Late one night last week the searchlights illuminating the spacious cricket ground of sleepy Kuala Lumpur (pop. 300,000) suddenly went out. Two minutes later, precisely at midnight, the lights flashed on again, and as a crowd of 50,000 voices shouted Merdeka (freedom), the Union Jack slowly fluttered down to be replaced by a red, white and blue flag very like that of the U.S., save that instead of 48 stars it bore the single star and crescent of Islam. After 83 years of British rule, Malaya was an independent nation.

With the raising of the new flag in Kuala Lumpur, Britain welcomed the tenth member of a Commonwealth which now includes five nations dominated by people of European stock, four by Asians (Malaya, India, Pakistan, Ceylon) and one by Africans (Ghana). Of all the once vast British possessions east of Suez, only Hong Kong, North Borneo, Aden and a few scattered islands still remain.

The Blessed Legacy. But even in Malaya in the sunset of empire, Britain did things in style. At Kuala Lumpur's newly built Merdeka Stadium, the mustachioed Duke of Gloucester formally conferred sovereignty on the new nation, in the name of his niece, the Queen. Backing the duke was a distinguished group of Britons, including Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer, who as High Commissioner to Malaya turned the tide against the Communist rebellion in Malaya in 1952-54, and Viscount Kilmuir, the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain.

The Malayans, too, did things in style, though the curiously unenthusiastic calm with which they received their independence was attributed by British residents to the fact that it was "handed to them on a platter." Gracefully, round-faced, 54-year-old Prime Minister Tengku (Prince) Abdul Rahman* paid tribute to Britain. "Malaya," said he, "is blessed with a good administration forged and tempered to perfection by successive British administrators. Let this legacy not suffer." He himself was exhilarated, if his people did not outwardly seem so. "I am," he confessed, "as enthusiastic and excited as a child being given a new toy."

Unlike most children, Prime Minister Abdul Rahman was keenly aware that his new toy was breakable. An admirer of Nehru, the Tengku has already served notice that Malaya will not join SEATO. "For the protection of this country," said he last week, "I consider it sufficient that we enter into defense agreements with Britain." But for all his lack of enthusiasm for military pacts, Abdul Rahman is determined to clean up the Communist revolt that has plagued Malaya for the last nine years, at a cost to Britain and Malaya of $1,680,000,000 and nearly 4,500 lives. "My aim," says Abdul Rahman, "is to bring an end to the Communist terrorists' war by August 31, 1958. We may issue new terms of surrender, and if the Communists do not accept, then they regard this new Federation as an enemy. The new terms will not legalize them, because I know from the experience of other countries that Communists can never coexist with any government. They drove the Nationalist government out of China. They tried to drive the Nationalist Korean government out of Korea and the Nationalist government from Viet Nam. I would be deceiving myself if I were to think that they are going to treat us differently."

The Ever-Present Shadow. The Chinese, who make up nearly all of Malaya's 1,800 Red guerrillas, are also at the bottom of Abdul Rahman's other chief headache—the threat of racial strife in Malaya. Of the new nation's 6,000,000 citizens, 49% are Malay and nearly 38% are Chinese. (The remaining 13% are mostly Indians and Pakistanis.) Abdul Rahman, one of whose adopted daughters is Chinese, has a long record of successful political cooperation with Malaya's Chinese, and the Ministers of Finance and Commerce in his new Cabinet are Chinese. But like all other Malays, Abdul Rahman lives in fear that one day his easygoing, largely illiterate people will be swallowed up by the country's more aggressive, economically powerful Chinese.

Adding to this fear is the ever-present shadow of the heavily Chinese crown colony of Singapore, which handles 75% of Malaya's business, and is separated from the new nation only by a half-mile-long causeway. Singapore, which is due to get local autonomy in 1958, would like to become part of Malaya—a prospect which leaves the Tengku at best lukewarm. Singapore's energetic Chief Minister Lim Yew Hock (who a fortnight ago ordered the arrest of 35 of the colony's top Communists and offered paid one-way trips to Red China for anyone who wants to go) has done an effective job of combatting the Reds in Singapore. But if Singapore's 1,250,000 Chinese become Malayan citizens, the Malays would be a minority in their own country. "It is not our intention to place a barrier at the Singapore causeway," says Abdul Rahman, adding hastily "until we have worked this question out."

* No kin to, but often confused with, Malaya's newly elected paramount ruler, His Majesty Tuanku Abdul Rahman. The source.