Forgotten Wars_ Freedom and Revolution in Southeast Asia - Christopher Bayly [84]
But MacMichael soon ran into troubled waters. In Kedah the regent, Badlishah, was in a compromised position. He had succeeded during the war and needed recognition from the British. MacMichael met him on 29 November, and his first impression was rather dismissive: ‘the small shy and retiring “failed BA type”, unstable and inclined to be introspective and lonely’. However, the regent told MacMichael that he found the surrender of power ‘very devastating’. MacMichael responded tartly that an independent Kedah was not feasible. He raised the alternative of Thai control – a spectre from Kedah’s past history – and remarked that it was ‘fortunate that Labour ministers had not concluded that Sultanates were altogether out of date’. It was clear that the regent faced the choice of giving his signature or losing his throne. He signed only after a final meeting at which he and his state council made it clear they submitted ‘because there was no alternative’. At this point MacMichael stood and, on behalf of King George VI, formally acknowledged Badlishah as Sultan of Kedah. The sultan then rose and said that ‘this was the most distressing and painful moment of his life. Henceforward he would lose the loyalty, the respect and affection of his subjects, and he would be pursued with curses towards his grave by the ill-informed. He called on Allah to witness his act and to protect him for the future. He would sign because no other course was open.’ Although perhaps MacMichael was more polite, Badlishah wrote shortly afterwards, his manner was ‘not unlike the familiar Japanese technique of bullying’.115 Badlishah thought that MacMichael was acting upon London’s specific instructions, but later came to believe that MacMichael was not in fact authorized to deal with the rulers ‘in such a brutal manner’. Mac-Michael had, as one old Malaya hand put it, ‘blackmailed them all’.116 The term ‘MacMichaelism’ entered the vernacular.
The king’s special representative’s past connection with Palestine now took on a deeper significance. In Badlishah’s capital, Alor Star (now Alor Setar), posters appeared that showed a Malay walking sorrowfully out of the town into the country, carrying a small bundle of possessions, with the caption: ‘The meaning of equal rights’.117 There was a mood of crisis within the Malay community. The memories of the communal violence was still fresh, and in parts of Perak and Negri Sembilan there was renewed fighting. Not only had MacMichael trespassed against the adat of succession, but the ancient constitutions of Malay states had been transgressed by the rulers themselves. A writer in the Malay newspaper Majlis, or ‘Assembly’, of Kuala Lumpur, described the situation: ‘the entire Malay community will stand solidly behind the Rulers… But the majority of our Sultans ignore the interests of their loyal subjects in this vital matter… Our Sultans should not be surprised if the Malays ignore them in the future.’118 There was a deepening sense that the new treaties were tak sah dan tiada halal, ‘illegitimate and unlawful’. The citizenship proposals were also coming under attack. In Kedah and elsewhere slogans circulated: ‘Malaya for the Malays, not the Malayans’.119
During these weeks the Malay elite was paralysed by the uncertainty surrounding the courts. This was an opportunity for commoners to seize the political initiative. The first post-war Malay political party was founded in Ipoh, which was fast emerging as a centre of radical politics. A group of journalists who had worked together in the occupation period took over the offices of the local Japanese daily, and created a new paper called