The paradox of independence: Articulating the eventfulness of the Cold War in Sarawak, Borneo.
Item
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Title
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The paradox of independence: Articulating the eventfulness of the Cold War in Sarawak, Borneo.
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Identifier
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AAI3103186
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identifier
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3103186
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Creator
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Yong, Kee Howe.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Michael Blim
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Date
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2003
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Anthropology, Cultural | History, Asia, Australia and Oceania | Sociology, Theory and Methods
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Abstract
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Communism is not only treated as a past phenomenon in Malaysia but it is considered so benign that its government recently restored several underground tunnels and caves at the Malaysia-Thai border as a museum project for tourist consumption. Seen in this manner, communism in Malaysia is portrayed as a momentary interruption in the writing of the history of its "assured" nation statehood. It is to this assuredness that provided the framework for my investigation. This thesis is based on 12 months of fieldwork in Sarawak where I worked with bus conductors, bus drivers, clothing vendors and others who were former communists or communist sympathizers.;Indeed if the history of communism in Malaysia is treated as an aberration in order to deny its eventfulness, have the events that transpired during the 1960s and 1970s been forgotten, erased from the consciousness of those who were affected by it? If so, has this erasure to do with something else altogether? Here I am alluding to the sensitivity that might have contributed to such forgetting or even to amnesia. On another level, how has such unremembered events been ignored by the historian and by the nationalist project? However, if the events of the 1960s and 1970s are still in the memories and consciousness of a section of the population, how can we write the dimension of domination and disdain and its messiness back into the fore of history---in short, how can we recapture their eventfulness back into history?;It would be one thing to say that this thesis is about the stories told by a certain population who were dislocated and displaced as a consequence of a series of ordinances, bills, and operations carried out by the government during the 1960s and 1970s. In my discussion of the twin problems of silence and indifference, this thesis also deals with the problem of stories that cannot be told by the victims whose lives were directly or indirectly immersed in communist revolts and government repression. These were silences for those who surely remember.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
