Penang: The Rebel State (Part One)
By Koay Su Lyn
September 2016 WINDOW INTO HISTORY
In the post-war period before Merdeka, Penang attempted to secede from the Federation. This remains an obscure tale, even for Penangites. In the first of a two-part article, we revisit this phenomenon and trace the sparks of the state’s secessionist movement from 1948 to 1951.The formation of the Penang Secession Committee in December 1948 is seldom mentioned in history books. Nonetheless, it was this committee that fielded the primary demands for Penang to be excluded from the Federation of Malaya,...
Koay Su Lyn
reads and writes of the past to make sense of the present. She is a research analyst in the History and Heritage Programme of Penang Institute.
