Anarchism in Malaysia arose from the revolutionary activities of Chinese immigrants in British Malaya, who were the first to construct an organized anarchist movement in the country, reaching its peak during the 1920s. After a campaign of repression by the British authorities, anarchism was supplanted by Bolshevism as the leading revolutionary current, until the resurgence of the anarchist movement during the 1980s, as part of the Malaysian punk scene.
History The Malay Peninsula was largely stateless until the 2nd century, when early Malayan states such as the kingdom of Langkasuka began to form and come to dominate the region. These eventually evolved from city-states and small kingdoms into much larger polities, capable of controlling the whole peninsular and beyond. In the 7th century, the empire of Srivijaya came to dominate the Malay Peninsula, as well as the islands Sumatra and Java, absorbing many of the Malay states that once existed there. In 1288, Srivijaya was conquered by the Javanese kingdom of Singhasari, which by 1293 had evolved into the empire of Majapahit, coming to control the majority of the Malay Archipelago.
Up until this point, the states that ruled over the Malayan Peninsular were either Hindu or Buddhist, but with Srivijaya's collapse came the rise of Muslim sultanates throughout the peninsular. Eventually, the central sultanates of Selangor, Perak, Pahang, and Negri Sembilan came together to establish the Federated Malay States.Simon C. Smith, "Rulers and Residents: British Relations with the Aden Protectorate, 1937–59", Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Jul., 1995), p. 511. Whereas the northern sultanates of Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis, and Terengganu, and the southern sultanate of Johor, remained unfederated.
In spite of the rise of Malayan states over the centuries, many indigenous peoples of the peninsular maintained themselves as stateless societies. One of these groups is the Semai people, an acephalous society who live in small horticultural settlements in the center of the peninsular. The Semai have no concept of private property,David D. Gilmore, Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (Yale University Press, 1990: ), p. 213. organize their communities through public assembliesDe Waal, Our Inner Ape, p. 166. and are well known for their non-violent way of life.Kemp, Graham, and Douglas P. Fry. Keeping the peace: Conflict resolution and peaceful societies around the world. Routledge, 2004, p.137Leary, John. Violence and the Dream People: The Orang Asli in the Malayan Emergency, 1948-1960. No. 95. Ohio University Press, 1995, p.262Younger, Stephen. "Violence and revenge in egalitarian societies." Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 8, no. 4 (2005).Royce, Joseph. "Play in violent and non-violent cultures." Anthropos H. 5./6 (1980): 799-822.
Anarchism in British Malaya When the British Empire first colonized the Malay Peninsula in the early 19th century, they established the four Straits Settlements of Penang, Singapore, Malacca and Dinding, which came under the control of the East India Company. Chinese workers began to immigrate to these settlements, particularly to work in the mining and lumber industries. Many of these immigrants permanently settled in Malaya, outside the authority of the Qing dynasty, where they able to freely spread the revolutionary ideas of republicanism, nationalism, socialism and anarchism.
The emergence of anarchism and the labour movement in Malaya During the 1900s, Sun Yat-sen often visited the peninsula, where he organized branches of the Tongmenghui in Seremban, Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Malacca, with Penang acting as the organization's headquarters. Following the 1911 Revolution, the Tongmenghui reorganized itself into the Kuomintang. When it was banned by the British authorities, it continued its operations clandestinely: raising funds to aid the revolutionary effort in the newly established Republic of China, as well as organizing Chinese language schools and libraries in Malaya.
When the Second Revolution against the government of Yuan Shikai was defeated, Southeast Asia became the new center of activity for the Chinese labour movement, with branches of a new Workers' Union being established throughout Malaya. Chinese anarchists were leading figures in the Workers' Union, organizing from Penang a support base all over Southeast Asia. Liu Shifu launched a number of anarchist organizations in Malaya, including the "Society of Truth" and the "Society of Anarcho-Communist Comrades". Penang quickly became a hub for the publication and distribution of anarchist propaganda in Malaya.
After the dissolution of the short-lived Empire of China and the death of Emperor Yuan Shikai, a Third Revolution was launched by Sun Yat-Sen in South China, in an attempt to resist further rule by the central government. The Workers' Union moved its base of operations to the revolutionary capital of Guangzhou, where it organized the city's workers into industrial unions. Inspired by the organization of the Industrial Workers of the World, the Workers' Union established the "Industrial Federation of Overseas Chinese", in order to unite the Chinese labor movement across borders. This transformed the Malayan Workers' Union into the center of trade unionism in the country, spearheaded by the local anarchist movement.
According to the British authorities, membership of the Malayan Workers' Union had risen to 200,000 people by the close of the 1910s. British intelligence claimed that the Union was controlled by Chinese anarchist secret societies, and that investigations had revealed close links between the organizations in Malaya and China. The British banned the Malayan Workers' Union in 1919, so it merged its organizations with the Kuomintang and continued its trade union organizing underground.
The organized anarchist movement in Malaya In 1919, a Chinese anarchist group from Guangzhou established the "Society of Truth" in Malaya. The group actively distributed anarchist literature throughout Southeast Asia, even producing some of its material in the Malay language. In March 1919, an anarchist circle in Kuala Lumpur began publishing the newspaper Yi Qunbao, printing a variety of materials on anarchism, anarcho-communism and Marxism.
The Malayan anarchist movement saw a significant upsurge as part of the May Fourth Movement, which had risen up in reaction to the cession of Shandong to the Empire of Japan in the Treaty of Versailles. According to one anarchist activist in Malaya, it was the impetus for a growth of class consciousness in the country. Workers and students participated in protests throughout Malaya, organized by the anarchist Society of Truth, escalating into protests, riots and boycotts. Yi Qunbao was at the forefront of spreading propaganda during the May Fourth Movement, characterizing the boycotts as "self-defense", the fight to overthrow the Beiyang government as "self-determination" and the goal of establishing anarcho-communism in China as "self-government". This propaganda was spearheaded by the anarchist Goh Tun-ban, who urged workers to establish a stateless and classless society through the means of a social revolution. For his part in openly publishing anarchist literature in Kuala Lumpur, Goh was interrogated by the British authorities, which arrested and deported him, along with other Chinese anarchist public figures.
Despite the repression and deportation of leading anarchist individuals, the organized anarchist movement continued to grow. In 1919, the Malayan Anarchist Federation was established and affiliated to the Society of Anarcho-Communist Comrades. The organization stated in its program:
The peak of the anarchist movement By 1920, anarchist groups were operating in Penang, Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur and Seremban. Liu Kafei, the brother of Liu Shifu, was among the most prominent anarchists in Malaya at the time, alongside a number of school teachers. Chinese schools played a particularly important role in the propagation of revolutionary propaganda, leading the colonial administration to introduce a law compelling schools to register with the authorities. The British also noted that ties between the Kuomintang and the Malayan anarchist movement were strengthening, in part due to the actions of the "Shiyan Tun" group.
The Yi Qunbao continued to operate out of Kuala Lumpur, with Liu Kafei acting as editor-in-chief. He penned a column that analyzed the social events of the time, discussing the topics of free speech, education and the Russian Revolution, among others. Kafei openly advocated for an anarcho-communist society based on absolute freedom and equality.
In 1921, Malayan anarchists celebrated the country's first May Day, which continued with each passing year. New libertarian publications started to be distributed throughout the country, publishing translations of the works of Peter Kropotkin. In 1923, a branch of the Malayan Anarchist Federation was established in Penang, which organized a high school to provide the island's population with education. The British authorities monitored the situation in Penang, banning leading anarchists from teaching.
Anarchist activity rose to particular prominence in 1924, with a number of anarchists becoming public figures in Kuala Lumpur, Ampang, Ipoh, Penang and Seremban. Although the organization of the Anarchist Federation remained small, with about 50 active members, anarchism was widely influential among Chinese Malayans - particularly school teachers and print workers. A national congress of the Anarchist Federation was held in February 1924, during which they discussed the issues of organization, establishing schools and increasing anarchist agitation. Anarchist teachers subsequently began to actively agitate among their students and colleagues at the schools, while the number of street demonstrations increased. Many of these decisions brought the Malayan anarchists into conflict with the Chinese Anarchist Federation in Guangzhou, which did not approve of the new-found independence of the Malayan federation. Some of the participants of the congress were also arrested by the authorities, forcing some prominent members to flee into exile. Nevertheless, anarchist literature continued to be distributed among the workers and students of Malaya.
In January 1925, anarchists began to plan a series of assassinations in response to the colonial repression of the movement. In Penang, an attempted assassination of the governor Laurence Guillemard failed, which shifted the target towards other colonial authorities. The young anarchist Wong Sau Ying detonated an explosive device inside the Chinese protectorate at Kuala Lumpur, injuring two colonial officials. Wong was swiftly arrested and sentenced to 10 years in Pudu Prison, where she hung herself. After this attempt, the British colonial authorities intensified their repression against the country's left-wing movement, ordering the suppression of the Kuomintang and the Anarchist Federation. Many anarchist activists were arrested and deported. This blow proved too hard for the anarchist movement to recover from, and it went into remission, although some strands of syndicalism continued to hold influence.
Communism, nationalism and the Malaysian independence struggle