Some chat on British colonialism

Here's the other side of a coin. Not everybody is enamoured with Captain Francis Light founding Penang as a settlement for the British East India Company 235 years ago. These series of messages came from a local whatsapp chatgroup and represented people who were very critical of British colonialism in this part of the world. 

I'm not saying that colonialism is good or bad, but Penang would not be what it is today, with all its imperfections and blemishes, if there had not been the start of colonialism by Light. I wonder what these critical people would say if Penang had been settled (to use a more neutral word) by the Dutch or the Portuguese or even the Siamese? 

Anyway, here are their exchanges. No names attached as I don't know who said what, although I can generally guess who these three gentlemen were collectively.

"We should celebrate 11 August 1786 as the day a crime was committed, the deprivation of justice, rights and integrity.  The day of plunder and vandalism. The looting of an island. We don’t think much of colonial crimes, saying that it’s benign. A crime is a crime, regardless of conditions, colonial or not. There is no foundation, no treaty, no documents and no signatories and no signatures. This is the greatest lie in Malaysian and world history. There is no legality to the acquisition of Pulau Pinang and what right would anyone on 11 August 1786 read some proclamation and change the name to Prince of Wales Island? It is theft, plunder, vandalism; not only of place, but of space, and name. 11 August 1786 is a myth. After 235 years, we still center ourselves to the avatar of 1786. That image below is a massive lie in the history and historiography of Pulau Pinang and Kedah. The nation is deceived by it and all the narratives from the national archives to school textbooks are false. That myth is still integral to the nation’s history. It has distorted the past, erased the grundnorm of Kedah and any existence of a civilized social order. It is big time propaganda consumed for more than 200 years. British and European scholars have never resolved the question over Pulau Pinang’s acquisition. Even English judges in Pulau Pinang in the first half of the 19th century lied in their own courts to justify British rule of the island. Everyone knows that as perjury.  Perhaps incestuous is more precise. Even Winstedt was embarrassed."

"Yes, the Penang as it has evolved and come to be known to us all today is largely a colonial legacy. We can also write the history of Penang from various other perspectives. The prevailing narrative has been written from the perspective of the history of the British Empire. There is nothing wrong about it so long as the truth is not veiled. There can also be other versions, and a mature historian will look at the context."

"Why involve ourselves here with such things. This is a simple chatgroup for exchange of information of historical interest. Meant to cheer us up. No need to cloud and muddle our minds. That is the trademark of academics. By the way what do the historians trained in historiography etc have to say. By the way I am not a historian."

"‘Formal founding’ is a fallacy. There was no treaty, no document, no agreement, no signature and no signatory. 1786 is a myth. It is a crime, illegal and immoral."

"It is not a matter of right or wrong. We leave it to the experts to discuss the matter. It is just about what this chatgroup is all about. There are many members who have joined the group to share information on local history, biographies, publications, interesting illustrations, stories and anecdotes from the past etc."

"This is not to muddle to muddle things but to lift the veil. If we want to keep it veiled, go ahead. Just to note that ‘agreement’ was never conveyed to sultan Abdullah Mukarram Shah of Kedah, if at all. Lifting the veil will reveal that there is no Such agreement by the Sultan, no treaty, no signature and no signatories. The national archives website must take down that page with the so called ‘agreement’. It is false and misleading. But if you want to veil the false ‘treaty’ as displayed by the Archives, go ahead. That is falsifying history."