Refusing Malaya: The Penang Secessionist Movement

It began with a killing. Dr Ong Chong Keng had been called from his practice at 10pm on 31 August 1948 to attend to a patient who was too sick to travel on the outskirts of George Town, Penang. The following day, Ong’s body was found on the side of the road, having been shot three times in the head, a macabre demonstration to the people of Penang, and of Malaya more broadly, that the violence of the Malayan Emergency could reach anyone. Subsequent investigation revealed that the bedside summons had been a ruse by operatives of the Malayan Communist Party to lure Ong to an ambush. The doctor had been chosen as a target partly because of his vocal support for the colonial government’s efforts to stamp out the insurgency. But more than simply striking at the heart of the colonial establishment, Ong’s murder was also intended to send a message to those the communists perceived as being ‘running dogs’ of British imperialism, particularly the doctor’s own community, of which he was a leading voice: the Peranakan Chinese.