Colonial oppressors?

This picture was posted by Ganesh Kolandaveloo on the Penang Heritage Trust (PHT) Discussions page on facebook recently. It depicted Japanese soldiers holding back the cheering crowds along Weld Quay as they welcomed the Royal Marines back to the island on 9 Sept 1945.

There was a question asking what the Japanese army was doing to welcome the British Royal Marines. Weren't they at war? The simple explanation was that at that point of time, Japan had lost the war and signed the instrument of surrender in Tokyo on 2 Sept 1945. Thus, the Japanese soldiers were waiting for the arrival of the British soldiers to formally surrender their arms and go into captivity. Someone commented that "it was the Communist Party of Malaya that fought the Japanese. The British had chickened out and ran away to India or England to fight the Germans. However, they came back to Malaya to claim victory for not fighting the Japanese."

However, I found the following exchanges between these two persons, Pompey Casmilus and Stefan Dawson, very stimulating.

Casmilus' first comments: "Never mind the fact that they were welcoming back their colonial oppressors who had shamefully abandoned them during the initial Japanese invasion; back then, the population must have been so relieved to see the end of the Japanese Occupation that they were pleased to have the British back and regain some kind of normality - my parents were children at the time, and the brutality of the Japanese Occupation was unmatched. There was widespread fear of the Kampeitai, my grandfather often told me stories about them. He said they were so happy to see the back of the Japanese that they threw away all the Japanese-issued banknotes, he wished he'd saved a few as souvenirs later on... but at the time, everyone was so relieved the war was over."

Stefan Dawson then commented: "Colonial oppressors is really quite strong language, no? There’s a lot of blame being dumped on the plate of the British but much of it is probably nationalist sentiment mixed up with poor understanding of context and facts...them scurrying off was not just ghastly but also an incredible military blunder based on poor information from poor planning and a completely wrong strategy expecting a sea invasion. They really truly trusted the Siamese and got completely duped! I find it strange that Malaysians never held the Siamese accountable ever but instead hold the British in such contempt. It makes it so skewed that it no longer appears to be objective but more reactionary and may even be considered a way to appear popular by lampooning the “colonial oppressors” Growing up with grandparents (who lived under both British and Japanese rule) and listening to their friends as well, the conversation from their generation seemed more balanced and they did have things to say that the British did badly (such white only clubs, and some forms of racial lines being unnecessarily drawn) but they were also positive about the various good that was done, and how many of those practices disappeared post-Merdeka. It’s not unexpected therefore to connect their memories and sentiments, and the imagery in the photo above, to see that the British were well liked and even if they were colonials the locals got along with them as there must have been a great degree of benevolence demonstrated. If they were oppressors there would have been a lot more upheaval and fighting with them (like with Dutch in Indonesia or the French in Indochina)."

And the reply from Casmilus: "I think local experience of British colonialism can vary - for the most part, the British were far more benign than the Dutch or French as colonisers, but as for the whole colonial project itself, it was founded on racism and exploitation of resources. When the Japanese invaded, the British abandoned Penang and fled, leaving the people there to fend for themselves (there is documentary evidence of that) and endure Japanese bombing, they didn't even officially surrender; surely witnessing the white man's humiliation before another Asian invader must have indicated to the local population that their rulers had feet of clay. My grandfather didn't have many complaints about the way the British ran things, but they took the segregated ferries and the white only clubs simply as a matter of fact. In his 80s, my grandfather visited Australia for the first time in his life and the saddest thing was how he was incredulously watching white men working, loading garbage into trucks... it was a sight he never imagined he would ever see, and it turned his old world upside down. The fact that people of that generation could have been indoctrinated in that way is one of the tragic consequences of colonisation. The fact that Britain once ruled over much of the world is also tragic for the British and how they view themselves today! To summarise, just because the British were largely benevolent, by the standards of the time, and brought much (capitalist) development to Malaya, it doesn't necessarily justify the whole colonialist project itself. Note that China, India etc. were all trading peacefully between themselves before the Europeans arrived and decided a takeover was necessary."