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

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.

“The British moved the Chinese to the new villages because they were influenced by the communists,” Ismail said during a debate in parliament.

“That is why I don’t want the Chinese new villages to be recognised by Unesco because it would be as if we recognise the communists who were in our country.”

Backbenchers were swift to rebuke Ismail’s claim, saying the Chinese minority at the time were victims as their homes were demolished and they were forcibly relocated to British-mandated detention areas.

“The Chinese were victims. I was also a victim. It was called a new village, but it was a British detention area,” said backbencher Ngeh Khoo Ham, adding that the communist link was “very offensive” to Malaysia’s ethnic Chinese minority.

Fellow backbencher Mohd Sany Hamzan slammed Ismail for focusing on the Chinese when Malays were also involved with the communist movement.

Ismail acknowledged that Malays were also corralled into their version of new villages by the British for the same reason but insisted that the communist link to the