Malaysia Bans Memoir Of Malay Feminist Who Fought British Rule — Two Decades After UKM Published It

Home Ministry has banned the memoir of Shamsiah Fakeh — a Malay nationalist, feminist and Communist Party of Malaya figure — “to protect public order,” citing communist ideologies.

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A memoir that the government helped publish more than two decades ago is now banned.

Memoir Shamsiah Fakeh: Dari Awas ke Rejimen ke-10 was first published in 2004 by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM.

It was reprinted three times, circulated openly, and sat on shelves without incident for over 20 years.

On Wednesday (15 April), publisher Gerakbudaya said it received a prohibition order under the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984, banning both the memoir and a second title, Komrad Asi (Rejimen 10): Dalam Denyut Nihilisme Sejarah, published in 2022.

According to Gerakbudaya, Malaysia’s prominent independent publisher, the Home Ministry said the two books were banned to “protect public order,” citing communist ideologies.

It did not explain what had changed since the memoir’s first publication, or why a book that had been reprinted three times without incident now warranted prohibition.

Dangerous Then, or Dangerous Now?

Gerakbudaya rejected the ministry’s reasoning.

In a statement, the publisher said the books were historical reference materials that opened space for critical reflection — and announced it would challenge the ban through legal channels.

The move drew swift condemnation, including a personal response from Jamaliah Jamaluddin, the ADUN for Bandar Utama and a Selangor exco member — and Shamsiah’s own granddaughter.

Urging the ministry to withdraw the ban, she said the memoir had circulated for over two decades without triggering extremism — its contents, she added, were “more in the nature of a personal life journey.”

PEN Malaysia called the banning of historical texts an “urgent concern,” warning that suppressing scholarly work on the communist period distorts the public’s understanding of the country’s own past.

Critics have also pointed to a basic inconsistency: if the memoir’s contents were dangerous, they were equally dangerous when UKM published them in 2004.

The state did not think so then; it has not said what it thinks now.

A Ban, An Investigation, And A Request For Silence

In an official statement on Thursday (Apr 16), the ministry said enforcement is based on the current assessment of a publication’s contents — not when it was published — and rejected claims that the ban targeted intellectual freedom.

KDN pointed to a broader trend of communist materials circulating more openly, with a growing tendency to normalise the ideology, though it did not identify which materials or show how a 2004 memoir already in open circulation for two decades was among them.

The ministry also disclosed that investigations are now underway into the publisher itself, with KDN examining SIRD’s compliance with legal registration requirements under SSM and JPPM — a signal that the action may not stop at a book ban.

SIRD, which stands for Strategic Information and Research Development Centre, is the academic imprint of Gerakbudaya.

In the same statement, KDN called on all parties not to amplify the issue or make statements that could cause public controversy.

For a ministry defending a ban on a history book, the instruction to stop talking about it may prove the harder sell.

A Nationalist, a Feminist, a Communist

Born in Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan, Shamsiah (1924–2008) was one of the most prominent Malay women in the anti-colonial movement.

She led Angkatan Wanita Sedar (AWAS) — Malaya’s first nationalist women’s organisation — and later joined the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), becoming its most senior Malay female figure.

Her peers included Chin Peng, the CPM’s longtime secretary-general, and Ahmad Boestamam, the left-wing Malay nationalist leader — figures whose legacies remain contested in official Malaysian historiography.

She spent decades in exile in China and Indonesia before returning to Malaysia in 1994, where she lived quietly until her death.

Her memoir, dictated in her final years, was considered by historians a rare first-person account of a chapter the state has long preferred to leave unexamined.