A day after the nominations for the Ketari by-election, the Umno-controlled New Straits Times reported the event under the headline: Straight fight between Kwangsi clansmen for Ketari. It sounds really exotic.

However, it is not new. For the last few weeks, the English press — especially the MCA-owned Star — and Malay-language media have been playing with this 19th-century Orientalist idea and British imperialist imagery when talking about the Ketari by-election.

These journalists and writers who have not been on the ground for years seem to be fascinated by the 'discovery' of this 'decisive' factor in Chinese Malaysian politics.

It is true that both the candidates are of Kwangsi origin in the ancestral sense of the word. It is also true that the majority of the Chinese Malaysians in the Ketari constituency and the larger vicinity of Bentong share that ancestral identity. No one can change that historical fact and reality, however remote historically and geographically.

However, the reported assertion, direct or indirect, that the Kwangsi identity would decisively influence the voting preference in Ketari in a significant way is disputable. Moreover, whether it is politically desirable in Malaysia in the 21st century to stress that type of pre-modern identities established in ancient China is also subject to debate.

Blood ties theme rejected

To their credit, both contesting parties, Gerakan and DAP, as well as all the Chinese-language newspapers do not play the Kwangsi theme, although it is reported in passing as one of the many facts. They have good reasons to be different from the mainstream English and Malay-language newspapers.

First and foremost is the recognition that, despite their differences in ideologies and politics, both Gerakan and DAP aspire to be modern and multi-ethnic parties for all Malaysians; and to achieve this common objective, it is in their interest to stress on the Malaysianness of their parties, candidates and political ideas, and to debate on themes related to Malaysia, here, now and the future.

Second, even among those whose cultural identity is still strongly Chinese, there is also a rejection of pre-modern identities being used for political identification and mobilisation. MCA's youth chief, Ong Tee Keat, for example, rejected the argument that because he is a Hainanese, he has to accept the advice of his Hainanese elder, Wang Choon Weng, to refrain from defying MCA president Dr Ling Liong Sik.

Remote or even imagined 'blood ties' should indeed not be used to judge what is morally right or wrong, especially in an entirely different historical and geographical (or spatial) setting.

Utilitarian basis

There is also the utilitarian basis for the rejection of pre-modern identities in politics. As the society, population and the country have moved toward entrenching its multi-ethnic and multicultural qualities, it is almost suicidal for any political party or candidate to openly and exclusively identify themselves with puny and exotically parochial 'blood groups'. It alienates others who are not in the group.

Umno, for example, would not be that silly in highlighting the divisive differences among Indian or half-Indian Muslims, or the different Malays who came from Palembang, Bugis, Minangkabau, Mendeling (Mandailing) and Java.

PAS has intellectually, morally and spiritually transcended even the concept and identity of bangsa Melayu (the Malay race as projected by Umno) in favour of a more inclusive category of Muslims while Keadilan is striving to be the more universal manusiawi (humanists).

In fact, one of the great and common civilisational achievements of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Western secular ideologies ( liberalism as well as socialiasm) is the intellectual, moral and spiritual empowerment of pre-modern, parochial and tribal identities to be transcended or superceded.

In Europe, even national identities are being transcended or superceded in favour of a common European or Western civilisation in the form of the European Union (EU).

Out with the old

True, there are still segments in the ethnic Chinese that feel that being a Hokkien, or Hakka, Cantonese or Kwangsi is more important than being a Chinese, Malaysian or a human being.

But they are evidently of the older generation, like the many old Chinese business friends of Dr Mahathir Mohamad, such as Lim Goh Tong or Tiong Hew King.

The younger generation of Chinese Malaysians identify themselves more with being Chinese Malaysian or just Malaysian, or Christian, Buddhist, liberal or socialist, or, again, simply as human beings.

Modern and religious education, exposure to the wider worlds through travel, communication and revolution in information technology have made pre-modern, tribal and parochial identities unreal in the 21st-century settings defined by modernisation and globalisation.

Thus, whatever the political and ideological differences between Gerakan and DAP, they must firmly reject the divisive politics of parochial, pre-modern and tribal identities in the Chinese Malaysian community. Win or lose the by-election this Sunday, Gerakan and DAP share the ultimate vision and mission of building a nation based on universal values and modern citizenship.

It is this ultimate vision and mission that distinguish DAP and Gerakan on one hand, from Umno, MCA and MIC on the other.

JAMES WONG WING ON is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM) which produces the subscriber-based political report, Analysis Malaysia . Wong is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily. He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While in Sin Chew , he and a team of journalists won the top awards of Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) for 1998 and 1999.