1959年馬來亞「聯盟危機事件」：陳修信、楊邦孝與林蒼佑的呼應與取捨

The 1959 Crisis of Alliance Party in Malaya: TAN Siew Sin, YONG Pung How and LIM Chong Eus’Responds and Choices

1959年發生的「聯盟危機事件」，亦為馬來西亞族群政治衝突事件揭開了帷幕。它為1969年發生的「五一三事件」埋下了伏筆，也指示了作為族群身份認同的「教育與文化」議題，是馬來西亞建國歷程的最大挑戰。本文嘗試呈現，被視為團結各族人民的國民教育政策，在推動其「馬來（西）亞化」的過程中，由於強調英文與馬來文作為教學媒介語，而演變成為族群衝突的矛盾點。本文也企圖從陳修信、楊邦孝及林蒼佑三人的角度，去分析與解讀他們如何看待聯盟危機事件的發生。三人分別代表了華社內部對華教議題的三種不同立場，即對華教運動持保留態度、支持華教運動，及介乎兩者之間，在華人權益與馬來主導權之間積極求取平衡，並做出了相對的呼應和取捨。三人建構起了華人政治精英的不同面向。他們的行為動機，為我們在看待和解讀馬來西亞華人的「政治平權」運動歷史，提供了不同的角度和視野。

The Crisis of Alliance party in year 1959 was a prelude to the series of ethnical and political confrontations in Malaysia in the future; it actually foreshadowed the May 13 Incident which happened a decade later in year 1969.“Education and culture”are imporTANt aspects for ethnic identity recognition. They were proven to be the major challenges faced by Malaysia during the period of nation building. This paper attempts to discuss, firstly, how the National Education Policy which initially aimed to“Malayanize”and unite different ethnic groups, propagated against its original objective when it emphasized English and Malay languages as the medium of education; in the end, it became the confrontation point between different ethnic groups. Secondly, this paper also studies and analyzes TAN Siew Sin, YONG Pung How and LIM Chong Eus’point of views regarding the Crisis of Alliance party. These 3 influential figures represented the different responses of the Chinese community regarding the Chinese language education movement in response to the National Education Policy; with reserved opinion, supportive, and in between the two. In common, all of them tried to seek a balance point between the dispute of Chinese ethnic rights and Malay dominant power. They managed to portrait the varied orientations of the Chinese political elites at that time. Their beliefs and reactions had provided us with different dimensions and perspectives to study and interpret the history of Malaysian Chinese’s political equality movement.