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.
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