A Call to (Joint) Action

Abstract

Following widespread Malay opposition to the Malayan Union, the British colonial government negotiated with the Malay Rulers and the United Malays National Organisation—the pre-eminent political party for ethnic Malays—to replace the Union. The result was the Federation of Malaya, which restored special Malay privileges and introduced strict requirements for citizenship that disenfranchised a majority of the non-Malay population. The Federation proposals galvanized a range of opposition groups across the political spectrum from the major ethnic communities. This chapter sheds light on the Peranakan individuals and organizations that resisted the fledgling ethnonationalist state from 1946 to 1948. More specifically, it recontextualizes the anti-Federation movement as presenting serious opposition to the ethno-centric vision of the nation-state put forward by Anglo-Malay compromise. Focussing on various groups of Peranakan and their competing visions of Malaya’s future, it ultimately hones in on how the failure to stop the Federation brought one faction of Peranakan from Penang towards a drastic course of action—secession.