Ex-Malaysian premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad's brand of anti-imperialism has meant serious revision of our own anti-colonial history. The circumstances which give rise to anti-imperialism in the first instance may be quite different in the case of its re-emergence.

Mahathir and current Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak have pointed out on a number of occasions that they are part of a heritage which fought against the colonialists in Malaya. Mahathir has gone so far as to assert that "our blood" was spilt in the struggle against the colonialists. This is a rich saucing up of our history, presumably echoed by the line in our national anthem: tanah tumpahnya darahku.

Although often glossed over in practice, modern Malaysia is a direct product of the colonial state. However, in order to form a credible nationalism distinct from the colonial regime an anti-colonial myth needed to be reconstructed and reasserted, especially through annual Merdeka celebrations.

As Tim Harper has pointed out, the very "gift" of colonialism, the modern state has been the vehicle for the assertion of nationhood. By suggesting a clean break with colonialism the Barisan Nasional (BN) is perhaps being a tad ungrateful to its colonial progenitors. It is certainly trying to secure masculine credentials by claiming its relationship with Britain was more adversarial than it really was.

Najib and Mahathir are not as inspiring or convincing anti-imperialists as the iconic Che Guevara or the fiery Frantz Fanon. Even Chin Peng retains a certain credibility despite the uneasiness of many Malaysians with communism. These comparisons alone should put their anti-imperialism in context, but the former pair are nonetheless the models presented for our youth.

The militant anti-colonial tradition in Malaysian history belongs primarily to the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), the CMP-led Malayan Peoples Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), the brave Indians who joined Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army (INA), those who fought in the Indonesian revolution, labour agitators, and instances of peasant resistance not at all to the BN and its former incarnation as the Alliance.

The BN government and armed forces may have fought the CPM for control of independent Malaysia but they certainly did not actively and aggressively resist colonial exploitation with a mind to expel colonialists from this land.

Colonial blueprint

The battle within decolonisation was between different groups struggling for control of the country, the nature of future relations with the colonialists, and the freedom to abolish the exploitation of Malaya's working peoples.

The tensions between the British and the British-composed Alliance were moderated due to their mutual fear of the CPM and other left-wing nationalisms. Whitehall could count only upon the Alliance to respect colonial investments and keep the strategic shipping lanes open for Britain and its allies.

Although some members of the Alliance may not have liked British colonialism they certainly all as a class profited from it. The forebears of today's UMNO, MCA and MIC were drawn from the privileged aristocracy and colonial bourgeoisie. The British composed a post-colonial ruling class which mirrored their tastes and interests. A taste for power, an interest in wealth, and a respect for European colonial property.

The independence negotiated for Malaysia was not the result of an 'us and them' Manichean anti-colonialism, it was a transaction of territory and government machinery between two elite groups who were shared a common class interest and culture of governance.

We have not strayed too far from the colonial blueprint. From the perspective of capital accumulation we have improved upon it. While an urban middle-class has grown the conditions of the working classes, rural folk, and orang asal are not dramatically improved however. The middle classes have to some degree filled the vacuum left by the colonials.

Wealth generation on the Malaysian model of capitalism has been based upon exploitation of labour (workers are still struggling for a true eight-hour working day), environmental depletion, dispossession (particularly the displacement of orang asal from their lands), poor judicial independence, extensive patronage networks, and selective state repression. The uneven distribution of wealth and the even more uneven distribution of the control over our wealth have become more pronounced.

Our understanding of independence is of the negotiations between the nationalist and colonial elites. We do not hear of the common and ordinary men and women who took up arms against the colonial oppressors because subjugation was intolerable, because freedom was more important than comfort because comfort was impossible without freedom.

By privileging the role of its elites in the independence struggle the BN instils in subsequent generations a debt which can never be settled. We owe our freedom to them.

It is a debt we must continue to service with our fealty and the donning of ideological blinkers. The implication is that we have to compromise our desire for greater liberty and progress. This sits uncomfortably with claims for sustaining national independence.

Lop-sided anti-imperialism

My suspicion is that the BN wants to mobilise an emasculated form of anti-imperialism, one which criticises the oppressive actions of world powers on smaller states but remains silent on equivalent practices domestically.

This is Mahathir's anti-imperialism recapitulated. It is also the logic of Malaysians for Peace who staged sanitised rallies against the Iraq war a comfortable distance from the embassies of the invading nations.

It mobilises legitimate moral outrage for expedient political influence at the national level, an influence which is subsequently used to betray the very principles of liberty, justice and equality which underpin anti-imperialist sentiment.

This sort of anti-imperialism is moral theatre. It borrows the halo of direct antagonistic struggle to imperialism and is selective rather than consistently principled in what it opposes. It is the equivalent to the equally selective support of human rights by Western governments.

It is a politics which can express sincere and genuine solidarity with the abuses visited upon the Palestinian people whilst supporting the Malaysian logging companies depleting Papua New Guinea's forests. These same companies exert a stranglehold on criticism in PNG's media together with their Australian counterparts because, like Malaysia, PNG's media is owned by the industrialists who are exploiting it.

Adding to the contradictions in Malaysia's anti-imperialism is the support directed to other Southern countries. Our public banking institutes extended training to newly independent East Timor, an honourable act which nevertheless does not make up for years of support for Suharto's policies, or past repression of East Timor solidarity meetings in Kuala Lumpur where UMNO Youth were sent to brawl with participants.

The point to be rescued is that Malaysia has the skills, know-how and capacity to be of enormous service to other oppressed nations, but this potential for an ethical foreign policy is often compromised by elite business interests which are at the heart of many of our own domestic problems of democracy, accountability and corruption.

It is important that youth are exposed to political currents besides the patronage-based elitist racialism of national politics or the numbing circularity and disaffection of consumerism. Neither are conducive to a liberated consciousness or society (but I have just read headlines concerning Najib's proffered sweetener of a lifetime discount card to NS trainees).

It is also important that our nationalism takes on a more sophisticated and less parochial character by stepping beyond the familial embrace of communally-based political parties and engaging in links of fraternity and solidarity with other nations striving to realise their independence.

There are, I like to believe, a great number of Malaysians who would not sleep soundly at night if they were conscious that they lived at the expense of others. I also believe that a great number of our politicians and industrialists sleep undisturbed. Yet both are threatened by the fact that the Malaysian economy is highly dependent upon a larger global economy with similar structured inequalities.

In this global context Malaysia is just another small country whose wealth can be plundered or whose people and resources can be exploited. We saw this most visibly during the Asian financial crisis and it happens less publicly in the government to government pressure by the US and Europe amongst others to weaken our regulations to allow their corporations to leach greater profits from our country, claim our resources, privatise our public services, or escape accountability for criminal misdeeds.

These threats haunt rich and poor alike in Malaysia although the anti-imperialism fostered by the BN is surely the anti-imperialism of the rich who seek to cling to their wealth. It may be pragmatic to accept it, but we should not be fooled by it.

Finding our own way

The authoritarian tone of NS the military style fashion, the declared intent to hunt down absentees strikes an ironic counterpoint to its anti-imperialist intent. It abolishes freedom in the pursuit of independence.

I hope that someone stayed awake in class and carries away a residue of excitement and curiosity. We do have a rich history of anti-imperialism but it needs to be more effectively returned to us so that present generations can chart their own path. But there is little opportunity to explore a richer anti-imperialism further in Malaysia.

The Internet only flourishes if you have some basic pointers to filter out the garbage. So few Malaysian intellectuals devote themselves to exploring imperialism or the ways in which everyday life is bound into the imperial fabric. Fewer still are able to make these explorations accessible in a popular format. Questioning the activities of Malaysian companies overseas brings great risk and meets little support in the media or government.

If we want to take anti-imperialism seriously, and I believe that we should, we especially the youth need to develop a generous internationalism and an equally unflinching courage to unearth the complexities of our history.

It will take powerful solidarity between the anti-imperialists of both North and South to dismantle a global system, much as slavery was dismantled. We could learn from figures such as Jean-Paul Sartre who courted the wrath of French society by championing the cause of the colonised.

We will also have to understand better the people and countries where Malaysian companies are engaging in unaccountable exploitation. We will have to examine how our complex desires for development are caught up in a model that depends on concealed injustice.

If we start this journey then we have a chance to be psychologically, economically and politically emancipated. The journey may also help us address fundamental tensions and conflicts in our society.

When not in the heat of the actual colonial situation anti-imperialism typically flourishes in the university environment, where young minds are freer to explore, question and develop their political outlooks.

A genuine Malaysian anti-imperialism would require numerous acts of radical free thinking, something which is quite at odds with the government's policy on the free political expression of youth, enshrined in the Universities and University Colleges Act.

Ironically, this repressive act, which has killed the potential of our universities and youth to contribute to national independence was the product of our most well-known anti-imperialist: Mahathir Mohamad.

Part 1 of this article was published yesterday.

YIN SHAO LOONG is an environmentalist and activist on North-South issues.