Malayan Democratic Union | |
---|---|
Chairperson | Philip Hoalim |
Founders | Philip Hoalim Lim Kean Chye Lim Hong Bee Gerald de Cruz John Eber |
Founded | December 21, 1945 |
Dissolved | June 28, 1948 |
Headquarters | Singapore |
Membership | 300 (1946) |
Ideology | Socialism Anti-colonialism |
Political position | Left-wing |
The Malayan Democratic Union was a left-wing socialist [1] political party active in British Malaya from 1945 to 1948. It was founded by English-educated intellectuals and advocated for the independence of British Malaya as a single entity inclusive of Singapore.
There exists differing accounts of the party's origins, although it is generally accepted that it was first conceived by its leaders while under Japanese internment in occupied Malaya. Two contradictory accounts have been provided by Gerald de Cruz, who claimed that he had been approached by Wu Tian Wang, a member of the Malayan Communist Party, to initiate the party's founding, and later that the party had been conceived by Lim Hong Bee and the Malayan Communist Party during Lim's involvement with the Communist-led Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army in Endau, Johor. Other accounts, including those of party chairman Philip Hoalim Sr., repudiated any claims of Communist influence in the party's founding. [2]
The party adopted a moderate and liberal attitude at its inception and called for, among other things, a self-governing democratic Malaya within the British Commonwealth. It was broadly in support of the Malayan Union, which united the federated and unfederated Malay States, and the Straits Settlements of Malacca and Penang into a single entity, and of the union's accompanying liberal citizenship scheme on the condition that Singapore be included in any such union. [2]
However, the Malayan Union faced significant opposition from Malay nationalists who engaged in clandestine negotiations with British administrators to produce new constitutional proposals that would restore the sovereignty of Malay rulers and introduce a more restrictive citizenship scheme. In opposition to the Anglo-Malay constitution, the Malayan Democratic Union alongside other parties and organisations formed the All-Malaya Council of Joint Action (AMCJA), which styled itself the sole representative body of "domiciled Malays and non-Malays", and sought to engage in direct negotiations with the British government for a more democratic constitution. [3]
The efforts of the party through the AMCJA to push through a more equitable constitution, including through a hartal in October 1947, were unsuccessful. The party was voluntarily dissolved in June 1948 at the beginning of the Malayan Emergency, when its leaders heard rumours that the colonial government was considering taking action against it. The party was generally considered to have been strongly influenced by and acted as a communist front owing to the presence of Malayan Communist Party members in its central committee from May 1948 onwards, as well as the two parties' close cooperation as part of the AMCJA. [2] [3]
The Malayan Union was a union of the Malay states and the Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca. It was the successor to British Malaya and was conceived to unify the Malay Peninsula under a single government to simplify administration. Following opposition by the ethnic Malays, the union was reorganised as the Federation of Malaya in 1948.
The Federation of Malaya, more commonly known as Malaya, was a country of what previously had been the Malayan Union and, before that, British Malaya. It comprised eleven states – nine Malay states and two of the Straits Settlements, Penang and Malacca. It was established on 1 February 1948.
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Singapore, officially the State of Singapore, was one of the 14 states of Malaysia from 1963 to 1965. Malaysia was formed on 16 September 1963 by the merger of the Federation of Malaya with the former British colonies of North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore. This marked the end of the 144-year British rule in Singapore which began with the founding of modern Singapore by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819. At the time of merger, it was the smallest state in the country by land area, but the largest by population.
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The Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) was a Communist guerrilla army that fought for Malayan independence from the British Empire during the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960) and later fought against the Malaysian government in the Communist insurgency in Malaysia (1968–1989). Many MNLA fighters were former members of the Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), including its leader Chin Peng.
The All-Malaya Council of Joint Action (AMCJA) was a coalition of political and civic organisations in Malaya formed to participate in the development of a constitution for post-war Malaya in preparation for independence and to oppose the Constitutional Proposals for Malaya which eventually formed the basis of the Federation of Malaya Agreement.
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