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UMNO got rid off the Tengku with a riot, but did not think through its plan afterwords

WHAT HAPPENED ON MAY 13 – whether it is the Malays who orchestrated it or the DAP which started it – misses one important fact. It was to get Tengku Abdul Rahman, the first prime minister, out of office. The deaths in the riots do not matter, only that the man must go. The MCA felt that the Chinese had let it down, and quit the government. It played into UMNO hands. The racial riots happened because UMNO wanted the Malays to look upon it as the only leader they will have. The Tengku was reduced to negotiating his departure so that he would be prime minister for a day under the new Yang Dipertuan Agung, his nephew the Sultan of Kedah. UMNO succeeded in their political aim in the last 35 years, but at what cost. UMNO the nationalist movement had made way for UMNO the political party in 1987. The Tengku did not join the political party, and died, with Tun Hussein Onn, out of the political party. In fact. the only ex-president of the political party is Tun Mahahir Mohamed. In 1969, the Tengku's namesis was Tun Mahathir, who plotted against him.

When Tun Mahathir came acalling on the Tengku in hospital on his terminal illness, I, who had gone to see him before Tun Mahathir, was asked to say. There was a tug-of-war of sorts between Tun Mahathir's security detail and the Tengku. He finally made me sit on the bed beside him. So when Tun Mahathir came in, I was also in the room. The Tengku had known me since the early 1950s, when as president of UMNO he shifted to Johore Bahru, and stayed near the edge of the Wadi Hana area where I stayed. When my father died in 1963, he was already prime minister and I did not inform him. When I returned to Reuters in Singapore from leave after the funeral to the night shift, I found the Tengku there. He told me to see him for breakfast at the Hotel Adephi, now no more. "M.A.G. Pillai was the Tengku's friend, not the prime minister's." giving me a wigging as only he could. He was in Saudi Arabia when my mother died in 1978, so I sent him a cable, and two of his personal staff turned up before the cremation. He used to say he was the happiest prime minister in the world because "he had as his deputy, Tun Razak". Tun Razak's premiership was spoiled for this reason. But little did he know, until it was too late, that Tun Razak was plotting against him. Tun Mahathir and the future deputy prime minister, Tan Sri Musa Hitam, were some of the plotters.

The May 13 riots, ostensibly because DAP celebrated their victory at the 1969 polls by taunting the Malays at Kampung Bahru after the opposition had got a tie in the state assembly seats in Selangor and Perak. The UMNO reaction as swift. Apart from the NEP and the policy of Malay Dominance, it separated Kuala Lumpur from Selangor, altered the constituencies that the Malay would always have the majority in the state assemblies. The MCA could win only in mixed or Malay majority. The MIC could win only in Malay majority seats. The Indian voters were spread to other constitutiences so that they could not be a threat. Areas like Brickfields were variously of Damansara, Siputeh, KL Bandar in the thirty five years since. The people in power, having made sure their version is the dominant, blame the Chinese for having started May 13. The DAP may have provided the catalyst, but the riots was the result of a deliberate plan. UMNO had the political power and the Chinese are blamed for it. The May 13 riots was to remove the Tengku and downgrade the non-Malays in government. They lost the policy making powers they had from independence. It was a far cry from signing the MCA and MIC presidents signing with UMNO the independence document with Britain to being a digit of the National Front in power today.

Over the years, money has taken over national policy. The NEP and Malay Dominance could have survived if it had followed the plan Tun Razak had worked out. Now the Chinese made sure the Malay in government was compromised. The policies were downgraded. UMNO had no thinkers of the Malay agenda. It showed. Tun Mahathir set up Proton so that the Malay will lose his fear of technology. It is now irrelevant, because its social purpose had given way to money. And it cannot be justified on that grounds. The death throes of Proton must be seen in that light. The Indian car firm Ambassador used the Morris Oxford for its model, and Premier cars the Fiat 1100, for more than 40 years, spawning a cottage industry of repairers throughout the country. but they hold ltheir own when foreign cars are brought into the country. That would not be with Proton, whose reason for existence went overboard when Tun Mahathir retired as prime minister. The is unfortunately true of all its industry. Proton could have been a force, an oditty in the world of automobile makers. Malaysia will lose out intially allowing cars in with reduced duties. But in the end, it would have held its ground. Not any more. Today when money rules, the relevance of Proton to national policy disappears, and with it out car policy. As Proton goes, so shall NEP and Malay Dominance.

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