When race didn’t matter

While ushering in this New Year of 2009 amidst rumblings of religious and racial intolerance around the globe as well as at home, it is timely to reflect upon Malaysia’s race relations as envisioned by the country’s founding fathers.

By CH’NG KIM SEE, THE STAR

MONDAY was the 60th anniversary of a very important dinner held in Johor Baru. From the discussions held during that dinner on Dec 29, 1948, arose the Communities Liaison Committee (CLC), a shining moment in this country’s political history.

Held at the Johor Baru residence of Umno founding president Datuk Onn Jaafar, the dinner was attended by Tun Tan Cheng Lock – who would become founding president of the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) two months later – along with 18 other Malay and non-Malay leaders, including Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, who would become the Deputy Prime Minister after Malaya gained independence in 1957.

Officially acknowledged as the brainchild of British Commissioner-General for South-East Asia, Malcolm MacDonald, the Communities Liaison Committee rose out of the heightened racial tensions in Malaya in the post-World War II years.

Until World War II and the Japanese Occupation of Malaya, the Malays, Chinese, Indians, others, and the British had co-existed peacefully.

But harmony between the three major ethnic groups, the Malays, Chinese, and Indians, was turned on its head as soon as the Japanese took over.

Several developments during the war years and the early post-war years led to an untenable situation.

For one thing, the Japanese, at war with mainland China, discriminated against the Malayan Chinese during the Occupation, meting out cruel and harsh treatment. In contrast, they presented themselves as the liberators of the Malays from the colonial yoke, and in the first two years of Occupation, coddled the Malays.

This led the Chinese to perceive the Malays – and some Chinese and Indians who were compelled to work with the Japanese – as collaborators, so-called “Quislings” (named after Norwegian politician Vidkun Quisling who betrayed his country to the Nazis during WWII).

As a consequence, during the interregnum of 19 days from Aug 15 to Sept 3, 1945, after the Japanese surrender and before the British arrived to take over, pandemonium broke out on the peninsula.

Some communist guerrillas, the majority of whom were Chinese and who had earlier retreated to the jungles to fight the Japanese, attacked and conducted summary executions of Japanese soldiers and alleged Quislings. And the Malays retaliated, of course.

Then, anti-British feeling among the Malays began to arise as a result of the immediate post-war, unilateral imposition of the Malayan Union on April 1, 1946, by the British.

The centralised Union, to be run by a Kuala Lumpur-based British governor, comprised the nine Malay monarchies under the Sultans and what had been till then the Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca (Singapore, also a Straits Settlement, was not included but remained a British Crown Colony).

The Union gave tremendous power to the British Governor, and curtailed that of the Sultans’. Crucially, it provided common citizenship for Malaya’s non-indigenous population and this the Malays resented, as their population numbers were being threatened. Excluding Singapore, the Malay population was 49.5% at the time; but the Chinese, at 38.4%, and the Indians, at 10.8%, together added up to 49.2% – dangerously close, it seemed.

Malay outrage at the Malayan Union gave rise to the formation of the first pan-Malaya Malay political party, the United Malays National Organisation (Umno) in April 1946, initiated by Datuk Onn Jaafar, then Mentri Besar of Johor. Rallies and street demonstrations were held – and these caused alarm among non-Malay groups, especially the Chinese.

In June 1946, the British cobbled together the protesting Malay political elites, the Sultans, and colonial officials to discuss a new arrangement, later to become the Federation of Malaya.

It restored the Constitutional powers of the Sultans and reversed the liberal citizenship granted to non-Malays, disenfranchising 90% of them. Neither the non-Malay groups, nor other non-Umno Malay elites were consulted.

These two groups protested vehemently, and formed the All-Malaya Council for Joint Action with Tan Cheng Lock as chairman. Tan, a fifth-generation Malacca-born Baba, businessman, and three-term Unofficial Member of the pre-war British Straits Legislative Council, was a firm believer in multiculturalism. Under his leadership, the council organised street demonstrations and hartals (general strikes) that brought about shop and office closures and transport stoppages in its efforts to press for citizenship rights for all those who lived in Malaya.

But the British were uncompromising and ignored the protests. Sensing an escalation of communist-inspired agitation, in late 1947 they arrested and detained all of the council’s leaders except for Tan, who was unaware of the communist infiltration.

Although this halted public demonstrations, sporadic attacks by communist guerrillas on the police and military as well as the civilian population continued unabated.

The civilians attacked were mostly Chinese, but the police and government officials who were attacked were mostly British at the top end, and Malays on the lower rungs. The racial chasm deepened.

And on June 16, 1948, the killing of three European planters by communist guerrillas led to Britain’s official declaration of war against the guerrillas, labelled as the “Emergency”; it continued until 1960. Three months later the Communist Party of Malaya was banned.

The urgency to diffuse the rising racial animosity was compelling. British Commissioner-General MacDonald, at the urging of a group of Chinese politicians and elites, arranged for them to meet with Onn.

Onn invited MacDonald and 10 leaders from each Malay and non-Malay group to dinner at his house in Johor Baru on Dec 29, 1948.

And after that dinner, it was decided to institute the Communities Liaison Committee. New members were invited to participate as necessary.

The Committee met behind closed doors for two to three days once a month in 1949, less frequently in 1950, and it was disbanded by late 1951. But by then, it had done exemplary service.

Although it was informal, it had MacDonald’s direct backing – he instructed government officials to provide government premises and facilities for the meetings.

Sometimes, officials were summoned to the meetings to inform, report, or be consulted.

Notes were recorded and circulated to members under confidential cover. Press releases were issued of consensus-based decisions.

A number of sensitive and significant issues was discussed and negotiated between the Malay and Chinese members of the committee, the two major component groups, outside of their respective political parties, Umno and MCA. The parties were informed of agreements reached during the committee’s meetings.

The special position of Malays and citizenship provision on the principle of jus soli (that a person’s nationality is determined by the place of birth) were two important compromises incorporated into the Constitutional draft that paved the way for independence in 1957.

The informal meetings of the committee helped to neutralise potentially explosive racial tensions.

Much goodwill and understanding was achieved. Onn and Tan, who had been adversaries before, became friends.

The CLC brought together for the first time the strong, English-literate leaders of the major ethnic groups who had, until then, been operating from within their separate “enclaves” and constituencies. Some of the bonds formed during these meetings led to lifelong friendships.

Perhaps the biggest impact the committee had was on the previously ethno-nationalist Onn, who began calling for Umno to be multiracial, and to rename it the United Malayan National Organisation.

Tan, who had earlier attempted to form a multi-racial party, strongly supported the idea, and continued to support Onn after the latter left Umno to form the non-communal Independence of Malaya Party.

The Communities Liaison Committee was unencumbered by the constraints and demands of institutionalised ethnic politics that have characterised the politics of the Alliance Party, its successor, the Barisan Nasional and its component parties, as well as those of the current Opposition party, Pakatan Rakyat and its coalition partners.

Those early leaders recognised the divisiveness of race-based politics.

As the new year begins, let us recover the hope and vision of our enlightened founding fathers to depoliticise race and face the challenges of Malaysia’s delicate race relations in the non-partisan spirit of the Communities tLiaison Committee.

Ch’ng Kim See, a Penang-born seventh generation Baba-Nyonya, is a doctoral candidate researching Tun Tan Cheng Lock.