We are what we are today because of what happened in the past (part 1)

This was a complication that the British did not need. More than 80% of the businesses, tin mines, estates, and so on, in Malaya belonged to the British and 30% of Britain’s economy -- which had been practically bankrupted by the war -- depended on Malaya. Hence the last thing the British wanted was another India-Pakistan type of conflict in Malaya.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Since the 2008 general election, the favourite ‘war cry’ was: the Malays must wake up. They were referring to the Hindraf rally of November 2007, of course, and the Bersih (1.0) rally about two weeks before that -- which for the first time since the rise of the Reformasi movement in September 1998 a rally managed to attract a reasonable level of non-Malay support.

This was followed by the most impressive March 2008 general election result a few months later (for the opposition, that is), which saw Penang, Perak and Selangor fall to the opposition, and which would not have been possible purely on Malay votes alone and unless the non-Malays too voted opposition.

Actually, for a long time before 2007-2008, the Malays had been saying that the non-Malays must wake up. The Malays realised that kicking out Umno and Barisan Nasional would be impossible unless the non-Malays also joined the ‘resistance movement’. However, in the past, the non-Malays have always given many reasons as to why they could not join the Malays to kick out the ruling party.

To understand Malaysian elections you need to analyse all the general elections since 1959 and the municipal elections four years before that in 1955 plus why and how Malaya was given independence or Merdeka in 1957.

Without sounding as if I am repeating myself here, when the Japanese surrendered in 1945 and Britain ‘repossessed’ Malaya, the British tried to ‘restructure’ the country. Part of this restructuring exercise was to create the Malayan Union whereby the feudal system would be eroded somewhat and the Monarchs whom the Malays call ‘Raja-Raja Melayu’ would lose some of their powers.

Now, the normal ‘Malay-in-the-street’ or Malay layman did not have any strong opinions on the matter. However, the Malay elite plus the Malays from the intellectual community could not agree to this move. They felt that to erode the feudal system plus to reduce the powers of the Monarchy meant that the Malays would lose their status as the Tuans (Lords) of the land. Thus was born the concept of Ketuanan Melayu or Malays as the Lords of the Land.

The Chinese and Indians were not too bothered about what was going on while the natives of East Malaysia were not involved since this was a Malayan issue and East Malaysia was not part of Malaya. The majority of the Chinese and Indians were not citizens anyway so it did not matter what the British wanted to do to Malaya since any system was not going to change the lot of the Chinese and Indians in any way.

The Malays did not have a political movement in which to resist the British. They did have many associations, societies and movements but these were very specific to the group that they represented. What they needed was a nation movement so that the hundreds of associations, societies and movements could be combined into one national organisation.

And this was what triggered the birth of this national coalition called the United Malays National Organisation or Umno, a coalition of many groupings and sub-groupings. Hence Umno, in a way, was a coalition rather than a political party. In fact, Umno was not even called a political party, not with a name like United Malays National Organisation. Nevertheless, Umno was the new platform to unite the many smaller groupings so that the Malays could talk to the British in one voice.

If you were to look at the old black-and-white photographs of the Umno demonstrations of 1946 you can see that the people in the demonstration were not fishermen and farmers. From their dressing it is clear that these people were from the elite community. Back in 1946, only those from the elite community dressed like that.

In short, Umno was not a people’s movement as such but an elitist movement of Malays who were related or linked to the palace plus Malays who had gone to school and had received an education. And, more importantly, Umno was not set up as the platform to fight for independence or Merdeka but to resist the Malayan Union. Independence or Merdeka was never the endgame or in the minds of the Malays back in 1946 when Umno was born.

Three months after that, the Malayan Indian Congress or MIC was formed followed by the Malayan Chinese Association or MCA three years later.

MIC was called the Malayan Indian Congress because it was strongly influenced by the Indian National Congress or INC of India (or Congress party for short) that was formed about 60 years earlier. MIC, however, did not get much Indian support especially when its second President, Budh Singh, who was a Communist, opposed the Malayan Union. The Malayan Indians were more interested in matters back home in India than about matters in Malaya.

And MCA, too, was more concerned about raising money to support the Kuomintang that was fighting the Communists in China than about Malayan politics. Hence both MIC and MCA did not really have any solidarity with Umno.

It was not until some MCA leaders from Melaka travelled to London to raise the issue of independence with the British that Umno began to have similar thoughts. The Umno leaders also made a trip to London to meet the British to talk about Merdeka but only after the Chinese had first raised the issue. So now it looked like two different groups wanted to talk about Merdeka, which would have complicated matters.

It must be noted that the British already had a very bad experience in India in 1947 when India was partitioned and which resulted in an estimated one million deaths. So are we going to also see Malaya partitioned into ‘Malay Malaya’ and ‘Chinese Malaya’? What will happen to the Indians then? Will they all be sent back to India?

This was a complication that the British did not need. More than 80% of the businesses, tin mines, estates, and so on, in Malaya belonged to the British and 30% of Britain’s economy -- which had been practically bankrupted by the war -- depended on Malaya. Hence the last thing the British wanted was another India-Pakistan type of conflict in Malaya.

TO BE CONTINUED