Merdeka....for the 51st Time.

Today is Sunday, 31st August 2008. For those who don't know, today Malaysia is celebrating its 51st annual commemoration of independence from the British Empire. By right, I sould be celebrating too, but I got Communication Systems test this Tuesday, then Analogue Electronics test on...I dunno, maybe Thursday or Friday, and then Control Systems test on Saturday, so..well, you know what's coming.

I don't have much to say about today's event. Actually, I do, but I just don't feel like it. As usual, there are parades and marches in Kl today, in front of the Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad, at the Merdeka Square. All that happened during the morining till the noon, I think, the same time I was busy reading online mangas. Hey, what do you expect? It's holiday anyway.

One thing I particularly don't like about 31st August every year(apart from the public holiday) is how the ruling coalition of the government(read: BN) would go all out and exploit the spirit of Merdeka. Some big shot politicians out there would harp about made possible by the Parti Perikatan, which is a coalition of UMNO, MCA and MIC (representing the three largest races in Malaysia- Malay, Chinese, Indian), and how the populace should be thankful of them even now, which has grown into Barisan Nasional, for making it happen. how the independence was onlyStories about Tunku Abdul Rahman are going to be brought up again, to to refresh everyone's memeory of how awesome he was, even if they never met him alive in the first place. So people out there even said that UMNO has been playing an integral part of this incident for the benefit of the majority Malays, even to the point of making it sound as if Malays wouldn't have existed in Malaysia now had it not been for UMNO's effort.

Don't get me wrong. I've learned history; I (in general) knew what was going on. The Perikatan did bring about changes that eventually led to our independence. UMNO did play an important part on the Malays' behalf. Tunku Abdul Rahman was indeed the father of independence. What got me a bone to pick with these crapshooters are that they, whether deliberately or unintentionally, forgot to mention the other half of the nation's freedom fighters who also fought for the independence of the nation from the colonial powers, albeit with differing ideals and principles.

I'm not talking about the communist Parti Komunis Malaya. I'm talking about Parti Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya (PKMM), Angkatan Pemuda Insaf (API) and Angkatan Wanita Sedar (AWAS), or rather, about its leaders - Ishak Haji Muhammad, Ahmad Boestamam, Shamsiah Fakeh and Dr Burhanuddin al-Helmy. These names might ring you a bell, or two. Yeah, from the history books, no less - how many times have any of us even heard of their names in mainstream print and on the idiot box?

For you information, PKMM was founded by Dr Burhanuddin Al-Helmy, API by Ahmad Boestamam, and AWAS by Shamsiah Fakeh. Couldn't recall much about Ishak haji Muhammad, but he was very active in the same political sphere, and contributed a lot to the Malay literature world. All three parties would later join together to for Pusat Tenaga Rakyat (PUTERA), which is basically the more radical opposite of UMNO, but with the same goal nonetheless - independence. PUTERA would later join with All-Malaya Council of Joint Action (AMCJA) to form AMCJA - PUTERA, and submitted their own idea of the constitution for the nation - The People's Constitution - which, of course, were rejected.

Eventually, by 1948, these radical political parties, alongside PKM, were banned under Emergency laws. They got hunted down, and their leaders captured and imprisoned. All this time till the Independence, the leaders of Parti Perikatan worked closely with the British power, while their brothers of differing ideals were incarcerated in prisons, flee to other countries or even continued their fights as guerrillas in the jungles. Everybody knows what happened in the end - the Perikatan coalition, triumphed, Malaya got its independence, and Tunku Abdul Rahman became to the Malaysian populace what NEO is to the rest of the human survivors in the Matrix trilogy - the One.

Now, the reason that I'm spending a section of my life dedicating my blog to the other half of the Merdeka side-story is that I want other people to recognise their efforts as the other champions of Tanah Melayu's independence. Some of them were pioneers; Parti Islam Se-Tanah Melayu (PAS) was founded by Ahmad Fuad Hassan and Dr Burhanuddin Al-Helmy, and UMNO's first battlecry, 'Hidup Melayu', was later changed to 'Merdeka', which was originally used by PKMM. Apart from that, I'm sure there are lots more ideas that PKMM and its buddies cooked up but were later adopted by Perikatan instead, and credit were not given to its rightful owners.

The Pro-British Perikatan and the radical AMCJA-PUTERA were basically two polar opposites. Like magnets, which has a South Pole and the North Pole. The two magnetic poles attract metallic materials towards themselves in different directions, just like how both sides of Perikatan and PUTERA has differing ideals and principles to achieve their objectives. Like both magnetic poles too, which attracts the same metallic materials, so does the two political sides, whose ultimate aim is to free their beloved lands from bloodthirsty invaders. These guys exist together. These guys complement each other. These guys made each other. Both of them made what Malaysia is today.

I'm not gonna say much about whether people out there, the younger folks especially - my genenration especially - would actually care about this stuff. Of course, the same can be said about those tak sedar diri politicians out there as well (you know who you are). I, but a least want these people, and everyone else for the matter, to realise this; Perikatan only came this far to running the country simply because things went according to their way. Had it all been different back then, or something crazy happened back then, it could've been PKMM who's the leader in Barisan Nasional right now, not UMNO. Had Perikatan failed with their negotiations back then, it could've been AMCJA-PUTERA which is running the country right now.

So don't get cocky and said that only the BN who was responsible for wrestling the country's independence from British. Never demonise the other leftist Malay leaders as communists, separatists and traitors. They were fighting for the country as much as the rest of the people were, and paid a heavier price for that simply because they were not favoured.

That, and all being said, happy 51st Merdeka to all Malaysians!