Gerry van Tonder - Malayan Emergency: Triumph of the Running Dogs 1948-1960

HRH The Duke of Edinburgh in Malaya on Merdeka Day, 31 August 1957. (Courtesy Rhodesian African Rifles Regimental Association (UK))

We honour Europe for its great culture. But the world is something bigger than Europe. Asia counts in world affairs, and it will count much more tomorrow than it does today. Addressing the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 3 November 1948, Indias first prime minister, Pandit Nehru, warned the world, adding:

Asia, till recently, was largely a prey to Imperial domination. A great part of it is now free. But it is an astonishing thing that any country should venture still to hold forth this doctrine of colonialism.

There will be active struggle against this doctrine. We who have struggled against it have committed ourselves to the freedom of all colonies. Many of these territories are neighbours of ours, and it is a narrow way of looking at it if any Power thinks they can continue to maintain directly or indirectly their colonial rule.

If the peoples prepare for war, and in existing circumstances, it is difficult to say that people should not prepare to defend themselves, they must have clean hands.

The ink still wet on the 1945 instruments of surrender, the emergence of regional political and ideological dogma across the globe again threatened international stability. As the so-called Four-Power victors increasingly bickered over ownership of the defeated Germany, burgeoning nationalist movements in British and French overseas territories became far more active and vociferous in their demands for self-determination.

While Joseph Stalin was uncompromisingly intent on Soviet Communist expansionism in Europe, Mao Zedong was basking in the success of his Communist revolution in China. Chairman Mao desired to be the champion of the oppressed masses, espousing the formation of peoples liberation movements in the European colonies. Red China and Russia would provide the instruments of insurrection: ideological indoctrination and war materiel extremely attractive to nationalists pressing for self-government and independence.

In Southeast Asia, Japan had convincingly shown that white invincibility was a myth. The very British-armed anti-Japanese resistance movements, dominated by Chinese Communists, now turned their backs on their European masters. The transition to self-determination was relatively peaceful in Burma, but prolonged and bloody struggles ensued in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and French Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos).

The sudden proliferation of nationalist movements amongst her territories saw the still war-crippled Britain trying to save an imploding empire liberal pressure at home added to the problem. Flashpoints of armed dissent appeared across the legacy that was Pax Britannica Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, Borneo, Palestine, Suez, Aden.