Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas

by Han Fook Kwang

  But is that really the cause? Is it really true that we are that shortsighted, unable to see what is in our own long-term interests? But it does give us a lot of anxiety to see men who are faced with enormous problems – which can only be met by forward planning, economic programmes, to meet these problems of imbalances, and education, to try and close the gap – explaining away all these failures on the basis of race, special rights, national language.

  It is not the PAP or my ambition to capture power that is causing them concern. I may not be alive in 20 years’ time. Or, if I am alive, I may no longer be interested in politics. Or, if I were interested in politics, more active, more competent, more able leaders may have emerged. But the ideas that we represent, the thesis that we propound that this is a Malaysian nation or it will break, that thesis is unanswerable. This is the problem which we want them to face now, and not to hide behind all this xenophobic talk of race, language, religion.

  We are prepared to accept Malay as the national language. We do not quarrel with Malay rights in the constitution. But we go further, and say that they will be unable to solve the imbalance in economic and social development, even with all these safeguards, unless they begin forward planning.

  I’ll give you instances of things they could do which they are not doing and which we are going to bring into the forefront in the next few years to their great discomfort.

  You’ve got agriculture as the basis of Malay livelihood – padi, rubber, fishing. The last budget, 1964 for 1965, had $16,000,000 set aside for the Ministry of Agriculture, half of it for payment of staff in the Ministry. So you had $8,000,000 for expenditure. You know, in Australia and New Zealand the farmers are the best, the most well-off section of the community. They are in the higher income brackets. And in America, even more so. Why are they not in Malaysia?

  Ali gets the licence, Baba runs the company. So, you know, people get very cynical in Malaysia. They call these Ali Baba.

  Many reasons. All right. All the past historic reasons why in fact agriculture was backward. But must it always remain like that? Can you not have crop-seed selection, research into what are quick cash crops, fertilisation, marketing boards to cut off the profits of the middlemen? So many other things could be done. And most important of all, education. If the man is not educated he is unlikely to be able to adopt the scientific techniques which alone can ensure him a better life. In other words, we propound the thesis that you must increase that man’s capacity to earn, not slip him a gold coin. Slipping him a licence, or giving him a gold coin, will not solve his problem. He gets a licence to run a bus company. He does not know how to run a bus company. He then gets a Chinese or an Indian to run it for him, and he gets a percentage cut. How many bus licences can you give? One hundred bus companies running around in Malaysia, or make it 200; 200 families who have benefited from it have resolved Malay poverty? I don’t think so. Ali gets the licence, Baba runs the company. So, you know, people get very cynical in Malaysia. They call these Ali Baba. And this will never resolve this imbalance.

  They attack our policies. Why? The Singapore government came under systematic attack for having persecuted Malays, driven them out of the cities as we redeveloped the city, oppressed them. Really, was that true? In September 1963 for the first time, three Malay constituencies voted for a non-Malay party, the PAP, and Malay communal parties, UMNO candidates, lost. Would they vote for us if we were oppressing them?

  But this is the core of the problem, isn’t it? Because if we can win over the Malays by intelligent economic and social programmes in Singapore, so we can in Malaya. And if we begin to do that, then the whole structure of the communal parties and the basis of power of the Alliance is shattered. That is why they mounted this campaign, not intended primarily for Singapore but for Malayan Malays who do not know Singapore, to tell them quite falsely that when Malays voted for a non-Malay party they became persecuted and dispossessed. So the lesson is, always vote for a Malay party, you see?

  Supposing you stood up, a Chinaman stood up in Kuala Lumpur, and said “Chinese Unite” and banged the gong. If you had not been appointed by the Malays to go and bang that gong, you would be in some very big trouble. They would say, “Ah, high treason!”

  Supposing you stood up, a Chinaman stood up in Kuala Lumpur and said “Chinese Unite” and banged the gong. If you had not been appointed by the Malays to go and bang that gong, you would be in some very big trouble.

  I’ll give you an instance where I think this is utter folly. I have met a number of Dayaks, very high government officials from one of the Borneo states. One was in the radio business, broadcasting. There was a conference, I think in Sydney, for Commonwealth broadcasting technicians, or whatever it was, and Sarawak was supposed to send one, he was supposed to send one. And you know, in Malaya they used to have the old practice that all the Malayan delegations that went overseas put on the songkok as a kind of uniform. I don’t think any harm is intended by this. But I am pointing out this example as a moral to what we should be on the lookout for, and how they are doing themselves, and doing Malaysia, and doing all of us enormous harm. The Dayak was told to put on this songkok. He was going to represent one of the Borneo states. And he said, “Look, the constitution of Malaysia says that Islam is not the religion of my state, and I refuse to put this on because I am a Christian and I refuse to be a Muslim.” And he did not go. And he is a very bitter man. His junior, who is a Chinese, decided, you know, it doesn’t matter. Just put on the songkok. So he came to Sydney for a fortnight. I hope he found Sydney much cooler than I’m finding it now.

  What is happening now is that the more you try and emphasise Malay-ism, even unconsciously, the more you are generating anxiety and insecurity in the non-Malays. So I tell you quite frankly – as a Malaysian, not as a Chinaman – never say “Chinese Unite”. It’s stupid. Sure to lose. You understand what I mean? Morally, it is wrong. But I go one step further. Practically, it is stupid politics.

  The problem that faces all of us is this. Do we make this nation work? Do we begin to integrate these communities? Racial integration in the sense of admixture, intermarriage, I think is unlikely to happen to any large degree for various reasons. One, the Malays are Muslims. They are non-pork-eating. The Chinese are non-Muslims, and they are pork-eating. Second, Muslims are required, when they marry, to have their spouse become a Muslim. Chinese are reluctant to be converted, even without any physical mutilation, just in order to be a spouse. These are problems and genuine problems. So it is likely that, racially, for a long while to come Malaysia will continue to have distinct racial groups.

  The Chinese in Malaya, feeling a bit irksome under all these restraints, after Malaysia they look at the Chinese in Singapore and the non-Malays, and they say, “Well, that’s what I like.”

  But what we can create is a socially and intellectually integrated community, feeling, thinking, reacting as Malaysians. And you do not get that by saying Malays Unite, Chinese Unite, Indians Unite. You begin to get that by telling them all that they share a common destiny, that if things go wrong everybody will suffer. If things go right, it is the job of the government to see that everybody benefits. On that basis, you build a nation. On that basis, you have an enduring foundation for what could be one of the most prosperous and satisfying communities in Southeast Asia.

  Malaysia is new, 18 months. But the problems are not new. The problems were always there. The biggest mistake was that of separating Singapore from Malaya in 1945. I think the British were shortsighted when they did that, believing that thereby they could always hold Singapore in perpetuity, an island without a hinterland, economically not viable, they could manipulate and hold as a base forever. It took us from 1945 to 1961, 1962, before they were convinced this was wrong, that in fact this was one political situation. But we lost 18 years. And in the 18 years, development took place in divergent directions in Malaya and in Singapore.

  If Malayans had learned to live with each other right from the very beginning
instead of this artificial political segregation, the situation would be less acute today. The immediate problem with Malaysia is this. The Chinese in Malaya, feeling a bit irksome under all these restraints, after Malaysia they look at the Chinese in Singapore and the non-Malays, and they say, “Well, that’s what I like.” You see? Not unnaturally, because there is free competition, the best man for the best job. No privileges, licences, tenders or any other perks – a highly competitive society. It was a free port, an open society, a competitive society, and it produced a great deal of talent and a great deal of drive, and a great deal of prosperity.

  On the other hand, the Malays in Singapore, looking at their counterparts in Malaya, seeing them getting these licences and these jobs, they said, “That’s what I want after Malaysia.” So probably you’ve got your Division Two Officer thinking he’s going to become a Permanent Secretary or Under-Secretary in a couple of months’ time. And then he discovered that this was not possible, that in fact this was not the case in the constitution and so on for Singapore. And there were, in any case, these problems.

  I do not say these problems were artificially created. There was a genuine problem of adjustment. When this problem was put into the pressure-cooker: one, by Confrontation – the Indonesians telling the Malays that they are being bled dry by the Chinese and the Indians and the British, that Tunku is a stooge, selling out to the Chinese Indians and the British; two, local extremists, our own Malay extremists, began to work feelings up that they were being persecuted. What do you expect would happen? And this did happen. And if it continues, the third, the fourth or the fifth one must end up in widespread disaster. You can never put Humpty-Dumpty together again. And the only salvation I see is that everybody now understands this.

  In the months leading to Singapore’s separation from Malaysia in August 1965, charges and counter-charges were made by both sides over who was responsible for the deteriorating relationship. Matters became so volatile, there was even talk of the Kuala Lumpur government detaining Lee. How true was this and how would Singapore react to it? Lee answered these questions in a press conference on May 22, 1965.

  What will all this bickering lead to?

  QUESTION: Mr Lee, it looks as though there is divergence of views between you and the central government about the concept of Malaysia. Quite recently, the Grand Alliance of the Opposition Parties was formed. Is there any likelihood of a delegation going to Tunku Abdul Rahman to restate your idea about your concept of a Malaysian Malaysia, or you are just satisfied with airing of views in the Parliament?

  LEE KUAN YEW: Well, first of all I want to put the record right. This is not a Grand Alliance of Opposition Parties. I read the manifesto issued by the convention. It’s a convention of non-communal parties who stand for a Malaysian Malaysia. Do not start using terms with which people for convenience label this group because then we are likely to mislead ourselves. This is not a grand opposition just to oppose the Tunku or the Alliance. We are not interested in opposing anybody. This is a rallying of all non-communal parties. In other words, put it in another way, all multiracial parties, parties that accept Malaysians without distinction of race. First condition, we do not classify people as Malays, Chinese, Indians and then those who are not Malays, Chinese or Indians, well, they are out. They have no party to join. So, some people feel sorry for them and they say “Right, we will form another one which all the smaller groups can join”; like the Singapore People’s Alliance changes its name to something or the other. That is fundamental number one.

  This is not a grand opposition just to oppose the Tunku or the Alliance. We are not interested in opposing anybody. This is a rallying of all non-communal parties.

  What are these non-communal groups coming together for? To establish not a new government, but to establish the acceptance of the fundamental concepts written into the constitution of Malaysia. This is not my interpretation. This is another error: to believe that this is the interpretation of the convention. Read the fundamental provisions of the constitution of Malaysia and the Malaysia Agreement. And what is the conclusion we must draw from it? That we are all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, creed, colour. There are some provisions: Article 159, for instance, which says Malays and indigenous people can have special provisions made by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong about jobs in the civil service and about the dispensation of licences and land in the states of Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak; not in the state of Singapore. But that is not a fundamental part of the constitution. Otherwise, it would apply to all of Malaysia, and it would be in the fundamental provisions. That is a provision in the constitution. But the fundamentals you will find spelt out in the first few clauses: right of all Malaysians to assemble, to freedom of speech, to liberty of person and so on; liberty of association. It does not say that one group is more Malaysian than another. We are all Malaysians or we are not. I think this is what we want to establish beyond any doubt. After that, we can decide whether such a Malaysian Malaysia is better as a socialist country, a democratic socialist country, or as a capitalist country, or as a half-capitalist, half-socialist country or whatever it may be. But first of all, let it be a Malaysian Malaysia; and let there be a democratic representative system so that the will of 11 million Malaysians in the wider Malaysia, … let them express themselves from time to time, and let their representatives decide the destiny of the country.

  Look, if people do not want a Malaysian Malaysia and they are prepared to use extra-constitutional methods to ensure that there is no Malaysian Malaysia, then I say, better let us know now …

  QUESTION: You are quoted last night as saying that if there is going to be trouble in Malaysia, let it be now. Could you expand on this?

  LEE: Yes. Reading the newspapers, particularly the two Malay-language newspapers or perhaps specifically, Utusan Melayu and Utusan Zaman; the Sunday edition of Utusan Melayu which has been called “Voice of the Malays” – mind you, this is not something we can take too lightly because when the prime minister of Malaysia, the Tunku, recently opened an extension to Utusan Melayu, he said this was the “Voice of the Malays”. So we have got to take it quite seriously because once it has been so described by no less a person than the prime minister, we have to take it seriously. And what it has been saying over the last one year gives room for considerable doubt as to whether they accept Malaysia as a Malaysian nation. Reading the daily outpouring of appeals on the basis of race, “bangsa” you know: … “Bangsa” in Malay does not mean the nation, the people. “Bangsa” means race, and the appeals are not made to the people of Malaysia, “Kebangsaan Malaysia”, but “Bangsa Melayu”, sometimes without even mentioning “Melayu”, just “Bangsa”. What does that mean? Where do the other Malaysians come from? Where do they belong if they are not included in these appeals, and these slogans are meant to rally – must be – one section?

  So, when I say “trouble” I mean, “Look, if people do not want a Malaysian Malaysia and they are prepared to use extra-constitutional methods to ensure that there is no Malaysian Malaysia, then I say, better let us know now because it is no use carrying on for five, ten years defending Malaysia … you know, meeting Confrontation, making sacrifices, vigilante corps, defence of our nation, defence of freedom and democracy; for whom? For Malaysia. Who is encompassed by the term “Malaysia”? Malaysians or just “Bangsa”?

  QUESTION: What action do you think you will take on this? Is there any possibility that Singapore could secede from the Federation?

  LEE: No, I don’t think we want to discuss the consequential effects of our conclusion that, in fact, people are prepared to use extra-constitutional methods in order to see that Malaysia is not a Malaysian Malaysia. But once we come to that conclusion, that it is hopeless, that in fact there are people in high positions in UMNO for instance, high office in the party, governing party, who insist that this is not a Malaysian Malaysia, well, I would say that it is better we resolve these things and make other arrangements now than later. Now we are less along the
road towards perdition than if we were to go on for five or more years.

  QUESTION: Mr Prime Minister, do you include under extra-constitutional methods, the possibility of your arrest?

  Mr Prime Minister, do you include under extra-constitutional methods, the possibility of your arrest?

  LEE: Well, amongst others. But I don’t think … you know, it is one of these things which catches the news headline but really, is that likely to resolve the problem? Will the arrest of PAP leaders prevent the struggle for a Malaysian Malaysia from going on? Or do you think it will make it more acute? You can’t stop at that, isn’t it? I have been reading the proceedings of the last UMNO conference. You get Singapore UMNO delegates saying, “Take over television and radio from the state government.” Why? Because we report faithfully what Utusan Melayu and Utusan Zaman say in Malaysian Mirror; you know, Mirror of Opinion, “What Others Say”. Well, you believe that you can just stop at taking radio and television, or you think it will lead eventually to a complete suspension of constitutional and democratic government?

  Do you believe that you can just arrest a few PAP leaders and then life in Singapore will go on with these leaders quietly stashed away, being fed, I hope, kindly and adequately, and all the other leaders will carry on and govern Singapore quietly and keep the workers happy, and factories will go up and all will be nice and happy? Or do you think, step after step, it goes on until finally, again you have no democratic or representative government and it is ruled by extra-constitutional methods? It must lead to that, isn’t it? And when it leads to that, I say, what is the way out? Can they sustain that kind of a Malaysia? Can Australia, New Zealand afford to be associated in defence of that sort of Malaysia? Can Britain? Has she got the capacity of the Americans in Vietnam to sustain that sort of Malaysia? Because that is required once you move into that situation. A thousand miles of frontier on the Borneo border, 600 to 700 miles from Singapore to Perlis, a guerilla civil war restarts, the British can support that? First of all, will they want to support it? Secondly, assuming that they have to because they are committed, have they got the capacity to do that for one, two, three, or ten years?