alliance in Malaya of the three communal parties, nevertheless it contains three parties, not one. There is the Malayan Chinese Association, the Malayan Indian Congress party and the United Malay National Organisation. I am glad that they have come together in what seems prolonged association and that they have some kind of common policy, but underneath there is still this communal division.
Let us realise that in all the other parties we find the predominance of one or other of these various racial communities. Take, for instance, Sarawak. It is interesting, but rather unfortunate, to find that the parties at the recent elections in Malaya turned out to be very largely racial parties. One party largely represents the Dayaks, another predominantly represents the Malays and another predominantly represents the Chinese. I scrutinised the figures very carefully down to the little local levels. Everywhere I found this very unfortunate fact that the Chinese, the Malays and the Indians respectively on the whole support parties which express their racial character and aspirations.
We must not blind our eyes to the fact that there are these dangers as well as these heartening facts. I extend this observation also to considering for a moment why we have in the Bariasan Sosialis in Singapore and elsewhere such a large number of Chinese who, if not Communist, are affected by Communist propaganda. It is significant that in all the literature and speeches which one has heard, or seen reported, attacking the idea of federation on the ground that it is an imposition, we never have it suggested that there is fear of imposition of Communism on the whole area. I have not seen a particular reference to that. There is a complete absence of criticism of Communism, although there is very much criticism of the concept of federation.
I think the reason for this is that Chinese everywhere are justifiably proud of their ancient civilisation, which goes back longer in history than that of any other country, even of India. They are proud, not only of great cultural achievements of the past, but also of the present social achievements in a revolutionary régime which, although we may criticise it in many ways, has certain great achievements to its credit. Because of that the Chinese in many places, with a deep respect for and affinity with their ancient homeland, are prepared to accept whatever dominates China as being identified with China itself. This is not so in all cases by any means, but it arises because of the influence of China as China. In that way there is very suitable soil in which Communist propaganda can sow seeds.
Mr. Graham Page (Crosby) Surely the hon. Member recognises that there is a very loyal Malayan-Chinese community on which much of the commerce and finance of Malaya depend and that one cannot classify every Chinese person as a Communist?
Mr. Sorensen I thought that, at least implicitly, I made that clear. Of course, the alliance, with a Chinese part in it, is uniting with the Malays and Indians, and one has only to think of the Lee Kwan Yew and the People's Action Party in Singapore, which is largely Chinese, to realise that most Chinese are not Communist. There are 1,700,000 people in Singapore, of whom over 80 per cent, are Chinese, but who are mostly hostile to Communism. We have to balance these things. On the one hand there is the tendency among some Chinese to adopt whatever is Chinese for the time being. If Chiang Kai-shek had been dominating China, perhaps they would have accepted him. There is the tendency to accept Chinese Communism because it is Chinese, but with other Chinese there are different considerations.
It seems that this Federation offers a suitable opportunity for bringing together these various racial elements. That is a very difficult job because we must not underestimate the distinctiveness of these races—the Chinese with their Buddhist and Confucian culture, the Indians and Pakistanis with their respective Muslim or Hindu culture, and the Malays who are very conscious of their Islamic faith and culture. They are quite different in background and history.
I have always held that a good many sociologists and politicians underestimate the importance of these cultural, racial, ethnic and psychological factors. I recognise that economic factors are often formative and conditional, but these other factors are very powerful. There is a case in point that in this part of the world where we find three distinctive communities, who might easily come into conflict and collision, but which fortunately, have shown many signs of
