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Who is the more important Malaysian: Bapak Merdeka or Bapak Kamaludin?

ON 08 February 2004, Bapak Kamaludin aka Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, marked his first 100 days in office as Prime Minister; that day also marked the 101st birth anniversary of Bapak Merdeka aka Tengku Abdul Rahman Putra al-Haj. On that day, Malaysian newspapers and media stepped on each other to celebrate one and just as studiously ignore the other. There was not a single article to honour the man who made it possible for Bapak Kamaludin to be where he is. But, in the modern Malaysian view, he is history, dead and gone, and has no place in this Malaysia of the great and glorious Bapak Kamaludin. The Star's 48-page treacle of fawning praise caused many a reader to vomit, the story goes that Pak Lah's office tried to prevent it, but could the MCA president, Dato' Seri Ong Ka Ting, who controls the newspaper, have allowed it? Long dismissive of the man, how could he now be seen not to praise him so effusively should his loyalty be suspect? Bapak Merdeka, whose stint as chairman of The Star, and as a star columnist in the paper, saved the paper from sure ruin by a government which felt it was too big for its boots, is ignored.

We deliberately destroy our past. We do not want to be reminded of it. We think history begins anew when a new Prime Minister takes office. This is national policy. The UMNO that Bapak Merdeka led and brought Malaysia nationhood is not the UMNO that Bapak Kamaludin hopes to lead. The two are as different as chalk and cheese. The UMNO that fought for this country's independence was a national mass movement that the High Court declared illegal, and its last President, one Tun Mahathir Mohamed, helped destroy, is not the UMNO Dr Mahathir led and Pak Lah now hopes to. The UMNO made illegal had legitimacy, support, and relevance; UMNO Baru, as its successor was known, did not. To overcome that difficulty, Dr Mahathir, with the connivance of the Registrar of Societies, decreed that UMNO Baru, after its hasty registration in 1988, would henceforth officially be known only as UMNO.

Fast forward to 2003. Two opposition parties, the Parti Keadilan Nasional, and the Parti Rakyat Malaysia, merged as Parti Keadilan Rakyat, it was not allowed to continue to be called KeADILan. The registrar of societies potentiously declared that old parties should not adopt their old names when they merge or otherwise lose their identity. It sued. At the hearing yesterday (10 February 2004), the ROS wanted to settle it out of court. What else could it do? UMNO Baru can be UMNO, but KeADILan cannot be KeADILan if it merges with another. One is government, the other is opposition. One can, the other cannot. The ROS realises the mess it would be steeped in, in a public hearing. It had no choice but sue for peace.

I am therefore not surprised that Bapak Merdeka is a figure of fun and irrelevance in the Malaysia of today. Who is he anyway? A playboy prince who took 25 years to pass his law degree, provided the leadership when its then eminence grise, Dato' Sir Onn Jaffar, walked out of UMNO, and negotiated for independence. [Dato' Sir Onn, incidentally, is not honoured for his immeasurable contributions to Malayan political life - he died before Malaysia was formed - when Malaysia honours dead actors, like P. Ramlee, with titles as Tan Sri and wives of retired prime ministers are automatically Tuns: but then who is he, and when do we honour UMNO turncoats?] The Tengku's critics would harp on his learning difficulties, his indolence, and make him out to be a figure of fun. All this is true, but is there a figure in the Malaysian history of the 22nd century who would be remembered other than this indolent playboy prince?

In Pak Lah's cabinet are two men who should not be there: one who failed his SRP and his degree examinations in a British university; another who claims to be a Malaysian prince when he is not: his only connexion to Malay royalty is that he married a tengku and divorced her soon enough. Friends of the other man told me, in defence, that the Hermit of Langgak Golf aka Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah is a drop out too, as if that excused the man. But the Hermit is an economics graduate from Queen's University in Belfast, went on to read law, which he discontinued when he returned home after his father died in 1962. What is more he mentions this in his curriculum vitae.

It is not only politicians who do not come clean. A senior civil servant all but lost his rosy future when it was found that his acclaimed doctorate from Harvard was a fake. Nothing happened to him but a few steps up the promotion ladder. He remained in the office he held until he retired honourably a few years later. The BN government assumes these trifles do not matter. But when it insists that it is transparent, has nothing but the interests of the people at heart, that a government must have educated and brilliant men at the helm, refuses to act when it is found out it is not, allows corruption to fester with no action taken except when it suits it or in a climate when it makes sense, and such matters as the tengku and the minister is ignored in the hope that others would too, it diminishes and devalues the administration.

But that is not how it is perceived in the Malaysia which began on 31 October. In that world, the reign of Bapak Kamaludin is all that matters. Bapak Merdeka is an anachronism. If he disagreed with what happens around him, there is always the Internal Security Act to put some sense into him. That is not as far-fetched as you might imagine. In the 1980s, a few years before he did, Dr Mahathir's thought that was not a bad idea. Instead, it was the Star that was shut down; it got its licence back after a few months on the condition, amongst others, that Bapak Merdeka should be banned from its pages. If that was when he was alive, why are we surprised it is now that he is dead and gone? Even in the world of the father of Mr Kamaludin Abdullah, he whose company was an inadvertent link to a Pakistan-led Islamic international nuclear technology transfer programme.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com