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"Well, it's true that we've got some bloody bad soldiers and some bad police in Malaya, but we've also got some bloody bad planters and you're the worst of the bloody lot! Now get the hell out of here!"
Wake for the Dead. Conservative civil servants learned to fear Templer's thin-lipped, tigerish sneer. Asians loved it when he looked a prevaricating Asian politician in the eye and said: "You're a stinker." Everywhere he went he was appalled by the indolent attitude of the Europeans. He told a Rotarian audience: "You see today how the Communists work . . . They seldom go to the races. They seldom go to dinner parties or cocktail parties. And they do not play golf." Even as he spoke, the Perak Derby was being run on the track at Ipoh, tin-mining capital of the worst-terrorized state in the Federation, and golf balls were zinging around Kuala Lumpur course.
Though the local British were unwilling to face it, the fact was that old-style colonialism in Asia was dead: its wake was in progress, even if its will was not yet read.
Outside Singapore (a British Crown Colony), there are in Malaya roughly 2,600,000 Malays, 2,000,000 Chinese, and nearly 600,000 Indians. The Chinese are immigrants or the sons of immigrants, attracted to Malaya by the standard of living (highest in Asia), the high level of justice, the clean cities and good roads. Their industry had put them in control of the country's economic life, but the majority were without citizenship. Believing this to be a basic cause of the unrest, the British Colonial Office pressed for Chinese citizenship, against the opposition of the Malays and some local British. The "emergency" had brought top-level Malays and Chinese together, but had left their communities coldly self-segregated. Templer threw his whole weight into the drive for common citizenship.
Collective Punishment. But he also had a police job to do. He had been in Malaya only two months when Communist guerrillas ambushed and killed a British patrol of twelve men near the small town of Tanjong Malim. Templer arrived in his armored car, glared at the town elders over his spectacles, and said: "It doesn't amuse me to punish innocent people, but many among you are not innocent. You have information which you are too cowardly to give. Have some guts and shoulder the responsibility of citizenship."
There was no response. Templer slapped a 2 2-hour curfew on Tanjong Malim and cut the rice ration. Work stopped. Villagers had only two hours a day in which to buy food. British soldiers went from house to house, handing out a questionnaire. In Chinese, Malay and Tamil, Templer wrote: "If you are a Communist I don't expect you to reply. If you aren't, I want you to give ... as much information as you can to help my forces catch the Communist terrorists in your area ..." He itemized the questions, then added: "It's quite safe for you to give all the information, since every household must hand in a form like this and none will know which comes from which house."