Narratives From Piyamit: Life Stories At The End Of The Revolution – Book Review

(A review of a work on the former members of the Malayan Communist Party, adapted from my Afterword to the book)  

The formation of the Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) stemming from this training also gave the CPM a political legitimacy that they would not have been able to earn if they were merely a rebel army. The many recruits in the MPAJA were not all leftists. Many were ordinary men and women who saw the MPAJA as a resistance army fighting to liberate Malaya. Therefore, the feature of the CPM shifted from Marxism to nationalism during the 3 years and 8 months of the Japanese Occupation. – Jason Ng and Murray Hunter, Narratives from Piyamit: Life Stories at the End of the Revolution (Chapter 1) 

It is anhonorto be contributing this afterword for this highlyvaluable work,Narratives fromPiyamit: Life Stories at the End of theRevolution, whichattemptsto excavate the psycho-social history of theCommunist Party of Malaya. The value lies in the themes of narrativemethodology, analysis, findings, and the phenomenological andanthropological framework the book rests on. It is a story of MalayanCommunist idealists who took up arms for the Maoist-Leninist Marxistcause, lost the war, but won peace byrealizingtheir own"commune" in their twilight years. A spiritual and anthropological endto a journey is well-documented in this fascinating brief study. Beloware my views on the value of this important study.

When I first read the manuscript, especially the rationale andpurpose of the study andeventually, the interview transcripts, Ithought that it was a good and fresh way of enlightening the topicand that themethodologyis useful for students to explore narrativeanalysis techniques. I have written this Afterword with notes fromthe textfor emphasis. The work is anexcellent contributionto the field, not somuch about it being about that historical period in Malaysian history,but on what it means to learn from the aftermath of the ideologicalstruggle.

Next, I thought about how today's generation can learn fromthe complexities of the different struggles, both armed struggles andcognitive struggles, which happen concurrently as nation-states fight forfreedom. Lastly, I questioned who has control over freedom. NarrativesfromPiyamitdemonstratehow Marxist-Leninist ideology translates into"praxis",i.e., warfare in an interesting transcultural flow of the movementof ideas. It alludes to how Marx's writings (though not written in blood)were revolutionary enough to cause bloodshed across time and space inthe post-Communist Manifesto era.Today's Malaysia is saved and spared from that bloodshedenmassebut the struggle for control continues: the Nationalists, the Socialists,the Liberals, and the Islamists fight against each other whilst the GlobalCapitalist and New Mandarins and Imperialists continue to control,selling their "opiate" in this new 'Opium War' we are seeing.

Those were my thoughts as I began to read the manuscript even attheinitialstages of its preparation, and when I ploughed through theinterview transcripts—patiently and elegantly prepared by the scholarsMurray Hunter and Jason Ng, I was certain that their contribution, whenpublished would shine a new light for today's scholars and students tostill see the perennial value of the concept of dialectical and historicalmaterialism central to Marxist thought; a theory which eventuallycontributed to this phase of the march of history. During this time, thesocialists were called to a revolution, the eradication of the bourgeoisstate, and theestablishment of the ideal Communist state as Marx andEngles envisioned.

Indeed,Narratives fromPiyamit: Life Stories at the End of theRevolutionprovides a valuable perspective on a pattern of history, itscauses, andcontextualization. In addition to the presentation of thenarratives of the former members of the Communist Party of Malaya, Iwas also attracted to the anthropological slant of the findings: the storyof artefacts and what the community still cherishes in remembrance oftheir struggle. Evident amongst these are preserved communistartefacts andmementoes of the struggle. In the five villages ofPiyamit, theinhabitants have indeed developed a spiritual community, all sharing apowerful story of the struggle for a truth they held dear in their youngerdays, and the end, it is the cultural-ethnic-spiritual realm that theyare coming back to claim or reclaim. It is a story of human spiritualevolution. I also thought of the idea that today's younger generation,growing up post-New Economic Policy, did not get the chance to gothrough this period and learn the true meaning of grit, struggle, andhardship.

The authors have taken a phenomenological-anthropologicalapproach, combining the philosophy of lived experience with thestudy of a particular society in a specifictime period, using in-depthinterviewing as an instrument, triangulated with the focus group, anddrawing of the semiotics of the surroundings. These are captured as'boundeddata' with a backdrop of the historical march of ideas, in astoryline of history hitherto, as class struggle, the way Marx and Engelswould put it. This approach gives the research a fresh perspective andought to be replicated in other themes of analysis in this tradition andbody of literature of Malaysian post-colonial history.It is heartening to read that these people'sstories haveclosure, in thattheylived and survived through the experience, to tell their stories.

Theirs is a beautiful one with a community of cadres at the villages ofPiyamit, living a spiritually reflective and even enriched life, as I sensedreading the cultural aspect of the analysis. The former soldiers are nowcontent anddonot look back in anger, or regret, though they"lost" the war. They lost a long, physically demanding battle but won aspiritual war, as a collective. In other words, many knew what they werefighting for and had their mind set ondeterminingthe meaningfulnessof their struggle and are now able to articulate the experience in aphilosophically profound way, with the least amount of regret. Theylived through the experience and now wish to educate the world on whattheir brand of Malaysian nationalism means. They are a mirror ofourexistence as a nation.How then, must students and scholars today peruse these importantresearch findings of a historical period of mega proportions, suchas thestruggle of the Communist insurgents to take over Malaya? Onecan continue to engage in endless debates on what is right and whatis wrong in the phenomena, or on the shape of Malaysian society, hadthe so-called Beijing-backed armed insurgents won, or even the idea ofwhether it would have developed as magnificently as today's China, orin the spirit of "egalitarian-secular-socialist-Confucianist" Singaporehad Communist rule in Malaya become the reality and bear fruits of therevolution? These are interesting debates to entertain.However, my emphasis in this afterword is the pedagogical andphenomenological value of this book.

On method and its value

"To provide diversified perspectives on the interviews, a focus group consisting of three Mandarin-speaking working adults (two women and one man; between mid-30s to mid-40s) was conducted. The group's reflections on the interviews conducted at Piyamit suggested that the interviewees had grievances about the social and political climate of 1970s Malaysia, yet suspected that the interviewees' struggles were neither socially altruistic, nor was it egalitarian. Within some of the interview transcripts, the group saw a mix of private thoughts and feelings, rather than localised traumas, as primary drivers towards the cadres' motivations."  – Jason Ng and Murray Hunter (Chapter 19) 

The quote above by the scholars Jason Ng and Murray Hunter, inproviding the rationale of this fascinating study sums up the value ofit as an educational research guide and motivation for others to doethnography employing themethodologyof the phenomenologicalinterview, central in many a study on human subjects to capturethe essence of cognitive contents as respondents/subjectsnarratetheir lived experience. Fields such as Nursing and MedicalSciences,Education, Sociology and Anthropology, Management,Modern History, Law, and Criminal Justice are among those thatbenefitfrom the findings from Narrative Analysis as an element of datatriangulation.

Themes drawn from the interview and elegantly discovered,captured to varying degrees the semiotics, psychological, andphilosophical aspects of the study: ideology vs.a sense of purpose,idealism vs reality, grief vs satisfaction, joy vs frustration, and group vsindividual. These are significant findings thatsummarizethe elementsof the experience of the former Malayan freedom fighters, as somehistorians may have called them. Readers can refer to the transcripts toexplore the details of these experiences to get a more enriched insightinto "what it means" to be part of this movement, a central questionof phenomenological inquiry. These are also fascinating stories as astand-alone memoir of each respondent. A memorable quote from thisstudy which sums up the general/collective sense of purpose for theCommunist insurgents read:

"... The focus group found that the transcripts revealed uncanny similarities when interviewees were expressing their hopes and desires. Most had arrived at Betong to seek redress of their perceived racialinequality post-May 13. Nonetheless, all still sought equality and for all races to be treated fairly in Malaysia, even today. Despite having diverse origins, backgrounds, and convictions, the interviewees shared a common culture today that was tempered by time and their shared experiences in the jungles of Betong ..." – Jason Ng and Murray Hunter (Chapter 19) 

Besides the themes drawn which diverge in multiple directions, addingto the spectrum of experiences among the respondents, thisstudy'svaluelies in the description of the semiotics of the village.Culture, aswe know it, is a variegated system of meaning with its philosophical,psychological, and philosophical components. Cultural artefactsproduced are manifestations of the expression of such meaningfulnessof a group's identity and core values. Material culture is anessential fieldof the study of culture and identity. I am glad to read the sectionon how thePiyamitcommunity had installed elements of semiotics inremembrance of their struggle in thearmy. As the authors put it to bestsummarizethe semiotic aspect of the villagers:

"At Piyamit, the symbols of the community include the tunnel, the museum, and the statues of cadres holding arms. These symbolise legacy. The statues of Buddhist and Chinese deities symbolises a sense of spirituality and ethnic identity. The shops, café, restaurants, durian trees, and meeting rooms symbolise commerce, a sense of purpose, and collectivism. The main arch at the entry to the complex can be seen as a symbol of pride.These artefacts and symbols are also representative of the traditions of patriarchism, filial piety, army name preservation, and precision time-keeping; all to fulfil a cause greater than themselves individually."  – Jason Ng and Murray Hunter (Chapter 19) 

To recapitulate the discussion on salient themes and semiotics ofthis Narrative Analysis-driven study of the former members of theCommunist Party of Malaya, it suffices to say that the researchers haveopened upavenues for future researchers to explore similar themesin "looking back at difficult periods in history," and to let reflectionsof participants' experiences become yet another set of data to be usedto craft yet another set of understanding, and yet another way ofdiscerning truth, in all its manifestations and multi-dimensionalities.Indeed, there is a danger in one believing in "one single story",especially in the study of History.

Beyondmethodologyand data

What then must we be exploring after reading this excellent scholarlywork that uncovers a story dear to our hearts, of the CommunistInsurgency, as we enter another epoch of advancedindustrialization:the Age of Al (Artificial Intelligence) or Smart Machines, asmany callit? What must we be learning about ideologies of the past thatwill continue to mutate, in the "butterfly effect of things" or from theperspectiveof Complexity or Chaos Theory? Herein lies my suggestionas a student of philosophy and the history of ideas; after almost 70years of independence, we still cannot tell the difference betweencommunism, Marxism, socialism, or anarchism, hence endangeringand debasing the intellectual lives of our children, especially in thehigher educational institutions.

We are well versed in the foundations of crypto-corporate cybernetic-crony capitalism of the inner workings of the capital market,and how to get cheaplabourand squeeze profits out of modern-dayindentured serfs from countries impoverished by the policies of theInternational Monetary Fund and the World Bank. We are good attalking about "global economics" and the "glocalization" of Wall Streetand Silicon Valley industries, the so-called 4.0 industries, and nowArtificial Intelligence, and Augmented Realities.What is profitable inthe global market, we import into our local economies, and what wesee profitable in our country, we force our farmers andlaborerstoproduce for the global economies.We then complain about the evilsofglobalizationwithoutrealizingthat the big capitalists among us arethe new globalistsofourlabor.

At a time when we are exploring thepossibilities of becoming a "flying-car nation" (whatever that means),venturing into the hype-laden applications of AI in society, andembarking upon high-impact, high-speed, high-touch national projects,we still have not explored the meaning of ideas we "fear".We still equate communism only with armed struggle and brutality,just like some Western media conglomerates tend to equate Islam withterrorism, and many other concept/word associations that are notaccurateand dangerously misleading. We need to explore and diveinto its philosophical worldview and what its vision of a just societylooks like. We need to explore the story behind the armed struggleto understand the ideology behind the movement. This study on theformermembers of the Communist Party of Malayaprovidesmuch neededmemoiristdata on what gave the spiritual strength of someMalayans who had their understanding and later principle-to-die-for justiceand equality. We might denounce the atrocities of the communistinsurgents/Malayan co-freedom fighters. However, we must alsorecognizethe intellectual value and power of the Marxist critiques ofsociety as a legitimate, systematic, liberating,humanizing, and practical(from Aristotelian 'praxis'or the translation of theory to practice) bodyof knowledge that has evolved into an organic discipline itself. Thisshould be a valuable intellectual exercise for the younger generation ofMalaysians, one I fear will be lost in the madness of the "information rich,easily manipulable" realities of this age of AI, where well-craftedfake information abounds.

One must engage in a systematic study of Marxism to bewell-equippedwith the understanding of what "national development"means. Without this knowledge, we will forevercolonizeourselves byimportingmoremembers of the international advisory panelof any national project we blindly embark upon.

Conclusion

This study is a significant work of phenomenological-anthropologicalinquiry on a community of peace atPiyamit, Thailand whose memberswere once at war with British-controlled Malaya. Narrative analysisand the general analysis of the semiotics of the armed struggles of theCommunist Party of Malaya were used to present the theme of thefinding, culminating in an elegant picture of political struggle to thephilosophical reflection of the members of this group that wanted tochange society,forthe better. Jason Ng and Murray Hunter'suse of a mixed method of analysis in telling the story should be used bystudents and scholars of History.