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  • Neptium
    6•1 year ago

    A short history lesson:

    During the supposed “Labour” leadership of the UK in 1947, they enacted further anti-union laws that effectively destroyed all of the major trade unions - all affiliated with left-wing and communist independence parties - in Malaya. And when the federation of Malaysia was formed in 1948, the UK arrested thousands of communists and labour union leaders through a declaration of a State of Emergency. Concurrently in 1948, in the coloniser’s turf, the NHS was established.

    To this day, unions are completely irrelevant in Malaysian politics. We had no general strike since the hartal in 1947 against the aforementioned British laws. A large aspect of the multi-racial and multi-religious, secular labour and liberation movement defanged and subdued.

    This gave way to the rise of political Islam that rejected syncretic and sufi principles that were part of our interpretation of Islam (and how it related to our culture).

    Of course this isn’t just putting blame on the colonisers. I have to also blame the bourgeois compradors that was tasked to maintain the coloniser’s superstructure and mostly fulfilled that role.

    It’s also important to note that a good chunk of the Malayan liberation movements supported reunification of (the area that consists of modern-day) Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and Indonesia into a single state. This is something that is maybe reserved to history (at least currently) but I personally say is a strong prequisite for a socialist future for Nusantara. However, that is very obviously not wanted by the West - even a capitalist one would counter their aims back then and even now.