Chin Peng and a generation of angry people

Driving me to the airport en route to Bangkok for the man's funeral, my brother asked me: "Why is there such a big fuss over Chin Peng's death?"

Born in 1988, my brother, like many in our generation, was still in diapers when Chin Peng - the last leader of an armed struggle of his era in this region - signed the Hatyai Peace Accord with the Malaysian government.

My brother's 'memory' of Chin Peng (right in photo), if at all, is a half-faded recollection of Rundingan Baling - a familiar term, if only because we had all memorised it for Form 2 history exams. 

This, even though we were fortunate enough to grow up in a household where Communist Party of Malaya memoirs - including the Ching Peng's 'My Side of History' - filled our family bookshelves. 

Like my brother, I was a teenager when the Chin Peng's 527-page book hit the market. I remember lugging it to a sort of summer camp I was attending that school holiday. I also remember that I only lasted a few chapters.

For teenage Aidila, it was a hard read, a tedious read, a book about things, people, events which meant little to me.

Relative to my peers, on a scale of 1-10 (1 being completely ignorant and 10 being absolutely knowledgeable about the history of the Leftist movement), adult Aidila is probably a five, if at all.

Reaction triggers bewilderment 

And I say this because while I am not completely unaware of that part of Malaysian history, much of my knowledge on this was only gained over the few years of working as a journalist. 

It is because of this that I spent the morning of Sept 16 bewildered by the reactions to Chin Peng's death on social media and in the readers' comments sections of news portals.

Not as scathing but still laced with malice, one man - also a child of the Eighties - said it was a Malaysia Day gift. 

And he did not mince his words: "We should just flush his body down the toilet!"

Never mind the logistics of doing what the angry man had suggested, the question swirling in my head was: 'Where does this anger comes from?'

Was it from watching too many re-runs of 'Bukit Kepong'? Because I watched those, too, and can hardly remember anything but Jins Shamsudin in khaki shorts. 

Was I not as angry because I am not patriotic enough? Or is it because I don't know anyone who had been widowed or orphaned in those long years of the insurgency? 

Casualty rate reveals truth
But despite my late grandmother's stories of sexual assault, torture and murder by Japanese troops - I feel no hate for the Japanese. 

Could it be then because I am just simply not Malay enough? The anger, at least online, seem to come exclusively from Malays, furious with this Chinese man for killing Malay soldiers. 

But a Malay twenty-something engineer KL-ite who voted, reads the newspapers and generally keeps abreast of current affairs told me: "I don't really know much about him, to be honest."

Another young man, this time a Chinese from Alor Setar - just a few hours drive from the Southern Thai villages where former CPM fighters eventually settled down - seems to be in the same boat.

"Who is Chin Peng? Is he someone we know from school?" he had asked. 

(For the record, while it is true that Malays enlisted by thousands in the Malay regiment and police during the insurgency, historian Lennox A Mills notes that the largest number of deaths were among the Chinese - 1,700, all civilians, were killed as at June 1957. In contrast, his colleague Brian Stewart wrote that by the end of the Emergency in 1960, a total of 1,346 police personnel were killed, 1,601 wounded.)

Getting all  hot in ignorance

Fifty-eight percent of Malaysians are below the age of 30. That's more than 16 million people. Many more did not live through the Emergency.

As the debate over whether to allow Chin Peng's ashes into Malaysia rages on, many of them will grow even more enraged over someone they know next to nothing about.

I know Chin Peng fought along British troops against the Japanese, but got double-crossed by the British and then fought against them, too. I also know that he was prepared to end the armed struggle in 1955 - albeit with conditions. 

I know that Chin Peng continued the armed struggle which killed many, including the assassination of top cops, despite Malaya already achieving Independence in 1957.

I also know that I don't know as much about Chin Peng as I'd like to.

But instead of lazy indifference or blind rage, I'd like to learn more.

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AIDILA RAZAK is a member of the Malaysiakini team. The writer is currently in Bangkok.