Rakyat, Hartal & 20 October

I've stumbled upon this website last night, thought it'll be nice to share it with you.
In the light of Shuhaimi Baba's 1957 Hati Malaya movie, Fahmi Reza came out with his short documentary about Malaysia, 10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka.

So what is it about? Well, this documentary explore the forgotten part of our fight for independence that is the AMCJA-PUTERA coalition and the Hartal. I kindof remember reading about the topic in History back in MCKK but it kindof lost from my memory until yesterday that is. 

AMCJA-PUTERA are two coalitions consisting among others, Pari Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya (PKMM), Angkatan Pemuda Insaf (API) and the Malayan Democratic Union (MDU) who opposes the Federation of Malaya. Why? Because they say that it was just another form of colonialism under a sweeter name. They were dead serious about their movement and even proposed a different constitution for Malaya: the Perlembagaan Rakyat (The People's Constitution).

I find it very interesting this constitution because it made me wonder about how Malaya would be if it was selected as the constitution instead of our current one. One of it is that under the constitution, every citizen of Malaya is called Melayu, not Malayan thus creating a new sense of meaning to the notion Tanah Melayu. There would be no racial based politics and all citizen have equal rights as it did away with racial laws. It was the concept of bangsa Malaysia even before there was Malaysia.

One of the most successful thing done by the coalition other than their strong demonstrations throughout Malaya is of course, the Hartal on 20 October 1947. What is a Hartal? It's a total stoppage of all economic activity for the whole day where everything from shipping to fishing to even becas took a day off and not to mention closure of shops. Who says street demostration is not part of our culture? 

Nevertheless, the British were not happy with the strong opposition from AMCJA-PUTERA and with the Darurat in 1948, most of the leaders of the coalition were caught and the entity itself was banned and dissolved. Well.. 

Anyway, just click here to go to the production's blog. You can download or watch the documentary there. As they say, those who don't remember the history are doomed to repeat it right?

Remember remember the 20th of October..

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Published:
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
by amerhadiazmi