Oppression according to Wikipedia is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner. It can be defined as an act or instance of oppressing, the state of being oppressed, and the feeling of being heavily burdened, mentally or physically, by troubles, adverse conditions, and anxiety. There are five types of oppression: political, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence.
Political oppression is the persecution of an individual or group for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take part in the political life of society. Marginalization causes racial oppression. Powerlessness happened when people are oppressed simply by not having the power. Those in power exercise it over the powerless, giving them orders and telling them what they must do. Cultural imperialism is when the dominant group’s experience and culture is established as norms. When the dominant group has the power, they oppress those who do not share their culture. The last oppression is Violence. Violence is used to oppress people through damage, humiliation or physical harm to a person. These five types of oppression are used to discriminate and assure dominance over those who are being oppressed.
Set in Malaya during the Japanese occupation in the 1940s, this film tells the story of a girl, Embun, who was thrown into the forefront of the struggle against the Japanese when the Japanese detain her freedom-fighter brother, Bayu, and father. In the midst of it all, she was caught in a romantic liaison with the Japanese army public relations man, Koishi, who is assigned to explain the Japanese propaganda to the Malays and win their support. Koishi also has a personal mission to fulfil in Malaya which is to find the Malay man who married to his mother (in other words, his father) when she served as a Japanese spy prior to the occupation.
From this film, we can see that the Japanese use oppression to conquer Malaya. Types of oppression that can be clearly identified from this film are oppression through political and violence. Oppression is widely known as an effective tool for political rule. Japanese use political oppression in Embun in order to provoke the Malay community. Thus, riot evolved among people in Tanah Melayu at that time. Japanese mechanism is simple and obvious. By provoking the Malay community, which is the majority of the citizen in Tanah Melayu, it will be resulted in riotness and political instability as a whole. Hence, when political instability happened, it is an effective means for the colonialist to take over the country. When the Malay leaders and the community are not uniting, it is the right time for the colonialist to interfere in the jurisdiction instability ruled by the government. By oppression, colonialist are free to implement any new system simply because the people are in desperation.
Desperate, according to Longman Dictionary Of Contemporary English are the ‘willingness of doing anything to change a very bad situation, and not caring about danger’, ‘needing or wanting something very much’, and ‘a desperate action is something that you only do because you are in a very bad situation’. In this film, Malays are trapped in a situation in which the colonialist (Japanese) wanted them to abide the new system implemented by the Japanese and at the same time the Malays have the fear of losing their rights and the most important thing is their own homeland. Therefore, the Malays have to abide those laws implemented by the Japanese in order to secure themselves and their family members. For this reason, the British rulers have brought up Chinese and Indians both from China and India, respectively. The Malays’ fear at that time is that, they will not possess the same rights like they were used to before. The British segregate their rights to other races and oppressed the Malays by keeping them in the village. The Chinese were brought up to work in the tin ore industry whereas the Indians are kept in the rubber estates. The Malays are desperate in keeping their homeland and rights from others to interfere. In this film, we can see that because of desperation, Embun, is willing to sacrifice her pride in order to fight for her brother, Bayu. The Japanese army, who manipulated their promises to Embun in order to fulfil their sexual desire, raped her several times. In addition, her sacrifice is meant for keeping her homeland free from colonialist.
Japanese also try to invade Malay by using slogan of ‘Asia for Asians’. The Japanese try to give fake hope by using this slogan for the citizens to believe that Malaya will gain their own independence with the help of Japanese. This is a type of political oppression. Japanese knows that Malaya people needs their independence, thus, the Japanese uses this opportunity by giving the fake hope. Some of the Malay people trust the Japanese slogan; even the Kings and Sultans are given their right to use their title. They even received monthly allowance and work as Japanese advisor in terms of politics and religion to obscure the real Japanese intention. The hidden agenda of the slogan should be Asia for Japanese, not Asia for Asians.
Apart from that, Japanese also use violence oppression towards the Malaya people. They killed anyone who tried to go against them. This is shown from the film where, Bayu and friends who are the followers of a group named Kesatuan Melayu Muda (KMM) were killed by the Japanese army. KMM was the first national political establishment in British Malaya. Ibrahim Yaacob played a huge role in founding the union in 1938 in Kuala Lumpur, then the capital of the Federated Malay States. The main goal of the union was to unite all Malays regardless of their origin and fight for the Malay’s rights. There is a scene where Bayu and his group conduct a street riot to ask the Japanese to stop blocking foods for the citizens. Unfortunately, their good intentions being debarred with guns. They had been forced to step back otherwise they will be shot down on reason that they are trying to interfere with Japanese ruling. Besides that, Japanese also killed Chinese people without mercy. Japanese people hate Chinese because British and Malayan Communist Party (MCP) had agreed to cooperate against the Japanese in Malaya. To threaten the party who consisted of most of Chinese people, Japanese killed Chinese people to warn them. The evidence was clearly shown in the film where there is a scene where a Chinese family being killed and their house burned. Japanese use lots of violence oppression in order to control their influence through damage, humiliation, physical harm, killing and even torturing. All of these violence have been used in Japanese colonization era in order to maintain their influence and power from being harassed by British or even communist.
Embun is an interesting film which has many moral values regarding oppression that we can adapt in our life. For example, in this film there are some Malay people who worked for the Japanese and betrayed their own nation just for the sake of earning a living. They even worked together with Japanese in oppressing Malays. The ration for Malays had been stopped and they did not even have foods to eat. This is considered immoral and as we live in a modern age, we have to be careful and be cooperative among our nation. There are possibilities that this event would be take place, again.
In conclusion, Japanese oppressed the Malaya people in order to colonise over the country. Because oppression is an effective tool for political rule, the colonialist had manipulated the rulers for their own sake. In Embun, Japanese oppressed the Malays in terms of the necessities. It is mentioned in the film at the ninth 45 minutes (00: 09: 45) that the Japanese hinder the people from having the access to foods, medicine, and education. For this reason, the oppressions are meant for the Malaya people from being over- educated. Japanese are afraid with the tendency of being over ruled by the educated Malays. If the Malays were having their formal education or schooling, they will have the exposure or knowledge and will not be easily fooled and manipulated by them, the Japanese. This film clearly show the oppression that the Japanese implemented in those days. The women, daughters, were all being kidnapped and raped. The Malaya people live in fear, they have no access to their basic necessities, their were depressed, desperate and oppressed by the Japanese. Nevertheless, it seems unfair for us for being judgmental and negative towards the colonialist. Sadly, we have to admit that colonialism had brought us for what we are today. Colonialism sometime works as an eye opener for the people living in that particular country. Looking back those days, without colonialism, Malaya/ Malaysia would not be this develops. Yes, we are not yet reach to be ‘developed country’ but we are a ‘developing country’. There is a glaring distinction between developed country or in Bahasa Malaysia, “Negara Maju” and developing country which is “Negara Membangun”. Colonialism also works as an effective tool for us to be exposed to other developed countries. Nowadays, people know the importance of education and valuing themselves and their identity. Without colonialism, people will live in their ‘comfort zone’ and not worrying about anything. And without exposing them with the bad effects of not valuing their identity, and being aware of people who have the potential to betray their own homeland, they won’t learn. They will not even have the will to improve themselves. Colonialism has its pros and cons for the Malaya, but not for oppression. Generally, this film showed that oppression brings more harm than good (if any) because there are many other options and alternatives to be chosen from.
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