Influence and Leadership
声势与领导
Cultivating Leadership Position within the Chinese Community
华侨社会中的领导状态
Chinese Leadership in the 19th Century
十九世纪的华侨领导
Chinese community leadership in early 19th century Singapore, according to the analysis of Yong Ching Fatt, was based primarily on two factors: wealth and bang 帮 affiliation. 2 Yong Ching Fatt, Journal of the Island Society 1 (1967): 1-18, and Chinese leadership and power in colonial Singapore (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1992). Wealth was necessary to carry out acts of charity that were the best means of generating favorable publicity, whereas one’s bang, which was the faction, regional or dialect group that one belonged to, was the power base upon which one built, and the constituency that one represented as a leader. Unlike later leaders like Lim Boon Keng, eloquence, literacy, and personal appeal were not as important in the 19th century. Leadership was not acquired by a democratic process: leaders were self-appointed based on their wealth and influence, and that influence usually arose as a consequence of wealth.
根据杨进发先生的判断，十九世纪新加坡的华侨社会领导者依靠的是财富与帮。慈善活动和公益事业是显示财富的机会。所谓的“帮”就是同氏、同乡、同行的人。当时的领导者不是由民主选举的。他们大多数是因为由财富才有声势的。
The British colonial authorities used community leaders or go-betweens to maintain control over the non-European communities in their settlements. 3 庄饮永 [David K.Y. Chng],“新加坡华人甲必丹”《亚洲文化》Yazhou wenhua (Asian Culture) 9 (1987): 21-25. This had previously been formalized as the “Kapitan system”, where the most prominent and powerful leader of each ethnic group in a settlement was appointed as the Kapitan for his community, and given certain judicial and representative rights. The formal system was done away with in 1826, but the use of ethnic representatives as intermediaries remained. This new informal policy complicated matters: leadership was a matter of tension between wealth and influence within the ethnic community on the one hand, and of recognition and empowerment by the colonial authorities on the other. The two were hard to balance, for the British feared the effects of Chinese secret societies and, ironically, were therefore distrustful of Chinese leaders who were too close to the Chinese community. 4 The British also felt that some Chinese who would have helped them were “cowed and rendered timid by the bold and unscrupulous.” Quoted from a letter by E.A. Blundell to the Secretary to the Government of India (dated Singapore 10 Jan 1857), Annual Reports on the Administration of the Straits Settlements (1856/57) p. vi, National Archives of Singapore. The Chinese population at large, however, would not trust those who were too closely identified with British interests; this might also have involved class resentment. 5 E.g. Wang Tai Peng, “Chinese Towkay and Worker Strikes in the Straits Settlements (1857-1900) with special relevance to Singapore,” Review of Southeast Asian Studies (Nanyang Quarterly) 11 (1981): 12-13, cites an incident during the 1872 riot where Whampoa’s (Hoo Ah Kay’s) bakery was stoned.
英国殖民政府把族群领袖当作中间人来管治在殖民地的各个亚洲族群。1826年之前，每族群最优秀的领袖被任为“甲比丹”（Kapitan），有所司法的权力。甲比丹制度被取消之后，殖民地政府继续把某社会领袖者当作族群议员来对待。身为领袖者因此得权衡在自己族群中的声势和来自政府的特权。⋯⋯
As a result, community leadership stratified into (i) the 'elite' leadership, who possessed great wealth, prominent public lives beyond the Chinese community, and recognition from the colonial administrators, and (ii) the local leadership, members of the towkay class (who may also have been involved in smaller enterprises e.g. shopkeepers, tradesmen) who headed huay kuan 会馆 and kongsi 公司 (including secret societies), whose influence was within the Chinese community and often defined by clan or regional origin; the latter were largely ignored by the British authorities and the colonial European press. 6 E.g. Ghee Hin leaders named in David K.Y. Chng, Heroic Images of Ming Loyalists: a Study of the Spirit Tablets of the Ghee Hin Kongsi Leaders in Singapore (Singapore: Singapore Society of Asian Studies, 1999), 58-9. Some 'minor' towkays are named in Wang, “Towkay and Worker Strikes,” 21. Seah Eu Chin began as a member of the local leadership class, but the fortune that he made in pepper and gambier planting made him influential beyond the Chinese community and he also seen as a representative of his community by the British. Yet he still managed to hold on to his position within the community through his directorship of the Ngee Ann Kongsi, as well as charitable contributions to the Chongwenge School and the Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
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