August for Malaysia is always a season of ostentatious nationalistic display. This year, the celebration is particularly hysterical as the country celebrates the 50th anniversary of independence from British rule.

(No matter what the national narrative may say till kingdom come, my lived experience tells me that independence for my home state of Sarawak happened on 16th September, 1963, and Malaysia is merely two weeks short of 44 years old. That it has been thrust down my throat that National Day falls on August 31, and that my country has been independent for 50 years, is but another exercise of muscle flexing from post-colonial colonialism. Bearing testimony to history, I still insist there was no Malaysia before 1963.)

Despite the orgy of superficial joy and self-congratulatory back-patting as portrayed in the media, as extolled by many government ministers almost everyday now, Malaysians by and large seem less than impressed.

What Eric Hobsbawm calls "official nationalism" appears very far from the reality of unofficial invisible and voiceless citizens living their daily grind on the mythical "ground". I still do not see many shops and houses displaying their national flag in my neighbourhood in Cheras.

People are not all that stupid. They have been immunised by 50 years of a strange brand of democracy. Many a street-wise cynical man will tell you that this artificial celebratory mood has been manufactured very much with an impending general election in mind. In a country where the ruling parties are deliberately identified with the government in the political discourse of the dominant power, nationalist patriotism can be translated into votes for the BN.

Chinese are aloof

The Chinese are particularly aloof. They are watching a crab walk, according to an ancient Chinese proverb. A crab walks sideway, against the normal rule of walking. They wait and see what would happen to the crab for breaking the rules for so long.

It is just not as if the Chinese are any less patriotic than Malaysians of other ethnic origins. They will tell you that they love Malaysia in their own way, despite the stupid politics. If Malaysia is invaded by foreign forces, many of them will do all they can to defend the nation's territorial integrity, even at the expense of their lives. It just means that they do not necessarily have to be patriotic in a prescribed formula dictated to them by people wearing race-tinted glasses high up in the government.

The under-current of discontent building up within the urban middle-lower class Chinese voters may not be apparent on the surface. It must be there nonetheless, what with higher cost of living, expose of widespread corruption, terrifying crime sprees in the cities, and a deluge of religious and racial controversies keeping them awake at night. The recent persecution of a student writing a song parodying the national anthem is another case in point.

Already, political rhetoric saturates the air in the Chinese press as both the MCA/Gerakan and the opposition DAP engage one another in a publicity war. The battle lines are drawn, and eager warriors on both sides are ready for a blood-bath. This electioneering is what they live for after all!

Actually, there are many voters who have made up their mind already. These are the party members and die-hard supporters who have consistently voted for the same party of their choice, election after election, without fail.

I would say that the MCA and the Gerakan would have a larger chunk of solid party supporters in any constituency than the DAP. With the advantage of incumbency of power and almost limitless financial resources, they have built up a mass membership. The MCA membership is reputed to be in the region of 1.2 million. They are also able to establish a formidable national administrative and organisational structure that can be mobilised with devastating effect during any election campaign.

During the relatively peaceful period between elections, the MCA and Gerakan party organisations are kept very much active by participating in the life of the Chinese communities, from the burgeoning urban centres, to the humblest New Villages.

Network of contacts

Their members form the core of the Chinese guilds and associations which are central to the Chinese civil society. You can also find their grass-root members, their sympathisers, friends, and family members leading and taking active part in religious, educational, social, and charitable organisations.

This sort of local participation by MCA/Gerakan grassroots members allows for them to hone their organisational skills, fulfil their need to serve the community, and develop a wide network of social and political contacts within the entire Chinese community.

Being members of the ruling coalition, MCA and Gerakan grassroots leaders are not shunned by the Chinese electorate at large. For the Chinese voters, this local MCA/Gerakan structure remains a very useful conduit to local government institutions, serving as intermediary to solve their bread-and-butter problems, like blocked drains, dilapidated roads, title for temple grounds and squatters, and a whole host of similar problems that affect the mundane ordinary life of the ordinary Chinese citizens.

The MCA and Gerakan publicity machinery call this type of public engagement as providing "service to the people". Their elected representatives excel in this sort of work, and some gets consecutive mandate election after election based on their "service' record. They have one or more 'service centres' set up in every constituency, manned by experienced full-time personnel on party payroll. The conferring of various titles, including Datuk and Tan Sri, on these local leaders have added that touch of official authority and legitimacy to this sort of grass-root leaders in the eyes of the local community.

The MCA service centre par excellence is the one headed by Michael Chong ( left ) in the nation's capital. When any Chinese person has a nasty personal problem such as difficulty with a loan shark or a missing person, he would think of approaching Chong's office first, and then perhaps a DAP MP later. Chong's news conference appears more frequently, and is perhaps better covered in the press, than most elected representative of any political party!

Readers of Malaysiakini, the highly critical Chinese intelligentsia writing commentary for the Chinese press, as well as DAP traditionally, will scoff at this sort of political service provided by MCA and Gerakan at the local level. This sort of thing has little to do with the Westminster style of parliamentary democracy, they claim.

They will further point out that the proper role of a national major political party is to fulfil their mandate to their constituents. The job of the MCA is to fight for, and procure rights for the Chinese of Malaysia in Parliament, and in the federal and state cabinets, a job which MCA has failed miserably.

Their argument has a giant grain of truth. But Malaysia is not the UK, and our Parliament is a far cry from Westminster. Most important of all, our Malaysian voters have had half a century only with their democratic experiment, whereas the Brits have four or five centuries learning the rope of people power over the King's divine right to rule.

Destiny unchanged

Given the pragmatic conservative and communal nature of the majority of Malaysian Chinese (especially the wholly Chinese-educated Chinese), and their innate fear for anything that might change the status quo, they have resigned to their fate as what they consider to the status of second-class citizens in the country, no matter how they resent it. Even if they vote for the DAP, that destiny will not be changed.

Meanwhile, they have to survive in their daily struggle for a decent honest living. All that they want to do is to work hard, and rejoice in their family.

That simple aspiration of a common member of the Chinese middle and middle-lower class citizens is inevitably thwarted by a massive government bureaucracy dominated by the Malays. As we know, the government bureaucracy has almost the power of life and death over ordinary citizens in all aspects of their life from their cradle to their grave.

Confronted with the mountains and laws, by-laws and regulations, from all levels of government at the federal, state and local levels, embedded within heaps and heaps of intimidating forms and such other requirements, the ordinary Chinese citizens are completely lost especially if they are not conversant with Bahasa Malaysia.

Once again, the MCA/Gerakan local service centre and their constituency leaders meet this real need to act as the intermediary. Over the past decades, these Chinese and Chinese-based political parties have nurtured a kind of dependency syndrome among the less independent and less informed segment of the Chinese community.

While my fellow Malaysians may be discussing broiling national issues and engage themselves in the larger picture of a bird's eye view, they may miss this all important business of how the ruling Chinese parties entrench their base through this business of providing "political service". If nothing else, this strange form of "serving the people" may be the greatest strength of the MCA and the Gerakan, no matter how I look at it with great disdain.

So, what antidote does the DAP have in store in the coming election?