feature In the late 19th century, thousands of Chinese from the costal areas of mainland China, then ruled by the corrupt Ch'ing Dynasty, could no longer tolerate the very oppressive socio-economic and political environment of the crumbling ancient regime.

They decided to leave their ancestors' land and emigrate to the south, or Nanyang as Southeast Asia was then called, to search for a new world. Some of them came to British Malaya.

Most of those emigrants were poor indentured labourers and unskilled lumpenproletarians, contracted to work in the tin mines owned by British and other European capitals.

The original dream was to earn enough money and go home with wealth, honour and glory. However, as the conditions in mainland China turned from bad to worse - peasant uprisings, republican revolution, warlord-ism, anti-Japanese war, civil war between Communists and Nationalists, Communist takeover and Cultural Revolution, etc - many had thus decided to stay permanently.

In those days, the majority of the Chinese migrants labourers, like their Indian counterparts, were poor, downtrodden, illiterate or semi-illiterate, monolingual (many could not speak Mandarin but only inarticulate dialects) and not very educated.

They needed protectors and communicators in an environment perceived and felt to be alien and hostile, and which they regarded at first, as only a transient place to work and earn money to survive.

Some of them formed secret societies for mutual protection and gathering of what social psychologists now call social information, while many others would prefer to rely on more socially and politically prestigious Kapitan Cina or Chinese community chiefs as the bridge or link between them and the colonial bureaucracy, as well as the Malay aristocracies.

Twin aims

The needs of the Chinese community then was very simple because as migrant labour, they only wanted to have a trouble-free environment for them to work and earn enough money to return home with honour and glory.

As non-citizens, they only wanted to be left free to do what they want within the boundary of the law, however unjust, oppressive and obnoxious, set by the colonial administration.

Thus, the functions of Kapitan Cina were not very complicated or difficult. Most of them acted as English-Chinese dialects or Malay-Chinese dialect interpreters, and the communication channel between the powers-that-be and their kinsmen so that the latter knew what was right and wrong in terms of the law written in English or Malay.

However, as the influx of Chinese migrant labour became increasingly massive, and as the needs of the community diversified and moved up according to the Maslow theory of the hierarchy of needs, the primitive system of Kapitan Cina no longer sufficed.

Thus, the British administration set up a Protectorate of Chinese to deal with the so-called 'Chinese affairs' as well as to monitor 'subversive and Bolshevik activities' in the Chinese community whose political consciousness had been heightened by the activities of the great Dr Sun Yat Sen and his republican movement whose twin aims were to overthrow the corrupt and oppressive Ch'ing Dynasty and to set up a modern republic.

Besides the nationalists, there were also the communist movement first organised, ironically not by the Chinese but by Malay-speaking Sumatrans and Javanese like Tan Melaka and Mas Alimin whose ideas were mostly accepted paradoxically not by Malays, but by the poor Chinese migrant labour.

For that, the Special Branch was set up to deal with them. Up till then, the Chinese (and for that matter, Indians) in British Malaya were still the 'out-group' to be tolerated (not accepted) for their economic value by the Anglo-Malay establishment which acted as the guardian of the 'in-group'.

Betrayed

Hence, the Chinese were only to be 'tolerated' and 'protected'. They had no right to make policy decisions. They themselves did not want to or did not even have the concept of rights. After all, they were self-perceived sojourners.

As the consciousness of modern politics grew, most the politically active Chinese joined or supported the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), which was set up in April, 1930 in Buloh Kesap, Johor, not so much for its Marxist-Leninist ideology or its dialectical flavour but because CPM was at that time the first modern political party that, on the recommendation of Tan Melaka, appealed to the Chinese labour classes.

Alienation from the Anglo-Malay mainstream society, marginalisation and discrimination also contributed to the Chinese involvement in the activities of the Communist Party of Malaya. They were anti-British but when the Pacific War began, they followed the CPM to form an alliance with the British to fight the Japanese.

To be honest, the CPM fought the Japanese more heroically than the British who were supposed to be the protector of the Malayan people. At least they stayed behind to fight, while the British ran away from the land where they previously collected taxes and were addressed as Tuan (Master/Lord).

After the war, they felt betrayed by their British ally who changed course and confronted them as members and supporters of communism. Chin Peng who was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) after the war for leading the resistance in Malaya perhaps personifies that sense of betrayal - his OBE was withdrawn at the commencement of the Emergency which lasted from 1948 to 1960.

Social workers

To fight CPM and its Chinese base, the British helped to set up the Malayan (now Malaysian) Chinese Association (MCA), first as a welfare organisation to draw away Chinese support for CPM.

And in order not to further alienate the Chinese, the British granted citizenship to them. MCA thus became a new version of the Kapitan Cina, following the original model of Kapitan and the Protectorate of Chinese.

The essence was still the same - to facilitate communication between the establishment or the powers-that-be and the Chinese community, particularly the big businessmen.

Even today in the 21st century, MCA does not do much work in the making of national policies, either in the Cabinet or Parliament. It is still typified by its Complaints Bureau led by Michael Chong who is really good as a social welfare worker.

MCA's Members of Parliament (MPs) and State assembly representatives are more social workers than legislators in a modern democracy. MCA's mentality is still in the mould of Kapitan Cina or the Protectorate of Chinese.

However, as society progresses, Chinese Malaysians, too, advance intellectually. They have been supporting not one party, namely MCA, but many others too, like the Socialist Front, the People's Progressive Party (PPP) under the Seenivasagam brothers in Ipoh, Gerakan and the DAP.

Until 1990, Chinese Malaysians predominantly supported the opposition, especially the DAP. In 1969, Chinese in the parliamentary constituency in Kedah voted for a candidate of PAS, the late Yusof Rawa who later became a president of the Islamic party, to defeat the young Dr Mahathir who was perceived to be an 'extremist' or 'Umno-ultra'.

Deep wound

Although the New Economic Policy (NEP) (1970-1990) has often been criticised, it has, paradoxically, helped the Chinese to be more self-reliant economically and socially. To survive, they learn not only the Chinese language but also English and Malay.

And because of the lack of opportunities in higher education in the 70s and 80s, many of them struggled to send their children to Australia, New Zealand, Britain and Canada for the purpose.

Many poor Chinese sold their only houses, and took up all kinds of jobs in order to support their children overseas. Many families were also troubled by disharmony because the parents could only send one of their many equally bright children for tertiary education overseas.

Let us admit it frankly and honestly - the psychological wound inflicted on the Chinese community by the NEP is deep. The majority of the Chinese just hated MCA for not doing enough for them.

The 1990s was described by the then Parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang as a period of 'minor liberalisation' because of the relaxation of education constraints, especially the setting up of many private institutions of education. It helped to release the public ones from tremendous political and social pressure.

In the 1990s, the economy was also good due to many external and internal factors, including the inflow of 'hot money' which Dr Mahathir now hates. The pressure of the NEP on the business front was also lessened because the cake became larger with 'hot money'. The Chinese thus supported Dr Mahathir and his then deputy Anwar Ibrahim.

They supported the government mostly because Umno was seen as more 'liberal', not so much because MCA had changed for the better. Most of the Chinese even supported Dr Mahathir immediately after he sacked and mistreated Anwar Ibrahim for the twin fears of 'Islamic revolution' and 'Indonesia-style riots'. But not many honestly believed that Anwar Ibrahim was a 'sodomist' or an 'American agent'.

Most of them believed that Umno would never be abandoned by the Malays and Muslims. They felt they were 'cheated' once by Semangat 46 led by Tengku Razaleigh and Rais Yatim both who have since returned to Umno.

Two schools

Not many dared to change alone without the Malay and Muslim commitment. However, after the 1999 general elections when the Chinese supported Dr Mahathir, the mood and opinion in the Chinese community started to change.

For the first time in 30 years, the Chinese saw with their own eyes the undisputable facts and figures in the election results - that even conservative rural Malays and Muslims have deserted Umno. Umno is no longer invincible, just as the British Empire was not invincible in the face of the Japanese during the Pacific War.

There are two schools of thoughts in the Chinese community now. One is idealism, personified by Tian Chua, which seeks to end the Umno and BN feudal hegemony with democratic forces of all races and religions for democracy and human rights based on universal values.

The other is business and career pragmatism which asks the question if Umno could still be the guarantor of career stability and business predictability now that PAS and Parti Keadilan Nasional command 60 percent of the Malay/Muslim votes.

Strangely enough, both schools of thoughts concur that PAS and Keadilan are now a new center of power. For the idealists, democratisation has to constructively engage and involve the Malay/Muslim masses, and for the business/careeer pragmatists, like it or not, PAS and Keadilan have to be engaged constructively.

Both PAS and Keadilan have responded fairly well to the new thinking of the Chinese community. While the former has started to moderate, meet Chinese businessmen and talk to education and even Christian groups, the latter goes further by recruiting more Chinese members at all levels.

Both predominantly Malay multiethnic parties now have Chinese leaders like Haji Anuar Tan who is also an executive councillor of the Kelantan state government, and Tian Chua, Goh Keat Peng, Ng Lum Yong, Low Chee Cheong and Cheah Kah Peng, etc.

Worse conditions

It gives a sense of genuine recognition and real participation in the national decision-making process to many Chinese who feel excluded from the Umno-dominated establishment and mainstream.

DAP's alliance with PAS and Keadilan further strengthens that positive feeling and sense. The formation and consolidation of Barsian Alternatif (BA) with massive Malay support has also provided a stronger sense of psychological security for the Chinese because politics is no longer easily seen or distorted as Chinese-Malay 'racial tension' or 'zero-sum game'.

Perhaps, the greatest result is the 'discovery' of many Chinese that Umno is not to be equated simplistically with the Malay community as a whole, and that even many Malays are exploited and oppressed by Umno elites in the hinterland.

Chinese campaign workers for PAS in Sanggang and Keadilan in Teluk Kemang and Lunas, from the DAP and other groups have seen with their own eyes that many Malays are in worse socio-economic conditions than them.

In other words, they have realised that it is not the Malays as a group that deprive them of the fair opportunities in business and education, but only Umno. Many Chinese are learning fast to distinguish and differentiate between bumiptra, 'Umno-putra' and 'Mahathir-putra'.

The consolidation of BA at ground-level has also been facilitated by the increasing number of young Chinese who have mastered Bahasa Malaysia, besides Mandarin and English. More and more young Chinese nowadays read not only Chinese newspapers but also English and Bahasa Malaysia publications of all kinds like Harakah, Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian.

They make comparisons of the contents and discuss them on the many cyber networks. In this sense, reformasi and BA have made the Chinese community more Malaysian psychologically. But is a psychologically more Malaysian Chinese community good for Umno and MCA?

Of course, to think that Chinese are only interested in business, education and socio-political recognition is moronic and even obsolete. Many Chinese, especially the young and educated ones, are also actively concerned with non-ethnic and universal issues of democracy, human rights, feminism, child protection, environment, corruption, cronyism, freedom of speech and press, concentration of media ownership, the judiciary, the Internal Security Act and detentions without trial, torture and dictatorship, etc.

Chinese, like the Malays, Indians, Iban, Kadazan and other Malaysian communities are human beings too.

One mortal

Thus, the new Chinese affairs adviser to Dr Mahathir has to be a superman, or at least a walking encyclopedia. A Kapitan Cina can best be a public relations or a publicity stunt.

If the MCA, which claims to have 800,000 members, and Gerakan, which has been ruling a predominantly Chinese state, namely Penang, cannot understand the Chinese community and represent them correctly to Dr Mahathir, how could one mortal Chinese possibly do so?

Or is Dr Mahathir suggesting that all this while the MCA and Gerakan have not been providing him with feedback on the sentiment and opinion of the Chinese community correctly and honestly?

However, the fact that MCA and Gerakan leaders and their writers 'hail' Dr Mahathir's decision to replace all by one hired Chinese press secretary, speaks volume of Dr Mahathr's dilemma. As a person with many social responsibilities, I must admit that I really empathise with the 76-year-old aspiring 'good dictator' upon hearing the 'hails'.

Maybe Tok Guru Nik Aziz, whom I share the non-negotiable beliefs in heaven and hell, creation and the Day of Judgement would join me to pray for him.

JAMES WONG WING ON is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and also a leading Mandarin-Chinese opinion writer and columnist. He read economics and political science at the Monash University in Australia from 1983 to 1986. All views expressed herein are his own, and are open to criticisms and debates.