The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (64 page)

But in the 1960s, the Tunku would often look around at the officials and ministers in his drawing room before or after dinner and say, “These fellows can’t do business. They have no idea how to make money. The Chinese will do the business. They know how to make money, and from their taxes, we will pay for the government. But because they, the Malays, are not very clever and not good at business, they must be in charge of the government departments, the police and the army.” He had a simple philosophy: the role of the Malays was to control the machinery of the state, to give out the licences and collect the revenue, and most important of all, to ensure that they were not displaced. Unlike the Chinese and Indians who had China and India to return to, they had nowhere else to go. In his soft-spoken, gracious way, he was absolutely open about his determination to maintain the ascendancy of the Malays and ensure that they and their sultans would remain the overlords of the country.

Razak would giggle uneasily whenever the Tunku trotted out his oft-repeated and candid views of his Malays. It made Razak uncomfortable. He thought these views underrated their ability and would not be acceptable to the younger generation – after all, he himself had finished his Bar exams in half the time many Chinese students took to do so. The Tunku might have taken umpteen years to complete his finals, but that was because – as he himself so often said – he had spent much of his time in England on slow horses and fast women.

At 7 pm on 1 August, the Tunku and Macmillan signed the agreement that would bring Malaysia into being, the ceremony having been delayed for one day so that it would fall in the “lucky” eighth month of the year for the Tunku. The governors of North Borneo and Sarawak signed on behalf of the Borneo territories. Singapore and Brunei were briefly referred to in a joint statement, although they had loomed large in the two weeks of discussions that preceded the ceremony. The Sultan of Brunei held out for better terms. So did we.

The Cobbold Commission’s report was released at the same time that the agreement was signed. It was well-written, presenting the case in the best possible light. The commission’s assessment of the wishes of the Borneo people was that one-third were strongly in favour of Malaysia’s early realisation, without concern about the terms and conditions. Another third favoured Malaysia but wanted safeguards. The remaining third were divided between those who preferred to see British rule continue for some years and “a hard core, vocal and politically active, which will oppose Malaysia on any terms unless it is preceded by independence and self-government”. In other words, never. On his part, Cobbold rejected a plea from the Borneo territories for the right to secede during a trial period. This was final.

Keng Swee decided to return to Singapore before me, and arrived on 3 August. The press reported him as being in a jubilant mood at the airport. Drinking a toast to Malaysia in champagne, he told journalists that the government had a trump card it would play at the right time.

Although my work was done, I stayed on in London to be with the Tunku, who was a great believer in not being rushed through life. Even during the discussions, he liked to spend time strolling through the Burlington Arcade near the Ritz to buy fancy waistcoats or handkerchiefs as he had done in his misspent youth in England. I tagged along to keep him company and, on one occasion, I joined him in buying a natty grey linen waistcoat I did not need. At a lunch given by Macmillan and attended by Sandys, we were photographed with them outside Admiralty House sporting our new waistcoats. When we were out of the Tunku’s hearing, I explained to Macmillan my difficulties in dealing with him, and Macmillan commented, “The Tunku is like a Spanish grandee. That’s his world.” I could only agree. Macmillan himself acted as a grandee but with a modern mind, calculating the odds at every move behind an urbane demeanour. The Tunku was a grandee who expected the world to fit into his pattern of thought.

On 8 August – a doubly auspicious date for the Tunku – we flew back to Singapore by Qantas, arriving on the ninth. The next day, I accompanied him on a special Malayan Airways flight to Kuala Lumpur, where he received a huge and enthusiastic welcome at the airport. He generously shared his garlands with me, and gave me the opportunity to address my first Malayan crowd. And when he then rode triumphantly to the Residency in an open car with thousands lining the route, he again shared his glory with me by having me stand beside him in the car. I was in his good books.

The following day, I returned to Singapore to make sure of the final preparations for the referendum, including the release of my exchange of letters with the Tunku. When we met the press together, we had made no reference to the agreement we had reached on Malaysian citizenship. I wanted to reserve that for later.

But the Barisan already knew something was afoot. When the agreement was signed in London, Marshall had heard at the United Nations in New York that under British and Australian pressure, the Tunku had agreed to a common Malaysian citizenship. I did not know who had told him, but he could not contain himself. He at once gave the information to the news agencies, and it had reached Singapore. This robbed me of the element of surprise, but as nobody in authority had confirmed it, the suspense remained. Whoever told Marshall in New York might have done so in order to soften his stand against Malaysia. Whatever the motive, the effect on him was profound. He realised that now he was taking on the British, the Australian, and the Malayan governments, and he feared that if he stuck to the anti-Malaysia line of the Barisan, he might receive the same treatment that the Tunku was reserving for them. He was soon to hedge his bets.

He was not alone in this. Lim Chin Siong was in trouble, for all around him his supporters were having second thoughts. On 3 August, a committee member of the Nanyang University Guild of Graduates warned him that many people did not agree with the casting of blank votes. According to Special Branch, Lim replied that there was no alternative. Five days later, the editor of the Singapore Socialist Club’s journal also told him he could not openly call for blank votes because the club was supposed to be impartial. To do so would antagonise the English-speaking students. He had only been able to insert an appeal for them in the form of a letter from a reader.

With Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Secretary of State Duncan Sandys outside Admiralty House, July 1962, after a lunch for the Tunku and myself, both wearing new-bought grey waistcoats.

The Tunku generously sharing his garland with me on our arrival at Kuala Lumpur airport after the London talks, August 1962.

On 14 August, I announced two weeks of active campaigning for the referendum on Saturday, 1 September. I assured all Singapore citizens that they would automatically become Malaysian citizens. I read out excerpts of my letter of 30 July to the Tunku and his reply of 31 July confirming it. It was a devastating demolition of the opposition’s objections to merger.

Lim’s left-wing trade unions and cultural associations ceased all other activities in order to mobilise their members for their campaign for blank votes. Posters, symbols, flags, banners and placards spread across the city on lamp-posts and walls like a pox, and public rallies were held every night, the largest organised by the Barisan. But within 24 hours of my announcement, Ko Teck Kin, as president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, pledged support for alternative “A” – the government’s formula for merger. He was determined that Singapore Chinese should not lose their citizenship as a result of the political manoeuvring of the Barisan. This was a turning point; the mass of Chinese-speaking people, uncommitted to the communist left and faced with an important decision affecting their personal status and their citizenship, opted to listen to their traditional leaders.

On 14 August, Lim asked one of his cadres, a pro-communist reporter on the
Nanyang Siang Pau
, why his statement on merger had not been published in it. It appeared that the management of the newspaper was now more afraid of the government than of any retribution the
communists might mete out to them if we lost the referendum. Lim was getting more desperate by the day, the Barisan even resorting to accusing me of attempting a
fait accompli
in defiance of the United Nations Decolonisation Committee, which, they claimed, would meet in September to consider their appeal against the dishonest referendum. This was nonsense; the committee had already decided to take no action on it.

Meantime, the opposition had suffered another setback. We strengthened our position in the Assembly when S.V. Lingam broke with Ong Eng Guan on 17 August and the UPP and asked to rejoin the PAP. His return restored to the government its absolute majority of 26 to 25. (Lingam’s vacillating behaviour was strange. The mystery was cleared up only after we joined Malaysia, when Keng Swee learnt that he had been a paid agent of the Malayan Special Branch. They wanted to know what Ong was up to, but had directed Lingam to return to the PAP when it looked as if the Singapore government was in danger of being overturned. We fielded Lingam as a candidate in the 1963 general election, but when we discovered this, we dropped him.)

Our advantage was short-lived. Ahmad Ibrahim’s health had been steadily deteriorating. He had cirrhosis of the liver because of a hepatitis infection years earlier. We had sent him to England for an operation, but the disease had progressed relentlessly, and on 21 August, he died – I was at his deathbed with his wife. Ahmad had great spirit. He had qualities of leadership, which he had displayed to good effect in the Naval Base Labour Union. More important still, he had had the courage to take over the ministry of labour from Kenny to face down the communists. His death was a severe loss, and it left us with 25 votes to 25 in the Assembly once more.

However, the position was far from hopeless. Marshall was wavering and wanted to move away from the communists in order to restore his position with the Tunku. I invited him to take part in a one-on-one radio forum with me. He accepted, and during the question-and-answer session
that followed the opening discussion, he conceded that there was no difference between Singapore citizens and the other citizens of Malaysia now that we, too, had got Malaysian citizenship. To keep up the appearance of being reluctant and dubious, he asked for assurances, which I readily gave, that Singapore citizens would have the right to work and own property throughout the Federation, that they would be entitled to jobs in the Malaysian Civil Service, and that the Singapore state constitution would be worded in exactly the same way as those of the other states.

That same day, he met the Workers’ Party leadership and got them to welcome the change in citizenship conditions unanimously. Nevertheless, they remained opposed to the referendum provisions, which they considered “so immoral that no honest person whatever his views should participate in it except compelled by law”. Marshall knew voting was compulsory, of course, and so advised people to throw in blank votes in protest, since they could not abstain. Once again, this was a typical lawyer’s manoeuvre. He was not prepared to oppose and anger the Tunku, but at the same time, he tried to make it appear that he had not broken ranks with Lim Chin Siong.