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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 41 No. 18. July 24 1978

Non-Communal Parties in M'sia Part 2

page 17

Non-Communal Parties in M'sia Part 2

The Democratic Action Party was founded on 19 March 1966. The party believed that in order to emerge as a viable and effective entity, the party first had to build up a mass base even if it meant only among the non-Malay communities. The attempt to attract Malays to the party was only to be effected later over a period of time, once the solid support of the non-Malays had been secured. Its evolution is therefore practical but paradoxical.

In the 1969 general elections the party championed the move toward a Malaysian Malaysia. Its three objectives were political democracy, social and economic democracy and cultural democracy. (By political democracy it meant that all citizens, regardless of race, language and religion, must enjoy equal political status, rights and opportunities. Under the concept of social and economic democracy, it sought to eradicate exploitation of man by man, class by class and race by race. But it placed the primary emphasis on cultural democracy for it related to issues of vital interest and concern to the non-Malay communities.) (14).

The DAP presents itself as the sole representatives of the non-Malay communities and it is moving more and more toward communal politics. In the 1969 General Election the DAP won 13 Parliamentary seats. But unfortunately, it lost its appeal to the Malays.

The Gerakan Rakyat is a genuinely non-communal party. To attract the Malay community the party elected a well-known Malay intellectual, Professor Syed Hussein Altas, as the first chairman. It attempted to build its appeal mainly on three bases; non-communalism, moderate socialism and democracy.

The party accepts the special position of the Malays and supports the promotion of Malay as the national language. Thus as a compromise between the demands of the non-Malays and the position of the Malays. It advocated the following interalia to solve the problems;
1:to recognise School Certificate and Higher School Certificate examinations in Chinese and Tamil
2:to increase higher secondary educational institutions in the national language.

Even though the party campaign was directed primarily at non-Malay, its 'non-Malay communal' image is less distinctive than DAP or the PPP. Thus pursuing a moderate policy the party was successful in the 1969 elections. The party won 8 parliamentary seats and captured the state government of Penang. But a close analysis sis of the elections shows that the votes won by the CRM were mainly due to leadership charisma and personality rather than by its non-communal appeal.

Next I would like to examine if non-communalism has contributed significantly to communal harmony. Was racial harmony real and deep-rooted? Did it have a solid basis?

Dr Mahathir observed that there never was true racial harmony. There was a lack of inter-racial strife. There was tolerance. There was accomodation. But there was no harmony. The Malays and the Chinese may live as neighbours. They may meet each other in their daily business and even socially. But when they retire, they retire into their respective ethnic and cultural sanctum, neither of which has been truly breached by the other. And in their own world their values are not merely different but are often conflicting.

This might be because the three major races have nothing in common. Their religion, culture and education are different. As Emerson comments 'divided from each other in almost every respect the people of Malaya have in common essentially only the fact that they live in the same country'

Next the feeling that the Malays alone are the Bumiputra, the sons of the soil, and as such have certain special rights over the country, are very sensitive issues. Tunku Abdul Rahman at one time declared: 'Malaya is for the Malays and it should not be governed by a mixture of races. The Malays must safeguard their rights over this land which is ours for the benefit of future generations.' Harmony is definitely strained when non-communal parties like PPP, DAP and CRM start to question the above issues. The DAP provide the strongest opposition, as the party is committed to obtain racial equality for all races. But the moderate GRM and PPP are now in the Barisan National practising inter-communal politics. But whether non-communal parties will be able to obtain their objectives and promo-communal harmony at the same time can only be seen in the future.

Malaysia is therefore in a transitional phenomenon. The Alliance, a coalition of UMNO, MCA and MIC, is based on a quid pro quo arrangement (on the idea of Malay supremacy in the government and the administration of the country as a counter weight to Chinese economic and commercial power). Thus there is little emphasis on the creation of an integrated new society. But there is no serious endangering of communal harmony and straining constitutional democracy because of the great personal influence of the Tengku. The basic contradiction has been between the demands of the Malays for a position of political supremacy and of the non-Malays for immediate equality of civil rights. As Milne observed it is impossible to separate most issues from communalism because nearly all issues have obvious communal complications.

The crucial consequence has been that non-communal parties have assumed over a period of time the character of essentially non-Malay parties. For example the Labour Party, PIT. UDP and the DAP. And once the process began, the parties got caught in a disastrous vicious circle; the lack of support from Malays started turning them into essentially non-Malay parties (in terms of leadership, rank and file) and thus made them even more unattractive to the Malays. Over the years due to the lack of support from the Malays, the leaders of these non-communal parties have succumbed to the demands and were unable to stop the parties from championing mainly the cause of the non-Malays. But if Malay support had been forthcoming, they could have put forward the view that promoting the cause of the non-Malays in an extreme manner could cost the party its entire Malay membership and support.

But let us examine why there is a lack of Malay support in non-communal political parties. In the post-independence days there was great emphasis on Malay unity, for only through unity could they protect themselves and their interests. As a result few Malays have dared to come out and join non-communal political parties. And when some of them did so they soon found themselves completely cut off from the rank and file of the Malay community so as to be without any popular Malay support, and they became politically ineffective. In fact they became outcasts of the Malay community. An example is the case of Dato Onn bin Jaafar.

The Geraken Rakyat success in the elections is an encouragment to non-communal parties. The future of non-communal political parties depends on the emergence of a strong middle class instead of ethnic identity. The people must think in terms of a new Malaysian nation. Only then will it be possible for genuinely non-communal political parties to maintain their non-communal character appeal. This is a slow process but it is necessary.