RISING SUN OVER BORNEO: The Japanese Occupation of Sarawak, 1941-1945.

By Ooi Keat Gin. New York: St. Martin's Press. 1999. xiv, 158 pp. (Tables, photos, maps.) US$55.00, cloth, ISBN 0-312-217145.

THIS short monograph is one of a series by Ooi Keat Gin on Sarawak's development over the last century and a half. Here Ooi has two goals, the first being simply to probe an undocumented era. The second cuts to the heart of an issue relevant to all of Southeast Asia: whether or not the Japanese occupation served as a catalyst for change in colonial Sarawak. If a catalyst, the Japanese occupation would have spurred the forces of postwar decolonization. Ooi found that not only did Sarawak escape extensive wartime destruction but the systemic changes witnessed in other Southeast Asian societies did not occur in Sarawak. Ooi concludes that Sarawak's history through the occupation and the immediate postwar era reflects more the case that society maintained pre-invasion patterns of political organization and mobilization. The Japanese occupation did not result in transformative change.

This perhaps explains the brevity of the work -- not much happened. This was true even before the war. Despite repeated requests by the Brooke Rajah, the British did not prepare to defend Sarawak outside of making plans to impede oil production. The Japanese invasion force was not large, but the Dutch sinking of four transports carrying civil servants resulted in the military's domination of Sarawak's administration. It perhaps also insured the continuity of local political arrangements, but this was standard Japanese practice in Southeast Asia in any event. In accordance with visions of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity sphere, the Japanese did attempt to implement some changes, but Ooi suggests they could only superficially implement such policies because Sarawak's residents did not wholeheartedly embrace the propaganda and declined to join Japanese-inspired militias and work units. The Japanese concentration on coastal Sarawak also left the interior largely to its own devices. The biggest change the Ja panese made was to recruit certain Dayak (Iban) elites into the occupation administration, something Europeans had avoided. The only Japanese policy that was clearly a success involved increasing food production, which became necessary as Japanese shipping declined.

There was little resistance to the Japanese among Sarawak's residents, even among local Chinese. Going by Ooi's account, instances of Japanese violence also appear to have been few. Those who suffered most seem to have been members of the European community who the Japanese either locked up in camps or forced to flee across the island. All this changed, however, after the war, when Sarawak's various ethnic populations had to reconstitute society. Apparently, goodwill towards European administrators never waned, but suspicions between other groups sadly arose, even against some local Chinese who the Japanese had appointed as responsible for local economic monopolies. The postwar Brooke government did not prosecute collaborators because it would have been impossible to do so fairly. Although the failure to do so left many unsatisfied, Sarawak's patterns of communal leadership managed to survive into the postcolonial era.

Ooi's account is useful, focusing more on the various reactions of Sarawak's residents to Japanese rule than to Japanese goals and actions themselves.