Times Of Malaya

Adnan Ariffin was born at the turning of the tide on a remote seaside town of Port Dickson, Malaysia and grew up with Malays, Chinese and Indians learning to speak some of their languages. He left the seaside town for the bright lights of Kuala Lumpur, and later other towns in east and west coast of Malaysia where he got the inspiration to write his first historical fiction novel in between drinking coffee at Starbucks and watching the demanding local patrons. He now lives in a small apartment on a hill hidden by lush greeneries with his wife and an old terrapine. When not writing bestselling novels, he likes to party with rock stars and dance the tango under a full moon, letting out the occasional scream.

"Times of Malaya" is a loose allegory for events set in Malaya during the Emergency, before independence. It is at a time of the Authority's reckless campaign against the Communists, and the cast of Malays, bourgeois Chinese, rubber tappers and British officers who are swept into the chaos. The protagonist and narrator of the story is a boy born at the exact moment of the declaration of the Emergency and is trapped in that time capsule which he cannot escape. Imagine Malaya during the early 50s with its lush, heat soaked jungles filled with violence. Death lurking behind rubber trees. And Imagine the lives of rice growers, rubber tappers, tin miners, bus drivers, ordinary 'citizens' who can be incarcerated behind bars at the mere whiff of being a communist collaborator. This is a story set during a period of political turmoil and uncertainty. And yet filled with beauty and abundance. And hope. Adnan Ariffin got the inspiration to write this book after reading books written by Shusaku Endo, James Clavell, Leo Tolstoy, and other such historical fiction writers. But, during his daily morning coffee at a local cafe watching the young people of today, Adnan was reminded of his youth and decided to write this book. He hopes that this will shed light on Malaysia's past and help Malaysians to shape a better tomorrow for our future generations. On a personal note, Adnan was born in the remote seaside town of Port Dickson in Malaysia and traveled around Malaysia and the United Kingdom before settling in the busy city-state of Kuala Lumpur. Married for 34 years and counting, Adnan has two lovely daughters and a granddaughter, both based across London and Melbourne, where he splits his time during the year enjoying family life, good food, arts, and culture.

This book brings together a group of international scholars, inspired by the scholarly perspective of Australian philologist Ian Proudfoot, who look at calendars and time, royal myths, colonial expeditions, printing, propaganda, theater, art, Islamic manuscripts, and many more aspects of Malayan history.

The career of John Davis was inextricably and paradoxically intertwined with that of Chin Peng, the leader of the Malayan Communist Party and the man who was to become Britain’s chief enemy in the long Communist struggle for the soul of Malaya. When the Japanese invaded Malaya during WWII, John Davis escaped to Ceylon, sailing 1,700 miles in a Malay fishing boat, before planning the infiltration of Chinese intelligence agents and British officers back into the Malayan peninsula. With the support of Chin Peng and the cooperation of the Malayan Peoples Anti-Japanese Army, Davis led SOE Force 136 into Japanese-occupied Malaya where he operated from camps deep in the jungle with Freddy Spencer Chapman and fellow covert agents. Yet Davis was more than a wartime hero. Following the war, he was heavily involved in Malayan Emergency affairs: squatter control, the establishment of New Villages and, vitally, of tracking down and confronting his old adversary Chin Peng and the communist terrorists. Historian and biographer Margaret Shennan, born and raised in Malaya and an expert on the British in pre-independence Malaysia, tells the extraordinary, untold story of John Davis, CBE, DSO, an iconic figure in Malaya’s colonial history. Illustrated with Davis’ personal photographs and featuring correspondence between Davis and Chin Peng, this is a story which truly deserves to be told.

The Malayan Emergency lasted from 1948 to 1960. During these tumultuous years, following so soon after the Japanese surrender at the end of the Second World War, the whole country was once more turned upside down and the lives of the people changed. The war against the Communist Party of Malaya's determined efforts to overthrow the Malayan government involved the whole population in one form or another. Dr Comber analyses the pivotal role of the Malayan Police's Special Branch, the government's supreme intelligence agency, in defeating the communist uprising and safeguarding the security of the country. He shows for the first time how the Special Branch was organised and how it worked in providing the security forces with political and operational intelligence. His book represents a major contribution to our understanding of the Emergency and will be of great interest to all students of Malay(si)a's recent history as well as counter-guerrilla operations. It can profitably be mined, too, to see what lessons can be learned for counterinsurgency operations in other parts of the world.