If the Sky were to Fall . . . An intergenerational journey of trials and tribulations in Malaya during and after the wars

Date: 13th May 2023 (Saturday)

Time: 3pm-5pm

Venue: (1st Floor) Kong Choi Exhibition Room, The Kuala Lumpur And Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (KLSCAH)

No. 1, Jalan Maharajalela,50150 Kuala Lumpur.

Speaker: Professor Gary Lit Ying Loong (Author of the book ‘If the Sky were to Fall’, Retired academic and visiting professor)

Moderator: George Yong Cho Chee  (Member of WWII Historical Society of Malaysia, KLSCAH)

Language: English

In partnership:

1. WWII Historical Society of Malaysia, KLSCAH
2. Centre For Malaysian Chinese Studies
3. Tan Kah Kee Foundation

Introduction:

Through a highly personal and engaging journey, the book exposes the myths and mysteries surrounding the most tumultuous period of Malayan history. It details the gruesome atrocities suffered by the people of Malaya under Japanese Occupation during WWII. It also exposes some of the abuses and injustices during the decade long “Emergency” war between the British and communists.

During this dark and dangerous period, the innocent people of Malaya bore the brunt of the sufferings. More than half a million of them were forcibly relocated, with neither proper notice nor compensation, into double-barbed wired concentration camps called New Villages (San Chun). The book reveals the heavy-handed surveillance and restrictions adopted by the British as well as the resistance towards and rejection of this totalising disciplinary project by the villagers. It shows how they confronted and contended with the unfair and unconscionable classification, normalisation and reformation of them into “docile” subjects.

By interrogating the official narrative, this memoir reveals the hidden truths, tensions and dilemmas involved. It gives voice to the dislocated, dispossessed and discontented and attends to the neglected, subjugated and persecuted caught up in this turbulent historical era.