RITA SIM
Untangling complexities of Chinese community

2009/11/16

MCA has to resolve its internal problems, and soon, before the Chinese community looks elsewhere for more reliable representation, writes RITA SIM
THE MCA appears to be incapable of resolving its internal leadership crisis. Personalities are a powerful factor, but the MCA turmoil also reflects fundamental cleavages in the Malaysian Chinese community.

The MCA leadership conflict should have ended on Oct 10 at the party's extraordinary general meeting when president Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat received a no-confidence vote -- he had previously given members his word that he would step down should this eventuate, but then reneged.

Ong has been clearly deprived of a mandate and now rules by fiat, putting the country's six million Chinese in the untenable position of being led by a party with just over 10 per cent (840,489 votes) of the total national vote of 7,944,274.

To make matters more complex, the Registrar of Societies reappointed Ong's sacked deputy Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek, leaving Ong's new deputy, Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, to form a third faction opposing both Ong and Chua.

There is increasing speculation that other alternative channels within the Chinese community may step into the political representation vacuum left by the MCA's inability to perform.

There are, for example, more than 7,000 Chinese guilds and associations currently active in the country. These are represented nationally by the Federation of Chinese Associations, or Huazong, through the state Chinese Assembly Halls and Federations.

There is also the Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia, which provides effective business representation for some 28,000 constituent companies and trade associations, represented likewise through state organisations.

And there is, of course, the influential United Chinese School Committees Association of Malaysia, known more popularly as Dong Zong, which has often caused controversy for its stand on the development of Chinese vernacular education.

Each of these three groups possesses formidable resources and nationwide reach. Unlike political parties, they stand for specific interests, which, as indicated by of the groups' size and importance in the community, are the three most dominant in the Chinese-speaking Malaysian worldview: Chinese culture, business and vernacular education.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin recently met these groups directly, perhaps in a bid to form a better understanding in catering to the needs of the Chinese community.

Such a development would present the astonishing possibility of non-Chinese political leaders representing the community at the highest levels of government. The more cynical would doubt whether such a bold initiative could be sustained. Umno leaders will eventually have to revert to a Chinese political partner if they are to secure lasting support from the electorate. But the Chinese, like all Malaysians, can only benefit from a more aracial political process.

This certainly bodes ill for an MCA that has long been the community's chief political connector. It also bodes ill for the DAP and Gerakan (respectively perceived by the community as a permanent opposition and a regional party respectively), or any other party seeking to expand its political reach by appealing to Chinese sentiment in the country.

Such a development would cut these parties from their moorings, and the MCA, for one, would be rendered not so much ineffective as utterly redundant. What purpose could the party serve if the three most important concerns of the Chinese -- culture, business, and vernacular education -- are addressed through non-political channels?

Here lies another problem: it is a common error to think of the Chinese in Malaysia as an entirely homogeneous mass.

A proposed framework for segmenting the Chinese community is the "G1, G2, and G3" model. The majority can be identified as "G1s". They identify readily with traditional ideas of ethnic Chinese culture, language and expression. This group wholeheartedly supports Chinese media and schools. The existence of Huazong, Dong Zong, and other organisations -- including the MCA -- depends very much on the G1s.

The "G2s" are English-educated Chinese. Predominantly, if not exclusively, middle-class and urban, they identify more with specific civil society issues and are more likely to forge alliances with like-minded individuals or groups (church groups, for example, or Lions or Rotary Clubs) than with any of the traditional Chinese associations.

The "G3s" exist between these two groups in an overlap. G3 Chinese are those who, through language or work, have moved from one group to the other and survived, and perhaps even thrived.

The G2s and G3s are unlikely to associate themselves with any "Chinese" platforms at all, and may move in circles that are markedly multiracial as a factor of class and education. They are unrepresented politically by the MCA, as traditional communal dynamics cannot appeal to them.

MCA, in appealing to the G2s for support, should perhaps bear in mind that its first president, Tun Tan Cheng Lock, was a G2 and rose to prominence at a time when both the Chinese and Malay communities in the country were politically fragmented.

If the Chinese community, in the broadest definition, requires a single political leader as the community's representative in government, perhaps the time has come to look outside traditional power structures to the various Chinese groups and associations, for example, or perhaps even outside the strictly Chinese-speaking community.

Such a move could bring the community as a whole a step closer towards devolving political power to a less communal platform.

Conversely, it could rejuvenate the community's political leadership in spirit that inspired its leaders in the early years of the Alliance -- although any such development would require radical rethinking on the part of the entire community, and especially the MCA.

The writer is deputy chairman of Insap, the MCA think-tank. The views expressed here are her own

New Straits Times reserves the right not to publish offensive or abusive comments and those of hate speech, harassment, commercial promos and invasion of privacy. Your IP will be logged and may be used to prevent further submission. The views expressed here are that of the members of the public and unless specifically stated are not those of NST.