Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 10 March 2014 issue)

Dear Kam,
I’m planning a nice holiday with my family. My question is, should I bother or will the world be destroyed in a Third World War by then anyway? I’m asking because I don’t want to waste my deposit.
Mr Frugal

August this year will see the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War. The war lasted until 1918 and cost so many lives in Europe, the Middle East and Africa that it was for a while called “The war to end all wars”. It didn’t end up being that and now we find ourselves in the bizarre situation of contemplating the possibility of a Third World War because Vladimir Putin has sent Russian troops into the Crimea, which is part of Ukraine. It surely won’t lead to a Third World War or even a Second Crimean War. But the First World War wasn’t supposed to happen either.

Malaya had a fairly quiet First World War (and a very unquiet Second World War). The British saw that there were no nearby enemies (Japan was an ally) so Malaya was lightly defended. The main concern for the British was that they were at war with Ottoman Turkey, a Muslim country and the custodians of Mecca. The Ottoman Sultan had called for a jihad against the British so they were worried that Malayans would answer the call. Throughout the war, British political officers were on high alert for any signs of a jihad. In 1915, there was a rebellion in Pasir Puteh, Kelantan, but to call that a proto-nationalistic rebellion against British imperialism would be altogether too simplistic, even if it does make a nice story. Apart from that nothing happened because it simply was not in anyone’s self-interest to do otherwise.

But on Oct 28, 1914, there was the Battle of Penang. A German warship called the Emden had been sailing around the Indian Ocean, successfully capturing British and neutral merchant ships for several months. The captain of the Emden was by all accounts very chivalrous and sank or captured ships with little or no cost in lives. In September 1914, the Emden bombarded Madras, blowing up several oil tanks and in October the ship suddenly appeared off the coast of Penang where a Russian warship, the Zhemchug, was in the harbour.

Ever since its creation by Czar Peter the Great, the Russians have always been very proud of their navy but it hasn’t had that many successes, and the Battle of Penang would be another failure. In full view of Penangites and the Russian ship’s captain who was staying at the E&O, the Emden sailed up to the harbour and sank the Zhemchug. It must have been a thrilling sight. A nearby French warship gave chase but the Emden sank that too before disappearing again. The Emden was finally cornered in November and battered into submission by the Australian warship Sydney off the Cocos Islands. The surviving German crew were interred in Singapore, but that wouldn’t be the end of their relevance, or of Malaya’s war. Just one ship had entirely disrupted all shipping in the Indian Ocean and given a propaganda blow to British prestige.

In 1915, there was the Singapore Mutiny. The 5th Light Infantry regiment was an almost entirely Muslim unit of the British India Army and it had just arrived to garrison Singapore. The reason why they mutinied against the British remains cloudy and it’s probably a combination of factors: bad officers, unhappiness that they had been sent away from India and rumours that they would be sent to Europe to fight, pro-German and anti-British incitement by local Muslim traders, Turkey’s call for jihad, and also the Emden effect.

It was Chinese New Year in Singapore and all was quiet. The 5th Light Infantry were about to be sent to Hong Kong but apparently they hadn’t been told the destination and they thought they were being sent to Europe instead. They were soldiers so they were organised and they’d had enough. They mutinied, attacked key installations and their officers, and basically went on a rampage for a few days. Unfortunately for them, and as the British Army discovered three decades later and as any dissenters have discovered since, in Singapore there is nowhere to hide. The sepoys (as Indian soldiers were called) took Tanglin barracks for its ammunition and to release interred Germans, including the crew of the Emden. The Germans were asked to join the rebellion and a few did.

Over the course of seven days, 47 British soldiers and locals were killed before marines from passing French, Japanese and Russian ships put down the rebellion. Some sepoys escaped to Johore where they were captured by the Sultan’s troops. The British liked to think of themselves as benign, paternalistic rulers but they tended to deal with sepoy “disloyalty” with absolute ruthlessness and 47 of the mutineers were publicly executed by firing squad. Other than that, Malaya/ Singapore had a fairly quiet First World War, the war that was never supposed to happen.

Before the war began everyone thought a war was impossible because the world’s economies were too inextricably intertwined and any disruption would lead to disaster. It did lead to disaster but that didn’t stop anyone. When Putin recently invaded Crimea, the Russian stock exchange plummeted by nearly 11% in one day (it was already down 59% from its 2008 high). It has managed to claw back a little but will the economic catastrophe of a US$58 billion loss in value in one day give Putin pause for thought? It didn’t stop anybody in 1914. Capitalist self-interest didn’t stop war in 1914 but many believed that the international fraternity of socialism and trade unionism would stop the war. But when war was declared, the working classes answered the call to patriotism and became soldiers (including one million Indians).

In 1914, Europe went crazy and embarked on a war that everyone thought would be short and everyone thought they would win. In the end everyone lost and the chivalry of the Emden was a distant memory. It seems that crazy things are possible when leaders want glory. Could the same still happen in 2014?

Dear Kam,
Our TV censors. My question is, can they speak English?
Blanked Out

Some of the older readers of Talking Edge might know that I’m fascinated by the way our TV censors will cut out any word that sounds even remotely like the word “bitch”. It’s not a nice word but censoring words that merely sound like it is going a bit far. Previously censored words have been Golden Gate bridge and park bench. Last night, I noticed that obituary had been censored. This leaves me thinking that our censors have an amazingly poor grasp of English and that they must think that those disgusting westerners are capable of the most degrading obscenities. What on earth do they see when they imagine a Golden Gate Bitch? She must be this enormous Godzilla-like nasty woman made entirely from gold who is, I don’t know, a gateway to something. And what do they imagine somebody is doing when he’s reading an o-bitch-uary? I mean, I can’t even begin to imagine what it might be but it sounds utterly disgusting and what’s it doing in the middle of an episode of Miss Marple?

I’m not worried about these words (I’m a grown-up and I can handle these things). I’m worried about our censors. Has being constantly exposed to these depravities warped their minds?

Reprinted with the kind permission of