Dark history of Malaysia's Chinese villages underscores fury over Unesco bid

A proposal by the Malaysian government to seek Unesco heritage status for a cluster of "New Villages" in Selangor has sparked heated debate between the Malay and Chinese communities over whose culture is pre-eminent in a country where historical racial wounds are still festering.

Despite the name, the so-called New Villages - Kampung Baru in Malay - are commonly associated with the Chinese community and are relics of the country's past dating back to when Peninsular Malaysia, then called Malaya, was besieged by guerilla warfare launched by the Malayan Communist Party (MCP).

The MCP had sought to establish a communist state following the defeat of the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II and just as the British colonial authorities were returning to resume their control of Malaya.

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These villages, numbering more than 400 across the peninsula, were essentially a euphemism for concentration camps set up by the British military to corral the Malayan population, particularly ethnic Chinese who might be sympathetic to the communist cause.

PK Voon, a researcher at the Centre for Malaysian Chinese Studies, said the resettlement programme was to "gather and protect" families from "bandit influence", the official description of anti-British armed insurgents.

"The special origins of the New Villages are attributed to a key strategy of the British colonial administration to reassert political control over Malaya. One of the core military actions adopted was aimed at isolating the scattered and often armed anti-colonial units," Voon said.

At its peak in 1954, more than 573,000 people - predominantly, but exclusively Chinese - were relocated into these compact villages, which were encircled by barbed-wired fences with curfews and strict movement controls imposed.

Largely successful in their mission, the villages have grown into epicentres of Malaysian Chinese communities. Among them are several in Jinjang in northern Kuala Lumpur and Seri Kembangan in its south, which are predominantly Chinese townships.

The idea to submit the villages to Unesco for its World Heritage sites list was first mooted last June by Local Housing Development Minister Nga Kor Ming, who announced that seven of the New Villages have been earmarked for that proposal. If the submission were to go through and become successful, it would be the country's fourth Unesco cultural site after Malacca, Penang and the Lenggong Valley archaeological site.

While the recognition of Malacca and Penang in 2008 - two maritime hubs with a history dating back to the 14th and 18th centuries, respectively - was largely uncontroversial, the latest proposal for the New Villages struck closer to home for Malaysia's Malay majority. Throughout the decades, Malay traditional villages have often been sidelined, deteriorating into slums and bulldozed in the name of progress.

Under the shadows of the Petronas Twin Towers in central Kuala Lumpur is one such village - Kampung Baru. The Malay settlement founded in 1899 is similar in name to the British-mandated New Villages and predated them by 50 years.

Housing pockets of traditional wooden Malay homes alongside stalls and restaurants selling local delicacies, the residents of Kuala Lumpur's Kampung Baru have repeatedly been told that their way of living is on the way out, with the government's development board for the village stating that the land acquisition of the village "must continue".

Parts of the village have given way to luxury condominiums and hotels but some residents have mounted legal battles that dragged on for years.

The country's two largest Malay nationalist parties, Umno and Bersatu, were both critical of the Unesco plan.

Umno sees the proposal as challenging the special rights and position of the Malays as the country's indigenous community.

"When an area is recognised as a World Heritage site, then automatically people who inhabit the area will be considered as the original people," argued the party's secretary general Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki.

Minister Nga, from the multiracial but Chinese-led Democratic Action Party, dismissed such claims, saying he welcomed others to nominate Malay villages or any other historical places as Unesco heritage sites. Nga said his proposal for the New Villages was "not a zero-sum game".

Despite being in the same government, Umno and DAP have had a long history of bickering, with each seeing the other as racial chauvinists.

Even some in the Chinese community have questioned the merit of such a move.

Former MP and director of the human-rights organisation SUARAM, Kua Kia Soong, argued that the proposal was an insult to Malaysians involved in the fight against the British authorities, who had inflicted many injustices upon the marginalised Chinese community.

"These villages were not established out of benevolence by the British colonial power, but born from a nefarious agenda of containment and control," Kua said.

While remembered today as part of the Chinese community, the New Villages were not as homogenous as many believe, said historian Meor Alif Meor Azalan, whose thesis on the villages was published by the London School of Economics.

"[New Villages] are generally identified with the Chinese community, but this is a misapprehension fed by the British narrative of the conflict as one against 'Chinese Communist Terrorists'," Meor Alif said.

His study shows the existence of multiracial New Villages, some with ethnic Chinese in the minority. Among them are villages with predominantly Siamese, Malay, Indian and indigenous communities, such as the Malay-majority Sungai Buloh New Village in the state of Negeri Sembilan.

Recounting the village's history, retired police officer Abdul Hamid Hussin, who grew up in the Sungai Buloh New Village, wrote in a Facebook post in 2020 that residents were relocated to a guarded compound, which he likened to a "cow pen" in 1950. The residents were only able to move more freely from 1952 when restrictions were relaxed.

"At night there is a curfew, and you can't leave the house until 6 in the morning before you can go out to the orchard or tap rubber to earn a living," he said, adding that strict inspections were carried out every time the residents leave the compound.

"It hurts. It hurts, but we survived," said Abdul Hamid, who died in 2022 aged 77.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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