SINGAPORE - As an ethnic minority in most of Southeast Asia, the Chinese have,
from time to time, been subject to outbursts of anti-Chinese sentiments. The
latest tirade came from Ahmad Ismail, a division chief of the United Malays
National Organization (UMNO) in Penang, Malaysia earlier this month. The UMNO
is the leading component party of the ruling coalition, Barisan National (BN).
According to a local Chinese newspaper, the Sinchew Daily, Ahmad had said that
the "Chinese were merely squatting in Malaysia", and thereby "do not deserve
equal rights". Despite repeated calls for an apology from Ahmad, the UMNO
grassroots leader remained defiant, and later in a press conference warned
Chinese Malaysians not to mimic American Jews, who not only
sought to control the country's economy, but also its politics.
Such arguments, that Chinese, being of foreign origin, do not deserve the same
citizenship rights as indigenous peoples, or the comparison of Chinese with
Jews, are not new to the region. Perhaps the earliest allusion to such a
comparison came from King Vajiravudh of Thailand, who dubbed the Chinese as
"Jews of the Orient" in an essay written in 1914. Writing under a pseudonym,
the Thai king had questioned the political loyalty of the Chinese, given their
penchant for economic gain.
The same comparison was rehearsed in Indonesia in the 1950s, through what was
coined the "Chinese problem". The prevailing rhetoric then was that the Chinese
were fickle and opportunistic, as evident in their having at different times
cooperated with the Dutch, collaborated with the Japanese, or bore allegiance
to their native China. The argument was that such a people whose political
loyalty was questionable should not be accorded the same economic privileges as
indigenous businessmen.
The result of such a current of thought was the infamous Presidential Decree No
10 of 1959, which banned retail trade by non-citizens in rural areas. In large
part, this decree targeted ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, many of whom had not
yet gotten Indonesian citizenship. The renowned Indonesian writer, Pramoedya
Ananta Toer, spoke out against the decree in his book Hoakiau di Indonesia
(recently translated into English as The Chinese in Indonesia), for
which he was subsequently jailed.
At one point, Pram, as he was popularly called, went so far as to argue that
everyone, including so-called indigenous Indonesians, were of immigrant origin
in the long history of human settlement. I suppose this would have been his
rebuttal to Ahmad's "Chinese were squatters" line had he still been alive.
But despite Pram's arguments, Indonesia became increasingly anti-Chinese under
the Suharto regime, which spanned the 32-year period of 1966-1998. Branding
Chinese as non-pribumi (non-indigenous), the state systematically and
actively sought to erase the foreignness of this minority by banning Chinese
language education and all public manifestations of Chinese culture.
Chinese Indonesians were also encouraged to adopt Indonesian-sounding names to
accentuate the localization process. At the same time, this ethnic minority was
largely confined to the economic realm and denied roles in government or the
state infrastructure. In the Indonesian context, what were also disturbing are
the spates of anti-Chinese violence that have marked the nation's history. One
of the most notorious episodes in recent history was the riots of May 1998,
during which Chinese women were sexually assaulted, and in some cases, killed.
Interestingly, since the 1998 episode and the resignation of Suharto, there
have not been anti-Chinese riots of national significance in Indonesia.
Recently, there have been anti-Chinese riots in West Kalimantan, but these may
be attributed to the vicissitudes of regional politics. The prevailing
political rhetoric seems to have shifted to some form of multiculturalism in
Indonesia, such that discriminatory policies are repealed and politicians are
habitually endorsing Chinese cultural events with their presence.
Although Malaysia has also experienced its share of ethnic violence, in the
form of the May 13 Sino-Malay race riots in 1969, Chinese Malaysians have not
had to endure ethnic discrimination on the same scale and intensity as Chinese
Indonesians. Ethnic discrimination in the Malaysian context is indirect,
inflicted through affirmative action policies that privilege the Malay-Muslim
majority, often at the expense of not just the Chinese, but Indians as well.
Nevertheless, disgruntlement with the excesses of this form of discrimination
led to a large swing of votes to the opposition parties during the March
general election this year, where the ruling BN coalition was denied its usual
two-thirds majority in parliament. It seems that the opposition alliance, also
known as the Pakatan Rakyat, had struck a cord with voters through its
multicultural agenda.
Even the UMNO leadership has come to recognize that blatant promotion of
Ketuanan Melayu, or Malay supremacy, is not consonant with the sensibilities of
a multiracial electorate in the current political climate. Someone no less than
the Deputy Prime Minister, Najib Razak, has publicly apologized for Ahmad's
remarks.
At the same time, other BN component parties, especially those which are
Chinese-based, have been vociferous in their censure of Ahmad. One of these,
Gerakan, has even threatened to leave the ruling coalition. Eventually, the
UMNO leadership decided to suspend Ahmad for three years.
What is telling here is that statements, such as those made by Ahmad, that
might have been glossed over not too long ago, are now considered definitely
offensive. It seems that after the March election, Malaysia, like Indonesia,
has begun to embrace a political culture that assumes genuine multiracialism as
one of its key tenets.
Yet one has to be circumspect and not overly quick or optimistic in any
prognosis of a greater multiracialism. Change that is too drastic may lead to a
backlash. Whether Ahmad's remarks are the dying embers of a receding
sensibility or the first ripples of new waves of racial tension remain to be
seen.
Hui Yew-Foong is a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
(ISEAS) in Singapore.
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