REMEMBERING TUN Abdul Razak -- 25 YEARS LATER

The then deputy prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak, like Anwar Ibrahim 29 years later, raised the banner of revolt. Amongst those on his side was the then stormy petrel and now prime minister.

Neither the government nor the MCA can get political mileage for bringing Bank of China to Malaysia. The Malay community sees this as the Prime Minister's logical move to sustain his Chinese political backing. But this is for him personally and not to the MCA or its president. So the Malays would take umbrage and the Chinese could not care less. The then Malaysian prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak, got emotional and political support from his China visit before the 1974 general elections. The Prime Minister and the MCA does not any more. is no more. The younger generation Chinese looks to China for cultural confidence but keeps its distance. The Prime Minister and Dr Ling wanted the Bank of China because they misread what the Chinese community wanted. A foreign Chinese bank, even with 14 branches, does not have the same emotive pull than a fairer share of the economic, educational and cultural cake. It is not fair exchange for a score of local Chinese-owned banks forcibly merged into other banks, their identities lost.

ENGLISH DISAPPEARED from the Malaysian curriculum in nationalistic vengeance. The then education minister and later chief minister and Yang diPertua Negeri of Sarawak, Dato' (now Tun) Abdul Rahman Yaakob, did not consult the cabinet when he ordered it replaced by Malay in schools. The prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak, could not, for fear of a Malay chauvinist reaction, but go along. So, the child who went to school for the first time in 1971 had all his education in Malay, with English only in urban schools and the aided schools. The 13 May 1969 riots ensured not only the primacy of a Malay-dominated government but of Malay nationalist pressures. So, by playing to the gallery, as Tun Rahman did, English disappeared from the curriculum so swiftly that children a decade later would not distinguish the Malay "cat" from the English "cat" -- one is paint (and pronounced "chart". the other the feline animal. English was haphazardly taught, often by those who did not understand it. Those who study overseas now have to prove their familiarity with English. English became a language your children learnt if you were in the upper and privileged class. Everyone else studied it because they were told to. Among the crazy ideas implemented to improve the standard of English, when its disapperance became a national scandal, was to import English school teachers from the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries. It cost too much and made not even a dent. The only ones who was competent to teach English were the Third Formers who went on to become teachers of English in vernacular schools and others near retiring age who were taught in English in school. The Education ministry would not pursue this often because the minister had his own pet profects he deemed more important.

In those days, most Malaysians went to study in London as opposed to the United Kingdom. Malaysia's independent leaders in their student days could meet there to discuss the country's future because it was a convenient meeting point. But to suggest that Tengku Abdul Rahman would meet in Malaysia Hall with Tun Abdul Razak and others is to bend the historical truth. The independence leaders had returned home by the time Malaysia Hall was leased in 1951. Indeed, by then the Tengku had become president of UMNO, Tun Abdul Razak was state secretary of Pahang, Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie in the Malayan civil service. They could have had meetings there on subsequent meetings but they certainly did not discuss their hopes for the future of Malaya in Malaya Hall, as it was then known.

Within UMNO itself, after Tun Abdul Razak's unexpected death in January 1976, there was no clear cut successor. Tun Razak had, as Tan Sri Abdullah, points out in his New Straits Times column "On The Record" (NST, 26 September 00, p12), identified a brood of politicians who could take over from him. Amongst them were Dr Mahathir, Tengku Razaleigh, Dato' Musa Hitam, Tun Ghafar Baba. Indeed, if Tengku Razaleigh had joined the cabinet, instead of continuing to head Petronas and Bank Bumiputra Malaysia Berhad, after the 1974 general elections, he would have been deputy prime minister under Tun Hussein. But he miscalculated. He was not an outsider. The outsider was Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie, the then home minister. When Tun Hussein wanted him as deputy prime minister, the three UMNO vice presidents -- Ghafar Baba, Tengku Razaleigh, Dr Mahathir -- in a demarche said none would serve if one of them was not appointed deputy prime minister. Only the three said they would not serve, not as Tan Sri Abdullah insists the UMNO Supreme Council. Ghafar was not considered, Tengku Razaleigh was not in the cabinet, leaving only Dr Mahathir, who was. This was done in anti-Hussein surroundings, in the fallout from the Selangor mentri besar, Dato' Harun Idris's arrest for corruption, with his backers accusing close aides of Tun Razak as being pro-communist. This led to Tan Sri Abdullah's detention under the Internal Security Act for five years. But that is another story.
Tan Sri Abdullah is right when he suggests Tan Sri Lee and the MCA president preferred Tengku Razaleigh to Dato Seri Mahathir Mohamed as UMNO deputy president and therefore deputy prime minister after Dato (later Tun) Hussein Onn became Prime Minister in 1976 after Tun Abdul Razak Hussein died in London. He was close to Tengku Razaleigh, and he paid the price by being forced to resign. There was no question that UMNO stabbed him in the back. He miscalculated in his support for who should be UMNO president and paid dearly. He had to go. The MCA leaders themselves decided it could not have as president one who backed the Prime Minister's rival. That they did underlines not that the MCA has Chinese support but when the crunch comes, they had no choice but to kill their leader for putting lucrative contracts at risk. The non-Malay parties in the National Front survive, especially after the 1969 riots, by destroying their own standing with their communities if their leader's links with the UMNO president suffers. The MCA leaders' ability to shoot themselves in the foot when everything works in their favour is uncanny. It also makes Tan Sri Lee's claim the MCA had Chinese support even more questionable. When Dr Mahathir became Prime Minister in 1981, Tan Sri Lee's political career had come to an end, especially when Tengku Razaleigh prepared to challenge Dr Mahathir for the UMNO presidency after Dato' (now Tan Sri) Musa Hitam was appointed deputy prime minister. The MCA realised that with Tan Sri Lee as their leader, it would suffer at the hands of a vindictive Prime Minister. So, he had to go. That paradoxically proved how misguided Tan Sri Lee was at his victory in Seremban in the 1982 general elections.

The Malaysian cabinet, we are told, orders the armed forces to patrol the seas off the coast of Sabah, deploy troops in all resort islands, and have the Abu Sayyaf rebels shiver in their pants should it kidnap Malaysians ever again. Why did the defence minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak, take a national security operational matter to the cabinet? Should not the armed forces be deployed not because the cabinet wants it to, but to safeguard the territorial integrity of the country? Does it require cabinet approval to do that? Why was not the cabinet -- if indeed it is this price-fixing body which should approve armed forces' movements -- then depoloyed in April when the larger crisis broke out? And would the cabinet tell us whether Sipadan Island, which with neighbouring Litigan, has resorts operated by the Prime Ministerial son? And if they are Malaysia's, why did Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta refer their contending claims to ownership of these two islands to the International Court of Justice at the Hague?

But it was this sticking to the forms, while the Chinese community began a rear-guard action to change the concords agreed to at independence, strengthened by UMNO anger at the significant Chinese community's sympathy and support for Indonesia during the Confrontation. The hartal in 1967 in Penang, to protest at the removal of English as an official language, set the pace to remove the Tengku and keep the Chinese in place. The Labour Party's funeral procession of a shot activist during the election campaign, and the Alliance's poor showing, led to the May 13 riots. The official version is challenged, as public documents, especially in those released in foreign countries of diplomatic reports of the moment, suggest the collusion of the then deputy prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak, and in which the two stalking horses for the Tengku was one Dr Mahathir and the former mentri besar of Selangor, Dato' Harun Idris. It provided UMNO to stage a coup against the Alliance, to ensure that Malay dominance would dictate the future Malaysian governments. The New Economic Policy, with its pro-Malay economic and political objectives, was pushed through, with neither the MCA nor MIC challenged; the MCA president, Tun Tan Siew Sin, resigned from the cabinet amidst the riots, and that marginalised ever since both MCA and MIC in future governments. Tun Razak, as sharp a political operator as the Tengku, effectively sidelined the MCA, first be removing from it the portfolios of finance and of commerce and industry, and then encouraging the split within it with the appointment of Dr Lim Kheng Yaik, now Dato' Seri and in the cabinet, then a leading figure in the reform-minded Chinese Unity Movement against the MCA leadership. The then deputy prime minister, Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, described the MCA, rightly, as "neither dead nor alive".

Officials viewed Mr Lee's schoolmasterly tone even offensive, but his statements struck a sympathetic chord amongst the younger, more educated, less pro-government Malays who resent their government's insistence on life-long gratefulness, tying them to an outmoded policy that tries to put the genie back into the bottle. It is a Malaysia Singapore would have to come to terms with. The two countries would soon have leaders who do not have a shared past. Officials in both say this could be a harbinger of more problems. Mr Lee takes great pains to point out that once the leaders of the two countries could get on the phone to speak to his college mate, Tun Abdul Razak, then Malaysian prime minister. He did not have that relationship with Tun Razak's successors. Neither do the younger ministers.

But their replacements were brought in to ensure -- as both deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and finance minister, Tun Daim Zainuddin, wanted -- to ensure the sidelining of the education minister and UMNO vice president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak. The Pahang mentri besar, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, replaces Tok Mat as information minister and the promotion of Dato' Seri Kadir Sheikh Fadhir to culture, arts and tourism. The former has a brief to shortcircuit the political ambitions of Dato' Seri Najib; with his successor ensuring that the education minister is contained in his Pekan constituency. Ostensibly, Tan Sri Khalil did a brilliant job as the National Front operations director of the Sabah elections. Dato' Seri Kadir is another promoted for his Sabah election role. So, we now have three in the cabinet whose reputations are refurbished for their alleged roles in Sabah; the other is the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi himself. But Dato' Seri Kadir has another plus on his side: he is firmly with Tun Daim. He was one of those dropped as deputy minister in an earlier reshuffle, but got back in by literally crying before the Prime Minister to be kept on; He was, was on his way out when fate struck him a kind blow. The best laid plans of men and mice ... Amen!

UMNO elections in the past ensured the return of leaders the party leader wants. But things can go awry. Tan Sri Syed Jaffar Albar, father of the foreign minister, was elected UMNO Youth leader when the UMNO President was a younger man, the prime minister, Dato' (later Tun) Hussein Onn. Indeed, in 1956, the man Tengku Abdul Rahman wanted as his deputy prime minister in independent Malaya the following year -- Dato' (later Tun) Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, who later became one in his own right -- lost to the machine candidate, Dato' (later Tun) Abdul Razak Hussein. When the ground is dissatisfied and angry, the electors chose someone they want; when it is not, the leaders can have their way. UMNO is in flux. The Anwar affair touched a raw nerve that continues to hurt. The UMNO Leader, yes, the He Who Thinks He Is Lord Of All He Surveys, bunkers down to defect rising criticism of his continuing as Prime Minister. He is caught up with the global hype of the Millennium, and wants to leave history not with what he believes are his Good Works for the nation, but that he was Prime Minister when the Millennium Clock struck midnight. This would also, he believes, give him time to ensure a succession that would be more solicitious to his, and his family's, welfare.

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