ABSTRACT
In contrast to Vietnam, Myanmar, and Indonesia, there was no concerted nationwide opposition to colonial rule in British Malaya or the French protectorates of Cambodia and Laos. In fact, the British boasted that Malaya's pluralist society and its booming colonial economy made it the showpiece of the empire. Most authors who pictured such a blissful situation in prewar Malaya ignored a segment of the Chinese population, which had been turning to communism. The advent of independence to Malaya was delayed by more than a decade because of the declared state of emergency. In 1955 elections were held for both the Malay Federal Assembly and the Singapore Legislative Council. Suddenly, in January 1953, the mercurial Sihanouk startled the world by his "Crusade for Independence." The crusade was effective. As in Cambodia, there was little anti-French sentiment in Laos. The nationalist movements in Cambodia and Laos gained momentum in the last months of World War II.
