4 ms·
"Singapore had been colonized, occupied, and abused for over a century, and it was surrounded by hostile nations in a region succumbing to pressure by Communist
by AndyMcConachie 5y ago
"Singapore had been colonized, occupied, and abused for over a century, and it was surrounded by hostile nations in a region succumbing to pressure by Communist forces."
This is a fucked up sentence. It tries to make it sound like the Communists were the dangerous ones, not the Americans and Europeans who were busy killing millions of people in that part of the world then. The people fighting colonialism were mostly communist and the people killing the communists were almost entirely colonialists.
1965 was the year that the CIA helped launched a coup against Sukarno in Indonesia. It led to some of the worst mass murder in the 20th century. The CIA, MI6 assisted the new leader, Suharto in killing between 1-3 million Indonesians. We still don't know how many people were killed, but it was definitely at least 1 million. Many not killed were put in concentration and work camps where many died. Many ethnic Chinese were targetted because it was believed their ethnicity made them more likely to be Communist.
1965 also saw an escalation in America's war in Vietnam. The Americans would eventually kill about 3.5 million Vietnamese and a couple million people in Laos and Cambodia.
Malaysia wasn't hostile to an anti-colonial Singapore, as this sentence suggests. Not that Singapore in 1965 was necessarily anti-colonial. Malaysians had fought the British for independence and there was a cease fire by 1965. The British left Malaysia, but the new government was mostly still friendly with the Brits.
- iso1210 5y agoDo you have a source on that 1-3 million? Wikipedia says "The most widely accepted estimates are that at least 500,000 to over 1 million were killed", putting in in the vicinity of Rwanda, and less than Cambodia or Bangladesh
- zpeti 5y ago> It led to some of the worst mass murder in the 20th century. The CIA, MI6 assisted the new leader, Suharto in killing between 1-3 million Indonesians. Not to take away from the weight of 1-3 million people, but you do realise Stalin and mao killed 60-100m people each right? 1-3m million unfortunately isn’t the Worst mass murder in the 20th century
- iso1210 5y ago1-3 million is about the number killed in Cambodia by Pol Pot
- refurb 5y agoThis is a fucked up sentence. It tries to make it sound like the Communists were the dangerous ones… Seems like a basic knowledge of history would show this fear of communism was completely founded? And I don’t think LYK needed much encouragement to imprison the communists in Singapore (Operation Coldstore). He saw the threat for what it was.
- shawntan 5y ago> Malaysia wasn't hostile to an anti-colonial Singapore, as this sentence suggests. Not that Singapore in 1965 was necessarily anti-colonial. Malaysians had fought the British for independence and there was a cease fire by 1965. The British left Malaysia, but the new government was mostly still friendly with the Brits. 1963: The Brits left Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak under the agreement that they would form Malaysia, which I believe, among other things, was that this merger would help with the fight against communism in the region. 1965: Misunderstandings between the local Singapore government and the federal Malaysian government resulted in Singapore leaving the Malaysian federation (or Malaysia kicking out Singapore, depending on which version of history you believe.) Hostilities between the governments definitely existed, though not to the degree of full on war. Cease-fire: I wasn't aware of armed violence during this time in the 'anti-colonisation' of Malaysia, apart from perhaps the MCP (Malaysian Communist Party) in Malaysia, and riots happening in Singapore.