of the archived record as the social memory of whose arguments prevailed in debates on what issue is to be elevated into a policy concern. The subsequent search for solutions and implementation of a preferred option is more an argumentative process for a compromise solution, rather than a rational search for the option that best serves the interests of the institution. The historiographical debate over Raffles' intentions and actions in establishing an EIC settlement on Singapore can be read as a consequence of the variant and conflicting social memories of the East India Company of its servant, Lady Sophia Raffles, and more important, the country traders. The five year Paper War with the Dutch over Raffles' actions helped consolidate a British memory of why Singapore is significant and vindication of Raffles' initiative. But the Company's variant memories of Raffles' initiative as a burden fundamentally shaped its administration of the settlement and led to a continuing dispute with the country traders over the future of Singapore which ended with the bankruptcy of the Company and transfer of Singapore to the Colonial Office. Reading the post-World War II Colonial records for their context suggests a similar archivalization of conflicting social memories being remembered and reconfigured in interaction with other social memories to create new shared memories. The criticism of Governor Edward Gent's declaration of emergency rule as an overreaction to the murder of three British planters and their Chinese assistants can be read as a consequence of variant social memories of the assassinations as nothing more than the continuation of a long series of manageable civil unrest. Or, were the assassinations the implementation of a new MCP strategy responding to Moscow's directives in an emerging Cold War? Long time MCP Secretary General recalled that the Party's resort to violence was in response to British suppression of the trade unions and the Party. In the absence of documents from both the British and the MCP side, we have to rely upon the Dialogues with Chin Peng convened by the Australian National University in February 1999. Summarising their exchange with Chin Peng, Anthony Short, who wrote the benchmark study of the Malayan emergency summarised, that 'in a sense both Government and the MCP were sort of stumbling into action against each other. Nothing definite. But whatever triggered it, once it had began, what did you [Chin Peng] hope to do?'43 Historians can speculate whether the rationale for emergency rule was an issue the Colonial authorities thought too controversial and complex to archive and therefore best forgotten, or was there a deeper memory that had to be suppressed. What the records shows is that the decision to prosecute the MCP and suppress its insurrection generated a long policy debate about the appropriate counter- insurgency response as it related to wider British plans for decolonization and transfer of power.44 British actions forced the MCP to rethink its own strategies and draw Singapore into its struggle against British colonialism and imperialism. The MCP's united front strategy in Singapore focused on penetrating student groups, trade unions and political parties, including the newly formed PAP. COLONIAL LEGACY IN SOUTH EAST ASIA - THE DUTCH ARCHIVES 43 Chin and Hack, Dialogues with Chin Peng134. 44 Karl Hack has documented this in his: Defence and decolonization, 113ff. 45 Stockwell, Malaya, British Documents, xxxi (introduction). 46 Jenkins, Re-thinking history, 25-31. Compare this post-modern critique with E H Carr's classic What is history? and see the new introduction by Richard J Evans on the continuing relevance of this 49 year old text in a postmodern era. 138

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Jaarboeken Stichting Archiefpublicaties | 2012 | | pagina 140