The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (88 page)

“(But) they (UMNO) don’t want to compete. Competition is bad. We are told, ‘Lay off. Don’t try and do anything good.’ They say they are worried about the Malays? I say, so are we. We want to raise their standard of living, and we will, and faster than they can. At the end of 5, 10, 15, 20 years a new generation will grow up that will no longer respond to the special VHF they use. They will be tuning into the multilingual network. They will be thinking like us, working like us, trained like us, prepared to live with us like Malaysians …”

Albar had called us
orang tumpangan
, meaning lodgers who were staying temporarily in their house. But Lim Swee Aun, the federal minister for commerce and industry, had said, no, “we are co-owners, not lodgers, not guests”, and in the one sensible balanced speech made by a Malay minister in the federal parliament, Ismail had spoken of two stages: “one stage – separate communal parties; second stage – non-communal”. Therein lay hope, I said.

It was a rousing meeting that brought hope to all those who heard it on Radio Singapore or read about it in the press. We had broken the spell of silence and met their communal intimidation head-on.

The next day, Senator Dato T.H. Tan, in a speech to the federal senate, called upon the central government to take constitutional measures to exclude Singapore from Malaysia or to put Mr Lee Kuan Yew away to sober him. “There appears to be little doubt that Mr Lee, through his words and deeds, is stirring up emotions and causing dissension.” A few days later, the minister for information and broadcasting, Senu bin Abdul Rahman, who was from the Tunku’s home state of Kedah and close to him, said, “The PAP should note that there is a limit to our patience. … Push us, corner us … then the PAP will be responsible for the consequences. Let them be warned.” He asked PAP leaders to come out into the open and state exactly what they wanted for Malaysia. “We know the PAP wants to partition this country. Does it want to set up a republic? Does it want to get rid of our rulers, our so-called privileges? Tell us, spell it out, come out in the open.”

Raja, ever the protagonist, replied that I had been prepared to come out in the open in parliament and argue my case, but the Alliance ministers would not allow me to do so. The Tunku responded, in what I thought was an effort to cool tempers, saying he was prepared to spend hours listening to me, to find out what was worrying me.

“Mr Lee used to be sitting with me at this table,” he said, tapping his conference table in the Residency. “We spent many late hours discussing many problems. In spite of everything, he still insisted on joining us. Now why bring up all these issues? It is very bad.” The Tunku said he had to fight against speaking in parliament because if he did so, he would have to attack me and he did not want to do that.

I read that as a ray of hope and responded immediately by saying, “Let’s talk and resolve our difficulties, but these talks should touch on certain important and fundamental objectives.” I chided the “hatchet
men”, the slogan-shouting communal extremists, for their “rough talk and strong abrasive words. … To these people I make this plea, be like the Tunku, talk nicely, politely and calmly and win the hearts of the people of Singapore.”

On 16 June, the Tunku left for London to attend the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference.

That same day, Ong Eng Guan suddenly resigned from the Legislative Assembly, giving the reason that “the Assembly served no more useful purpose”. He had been silent and inactive, completely sidelined by the events that had overtaken Singapore since merger. There had not been a squeak from him during the two communal riots, nor on any issue. The following day, he asked the government not to delay the by-election as he wanted to stand again. When he did not, he lost all credibility and sank into obscurity.

We believed that the federal government had influenced Ong Eng Guan to resign, through an MCA member who was Ong’s former political secretary when he was mayor, in 1957–59. They wanted a by-election to test how much support the PAP had. If the Barisan could defeat us, they could neutralise PAP leaders using the Internal Security Act, without much agitation against our detention.

On nomination day for the by-election, 30 June, we fielded Lee Khoon Choy and the Barisan nominated Ong Chang Sam, one of the PAP assemblymen who had defected. It was a short campaign of nine days with polling on 10 July. The mood of the people had completely changed. They knew all in Singapore were in deep trouble, and that they had to choose between the PAP and the Barisan after deciding which party could better safeguard Singapore’s survival and future. We put to the electorate the choice between the PAP’s “Malaysian Malaysia” and the Barisan’s “Crush Malaysia”, so that the by-election would prove to the Alliance government that Singapore was for a Malaysian Malaysia.
Dr Lee Siew Choh denounced it as a communal and neo-colonial slogan. Yet when asked by the press, Razak said it did not matter whether the PAP or the Barisan won. That confirmed our suspicion that UMNO and the MCA were indeed testing the support the PAP had in Singapore among the Chinese-speaking, of whom the Hong Lim constituency in the heart of Chinatown would be representative. Further evidence appeared in
Utusan Melayu
editorials urging people to vote for the Barisan candidate, although there were few Malays in the ward.

In the middle of the by-election, Ismail issued an expulsion order against Alex Josey on the grounds that it would be “conducive to the good of the Federation”. When asked about it in London, the Tunku said Josey had indulged in activities aimed at disrupting interracial harmony. In an article published in the Australian monthly
The Bulletin
, he had given undue emphasis to differences in leadership between the Tunku and me. We suspected the worst, and Chin Chye called a press conference to say that Josey’s expulsion was linked to further repressive measures that would follow if the central government continued to placate the Ultras. Chin Chye disclosed:

“We know that soon after the last meeting of parliament and the first public rally of the Malaysian Solidarity Convention in Singapore on June 6, instructions were given to make a case for Mr Lee’s arrest. We urge the central government not to believe that with Mr Lee out of the way, the ministers of the PAP government will quietly acquiesce in his detention.”

Every minister knew that removing me would not remove the problem – Malay domination over the other races – and all of them sat together with Chin Chye at the press conference to show solidarity and that none of them was prepared to take over from me. On 10 July, Razak described Chin Chye’s allegation as “too wild and mischievous to merit any comment”, but we had had the information from George Bogaars, director of Special Branch in Singapore. Razak’s denial came on polling day. That
night, Lee Khoon Choy won 59 per cent of the ballot in the Hong Lim by-election, a sharp reversal of the result two years before when the PAP gained only 26 per cent. We had more than doubled our votes.

The next day, Senu said in a speech directed at me that non-Malays must not take advantage of the hospitality extended to them in Malaysia. I replied that I was enjoying no one’s hospitality; I was in Malaysia as of right. A week later, Malaysian Solidarity Convention leaders met in Singapore to issue a statement warning that the nation would head for serious trouble once a distinction was made between Malaysians “as a matter of right” and Malaysians “as a matter of hospitality”. They viewed with concern the “naked and open exploitation of religious and racial emotions against those who mobilise opinion for a Malaysian Malaysia”, and announced plans to hold a series of rallies throughout the Federation.

Responding to this, Senu protested, “We have explained this a thousand times. We work for all Malaysians regardless of their origin. Otherwise there won’t be the Alliance Party. … Of course, we want a Malaysian Malaysia. We formulated that concept.” Razak followed Senu on 24 July when he referred to the People’s Action Party’s “Malaysian Malaysia” slogan and said that it was the Alliance and not the PAP that had first conceived the idea, and in an interview in the official organ of UMNO, Ismail made it clear that the Alliance government wanted a Malaysian Malaysia, though not one on the lines advocated by the PAP government. The Alliance concept was based on two factors – racial harmony and a unified non-racial Malaysia.

I welcomed these developments. They represented a great advance on the position UMNO had earlier been taking. They now agreed with our position, albeit without sincerity except for Ismail. Things were on the move. Everyone felt that they were never going to be the same again.

Razak had earlier sent word that he wanted to talk to me, and on 29 June I saw him in his office at the defence ministry in Kuala Lumpur. He was tense, fidgety and ill-at-ease. I deplored the damage the
Utusan
had done and was still doing, pouring out racist poison day after day. I complained about the double-faced policy of UMNO, that while the top leaders reached reasonable agreements and political truces with us, the secondary leaders kept up a screech of hate in the
Utusan
and the
Malayan Merdeka
, which circulated in the villages. I said any future agreements must be in writing and made known to all, including the secondary leaders, and that the clamour in the Malay press must stop. Otherwise, any political accommodation was meaningless. Razak replied that this was very difficult and they would have to think it over.

The most significant statement he made was that “we must decide whether you are going to work with us or to fight us”. I said he knew the attitude of the PAP, that we had always wanted to work with UMNO, but that UMNO, and in particular the Ultras, were determined that we should be crushed. I had seen how they had broken up multiracial parties in Sabah along communal lines and were attempting to do the same in Sarawak. I had no doubt that once they had settled the two North Borneo states, they would turn the heat on Singapore and break us up too. They had fixed Donald Stephens, chief minister of Sabah, and were fixing Stephen Kalong Ningkan, chief minister of Sarawak. I reminded Razak that I was present at the Residency in Kuala Lumpur when the Tunku himself had laid down these conditions for Stephens to remain in office: henceforth, the Chinese in Sabah would join SNAP (Sabah National Party), the Kadazans, UPKO (United Pasok Momogun Kadazan Organisation) and the Malays, USNO (United Sabah National Organisation). Razak replied feebly that UMNO had had nothing to do with that – it had been the wish of the Alliance leaders in Sabah. I said this was not so, because when I discussed the fragmentation with Stephens, he had been very unhappy about it.

It was a most uncomfortable two hours. Razak did not want to face the issues I raised and there was no meeting of minds. He left me with a clear impression that UMNO would not budge from its basic principle
of a Malay-based political system that would not tolerate encroachment by other races on its exclusive Malay domain. It was Singapore that had to adjust and accommodate itself to the communal structures that had existed in Malaya before merger, and these could not change. Razak was rigid on this, but we could not accept it. I still hoped that the Tunku might be strong enough to be different.

It was not to be. A year later, Razak gave a completely different account of what had taken place. In an article published in UMNO’s 20th anniversary souvenir, he wrote that just after the riots in July 1964, I had urged the Tunku and himself to take us into the Alliance government as the only way to ensure communal harmony, since it was the PAP that represented the Chinese of Malaysia. But they had rejected my request outright, whereupon we had started to attack UMNO and the Malays by coining the irresponsible slogan “Malaysian Malaysia” in order to win the support of the non-Malays, creating tension between the Malays and Chinese that could endanger the security of the country. Razak had forgotten that less than a year earlier, in July 1965, Senu and he had publicly claimed that the Alliance had conceived and formulated the concept of a Malaysian Malaysia. He added that once I saw the danger, I pretended to find ways of easing the situation in order to save Malaysia. That had led to the meeting between us on 29 June, six weeks before we left the Federation. Razak wrote:

“Strangely, at the meeting, Lee Kuan Yew had no intention to find a way out of the impasse, but strongly insisted that the Tunku and I should cast off the ‘extremists’ in the UMNO if the central government wanted his cooperation. … He mentioned the names of the so-called ‘extremists’ alleged to have been responsible for the tense atmosphere. I rejected his allegation about the ‘extremists’ and told him that UMNO was a disciplined party, and if he wanted to cooperate either with the Alliance or UMNO, he should have confidence in the Tunku, myself and others. I asked him for an
assurance that he and his friends would not make provocative remarks against the Malays or interfere with UMNO’s domestic affairs. Unfortunately, he declined to give the assurance.”

In response, I published extracts of the note I had made immediately after my meeting with him. I pointed out that I could not have suggested a coalition to the Tunku in July 1964 after the riots. The Tunku had come back to Kuala Lumpur from London only on 14 August, and told me the next day that the British prime minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, had advised him to form a national government to include the PAP. I added that it was not the desire of the Singapore government to revive old controversies, but inaccurate accounts of such top-level discussions made it impossible for Singapore ministers to remain silent.