NOANEWS
Following a last lengthy battle with cancer, on 16 September 2013, Comrade Chin Peng, who served as the secretary-general of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) for well oversix decades, passed away in a hospital in the Thai capital, Bangkok, at the age of 88.
As Chin Peng's last letter was read, the Internationale, the hymn of the world proletariat, was played in the background, and it is with Comrade Chin Peng's simple and deeply moving final words that we conclude our own tribute to this great and beloved revolutionary leader:
My dear comrades, my dear compatriots,
When you read this letter, I am no more in this world.
It was my original intention to pass away quietly and let my relatives handle the funeral matters in private. However, the repercussions of erroneous media reports of me [being] in critical condition during October 2011, had persuaded me that leaving behind such a letter is desirable.
Ever since I joined the Communist Party of Malaya and eventually became its secretary-general, I have given both my spiritual and physical self in the service of the cause that my party represented, that is, to fight for a fairer and better society based on socialist ideals. Now with my passing away, it is time that my body be returned to my family .
I draw immense comfort in the fact that my two children are willing to take care of me, a father who could not give them family love, warmth and protection ever since their birth. I could only return my love to them after I had relinquished my political and public duties, ironically only at a time when I have no more life left to give to them as a father.
It was regrettable that I had to be introduced to them well advanced in their adulthood as a stranger. I have no right to ask them to understand, nor to forgive. They have no choice but to face this harsh reality. Like families of many martyrs and comrades, they too have to endure hardship and suffering not out of their own doing, but out of a consequence of our decision to challenge the cruel forces in the society, which we sought to change .
It is most unfortunate that I couldn’t, after all, pay my last respects to my parents buried in my hometown of Sitiawan, nor could I set foot on the beloved motherland that my comrades and I had fought so hard for against the aggressors and colonialists .
My comrades and I had dedicated our lives to a political cause that we believed in and had to pay whatever price there was as a result. Whatever consequences on ourselves, our family and the society, we would accept with serenity .
In the final analysis, I wish to be remembered simply as a good man who could tell the world that he had dared to spend his entire life in pursuit of his own ideals to create a better world for his people .
It is irrelevant whether I succeeded or failed, at least I did what I did. Hopefully the path I had walked on would be followed and improved upon by the young after me. It is my conviction that the flames of social justice and humanity will never die .
The author of this article had the honour of meeting Comrade Chin Peng in 1998. Lalkarand the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) extend their deepest condolences to the comrades of the Communist Party of Malaya and to Comrade Chin Peng’s family and friends on their irreplaceable loss.
