Affiliations 

  • 1 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
MyJurnal

Abstract

Fabian Society is a type of political think tank which was founded by a group of students and
intellectuals at London School of Economics (LSE), United Kingdom in the late of 19 centuries. The
Fabian political thought is a new manifestation of socialist ideology in United Kingdom emerged through the role of Labour Party Partiat that time. After the World War II, the influence of this political
thought began to widespread throughout Malaya via British-educated Malayan students. This
development brought about a new form of political idealism based on social-democrat orientation
which emphasized on class struggles and civil issues in Malaya. Thus, the aim of this article is to
scrutinize objectively and descriptively the influence of the Fabian political thought in the Malaysian
political development from 1952 to 1970. Using the approach of history reconstructionist, the analysis
discussion was developed based on the use of primary sources as the argument base. The research
findings indicate that the influence of the Fabian political thought developed in Malaya by the role of
the socialist intellectual-progressive group throughout the research. The development did not only
involve labour movements and left-wing political parties such as Malayan Democratic Union (MDU)
and the Malayan Labour Party, but it also influenced students movements at universities through
University of Malaya Socialist Club in Singapore around 1950s and students societies in Universiti
Malaya, Kuala Lumpur around 1960s. In fact, at the same time the progressive Fabian group slipped in
right-conservative group through their direct involvement in UMNO and the Perikatan regime at the
time. This indirectly proves that there is a different side of the socialist role through the role of the
Fabian group in the development of democracy and politics in Malaysia.