Anarchism in South East Asia by F. A. (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
Author F. A. note: "I. contacted me and he wanted to know about anarchism in South East
Asia. I am deeply honoured. But this responbility given by him is actually too big as I am
not that fully aware and full of knowledge on this specific topic. Even to find the right
words for anarchist movement in South East Asia is beyond of my limit as there’s no such
research has been made on this. The book references is almost to none or at least a few as
I couldnt find one except few articles on early anarchist movement especially in
peninsular of Malaysia." ---- Geographical ---- South East Asia (SEA) is comprised few
comprador states (Marxist term on a state that provided natural resources, workers and
component assemblies to more industrialised states). Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore,
Malaysia, Vietnam, Kampuchea, Laos, Myanmar, Brunei, Philippines and East Leste. Every
states speak different languages but Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei do speak
almost the same language; Malay language.
Historical
Most of the states here was colonized by industrialised states such as British,
Netherlands, French, Spanish. Some of the states here even though free from imperialism
(on paper), but still served as a comprador and most of the nations used capitalism now
even Vietnam.
My intention is not to spend most of the times to explain about SEA but only my view on
anarchism in SEA. Given the two big differences on geographical and historical on each
states, it is very difficult for me to explain as a whole context but merely on the states
which has Malay roots especially in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.
Early anarchism in Malaya (Old peninsular of Malaysia)
Fahmi Reza, one of the individualist anarchist in Kuala Lumpur made some research on this
matter. His found is very astonishing and base on his article, anarchism in Malaya can be
tracked since 1908 and brought by Chinese migrants. (British brought them to work at a tin
mines).
By 1918, Truth Society (Chan-She), an anarchist collective has been founded in Singapore,
Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh. Their main purpose was to provide reading materials such as books
and pamphlets to the Chinese workers.
They produced a few books on anarchism such as Simple Explanation of Anarchism,
Conversations Regarding Anarchism for Working Men, The Philosophy and Idea of Anarchism,
Anarchism and Socialism and The Principles of Working Men’s Unions.
The first Chinese newspapers in Kuala Lumpur also produced by the anarchist back then; Yik
Kuang Poh (To Benefits The Masses) and recognized as the most radical newspapers at that
time. Their first publication was on March 1919. Their editor was Goh Tun-ban, an
anarchist who was actively spread the ideas of anarchism at Yik Kuang Poh.
The articles he produced on May 1919 on workers movement all around the globe and
anti-imperialist as a celebration to May Day, made the British uneasy and anxious. And on
July 1919 he was indicted, sent to Pudu Jail and later expel out of Malaya on November
1919 (some say he was sent back to China).
At the same time, anarchist collectives in Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Ipoh, Seremban and
Singapore founded Malayan Anarchist Federation (MAF) on 1919 and they focused on spreading
the anarchism ideas and also a pamphlets on May Day each year. One of the pamphlets was
The Power of The Proletariat.
To stop the anarchist movements, The British imposed the Printing Presses Ordinance 1920
which later been used to stop the independence movements and anti-imperialism propaganda
such as Printing Presses Act 1948. The Malaysian state authority even went further this
draconian and autocratic acts and in 1984, The Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984
was imposed to the masses here.
Back to the 1st May of 1921, the first May Day rally was held by anarchists in Ipoh and it
was the first May Day rally ever held in Malaya.
After that, anarchism seems has lost among the people and the words of anarchy is very
difficult to find in most of the publications even during independence struggle 1948-1957,
let alone after independence.
The Rise of Anarchism in Malaysia
In mid of 1990s especially on 1996-1998, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Jakarta, Ipoh and Johor
Bahru saw the rise of the music of punk. I even admit, I first heard myself the word of
anarcho-punk or anarchism by the mouth of those boys who ‘semi-actively’ produced a
fanzine on anarcho-punk.
The bands such as Carburetor Dung, The Bollocks and ACAB (skinhead bands) used working
class and anarchism as their lyrics and it did created small underground movement among
the youths.
But there was no significant movements among the people and later on, anarchism seems
circling around the followers up until today.
Problems in Malaysia
A lot of confusion even among anarchists especially in 2000 until 2010 where they
distinguished anarchism by the colours! The black and red as the most radical and
political ones, the green and black as the less radical and the black and white as the
traditional anarchism.
These confusion was so severed and even when I learned about anarchism, took the books of
Proudhon, Bakunin and Chomsky alikes, my collective, Kaum Babi or The People of Pigs,
faced a huge hostility by the so-called anarcho-punks and ANTIFA Malaysia on the early days.
This problem as I suspected is because the lack of publication on anarchism available here
and even so, the lack of understanding of the English language.
“The one who can read English is the one who supported the system and the one who can’t
read the English, is the one who wanted to abolish the system”.
Not only that, most of the anarchists here are very poor including myself and unemployed.
An international books especially on current situations and issues faced by the working
class here are too pricey and we couldn’t afford to get as much as we want.
The only way to solve this is by producing from a classic anarchism book which can be
found quite easy at libcom.org and theanarchistlibrary.org and also from another free
e-books available online.
Even though we couldn’t get the latest book (capitalism do evolves and the one faced by
anarchist in industrialized states is different than what we face here in SEA), we do
trying to get some by downloading whatever is free for us and by the same time, we try to
make our own research to understand capitalism and the state which is true to our context.
For example, if the workers here do make a strike, it is easy for the capitalist to close
the whole production as we don’t have a solid research and development. The factory in
Kuala Lumpur easily replace to another factory in Bangkok! So the workers here will left
unemployed and may blame the strike for losing a job while it is clear fact that the
capitalists do manipulate the situations.
The needs of organize and also founding a workers union face a tantamount efforts as the
workers here afraid the word of “anarchism”.
The reality in a comprador state Malaysia, the workers here are consisted by a majority of
migrant workers from Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia and Myanmar, who do not wish to stay
here and ignored the needs of organize. They faced a lot of discriminations not only from
the states and its missionaries, but also by most of the people here.
The situations is quite different in Indonesia where the workers are the people who want
to stay and settle down there, the locals. But they still faced a lot of tyrannical
capitalist as portrayed in a documentary produced by John Pilger and Alan Lowery entitled
Globalization and The Poverty of The World.
Another problems we faced is the religion. Whilst most of us are atheist or don’t care
about a religion, most of the people here does. Since religion played a big part in the
Malay society, they seem want to make the world as Islamic state. Anything but Islam is a
kuffar so they avoided and go against us even with discussion!
Even, they couldn’t distinguished the differences between a Jewish and a Zionist regime
and very intolerable towards non-Muslims.
The non-Muslims especially Chinese, live above a poverty line now, so they do not
interested to fight the system and believes in bourgeoisie political approach, the
so-called parliamentary democracy, democracy from above.
Anarcho-Syndicalism in Malaysia
Anarcho-syndicalism is really-really new here in Malaysia and Indonesia. We just made some
meetings among the anarchists in Indonesia and few anarchists in Singapore who are
proponent to anarcho-syndicalism.
We do realized the need of organize and also give to the people here about the reality of
class struggle and class war.
We are trying to build a union among workers in a few factories. For example, we managed
to establish a union, an ‘illegal’ union, in one factory here in Kuala Lumpur. And may be
in a few months, we try to establish another union in one of the factory in Ipoh while
trying to establish another union in Kuala Lumpur. What I am trying to say is, we are
trying to build a union in every parts in Malaysia and form a federation of unions.
At the same time, my collective did founded a publication house, Cukong Press, to produce
more books, fanzines and also pamphlets. We just released a book, The Black Book, and we
do hope that our messages were sent to the right direction. The Black Book was the first
book in Malay language on anarchism in our modern time! We wish to translate more books on
anarchism from English to Malay language as well.
Our primary objective is to educate the working class and make them realize the power that
they possesses.
We are planning to do more discussion with another collectives as well and as try to unite
every anarchists.
One of our major task right now is to make people understand the anarchism besides
acknowledge the reality especially on capitalism economic current policies specifically on
SEA matters.
Hope
The future may looks gloomy as anarchists here in Malaysia faced a huge amount of
rejection by the societies which dwell so deep in the doctrines of nationalism,
bourgeoisie politics, religions, racism and fascism and also the states combat on
anarchists, but we will keep on continue to spread the words and the ideas to the societies.
First, we must educate the masses.
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