Mahathir and his Japanese

Malaysiakini Headline (only) - Dr M: Fear of Najib greater than during Japanese occupation:

I wasn't born yet during the Japanese occupation of Malaya, but when I asked my Uncles about what Mahathir has just said, they laughed bitterly and said what a bullshitter Mahathir is. Chinese lived in perpetual fear of being arrested, tortured, raped, shot or decapitated by the Japanese soldiers or worse, the Kempeitai.

Kempeitai was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945. It was not a conventional military police, but more of a secret police

The Japanese soldiers hated the Chinese for their overt support of both the Kuomintang and Communist military in China who were resisting Japanese invasion there.

But one of my Uncles friend said the horrendous environment of perpetual fear in Malaya during the Japanese occupation applied mostly to Chinese, so Mahathir as a Malay (well, he might have some Indian blood but constitutionally he is undeniably one) could be telling the truth, viewed from his Malay lens.

By comparison to the Chinese, the Malays had it pretty light during the Jap occupation as those Japanese targeted mainly the local Chinese. Besides, the Malays (unlike the Chinese) did not consider the Japanese military in WWII any worse than the colonial British - both were aliens in Malaya. Thus the Japanese tended to treat the Malays far far better than the Chinese.

Almost all those tortured, killed and brutalised during the Japanese occupation of Malaya were Chinese plus those Orang Putih who were POWs and a few Eurasians - I am not sure whether Indians were hurt but the Eurasians were unfortunately considered as Europeans by the Japs.

In fact, I recall Mahathir once provided a one-sided perspective on the treatment of Malays by Japanese military during the Japanese occupation. He said Malays even lost their lowly office jobs (held under the British) and were forced to become petty roadside traders selling goods like bananas.

Now, hasn't that been just naughty? Did the Chinese and Indians manage to keep their British provided jobs? Almost every Chinese were on the run as war refugees in deep terrorised fear because they were the occupiers' bête noires, the race most disliked by the Japanese.

My family were forced to run off to Balik Pulau via (then) jungle tracks over the Ayer Itam - Balik Pulau hills and hid in a relative's chicken farm in Balik Pulau, abandoning and losing everything they owned in Georgetown.

Until the Brits reoccupied Penang, they lived for years in a shed meant for fowls, completed with chicken poo. One of my aunties, then newly born and unable to eat any solid, survived only on the fluid of rice gruel for more than a week, becoming weaker and weaker each day in front of her terrified mum's eyes. Her mum could not produce enough milk for her. I suppose her mum's daily prayers to her gods must have worked.

Additionally there was evidence that in general, more than a few Malays collaborated with the Japanese invaders, not because they were quislings or traitors but because unlike the Chinese, they saw the Japanese as 'friends' for driving out the colonialist Poms - the old equation of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'.

Bearing in mind those times were during pre-independent Malaya, the Chinese reacted differently to the Malays because of their ethnic allegiance to China and the Japanese atrocities there, explaining why the Japs were particularly cruel to Chinese in Malaya and Singapore.

Mahathir also said that when Malays “… failed to bow their heads low when walking by a Japanese soldier they would be forced to balance large chunks of rocks on their heads and shoulders until they would collapse from dizziness, or that they (the Malays)would be ordered to climb tall coconut trees to get the fruits for these Japanese soldiers, where on failing to achieve that, would be slapped and would have to crouch to seek forgiveness …”.

Is the above example happening to Malays today?

But never mind, let's return to WWII - ask any Chinese from that time or those who have or had parents or grandparents living under Japanese occupation to appreciate (only an iota of) their fears, sufferings and tormented lives in those dark days. Being slapped by the Japs would by comparison be like a Sunday school picnic.

Alas, Mahathir wanted to monopolise Malayan sufferings under the Japanese for only Malays when the reverse was true - a totally un-humorous Baghdad-Bob-ish nonsense. And all he could come up with was the example of Malays being slapped by Japanese soldiers.

No matter how much you hate Najib, it's just impossible to believe Mahathir when he said Fear of Najib greater than during Japanese occupation.

Now look at what had happened to Chinese at the hands of the Japanese occupiers of Malaya during WWII. Apart from being decapitated, the illustration below shows just one example of what happened to Chinese who were unfortunate as to be hauled in by the Kempeitai. One of the places the Kempeitai tortured Chinese victims was at Wesley Church Burma Penang.

Mahathir sure as hell tok-kok. Podah