What Malaysians and Malaysian Chinese want?

The question is what do Malaysians want? We have been side-tracked so many times. More recently, the real issues are hidden from us by raising the spectre of Chinese triumphalism.

Chinese triumphalism? I first heard of this term from a veteran journalist from the mainstream media. I take it to mean, that successive victories by Chinese in various fields translate into euphoric sense of importance culminating into something of a middle kingdom mind-set or attitude. It results in the Chinese feeling they, their thinking, their way are superior and this attitude will result in triumph in any endeavour they set out to do.

Being the middle kingdom, all other nations are vassals to the Chinese empire. Do you know that 400 years ago, a Brunei Sultan went over to China to present the Chinese emperor with fine silk and he died there and a shrine was built in his honour?

Now, Chinese Triumphalism treated as a mental jump-start, gives the Chinese a sense of manifest destiny that in the end, they will triumph over all others. That thought is scary.

If we were to be factual about it- this mind-set is unavoidable and should be embraced and respected but not feared. The Chinese has had a 4000 year of cultural history infused into their personality or as Lee Kuan Yew puts it colourfully- a thinking that has been shaped through epigrams- short sayings that seem to explain everything in simple manner. What needs to be said has been said by Chinese sages. Remember the master instructing mosquito via short sayings in the tv series Kung Fu starring David Carradine? Those were epigrams.

Chinese political victories are seen as something that has emboldened the Chinese as a whole into demanding and asking for more. That something more is control of the government. Which the Malays see as their enclave.

What can the Chinese want other than what is achievable within the context of Malaysia? That despite Chinese triumphalism? In the end, it’s not what the Chinese or Indian want, but what all Malaysians want. Even if all the Chinese unite under one political party- let’s say all Chinese based parties merge with DAP naturally becoming the leader, the Chinese form 25% of the population. If they combine with the Indians with another say 10%, the non-Malays still form 35%. Not enough to topple a Malay/Bumiputera dominated government.

If Malays privately think that all the Chinese are the same- MCA or DAP or Gerakan or any other Chinese based are the same as in being like-minded, they see the Malays in the same light. Privately they will think that Malays are like-minded whether they are UMNO, PAS, or Bejasa or any other.

But let me try to answer what the Chinese want. I am basing my observations on my experience with the Raub Chinese. What do they want? They want fair dealing from a fair minded government. They recognise more can be achieved with a Malay leading the political will. Otherwise, what they demand, ask or request will be seen as a demand from a Chinese group made on a Malay dominated government. Immediately the Malays will be on the defensive, suspecting Chinese pressures as being directed at toppling the status quo.

So the Chinese adjust. They take the political environment as a given. They accept Malay political leadership. But they want fair dealing from a fair minded government. They want decent housing, education and health care. They want land to cultivate and earn a living. They want basic infrastructure and services to be in place. Other than that, the Chinese will self-sustain.

 This ability is both a source of fear and envy. Fear because the Chinese independent mind rivals the dependent Malay mind which is a source of irritation to the powers that be. Because such a mind-set can be infectious. It’s teachable.

Envy because, the mind-set has enabled the Chinese as a whole to operate as an achievement oriented group.

Not that they don’t want to be a government, but they recognise the numerical impossibility. It’s like the Malays in Singapore. They would want to be government but with Chinese forming 80% of the population, they adjust and endure.

The Malays in Singapore have therefore acquired the survival traits of that the Chinese adopted at the turn of the century when they came to Malaya. First, they appreciate that there is no such thing as free lunch. No one owes them a living. They learned the hard way that they lived in a society based on effort and merit, not wealth and privilege that comes with accidental birth.

The Chinese as far as I can observe in Raub at least has acquired these traits as a matter of fact. They understand the way forward requires  them to answer and respond to the external environment taken as given- that Malays form the political masters, the social milieu in which they lived is Malay dominated. The way forward is by effort and merit sharpened with the underlining awareness that no one owes them a living. As for life, they take care of themselves.

The environment which facilitates the self-care is what they want. Fair dealing from the government. Rights  to own property. Right to apply for land to cultivate, to own a home, to get a decent education that serves their economic agenda, being treated as equals before the law. The rest, they take care of themselves.