Shamsiah Fakeh

Shamsiah Fakeh (1924 – 20 October 2008) was a Malaysian nationalist and feminist. She was the leader of Angkatan Wanita Sedar (AWAS), Malaysia's first nationalist women organisation and a prominent Malay leader of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM). She was the grandmother of Jamaliah Jamaluddin, Member of the Selangor State Executive Council and Member of the Selangor State Legislative Assembly for Bandar Utama.

Early life Shamsiah was born in the village of Kampung Gemuruh near the town of Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan. She had her early education in the Madrasah Aliah Islaiah (also known as the Islamic High School) in Pelangai, Negeri Sembilan and was later sent to the Madrasah Tuddimiah in Padang Panjang, Sumatera in what was then the Dutch East Indies. It was during this time that she came under the influence of Lebai Maadah, an influential scholar and Islamic reformer.

Family life Shamsiah was married five times from the age of 17. Her first husband, Yasin Kina, abandoned her while she was pregnant with their second child and both children died in their infancy. Her second husband, J. M. Rusdi, was eventually discovered to be an informer for the Japanese forces then occupying Malaya.

She was also briefly married to Ahmad Boestamam, the leader of PKMM's youth wing, Angkatan Pemuda Insaf (Awakened Youth Organisation; API). In her memoirs, she claimed that her marriage with Boestamam broke down due to her disagreement with the latter's decision to pay a fine to avoid a jail sentence for publishing a book deemed seditious by government in 1947.

Political activism

Early involvement

As a fiery orator, Shamsiah was scouted by both the United Malays National Organisation and the Malay Nationalist Party (, PKMM), the main Malay political parties in the post-war period. She eventually chose to join PKMM because she believed it was more dedicated to the struggle for Malaya's independence whereas she considered UMNO a puppet of the British. She also served as a Malay language consultant with Radio Beijing and the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute.

Her memoirs were first published in 2004 by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) but was immediately suppressed by the authorities and withdrawn from circulation. A new edition as well as a Chinese language translation was published in 2007 by the Strategic Information and Research Development Centre (SIRD) which saw UKM reintroduce their edition into the market.

On April 15, 2026, her publisher Gerakbudaya announced that the memoir was once again being banned, a move that was widely criticised. Her granddaughter Jamaliah expressed disappointment and pointed out that the book had been in circulation for close to 20 years.

A week later Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution announced that the ban on Shamsiah’s book would be revoked.

Death Following a stroke in 1999, Shamsiah had generally been in poor health and was bedridden by 2007. She died on 20 October 2008 at the residence of her son, Jamaluddin Ibrahim (father of Jamaliah Jamaluddin), due to respiratory failure and was buried at the Sungai Besi Muslim cemetery at 5.30pm of the same day.

Present at the funeral were some prominent politicians including the deputy president of Parti Keadilan Rakyat, Syed Husin Ali, and Democratic Action Party Member of Parliament, Tony Pua.

Controversies In 1981, the defected chairman of the CPM, Musa Ahmad, claimed that Shamsiah had committed infanticide by killing her third child while in the jungle to avoid capture.

She subsequently denied the allegation in her memoirs and explained that she was convinced by fellow guerillas to give the child away to local villagers to be raised upon entering an unfamiliar district. It was only later that she discovered that the child had in fact been killed. The Japanese was raiding the whole village in an attempt to find her child, and threatened to behead everyone in the village if the child is found hidden by one of the villagers. There was no way to hide the crying child, so it was killed by one of the villagers by drowning, and the Japanese never found it.