opinion

Admittedly, many Malaysians, especially Chinese Malaysians, would instinctively sympathise with what they perceive as the predicament of the leaders of MCA's Team B, and particularly with vice-president Chua Jui Meng and Youth chief Ong Tee Keat.

While Chua was removed as Kedah MCA state chief, Ong has been declared rather insultingly by MCA president Dr Ling Liong Sik, as a "non-functioning" MCA Youth chief.

Moreover, although Ling and his Team A - both within MCA and in the Chinese-language media - once arrogantly thought that the Chinese community would forget about the takeover of Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press dailies in a matter of 'two or three weeks', there is no sign of this 'speedy and secret' operation having been forgotten yet.

Resistance to the takeover by some brave Chinese journalists and the larger community they represent persists. Team B has correctly articulated a rather important issue of public interest and grave concern for the community from the very beginning.

Many in the Chinese community - even the neutral in MCA's power struggle and conservative businessmen - hope Team B will continue to mount positive and effective pressure to free the two Chinese-language newspapers from the control of a politico-financial faction in MCA.

Dinner barometer

For example, at a grand dinner held at the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall on Nov 30 to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the founding of the association, SCAH president Ngan Chin Wen reiterated the Chinese community's opposition to the takeover of Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press by MCA.

It was not therefore surprising to observe that none of the Team A leaders attended the dinner which saw the presence of a thousand representatives from a wide cross-section of society, including Keadilan president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and MCA Team B leader, Yap Pian Hon.

Both were invited and sat at the main table with respected and independent Chinese business leader, Lim Guan Teik, who is the president of the Malaysian Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Other guests-of-honour included PRM president Dr Syed Husin Ali, DAP MPs Teresa Kok (Seputeh) and Fong Kui Loon (Bukit Bintang), and representatives of Gerakan, PAS and several NGOs.

This writer was informed that the criteria for inviting guests-of-honour were simple: leaders or representatives of Chinese Malaysians or multi-ethnic parties that accept the ethnic group as members and leaders, whether in government or in opposition, and who are sympathetic to the general interests and legitimate aspirations of the ethnic Chinese.

Memory revived

It is thus evident that the opposition by MCA's Team B to the Nanyang and China Press takeover is shared by many in the Chinese community. Team B can therefore count on the support of the community and even non-Chinese Malaysians on this issue.

However, that does not mean the Chinese community would blindly support any faction in the MCA. It could reject both factions altogether because there are many others who support DAP, Keadilan and PRM and who do not share the ideology of mono-ethnic politics.

There are also many Chinese, especially the younger or more educated segments, who despise MCA in toto because it supports oppressive laws like the Internal Security Act, the Printing Presses and Publications Act, and the Universities and University Colleges Act.

Although the public's collective memory of thousands of Chinese political, social and educational activists detained under the ISA in the 1960s and 1970s had once been suppressed, the suffering of many Malay and Muslim oppositionists, students and social activists under this colonial law in the past three years has revived this memory.

Unlike before, former victims are now ready to come out to condemn the ISA. Many memoirs and monographs have also been published by ex-ISA detainees in Chinese detailing torture and other inhumane treatment. The cries for justice, albeit not as stormy as those from the Malay/Muslim masses, are now being heard openly. The Stockholm Syndrome is over.

Hong Kong soap opera

Herein lies the political and moral dilemma of MCA's Team B leaders who have self-styled themselves as 'reformists'. Where do they stand on larger and more national issues like the ISA, the PPPA and the UUCA?

Where do they stand on issues that affect all Malaysians such as the government bailing out of unproductive enterprises, and allegations of corruption, nepotism and cronyism in the Umno-dominated establishment?

If they do not articulate and take clear stands publicly on these national issues that also affect the Chinese Malaysian, especially the working classes, their politics, would only appear to be rhetorical slogans. If that were to be the case, the larger Chinese community would continue to watch the MCA power struggle dispassionately and smilingly like a free made-in-Hong Kong soap opera.

And if they take stands similar to Team A and Umno, the ethnic Chinese and the Malaysian society would certainly construe their struggle as nothing more than a sign of desperation by a group of 'sore losers'. They will then be no different from Team A or the conservative faction in Gerakan led by the ageing Dr Lim Keng Yaik.

But if they begin to share concerns with the larger community and nation, and take relatively more progressive stands, they would certainly not be tolerated by the Umno-dominated establishment. Team A of MCA and the more conservative faction in Gerakan would also certainly accuse them of being 'anti-Barisan Nasional'.

What next?

However, if Team B continues to rely on politically safe themes like the constitutionality or legality of this or that meeting, or personality and character attacks on this or that Team A leader, the momentum of their campaign would probably expire by the middle of January next year.

The Chinese community and even MCA delegates and members would be mentally fatigued by such hair-splitting questions of legality, constitutionality and personalities.

What will Team B do and say to maintain its campaign momentum from February to July next year when party elections are held? How will they approach members and delegates who are tired of the current arguments?

To the moral and political dilemma of Team B mentioned earlier is now added a strategic dimension - where should they go from here? What is to be done next?

JAMES WONG WING ON is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia 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 for 1998 and 1999.