Malaysia opposition MP slammed for linking Chinese villages under Unesco plan to communism

Lawmaker Ismail Abu Muttalib says the link of the Chinese ‘new villages’ to the Malayan communist insurgency was a historical fact

His comment has sparked the latest row over culture and identity in Malaysia amid a conservative surge among the Malay-Muslim majority

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The entrance arch to the Pandamaran New Village at Port Klang, one of the Chinese “new villages” in Malaysia. Photo: Yusof Mohamad

Published: 3:04pm, 6 Mar 2024Updated: 7:07pm, 6 Mar 2024

Backbenchers have demanded an opposition MP retract comments linking colonial-era Chinese villages to communism, in the latest furore to cloud a Malaysian government’s plan to seek Unesco world heritage status for the British colonial-era settlements.

Malaysia has seen more frequent rows over culture and identity as a conservative surge among the Malay-Muslim majority empowers the Malay nationalist minority bloc in parliament.

Housing and Local Government Minister Nga Kor Ming, who is from the multiracial but Chinese-led Democratic Action Party, last year proposed to ask Unesco to recognise the “new villages”, which were set up by the British across several states in the peninsula to contain the spread of communism after World War II.

His proposal triggered an immediate backlash from some Muslim academics and Islamist parties, who described it as an attempt to grant native status to non-Malays.

Global recognition accorded to these villages could be seen as legitimising the struggles of the Communist Party of Malaya (PKM), Ismail Abu Muttalib, a lawmaker with the Perikatan Nasional (PN) opposition front, said on Wednesday.

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