A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (31 page)

I also remembered the Ghana mission vividly for another reason. At Winneba, we attended a ceremony where President Nkrumah was to unveil yet another monument to himself in the struggle for independence. Until the last moment, we were unsure if he would attend the ceremony. The Ghanaian chiefs, meanwhile, had all gathered at the foot of the monument, which took the form of a huge sword about 12 metres long, pointed tip down and embedded in a concrete base. Nkrumah arrived almost two hours late. The local chiefs gave speeches to praise and welcome him, and Nkrumah then made a long reply. When he was later overthrown all the monuments to him were pulled down and destroyed.

I realised then that people’s adulation of those who are in power is rarely sincere—or permanent. Losing your position means losing the praise once conferred upon you. Successors, even if they are of the same party, do not wish the people to remember their predecessors. Many try in different ways to obliterate memories of the recent past. This is easy if the predecessor is disgraced, yet even if the predecessor willingly surrenders power, a successor may be uncomfortable if he is remembered too kindly.

As an elected representative, I felt it was important to raise issues that affected the nation, even if I did so at a personal political cost. During the Budget Debate in 1968, for example, in my first encounter with financial matters, I raised the problem of the devaluation of the British pound. Malaysia was in the vaunted Sterling area and its currency, the ringgit, (then still referred to as the Malaysian dollar), was pegged at eight Malaysian dollars and thirty cents to the British pound, which in those days was a strong currency. The US dollar, which was valued at three Malaysian dollars, was not yet the major trading currency of the world. Most of Malaysia’s reserves were held in pounds, so when Britain decided in 1967 to suddenly devalue the pound in order to be competitive in the world market, we suffered losses. Prior to this, they had been under enormous financial pressure from the Swiss bankers. Despite this mounting pressure and our enquiries about the safety of our reserves placed with them, the British had explicitly denied any plans to devalue the pound. Too much the gentleman, then Finance Minister Tun Tan Siew Sin accepted their assurances, to our great cost. England was not known as “Perfidious Albion” for nothing, it would seem. Once the British succumbed to pressure and devalued the pound, the Malaysian dollar fell in value by 15 per cent and we lost a great deal of money.

Things were worse at the ground level, especially in the Malay rural areas. At that time the old Board of Currency Commissioners’ paper currency was being phased out and new notes, issued by our own Bank Negara,
[3]
 were being introduced to replace them. This process was quite advanced in the urban areas, but further afield, the old notes still predominated. Not trusting the banks, many village people had been holding their savings for years, mainly in the old Board of Currency Commissioners’ notes. A problem soon arose—tied to the pound, those old notes were automatically devalued by 15 per cent. The new Bank Negara notes were
pegged to the gold value of the US dollar and were therefore not devalued. The holders of the old notes, especially rural folk, lost heavily while others more exposed to the circulation of the new notes suffered fewer losses. Problems of trading simultaneously in both old and new money also brought many rural markets and businesses to a halt. Again the rural folk suffered badly, although there were also rumbles of discontent and demonstrations in some urban areas, especially Penang.
 

It was grossly unfair of the British not to inform us beforehand of their decision to devalue the pound. In the debate on 26 January 1968, I expressed my disagreement that devaluation would improve the economy of Great Britain. Tun Tan was also unhappy and mentioned it in a speech. In the Tunku’s time Malaysia was still very pro-British so the incident did not affect bilateral relations. Yet, although the devaluation was conducted twice, Britain’s economy did not improve. I learnt much from this episode and the memory of it helped me in the late 1990s, when international currency traders attacked the ringgit. Again, experience would prove a great teacher. But the fees one must pay may be quite exorbitant and getting good value from the lessons may take much patience.

The real cause of the British economy’s bad performance, as I pointed out to the Government, was the British workers, who did not seem to be as industrious as other Europeans. They went on strike very often, worked to rule and always demanded pay hikes without increases in productivity. They even demanded to be paid for merely watching machines doing their work for them. Even when the British economy suffered, the workers continued to go on strike. Pay increases were fine when British products were protected through the Imperial Preference system, as that assured them captive markets and sales. But once they had to compete in the open market with the Japanese, their industries soon imploded. They simply could not survive. Here too there was a lesson that Malaysia would have to learn.

Meanwhile, Dr Tan accused the Government of discriminating against non-Malays in appointments to senior government posts. Having done my homework, I knew that although Malays made up the majority of the Civil Service, the professional posts were largely filled by non-Malays. Of the 3,638 Divisions I and II posts that existed in 1965, the Malays held only 1,156. The per annum salary bill for Divisions I and II was RM34 million, of which Malays earned only RM11 million. Simple arithmetic showed that RM23 million was earned by non-Malays. In order to earn this amount, they would have had to dominate senior government posts. Dr Tan tried to say that racial origin did not matter as long as the candidates were Malaysians. To this I replied that if truly it did not matter, then why was he pointing out that in the Civil Service there were few Chinese and Indians? I went on to accuse the Labour Party of trying to deny the Malays, who made up more than half the population, even one-third of the senior posts in government. The fairness of this argument made an impression on a few non-Malay members of the Opposition and even some members of the non-Malay public. PAS, despite its usually moralistic manner, made no comment, and once again I was left to expose this truth alone. It made me unpopular with the Chinese and did not win me any more support from the Opposition Malays, which was to haunt me in the 1969 General Election.

My main concern, which was included in my parliamentary interventions, was the welfare of the Malays and their share of the country’s wealth. By accepting the principle of 
jus soli
 as the basis of Malaysian citizenship, the political parties had essentially struck a social contract assuring the Malays a bigger share of the country’s economic wealth. More than a million Chinese had been able to gain Malaysian citizenship but little Malay economic advancement had been registered. By the late 1960s the Chinese began to demand that this inter-communal social contract be ignored. As a Member of Parliament, I spoke at length and frequently on this issue, both in the chamber of Parliament and outside. Since the Malay Press gave me extensive publicity, I became regarded as something of a champion of the Malay cause. Although I made a point of distinguishing the MCA Chinese from the DAP Chinese, whom I condemned for being anti-Malay, the Chinese community as a whole regarded me as an unfriendly figure.

Their dislike was made worse by the PAP of Singapore. After my many clashes with the Honourable Lee Kuan Yew in Parliament, he retaliated by labelling me, together with Tan Sri Syed Jaafar Hassan Albar, as Malay “ultras”, the intransigent Malay extremists. The label stuck. After that, anything I said, no matter how mild or reasonable, was regarded as extreme by the Chinese community. The labelling was a political ploy. It was intended to suggest that my views were extreme and therefore need not be considered on their merits, and that I would promote extreme views at any cost and in the face of all other evidence. Yet nothing that I said or did was extreme. All I did was to refute allegations that we Malays were taking things for ourselves, seizing what did not belong to us. Lee did not see himself as an extremist, or some sort of “non-Malay ultra”, when, in commenting upon Malay poverty and its causes, he remarked that “it is not the Malays themselves who are backward, just their culture”. I did not mind the Chinese attitude as long as I retained and gained the support of the Malays. After all, I thought, they were my real constituents, even if promoting their interests hurt my Chinese supporters a little. By my fourth year as a Member of Parliament, my popularity among the Malays saw me elected to the UMNO Supreme Council with the highest number of votes.

There was no money politics in those days. The Malays were much too poor to indulge in it. Besides, UMNO members were still fired by nationalist sentiments, so campaigning for positions within the party was not necessary. I myself did not campaign for the UMNO Supreme Council seat and I believe I received those votes because of my performance in Parliament and my obvious Malay nationalist credentials. In those days, election to the Supreme Council was held yearly. There was no factionalism, no rival camps, and UMNO members remained solid and united after elections. I had thought that as a member of the Council, I would be able to push through some of my ideas for improving the lot of the Malays. But to my great disappointment, the meetings of the Supreme Council under the chairmanship of the Tunku were a charade.

The Council did not meet regularly, for one thing, and when the Tunku did decide to hold a meeting, it rarely lasted more than half an hour. No serious matters were discussed. Held in the Tunku’s residence at Bukit Tunku, their most important feature seemed to be the dinner that followed. Even at dinner nothing of import was discussed. Many Council members were adept at telling jokes and funny stories and there was always a great deal of laughter. Other Council members did not mind the meetings being conducted in this way, while those outside the Council were not aware of what went on at the residence and of the fundamental lack of political seriousness in the way UMNO addressed the challenges facing it and its supporters. Bonhomie and jokes were fine with me, but I would have been more comfortable had at least a few basic issues been highlighted and discussed.

My elevation to membership of the Supreme Council did gain me a place on the most important committee of the party, the political committee chaired by the deputy head of UMNO, Tun Razak. This committee worked on the problems of the Malays, whose disadvantaged social and economic position Tun Razak sincerely wanted to correct. Through this committee, I was able to contribute a few ideas. I believe Tun Razak took me seriously and tried to make use of my suggestions on education and Malay participation in business. My membership in the prestigious political committee further enhanced my status in the party—but not in the eyes of the Tunku.

In retrospect, I realise that my relationship with the Tunku had never been good. When I was still a student and active in the Kedah Malay Youth Association and the Kedah Malay Association, I had corrected the Association’s draft of a memorandum against the Malayan Union, which had already been vetted and approved by the Tunku. I was given to understand that he was not too pleased. Then, when the Tunku decided to adopt the Perak State anthem, which was also a popular song called 
“
Terang Bulan
” (
“
Bright Moon”), as the national anthem, I joined a group from Kedah which went to see him to protest against this choice. The Tunku, who was resting in Port Dickson, refused to see us. Instead, we met with his close colleagues, Tan Sri Mohd Khir Johari
[4]
 and Tan Sri Senu Abdul Rahman. They told us that the Tunku had made up his mind and there was no way we could change it.
 

There were other incidents which did not endear me to the Tunku, but I was not discouraged. Since my popularity was increasing, I thought that I would be considered at least for the position of Assistant Minister
[5]
 when Tun Dr Ismail, then the Minister of Home Affairs, decided to leave the Government in 1967 due to health reasons. When an Assistant Minister was promoted to full Minister, a vacancy would fall open in the reshuffle. But mine was a hopeless dream. My name was never even mentioned in the speculation before the new line-up was announced. Had someone told me then that I would one day lead the country, I would have thought him quite mad.
 

Around this time, I sensed a change in the atmosphere. The Chinese were not as friendly to the Alliance as they used to be. They were demanding compensation for the atrocities committed by the Japanese during the war. Since the Chinese claimed that they had suffered the most, they believed they were entitled to “blood money” which should then be used to set up a Chinese university in Malaysia. This ran completely against the grain of the National Education Policy, where Malay was to be the sole medium of instruction at all levels. The idea of a Chinese university was anathema then to the Malays. Malay had been recognised as the national language

and a medium of school instruction ever since Independence. As 1967 approached, the question of the status of the Malay language became a matter of intense concern to most Malays. Driven by people such as Tan Sri Syed Nasir Ismail of the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka,
[6]
 pressure was mounting to extend the 10-year “promotional period” for improving the use of Malay for another 10 years, or perhaps indefinitely. In that context, a proposal to create a separate stream for Chinese education to the tertiary level without requiring them to learn and use Malay simply ran counter to the political and cultural currents of the country. The relationship between the Malays and the Chinese, within the Alliance and outside, deteriorated further.
 

I became ever more convinced that the Chinese would not vote for the Alliance in the 1969 General Election. But I could not convey my concern to the Tunku, who was still calling himself the happiest Prime Minister in the world. He appeared to be quite unaware that Chinese sentiments had changed and that they had become disaffected. His Chinese friends probably assured him that all was well, when in fact it was not. Unconcerned, the Tunku stayed the course and called for elections only at the end of the parliamentary term. There was therefore no element of surprise in the timing of the elections, no wrong-footing of the Opposition, no forcing them to engage in battle on terms imposed by the Alliance. Then the Tunku made another mistake—he did not object when the Election Commission decided to allow the campaigning to go on for the maximum period of six weeks. Had he insisted on a shorter time perhaps things would have been different, if not in the results themselves then at least in the reaction to them. Instead, what took place was an eruption of pent-up feelings—of rage in some and jubilation in others—which might otherwise have been more constrained, less violent and destructive.