Behind Barbed Wire

This book revisits the moment in the Malayan Emergency when around 500,000 women, children, and men were uprooted from their homes and moved into new settlements, guarded by police and troops. The majority of those affected were rural Chinese: market gardeners, shopkeepers, rice farmers, tin miners, and rubber tappers who had long considered Malaya their home and had endured the hardships of the Japanese Occupation. It is based on newly accessible archival materials and interviews with more than 80 informants in four New Villages. The author rewrites the history of the Emergency, revealing the voices of those at the center of this 'social experiment'. These villagers, described as being caught in the crossfire between British security forces and the Malayan Communist Party, experienced drastic changes to their lives, including daily curfews, body searches, food controls, registration, (re)education, sanitation, psychological warfare, and swift punishment. The book highlights the disciplinary aims of British policies and explores how villagers resisted through resistance and ‘weapons of the weak’. It offers a unique history from below of the Malayan Emergency and a resettlement program that significantly shaped the social and geographical landscape of Malaysia for future generations.