THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION, Dato' Seri Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadhir, has suddenly discovered the Rukun Negara, enunciated more than 30 years ago, and promptly ignored, to give a sense of longing to the Chinese and Indians. It was the brainchild of Tun Ghazali Shafie, who was a thinker in residence in addition to the other portfolios he held. His mind is acute then as it is today, although he is in his 80s and confined to a wheel chair. He was unusual among Malaysian minister in that he read widely. But he also wore his arrogance on his sleeve. And that pushed Rukun Negara into the background, its five principles forgotten, ensuring that the New Economic Policy and Malay Dominance without the restraining influence of the Rukun Negara ensured the Malay is dominant and arrogant. Today, Rukun Negara is said to be 'the principle of life', that Malaysians must accept it. It is not the prime minister who says it but his minister of information, who has been fighting as hard to keep his job as the Prime Minister wants to replace him. But the call for Rukun Negara means nothing. It is brought from the dusty cupboard because the powers that be have decided that it is relevant. Does this mean that for 30 years, when it lay forgotten, it did not have any relevance? It is yet another sign that the National Front government flounders.

ASEAN was founded in 1967 to make sure Indonesia and Malaysia never went to war again. I was on holiday from Reuters in Saigon, and had gone to the 'wrong' room in a restaurant in Bangkok where the officials met. There was Mr Thanat Khoman, foreign minister of Thailand, who brought them together; Col. Benjamin Loudevik Murdani, who was then deputy head of Garuda, the Indonesian airways, later became the first diplomatic head for Indonesia in Malaysia, and went on to be a lieutenant general in the Indonesian armed forces; Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie, now Tun, but then secretary-general of the Malaysian foreign ministry. In return for my silence, the three of them told me of these behind-the-scenes talks. Later on, the Indonesian vice- president Adam Malik, who I had known since the early 1960s and who is dead now, filled me in the details. If Indonesia and Malaysia lost control of ASEAN, it would be a dead letter, as now. It was originally the foreign ministers who met, but now it is a meeting of presidents and prime ministers. The Summit should look at South East Asian Regional Conference, which is not allowed to succeed because India, its leading member, plays politics with other members.

So we are left with the official history written with UMNO help, and with no official papers of retired politicians. This is so with the history of Singapore's ejection from Malaysia. The University Kebangsan Malaysia has a "Scholar in Residence" programme, by which prominent Malaysians are invited to write their history of the country, or aspects of it. Tun Ghazali Shafie has written his memoirs on the formation of Malaysia in Malay, and now being translated into English. This scheme allows aging Malays in Malaysia and Singapore to write their memoirs. But the money is why they write it. A Singapore journalist told me, when I asked him why he had not written his memoirs, that it is a matter of economics: he would get more writing his journalistic pieces than he wrould writing his memoirs. The same rationale holds in Malaysia. But it enables the future historian to write sensibly of the events of the present time. Now we know of only different accounts by foreign historians and political scientists. It is also true that the foreigner gets an interview easier than the local. It is depicted in the ads. There is ln "Deeparaya" until there is a Caucasian present if we believe the advertisements we see on television by government agencies or companies.

The minister of international trade and industry and UMNO women's wing president, Datin Serii Rafidah Aziz is the next cabinet minister proven corrupt. The mainstream newspapers and mainstream TV media have confirmed it. Which means it is true. There are other stories of cabinet ministers and others corrupt, but if the alternate media write about it, then the laws of defamation apply, and they are stopped in their tracks. One UMNO leader has said he would have sued a mainstream journalist, but would not since that fellow does not have money. In other words, money is used to bankrupt the fellow. If one the other hand, an alterate journalist seems to be winning or gets a fairer corum of jiudges, on appeal, then the case is delayed as long as possible. The cynicism extends to UMNO members who are used to defame opposition figures. They are dropped and they are not supported in court or are not helped with the amount ordered by the courts to be paid to the opposition figure. So, Datin Seri Rafidah Aziz, like the warlord before here in the cabinet, Tan Seri Isa Samad, is banned from UMNO for corruption but will not resign nor be sacked from the Pak Lah cabinet. The Prime Minister sacks from his cabinet only those who defy him personally: Tun Ghazali Shafie, Dato' Shahrir Samad and Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, all by the then Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed.

THE ROYAL MALAYSIA POLICE is up in arms about a crime committed. To make sure that it means business, it informs the press. There is only one problem with it: the story is false. But falsity about anything matters little with the press, particularly the New Straits Times. There is before the RMP a slew of police reports – about cabinet ministers and their corruption, with assorted proof – that the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim had filed for which the judge who sentenced him in the sham trial and for which he has since been acquitted by the federal court has now been appointed to that bench – which the RMP takes no notice of. But it jumps at this report that Tun Ghazali Shafie, former foreign and interior minister, has been cheated by his former personal assisant. I did ask the Tun when he was in hospital recently about the state of his dispute with him former secretary, who has not returned him documents in her care, which he said he valued more than the "baubles" in her care, which his former driver told the police about, and which the New Straits Times reported in wrongful detail a few days later. The point is he Tun Ghazali did not make any police report, he had long ruled it out in this dispute with his former secretary, who is closer to his wife, from whom he is estranged.

In a nation which hurries to forget the past, the 21 years out of office marks him out as a non-person. Many indeed think Ghazali Shafie is dead. He is not.

UMNO keeps Indonesia at arm's length, its leaders never had the kind of warmth Anwar showed during his visit. When the Malaysian government takes extraordinary steps to prevent him from seeing people – like its request to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono not to receive him – defines Malaysia's, not Anwar's, worries. It could not be handled better because Malaysia had let its ties with Jakarta to flounder. This would not have happened two decades ago, when the Asean foreign ministers could, and would, call each other on the telephone to discuss issues before they became political and divisive. If Anwar had made this trip when Ghazali Shafie was foreign minister, how Indonesia viewed the two men would have been reversed. As it is, there is not one diplomat, civil servant, UMNO politician who can smoothe ways as Wisma Putra once did.

It could have survived if its policies were framed in a rigorous intellectual and political thought and overview. But the general Malay distaste for that rode rough shod over any move towards it. The two great intellectual politicians, bar none, found their political passage blocked because of it: Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie, the former home and foreign minister, and the jailed former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

The two former cabinet ministers with enviable libraries are the former foreign minister, Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie, and the former agriculture minister (and former mentri besar of Kedah), Tan Sri Sanusi Junid, whose library in Bangsar occupies two houses besides an extensive collection in his house in Damansara Heights. The books I want to read I cannot get them in Malaysia. But one of them would invariably have it, and I have for years borrowed books from them to read. They do not need RM250 a month to get into the habit of reading. Schools do not teach pupils to read. The school libraries does not have enough books. Political correctness dictates what one should read. Publishing in Malaysia is a political occupation, the aim to provide school text books. The curriculum does not encourage pupils to read and think. The man who gets into the habit of reading is a rare bird, who has overcome all official obstacles to keep him illiterate. In other words, the damage is done in school. What Dato' Idris Jusoh plans is no more than casting pearls before swine.

This was the most serious in UMNO. Pak Lah found, to his horror, that UMNO warlords, kept under a tight leash by his predecessor, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, now flex their muscles with impunity. The Perak mentri besar, Dato' Seri Tajol Rosli Ghazali, made it clear before the elections he would decide who the Perak candidates for state assembly and parliament would be when he said all who lost in 1999 are out. But so it was it in every BN party. Pak Lah has two tasks in front of him: get elected as UMNO president, and keep the warlords at bay. Whilst Tun Mahathir now admits his unpopularity with the Malaysian public was such that his resignation as prime minister provided the fillip for the BN's runaway success. That could be so, but he left an UMNO and, by extension, BN, collapsing from within. Since the virtual UMNO coup after the 1969 racial riots, the general elections was to put UMNO in power. There is a coalition of course. But it did not matter who was in it. At the moment it is the BN. Its members are no more than handmaidens to UMNO.

He needed a safe constituency, and the committee decided upon Cameron Highlands. When this was made known at the BN supreme council, Dato' Kayveas, in fury, threatened to pull the PPP out of the BN. It was no idle boast. The PPP today is a pale shadow of the Perak Progressive Party of the Seenivasagam brothers; its decline speeded when it joined the BN in 1973; it was there for the numbers until Dato' Kayveas decided it had to be more than that. If he pulled out of the BN now, it would give it a jolt it could do without. It was then that the Perak mentri besar, Dato' Seri Tajol Rosli Ghazali, offered him Bukit Gantang, a 70-per cent Malay constituency in the Malay heartland, where only a fluke could return him. He rejected it. But not before UMNO Bukit Gantang took exception to him contensting. It put Dato' Seri Tajol in a spot. He demanded Dato' Kayveas not presume any seat in Perak is his before Pak Lah decides upon it. When reporters asked him, he said the "feelings of others" should be kept in mind when leaders make unwarranted announcements. But Dato' Kayveas did not ask for Bukit Gantang nor had he discussed with him about the PPP's allocations in Perak. Dato' Tajol Rosli is right here. It is he who offered the seat and without Dato' Kayveas asking for it.

So where could he contest? This is where it turns murky. The BN selection committee, of which he is a member with the BN secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, and Pak Lah's son-in-law, Mr Ahmad Khairy bin Jamaluddin, decided he should contest the new Cameron Highlands constituency. But the People's Progressive Party (PPP) leader, Dato' M. Kayveas, worked hard to be given it, setting up an enviable organisation there. It is a safe seat. The Opposition does not have an organisation there, and any BN candidate would be returned with a handsome majority. At the BN meeting to iron out the seats, Pak Lah asked why Dato' Kayveas is not given Cameron Highlands. Tan Sri Khalil said the PPP leader could not be given the constituency since that he would lose. The meeting became acrimonious, and Dato' Kayveas threatened to pull the PPP out of BN. The Perak mentri besar, Dato' Seri Tajol Rosli Ghazali, stepped in and offered the PPP the UMNO-held Bukit Gantang constituency, a 70 per cent Malay majority area with less than five per cent Indians.

When the UMNO-led BN made plans for the General Election, it revealed cracks within that the new leader could not prevent. It began with the appointment of the new UMNO divisional heads; a few controversial appointments raised hackles among its members. For Pak Lah, as UMNO president, ignored an opportunity to have a taut UMNO body, and took the dangerous line of focussing the appointments as a way of sidelining two men: the Gua Musang MP, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, and Dato' Seri Anwar. It backfired. It unleashed a response he least expected. The UMNO warlords, long under the thumb of the former President, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, moved away and dictated their own terms. Pak Lah's tenuous hold on UMNO cannot hold if he does not negotiate with the warlords. The first evidence of this was when the Perak mentri besar, Dato' Seri Tajol Rosli Ghazali, announced that all who lost in the election of 1999 are not candidates in 2004. That is the prerogative of the UMNO president. That Pak Lah did not react as Dr Mahathir would have revealed his political nakedness.

Pak Lah's advisers and media handlers looked aghast as DKL in the fading days and weeks of the Mahathir epoch decided to play the game which in the 1970s landed him in Kamunting under the Internal Security Act. He did not understand that when you are a combatant, you are like to get hurt. He decided instead to put in his oar to tell Pak Lah who his deputy should be. He is always an enigma in UMNO. His post-detention high profile is a plotter's hand to bring him back to centre-stage. One must not forget that in this Tun Razak-led plot to force the then Prime Minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman, from office, two plotters were Tun Mahathir and DKL. He stayed in detention until a fortnight after Dr Mahathir took office in 1981. I have known him for more than three decades. His biggest failing is that he is not his own man, but a formidable behind-the-scenes operator who could frighten the opponents of whoever he works for into rigor mortis. When Tun Razak died in 1976, he was naked to the world, with no protection and no likelihood anyone would rush in to save him. His enemies, including the former home minister, Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie, would see to that.

Then there is the question of who should be deputy prime minister. Dr Mahathir wanted Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, the eldest son of the second Prime Minister. And made that clear to Pak Lah. He preferred another. But he had, at that time, no choice. He acquiesced. Whether he now would is another matter. However, Dr Mahathir did not stick to the bargain he accepted when he was appointed deputy prime minister in 1976. Dato' (later Tun) Hussain Onn had succeeded him. He wanted Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie, the then home minister, as his deputy, but the three UMNO vice-presidents - Mr (now Tun) Ghafar Baba, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Dr Mahathir - insisted neither would serve in his cabinet if one of them is not appointed.

News of this sent shivers down the Najib camp. Dato' Seri Najib complained to Dr Mahathir when both were in New York shortly after for the UMNO general assembly. But neither could do anything about it. The Awana meeting showed how divided UMNO is, with neither faction prepared to challenge the other in the open, and revealed only each's uncertainties. On the face of it, Dato' Seri Najib is still ahead if Pak Lah is challenged. Aligned to him are mentris besars Dato' Seri Tajol Rosli Ghazali of Perak, Dato' Seri Ali Rustam of Malacca, Dato' Seri Adnan Yaakob of Pahang; Puteri UMNO; the second finance minister, Dato' Jamaluddin Jarjis; the Trengganu UMNO deputy chief, Dato' Idris Jusoh. UMNO Youth is split in its support, with its head and Dato' Seri Najib's first cousin - their mothers are sisters - Dato' Hishamuddin Hussein, not with him. But he is unsure if this support would remain if, as is the norm, extrajudicial, political threats and worse are brought to bear on them. Dato' Seri Najib realises how vulnerable he is. An unconfirmed rumour mentions politically damaging proof in a CD that could ruin him if he persists in his challenge.

The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, had nothing to say about it except to term it "crazy" for its leader, Nor Azmi Ahmad Ghazali, to "think he could topple the Government and become the Prime Minister by setting up his own special forces". The deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, said FSFM is investigated for its criminal activities and threats to national security. There is no link between FSFM and other military groups like Kumupulan Militan Malaysia, which the government alleges is linked to opposition political parties and fight for a fundamentalist Malaysia.

Mr Lee was caught flatfooted. He called the then foreign secretary and later home and foreign minister, Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie to intercede, that he did not want separation, that the Tengku misunderstood him. It was no use. Mr Lee took no one into his confidence. He thought the storm would blow over. When it became clear, late in July 1965, the Tengku would not budge, the Tun's unequivocal message made that clear, only then did Mr Lee tell his cabinet. He did not want separation, but he had no choice now. But not all in the Singapore cabinet would sign. The two holdouts were the deputy prime minister, Dr Toh Chin Chye, and the foreign minister, Mr S. Rajaratnam. Dr Toh in a desperate last minute attempt to prevent it, wrote to, and saw, the Tengku. The Tengku would budge only if Mr Lee resigned as Prime Minister. By the time Dr Toh returned from meeting the Prime Minister, Mr Rajaratnam had signed the separation agreement, not wanting to be the odd man out, as he recounted to me when I met him often enough at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore where he was a senior fellow in residence in the 1980s.

When Tan Sri Mohamed Khir Johari failed in a palace coup to succeed Tengku Abdul Rahman as prime minister in the late 1960s, he went into virtual exile in the same post. As the later president of the Senate, Tun Omar Ong Yoke Lin when he fell foul of the MCA leaders. As Malaysia's later deputy prime minister, Tun Ismail Abdul Rahman when Tun Razak defeated him for the UMNO deputy presidency. As the later governor of Penang, Tun Sardon Jubir. As Tan Sri Ghazali Jawi, former cabinet minister and Perak mentri besar (which his son now is), to Egypt. As so many others. Malaysia's present ambassador in Washington is there for a failed putsch in Wisma Putra.

Malaysia's Grand Old Man turned 80 on Friday, 22 March 2002. Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie, hale and hearty if a little frail, is one of Malaysia's forgotten men, consigned to today's dustheap, but none there is involved in every aspect of independent Malaysia from its earliest days. His great intellect and talent was tempered with his equally great arrogance and faults. This Jekyll-and-Hyde side of his character made him distrusted amongst politicians, and unsuitable as prime minister.

Pak Lah (1364)   United States (636)   Straits Times (412)   Samy Vellu (224)   Putra Jaya (200)   Chief Justice (200)   Saddam Hussein (188)   Vincent Tan (164)   Civil Service (154)   Parti KeADILan (148)   Islamic State (118)   Johore Bahru (100)   Sungei Buloh (94)   Bukit Tinggi (88)   Abdul Razak (80)   Pengkalen Pasir (68)   Ting Pek (64)   Armed Forces (59)   Soviet Union (58)

Malay Dominance (58)   Yong Teck (56)   Hong Kong (56)   Human Rights (56)   Syed Hamid (54)   Puteri UMNO (52)   Islam Hadhari (52)   Royal Commission (51)   Hussein Onn (51)   Rafidah Aziz (48)   Indian Congress (48)   Open House (44)   Vision Schools (44)   Shah Alam (44)   Malay Unity (42)   Chua Jui (42)   Abdul Taib (42)   Ampang Jaya (36)   Ras Adiba (36)

Osama Bin Laden (36)   Nik Aziz Nik (20)   Ling Liong Sik (18)   Lee Kuan Yew (18)

High Court Judge (14)   Wan Azizah Wan (9)   Lim Kit Siang (9)   Megat Junid Megat (8)

Mahathir (2960)

Anwar (2399)