Uproar over Unesco site proposal for Selangor's Chinese new villages

Short-lived idea to nominate former internment camps angers historians, Malay nationalists

- Azril Annuar

KUALA LUMPUR - At first glance, Sungai Way looks like any other suburb in Malaysia's Klang Valley, with a thriving wet market, a police station, a school and rows of shophouses along its main road.

Zinc-roofed shacks abut low-rise concrete buildings, and a few wooden kampung-style houses have survived the decades that saw most of their ilk replaced by brick homes. Some residences rise up to five storeys high, housing several families or, quite commonly, serving as dormitories for workers at nearby factories.

At a street corner, green dragons perch in front and on the roof of a bright orange building the only temple in this kampung baru cina or Chinese new village of around 4,000 residents, mainly Chinese, with a few Malays and Indonesian permanent residents who migrated there to work at the factories.

But this bustling little town on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur has a dark past.

It was one of 631 internment camps for the Chinese set up around Peninsular Malaysia by British colonialists during the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960, when the country fought a communist insurgency against British rule.

Recently, a short-lived proposal to nominate seven of Selangor's Chinese new villages as a Unesco World Heritage site opened up old wounds and sparked racially tinged debates about cultural recognition in Malaysia.

Local Government Development Minister Nga Kor Ming announced on Feb 1 that preparations were in the works to seek Unesco recognition for the "cultural and historical significance" of the villages. The Unesco status would help promote Malaysian Chinese history and culture through tourism, he said.

The news drew a swift backlash, which eventually quietened down after the Selangor government said on March 5 that there were no plans to obtain the heritage site status for any villages in the state.