The Malayan Emergency, also known as the Anti–British National Liberation War, (1948–1960) was a guerrilla war fought in Malaya between communist pro-independence fighters of the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) and the military forces of the Federation of Malaya and Commonwealth (British Empire). The communists fought to win independence for Malaya from the British Empire and to establish a communist state, while the Malayan Federation and Commonwealth forces fought to combat communism and protect British economic and colonial interests. The term "Emergency" was used by the British to characterise the conflict in order to avoid referring to it as a war, because London-based insurers would not pay out in instances of civil wars.

Needless to say, the communists, unlike in Vietnam, were mercilessly destroyed and humiliated. In fact, the brutality of the counterinsurgency was so high that a scandal known as the "British Malayan headhunting scandal" occurred.

The scandal was sparked by the Daily Worker's publication of photographs depicting British soldiers fighting in the Malayan Emergency posing with the severed head of suspected anti-colonial guerrillas belonging to the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA). The images were published in the Daily Worker under the supervision of communist activist J.R. Campbell as the paper's editor.

The decapitation of suspected MNLA members was subsequently found to have been a common and widespread practice by British troops in Malaya that had been sanctioned by Gerald Templer. It was also found that the British military had hired over 1,000 mercenaries from Iban headhunting tribes in Borneo to fight in Malaya with the promise they could keep the scalps of the people they killed.

Surely those brown Chinks ate those heads....