A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (34 page)

At 4.05pm the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Tan Sri Hamzah Abu Samah, issued a 17-line statement by the UMNO Secretary-General declaring that “the Council considered the action of Dr Mahathir in distributing copies of the correspondence between him and Tunku Abdul Rahman, President of UMNO, which contained vitally important party matters and details which in view of the situation in the country should have been first discussed by the Council of UMNO” as a breach of party discipline and regulations. Accordingly, “the Council decided that Dr Mahathir has ceased to be a member of the Council as from that day”. It added that the Tunku was not present at the meeting.

I did not protest or try to make a case for myself and simply went back to Kedah, relieved that I had been expelled from the Council, and not the party. In a telephone interview I said I would remain an UMNO member as I still believed in its struggle. Two days later action was taken to ban my letter along with five other documents which were being circulated. One was allegedly by a university lecturer entitled, “The Struggle of the Non-Malays”, which was purported to have urged the Chinese to deprive the Malays of their rights and seize power in Malaysia.

Any person who was found publishing, printing, selling or distributing any of the six documents would be sentenced to a maximum of three years jail or a fine of $2,000, or both. Possession of these documents without legal grounds would attract a sentence of one year in jail or a fine of $1,000, or both. No reference was made to my obvious possession of copies of these letters.

Surprisingly PAS, which at that time had not yet joined the coalition, came out strongly in support of the Government. Hassan Adli, who later became a Minister in Tun Razak’s and Tun Hussein’s Cabinets, urged PAS members not to get involved in this “personal crisis”. Gerakan, then an Opposition party, also supported the Government. This was less surprising as the letters could have been construed as stirring up the Malays against the Chinese. The statement was issued by Professor Datuk Dr Syed Hussein Alatas, the President of Gerakan, but the party itself was largely Chinese.

In an extensive interview in 
Utusan Zaman,
 a Malay paper, the Tunku alleged that there were groups stirring up hatred against him among university students. He regretted that his 17 years of good work had been shattered. He denied reports in the foreign Press that Tun Razak had taken over power from him, explaining that he was not well and could not shoulder all the responsibilities of running the country. Remarkably, he blamed the 13 May riots on the distribution of my letter (even though it was written after the incident).

While travelling to the states to meet the State Operation Councils, the Tunku talked of taking legal action against me to clear his name before he retired. The newspaper reported a power struggle within UMNO between the “ultras”, meaning me and my supporters, and the leadership at that time.

This same allegation was also made by the Tunku in his book 
May 13: Before and After
. I was singled out as the author of a plan that others executed. He bitterly condemned the tone of my letter and its distribution and reiterated his strong belief in the MCA and MIC as partners in the Alliance. Even if there were only three MCA members, he said, he would still work with them. They would always be partners, whether they were big or small.

He accused the “ultras” of wanting the Malays and only the Malays to govern the country and immediately dismissed this as an unrealistic idea, since there were only slightly fewer non-Malays than Malays in the country.

On 27 September, after I had steadfastly refused to withdraw the letters, Tun Razak announced that, at a meeting of the UMNO Supreme Council chaired by him, it was decided that “Dr Mahathir is no longer a member of UMNO”. Asked by the Press if I was expelled from the party, Tun Razak repeated, “All I can say is that he is no longer a member of the party”.

So, I was finally expelled, just as the Tunku had threatened. The Opposition, especially the DAP, was overjoyed. Many Alliance politicians were disturbed and worried about possible consequences. Most Malays were angry but I think the Chinese felt I deserved what I got. Questioned repeatedly by the Press, I made it clear that I had no intention of joining any other political party. I also said that I would not appeal against the decision.

I had expected to be expelled all along so I did not feel any great loss at first. But I soon realised that I was now without a platform to influence events, especially the national agenda for advancing the Malay community. Now I would never be an UMNO leader, and, should elections be held again, I would not be nominated by the party or enjoy its support. I had become a nonentity, a person of no consequence. Finally, the truth sank in.

ENDNOTES

[
1
] The founding President of Gerakan, Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu went on to serve as Penang’s Chief Minister for 21 years.
 

[
2
] This group included Professor Datuk Dr Syed Hussein Alatas, also a founding member of Gerakan, and author of the book 
The Myth of the Lazy Native
. The book deconstructed conceptions of the indigenous people of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines as lazy and unproductive.
 

[
3
] In most Southeast Asian countries, the law requires all citizens, primarily the Chinese minority, to adopt indigenous names. There is no such regulation in Malaysia.
 

I was made persona non grata twice in my political career, the first time in 1969 and the second in 2003 when I stepped down as Prime Minister. But the harder of the two was my expulsion from UMNO. After five years as a Member of Parliament from 1964 to 1969, I had grown used to having frequent visitors to my house. But the constant stream of UMNO members and people from my constituency of Kota Star Selatan ceased abruptly after I was expelled from the party.

Still, I was not completely ignored and I received a number of invitations to give talks. The youth branches of the party’s local divisions invited me to speak, not about recent events, but about politics in general and my views about the Malays, their predicament and how it might be remedied. It was a strange period, a kind of political pause or moratorium. The Tunku may not have liked people inviting me to speak but he did not penalise anyone for doing so. During the period of National Operations Council rule, ordinary politics and elections had been frozen so, for a while, the threat or fear of not being made a candidate just wasn’t there. People in those days were not dependent, as so many are now, on government contracts that can be revoked. And the Tunku, I must say, rarely sought to punish those who were not on his side.

There were some brave souls, not UMNO members, just people genuinely concerned about the Malay 
rakyat,
 who came to see me. For example, there was Fatimah Hamid Tuah, a student activist who was well-known for publicising the cause of her father Hamid Tuah and his followers who were being displaced from their land at Teluk Gong in Selangor. She arranged for a number of students to visit me to hear my views on politics, particularly the plight of the country’s Malays and the failure of national politics to address their needs.

No one else was championing the cause of the Malays then. Among the younger group in UMNO, there were some who shared my basic concern over the fate of the Malays but they were generally not as outspoken as I was. People such as Tun Musa, Abdullah Ahmad and Sulaiman Alias largely agreed with me, but they were reluctant to say so aloud. Mostly, it was ordinary Malays and students from the University of Science
[1]
 in Penang who came to speak to me and to pray, asking Allah to protect me and give me guidance. But, with one or two exceptions, no UMNO members came to my new house in Titi Gajah in Kedah to discuss politics.
 

Needless to say I was disappointed, especially with my UMNO colleagues who had shared my views of the Tunku. It was painful to learn that I had so many fair-weather friends. Being deprived of our lively political debates also depressed me and only heightened my loneliness. Only later did I realise that this was my first taste of how easily you are abandoned when you are no longer “kosher”. It did not hit me immediately then, but I recognised the return of this same feeling when I ceased to be Prime Minister. Colleagues started avoiding me and were clearly unwilling to discuss current politics with me. That, I suppose, is how the game works. It has a basic rule: never risk incurring the possible displeasure of those who can exercise power over you. I am largely reconciled to this behaviour, to this unappealing aspect of human nature, yet among the sea of people who no longer wish to know you, there are always those who remember and genuinely value friendship. They make everything—all the sacrifices—worthwhile.

Most of the people in my new neighbourhood of Titi Gajah were PAS supporters and one of them was a minor leader in the party. His son was unemployed and from time to time I used to help him out with a little money. The father would come to the house and we would argue about politics, but no matter what I said his faith in PAS never wavered. Yet, unmoveable though he was, our debates filled a void I felt very keenly.

When I was the Member of Parliament for Kota Star Selatan I befriended a rural leader who helped me get to know the villagers better. Manaf Abdullah or Pak Su Manaf (Elder Uncle Manaf) was a natural 
kampung
 leader who was very knowledgeable about the ways of the 
kampung
 people. His advice was invaluable to me as I had been born and bred in the town. We became good friends and when one of the State Assemblymen in my constituency died, I recommended him as a candidate in the 1969 General Election. He won, but when I later asked him to speak critically of the Kedah government within the State Council over some basic issues such as the failure of Government policy towards the Malays, he refused. He was too frightened. For me, it is important—even necessary—to stick your neck out if you believe in something, but I realise that very few people behave in this way. They much prefer to play it safe.

I was so upset with Pak Su that I cut him off after that. Looking back now, it is clear that I had expected far too much. He was a new representative of the people and it had been very unfair of me to ask him to challenge his superiors head on. It would certainly have blighted his future. How could I have expected it of him when even long-serving Ministers generally do not risk their political lives for a cause?

There was usually a car parked outside our home and I suspected it was the Special Branch, sent to keep a watchful eye on me. I knew I ran the risk of being detained under the ISA. The Tunku had often said to UMNO circles and outside the party that communists were influencing the Malay ultras. In those days the communist bogey was often used when the Government wanted to stifle the Opposition. Every day I expected to hear that knock on the door at 5am, with Special Branch officers waiting on the other side. I think they know you are at your weakest during those early hours. But it never happened.

About two months after my expulsion I decided to visit Kuala Lumpur and contacted my good friend Tunku Abdullah Tuanku Abdul Rahman, the Member of Parliament for Rawang. I usually stayed with him during my visits to the city. I yearned to see friends and political sympathisers from the group of young people with whom I used to associate. Tunku Abdullah told me that the situation in Kuala Lumpur was not very good. Tension was still high and houses were still being burnt. He warned me that I might be arrested if I came, but I decided to go anyhow and see what happened. Having the threat of arrest hanging over my head was simply too unsettling. I did not want to worry Hasmah so I did not tell her about these rumours.

The police knew of my intentions, as did a lot of people, and most of them were sure I would be arrested upon my arrival at the Kuala Lumpur railway station. Tunku Abdullah was at the station waiting for me that morning. None of my other friends were aware of my visit so they were not with him, but Tunku Abdullah was not alone. When I got off the train I spotted the first Malay Chief of the Armed Forces, Tunku Osman Jewa, who was the nephew of the Tunku, on the platform. I also saw a number of policemen. The sight of them made me a little nervous and I fully expected them to approach me. But they did not, so I got off the train and followed Tunku Abdullah home.

Later, after I had been re-admitted into UMNO, I was told that the Tunku had indeed wanted to have me arrested and detained. I found this out from the police themselves, as many of the most senior officers in those days were from Kedah. It was they who stopped him. I was relieved there were some in the police who seemed to be sympathetic. They advised the Tunku that arrest would only make me more popular and he would be more reviled by the Malays.

After that I visited Kuala Lumpur fairly frequently and always stayed at Tunku Abdullah’s house. As far as I know, he never suffered any dire consequences for openly remaining my friend after my expulsion. He also remained close to the Tunku and to Tun Razak. He was one of the few who did not feel that he would fall out of favour because of his association with me.

But the Sword of Damocles still hung over me. An American visiting professor at the University of Malaya, Karl von Vorys,
[2]
 a political scientist from Philadelphia, came to see me in Titi Gajah. He reminded me that detention, should it happen, might not be for just two years, which I had been prepared to face. It could be for a very long time, as the two-year detention order could be renewed repeatedly. It was then that the chill of fear set in. If I was detained indefinitely, I would lose all opportunity to influence the course of events. It would mean not being heard at all. It would literally mean being locked away and forgotten. The physical discomfort mattered little to me—that I thought I could endure. But knowing that people would no longer care about you because you have been obliterated from their memory, was truly frightening.