captured or killed and others stayed on
and fought with the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) in a jungle-based
guerrilla war maintained throughout the occupation.
The Japanese achieved very little in Malaya. The British had destroyed most of the tin-
mining equipment before their retreat, and the rubber plantations were neglected. However,
Chinese Malaysians faced brutal persecution - the atrocities of the occupation were horrific
even by the standards of WWII.
The Japanese surrendered to the British in Singapore in 1945. Despite the eventual Al-
lied victory, Britain had been humiliated by the easy loss of Malaya and Singapore to the
Japanese, and it was clear that its days of controlling the region were numbered.
CREATING A MULTICULTURAL NATION
British rule radically altered the ethnic composition of Malaya. Chinese and Indian immigrant workers were
brought into the country as they shared a similar economic agenda and had less nationalist grievance against the
colonial administration than the native Malays, who were pushed from the cities to the countryside. The Chinese
were encouraged to work the mines, the Tamil Indians to tap the rubber trees and build the railways, the Ceylonese
to be clerks in the civil service, and Sikhs to man the police force.
Even though 'better-bred' Malays were encouraged to join a separate arm of the civil service, there was growing
resentment among the vast majority of Malays who felt they were being marginalised in their own country. A 1931
census revealed that the Chinese numbered 1.7 million and the Malays 1.6 million. Malaya's economy was revolu-
tionised, but the impact of this liberal immigration policy continues to reverberate today.
