A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (13 page)

Kedah was then administered by what I believed to be a senior Japanese military officer, who went by the title of 
Cho Kang Kakka
. At the beginning of every month, the people of Alor Star had to gather on the Padang Court, the field in front of the old courthouse, so that the 
Cho Kang Kakka
 could harangue the crowd with a long speech in Japanese. Even when I could understand a little Japanese, I could not make out what he was saying except for his reference to 
Ei Bei Koku
, that is, America and Britain. I knew that the Japanese wanted us to hate the British and the Americans, but I don’t think they made any impression on the people.

Despite our earlier fears and the scarcity of food, life under the Japanese was not as tough for us as it was for some. It was mainly the feeling of being cut off from the rest of the world that depressed me. It was not that I was used to travelling widely—it was just that I could not get news about what was happening anywhere else, news that I used to read regularly in the local papers. And I really missed the magazines which I had so enjoyed reading in the school library.

I tried to follow the progress of the war through the English-language tabloid, the 
Syonan Shimbun
[11]
 published in Singapore. Initially, as the Japanese were advancing everywhere, there seemed to be no stopping them. They had already occupied Papua New Guinea and were apparently poised for the invasion of Australia. They moved through Burma and eventually reached Imphal, the capital of Manipur. The way had been cleared and India was now within reach. Many Indians in Malaya were excited at the possibility of fighting alongside the Japanese to liberate their homeland. Fearing disloyalty, the British did not attempt to recruit Indians into the anti-Japanese guerrilla force. Many Malayan Indians ended up joining the Indian National Army, set up by Subhas Chandra Bose
[12]
 and Ras Behari Bose
[13]
 to achieve Indian independence through force of arms in concert with the Japanese.
 

Most of the Pacific Islands were also already conquered by then. Siam had allowed the Japanese Army in after its government decided to throw in its lot with Japan. As a result, there was practically no war damage in Siam. Around this time Siam decided to rename itself Thailand, meaning Land of the Free. As a reward for their support, the Japanese decided to transfer to them the four northern Malay states—Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan and Terengganu. The Kedah Sultan, Tunku Badlishah, was not too unhappy about this. He had been educated in Bangkok as a ward of the Siamese King. When the transfer was effected, he rang up the Siamese Prime Minister. No one knows exactly what was said during this conversation but there was no open opposition against the Thais when they came to take over from the Japanese. The Malays still took it for granted that they would always live under foreign rule.

Soon I began seeing Thai military and civil service uniforms in Alor Star for the first time. They were made of silk as this was the only textile available during the war. The military wore green uniforms while the civil servants had black trousers and white tunics. Upon Independence, Tunku Abdul Rahman adopted the same uniform. The Ministers and Governors of Penang had an addition to their outfits—a cork hat with ostrich feathers similar to what the British Governors used to wear. It made them look so ridiculous that the headgear was soon discarded in favour of the 
songkok
.

I resented the way the Japanese had so cavalierly transferred control of Kedah to the Thais. It seemed to me that Kedah and the other northern states were just pieces of real estate which could be moved around like personal property. We Malays had no say over what happened to our own country. We did not count for anything at all. By this time I had become conscious of my identity as a Malay, and was also developing a distinct distaste for foreign rule. I wanted Malays to be respected.

During the Siamese occupation of Kedah, the Malays lived in fear of their girls being abducted by the Siamese soldiers. The Malays even now remain a very superstitious people. In olden days they really believed the Siamese possessed great magical powers and could supposedly make potent love potions that bewitched Malay girls to run to them. Stories were told of two or three Malay girls leaving their families and apparently converting to Buddhism. While nobody could confirm these tales, they created much anxiety and fear. But aside from this, Thai rule did not make much difference to our lives during the war. They actually allowed the Kedah State Council to be revived and to administer the state.

There was one incident, however, that angered me greatly. The Thais insisted that every evening, when their flag was lowered and their anthem was played, everyone had to stand still as a mark of respect to these symbols of the Thai nation. One evening while walking near the Alor Star police station, I heard the Thai anthem being played so I stood still where I was. There were several Thai soldiers on the street and they stood to attention, turning to watch the Thai flag being lowered slowly atop the police station. An old man on a bicycle appeared and pedalled past. He did not seem to hear the anthem or notice that everyone on the street was standing still, and he continued cycling past us slowly. As soon as the anthem came to an end, a Thai soldier ran after the old man and gave him a hard flying kick to the side of his head. He fell with his bicycle and lay quite still on the street.

I must admit that I was a coward. Like the others on the street, I just stood there, shocked by what had just happened and unable to move. The Thai soldier looked as if he was going to kick the man again, but instead he shouted something in Thai, turned, and stalked off. I cannot really remember what happened after that. Some people eventually went to help the old man up. I stood there, transfixed, all kinds of thoughts pounding in my brain. Strangely, I was not angry at the soldier. I just detested the fact that foreigners could kick our people and we could do nothing about it. We were a people with no rights, who could literally be kicked about. That incident remains etched indelibly in my mind and to this day, I cannot tell this story without feeling emotional. Yet I had not begun to think of Independence. It was too foreign, too strange an idea. I simply wanted the Japanese to lose and the Thais to get out of Kedah, or Saibury as they called it. I wanted the British to come back and resume protecting us. At that time I forgot that, far from protecting us, the British had in fact abandoned us.

After some time with nothing to do, I was persuaded to go to the Japanese school, the Nippon Gakko, when I was 17. The school was run by an old Japanese lady who was married to a European. Her husband had been interned and she had a pretty daughter named Nora with whom all the older boys fell in love. A senior student from the Ma’ahad Mahmood Religious School, Syed Abbas Al Habshee, was appointed 
kumicho
, or head prefect of my class, and I became the 
fukucho
, the number two. I tried to study Japanese but my heart was not in it. I believed that the British would eventually return and the Japanese language would then be of no use to me. How wrong I was. After the war, whenever I visited Japan, I always regretted not being able to speak the language. It would have been an asset, especially when I was in the Government and had to deal with Japanese businessmen and government officials.

What I liked about the Japanese school was Radio Taisho, or drills during which we all exercised to music and instructions from the radio. In class the teacher would also stop teaching at certain times for us to do breathing exercises, which helped to keep us awake and attentive. The drills also included running long distances in formation. You get less tired as many feet beat a rhythm on the ground. I would start bravely at the head of the group but usually I could not keep up. I have never been physically strong. I did not have, and have never had, the muscular physique I admired in other boys.

But I do have stamina. If you do something you really want to do, you will not tire. With the passing years, and especially after Independence and when I became a Minister, my belief in the positive contribution of discipline, initially taught by my father and enhanced by Japanese school training, strengthened. I believe anybody can do anything if he is disciplined in carrying out his work properly. Discipline means controlling or overcoming one’s base desires—like cheating, for example, or being lazy—so that the proper results or objectives may be achieved. Discipline has played a big role in my life, contributing to whatever successes I may have attained.

I left the Japanese school in order to earn a living by selling rice and curry with my friends at a canteen in the government office where the 
kempeitai
 had installed themselves. One day they ordered us to leave, tossing our tables and chairs into a nearby concrete drain before we even had time to move our things. We then set up a stall in Pekan Rabu, the weekly market in Alor Star, to sell ginger water and Malay cakes. Of my three partners then, one became an engineer and another became, for a time, the secretary of UMNO. The third one joined the government service in Kedah and now lives in retirement. We later sold off the stall and I started selling bananas and other fruits in Pekan Rabu. I also fried and sold banana fritters, as well as firewood, bamboo baskets and rattan products. I cycled to Gurun, about 33km south of the town, to buy the bamboo products from a Chinese man who made them himself. When my brother Mahadi got hold of some dried tamarind from Thailand, I helped sell it to an Indian Muslim provision shop. I think I did quite well in my little business. Certainly I was better off than my brothers, who kept trying to work with the Government.

I also struck up a friendship with a Northern Indian Muslim who sold cloth and precious stones, including loose diamonds. He had named a price for one of his diamonds and I took it to have a good look. I knew nothing about gems but I noticed that this particular stone was not reflecting light very well. I hazarded a guess and said there was something wrong with the diamond, and that’s when he sheepishly admitted that it did indeed have a flaw. I felt very proud, although I did not really see this flaw. He showed me more respect after that. He also taught me how to cheat a little when measuring cloth with the yard measuring stick. The trick was to slip the cloth between your fingers so that you began the measurement slightly after the starting point. But you had to do it very quickly. I also learnt how to use the Chinese weighing device, the 
kati
, and how to depress the marked horizontal bar with the little finger in order to increase the weight.

The businesses I was involved in may seem small and insignificant now but I learnt the essentials. Later, when I was writing 
The Malay Dilemma
 and 
Panduan Peniaga Kecil
 (
Guide to Petty Trading
), I suggested the use of better weighing machines with two trays to balance the goods against certified weights. You cannot cheat with this type of weighing device. The counterweights are marked and can be checked by weighing against each other. The Government Inspector of Weights cannot overlook any meddling with such weighing machines. There were lots of other things that I learnt from my foray into small business during the Japanese Occupation which stood me in good stead as I took on more and more responsibilities in life, including running the Government and its numerous companies.

During the Japanese Occupation there was no subsidy or support of any kind from the Government. If we did not work hard to earn a living we would literally starve. I worked very hard and so did my friends, and I made sure I owed nothing to anybody. I hated being in debt and still do. It gives me sleepless nights. By the time the war ended I had saved enough Japanese “banana currency” to surreptitiously buy Straits dollars.

By 1943, the war was clearly not going well for the Japanese. The momentum of their advance had slowed and finally stopped. They were stuck in Papua New Guinea, in the remote Pacific Islands, and in Burma, close to the Indian border. The Allied forces had begun to counterattack, but the fighting was terrible as the Japanese held their ground despite the heavy shelling and huge casualties. They appeared to be willing to die rather than retreat, so their positions could only be taken after their forces were almost totally annihilated. Luckily, Malaya was very far from the fighting fronts so it was relatively peaceful. I continued selling bananas in Pekan Rabu. But I noticed the soldiers who patronised our stalls were getting younger and younger, and they tended to behave more like playful teenagers than soldiers. They could not wait to eat the cheap 
pisang mas air
, the poor cousin to the good 
pisang mas
, or golden bananas. They ate the bananas there and then, finishing bunches in no time.

We followed the progress of the war through reports in the 
Syonan Shimbun
. Not surprisingly, the reports were biased in favour of the Japanese, but they could not hide the fact that they were not advancing any more. We also obtained news through some people listening to Allied broadcasts. It was dangerous but the listeners took the risk and spread whatever news they heard. We learnt about the retreat of the Germans from Russia and Eastern Europe. I managed to get a map of this part of the world from an old school atlas and I could follow the German retreat. I knew that the German-Italian Axis was breaking up and was going to lose. The Italians had lost in North Africa. Field Marshall Erwin Rommel and the German Afrika Korps, which took over from the Italians, could not withstand the Allied onslaught.

As the Allies advanced in the Pacific theatre, B-24 bombers flew over Alor Star and other parts of Malaya, dropping leaflets which carried news of the Japanese retreat and of the defeat of the Japanese navy in the Battle of Midway. Clearly, Japanese rule in Malaya was not going to last. I felt justified in not learning Japanese. Then, one day as I was bathing, my brother Mashahor ran home and shouted to me that a huge bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. He had heard the news from someone who kept an illegal radio. I had read about the atom bomb in various magazines and immediately concluded that this must have been the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, and later, Nagasaki.