The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (77 page)

From Addis Ababa we flew to Aden for a refuelling stop on our way to New Delhi. Aden was in the throes of a civil war, as the British prepared to withdraw. There was heavy security around the airport, with barbed wire and soldiers at strategic points, and talking to RAF officers in the hour we spent there, I could feel the sense of emergency.

In Delhi I was startled to see how much Nehru had aged since I first met him in April 1962. He looked weary and had trouble concentrating. The border war of December 1962 between Indian and Chinese forces across the Himalayas near Ladakh had been a disaster. It had destroyed all that he had hoped and worked for. He had introduced Zhou Enlai to the Afro-Asian leaders at Bandung in 1955 to herald a new age of Afro-Asian solidarity. His dream had turned to ashes. I felt for him. He had lost his vitality and his optimism. His ministers and officials received us
with warmth and hospitality and their missions in Africa had been helpful.

My next stop was Kuala Lumpur, not Singapore, for I had to report to the Tunku. He was pleased that I had countered Sukarno’s propaganda on the Afro-Asian front, and my press conference was covered on Kuala Lumpur television at great length. I said that the Indonesians had been at the diplomatic game for a long time and were many years ahead of us Malaysians. They had developed propaganda skills; they knew the sensitivities and susceptibilities of the African leaders to whom foreign bases were anathema. There was the problem of the international image of Sukarno who, judged by his rhetoric, seemed a fire-breathing anti-colonial revolutionary while the Tunku, by contrast, was the mild, moderate man of the West. The Indonesians had misrepresented his gentle manners as those of a British stooge.

In the euphoria of the moment, the Tunku forgave me for my insubordinate statements during the election, and suggested that I should go on to New York and Washington to convince the Americans as I had convinced the Africans. I could leave immediately after I had rested. The next day, 27 February, I flew into Singapore to the rousing welcome of thousands at the airport. James Wong, who had left for Sarawak after Dar-es-Salaam, described our mission as a tremendous success on his stopover in Singapore: “We have secured the understanding, sympathy and moral support of all the African heads of state and ministers whom we have met.” As I drove home with Choo and the three children in the car, the crowds waved to me along the route. It had been an exhausting trip, but an invaluable part of my political education. I had learnt at first hand about the Arabs and the Africans, and understood what obstacles the new African countries must overcome to educate their tribal peoples and develop their often one-commodity economies.

Throughout my 35-day tour of the 17 African capitals, I was helped by the professionalism of the British embassies. Their diplomats were
well-informed, well adapted to their host governments, prominent or unobtrusive as the situation required. At each stop, I was given a short brief of the situation in the country, thumbnail sketches of the ministers I was likely to meet, and a description of the power structure. The briefs were invariably good. The quality of British diplomats was high. Whether they brought Britain economic benefits was another matter.

One of my most memorable recollections was of Government House in Lusaka, where I stayed as the guest of the last British governor of Northern Rhodesia, Sir Evelyn Hone. It was well-furnished and well-maintained, but not luxurious. The toiletries, soap, towels, cutlery and china were similar to those I had found in British government houses in Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo. They were all part of one well-run system. I wondered what sort of life the governor would lead in Britain, once out of office and without a large retinue of uniformed servants. He carried out his duties as host with grace and style. From his drawing room window, I was delighted to see deer, antelope, red bucks, peacocks, cranes and other African animals and birds in the garden. Government House was like an English country mansion sited in the highlands of Africa, with as much of old England as possible brought in to relieve the homesickness of governors.

I was to go back to Lusaka in 1970 for the Non-Aligned Conference, and again in 1979 for the Commonwealth Conference. Each time was a saddening experience. I remembered the flowers, shrubs, trees and greenery at the side of the roads and at the roundabouts when I was driven in from the airport in 1964. Roses grew in abundance. Six years later, the roses had gone and weeds had taken over. Nine years after that, even the weeds had given up; the roundabouts were covered with tarmac. And there seemed to be fewer animals and birds in the grounds of Government House, now the President’s Lodge. I wondered why.

I had received an unforgettable lesson in decolonisation, on how crucial it was to have social cohesion and capable, effective government
to take power from the colonial authority, especially in Africa. When the leader did not preserve the unity of the country by sharing power with the chiefs of the minority tribes, but excluded them, the system soon broke down. Worse, when misguided policies based on half-digested theories of socialism and redistribution of wealth were compounded by less than competent government, societies formerly held together by colonial power splintered, with appalling consequences.

35. Venturing into the Malay Heartland

On the day of my departure for Africa, I had called an urgent meeting of the PAP’s Publicity and Propaganda Coordinating Committee, of which I was chairman, to discuss how we could safeguard Singapore’s interests in Kuala Lumpur. Our economic development could not be held hostage to the political prejudices of Tan Siew Sin, the Malaysian finance minister. I wanted the committee to consider “… the desirability of the PAP intervening in the forthcoming election in Malaysia” by fielding some token candidates. They were to make a decision only after my return.

However, when I was away in Africa, Raja, Chin Chye and Pang Boon – three Singapore ministers brought up in Malaya – persuaded the PAP central executive committee to contest the Malaysian general election. The day after my return, the newspapers reported that the election would be held in April. Chin Chye immediately announced that the PAP would field a small number of candidates. He added that it had no intention of fighting the central government or UMNO, and the PAP’s purpose was to cooperate with them to make Malaysia succeed.

Keng Swee was absolutely against any token participation; he believed it would sour relations between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore and jeopardise his plans for our industrialisation within the Federation. I also had my reservations, but since the Tunku had breached his verbal undertaking to me not to participate in Singapore’s elections, I felt no longer bound by my return undertaking and went with the decision of the central executive committee.

The response from UMNO was sharp and immediate. Khir Johari, minister for agriculture and a favourite of the Tunku who had been asked to rebuild Singapore UMNO, declared it was prepared to fight the PAP
because its ideology was different: the PAP said it was non-communist whereas UMNO was definitely anti-communist. Tan Siew Sin’s reaction was angry. For him, this was nothing less than a challenge to the MCA over who should represent the Chinese in the Federation. Chin Chye had said his main reason for contesting was to fight anti-Malaysia parties, but the Alliance (of which the MCA was a member) had the same aim, therefore the PAP’s participation could only help to split the pro-Malaysia vote.

I stayed silent. I was prepared to go to New York and come back only in time for the election, but the Tunku would have none of it. After a few days, he said it would be “politically inconsistent” for the PAP to represent Malaysia in the United States when it was competing against the Alliance at the polls. He rejected as sophistry our stand that a few token candidates would be pitted, not against UMNO, but against the MCA. The PAP was trying to supplant the MCA and align itself with UMNO, he said, “but we don’t want them”. I knew that, but I believed he could be made to change his mind when he saw that it was the PAP, not the MCA, that had the support of the urban voters. I said that the present Malay leadership of the Tunku and UMNO was vital to Malaysia, but the MCA was replaceable. Popular antipathy towards it in the towns had reached such proportions that the (Malayan) Socialist Front, despite its obvious communist links, might make gains in some constituencies where there was no other way to register a protest vote against it.

The PAP election manifesto had two objectives: first, to assist in building up a united democratic and socialist Malaysia based on the principles of social justice and non-communism, and second, to ensure that the Socialist Front did not benefit from substantial protest votes against the MCA. We fielded only 11 parliamentary candidates. The politically better-qualified were Malaya-born federal citizens who had been working in Singapore and had long been associated with the PAP. The best known was Devan Nair, whom I accompanied to his Bungsar
ward in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur on nomination day. The PAP withdrew two candidates in Johor when we found they were facing UMNO and not MCA candidates, but this did not mollify the Malay leaders – we were still challenging their trusted Chinese partners, and they did not want us. I thought I understood them. In fact, I did not. I did not understand that their objection was basic; they did not want the Chinese to be represented by a vigorous leadership that propounded a non-communal or a multiracial approach to politics and would not confine its appeal only to the Chinese.

At the start of the campaign, on the night of 22 March, a huge crowd turned up to listen to us at Suleiman Court in Kuala Lumpur, overflowing the square and the road beyond. The excitement the PAP had generated was enormous. I emphasised in my speech that if elected, our nine PAP candidates would trigger a social revolution far beyond their arithmetical significance. “If you demonstrate positively that you are in favour of an honest party with a dynamic social and economic policy, then the winds of change will begin to sweep throughout Malaysia,” I said, borrowing Harold Macmillan’s famous phrase. I added that if UMNO leaders wanted the support of the urban voters, they would have to adjust their policies to take into account the wishes of the people. Razak retorted that “terrific” winds of change had already swept through Malaya and people could see the social evolution for themselves.

In a month of campaigning, I motored up and down Malaya to the towns where we had candidates – Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Seremban, Malacca and Kluang – and everywhere we held rallies, huge crowds turned up. They wanted to see and hear us. They gave me a big cheer each time. They had heard, read, and in some cases, seen what we had done in Singapore and appeared keen to have us do the same for them in Malaya.

As if to underline the difference between the two, I spoke in Malacca about Keng Swee and Tan Siew Sin, both Malacca-born: “They shared
the same grandfather, but there the similarity ends.” As finance minister of Singapore, Keng Swee had pursued policies that had led to financial surpluses, reflecting his harsher and more spartan background. He was a teacher of economics and a social worker. On the other hand, Tan had inherited the family’s fortune and was a multimillionaire. A director of many companies, he ran the ministry of finance as if it were one of them – prudently and economically in order to provide the best dividends for the directors. He was a man born with a silver spoon in his mouth who had moved easily into high political positions in the wake of his father’s reputation. He represented the rural Malay constituency of Malacca Tengah, and so found it unnecessary to learn to speak or write Chinese. Yet, he claimed to lead the Chinese of Malaysia.

Tan Siew Sin was angered, but the Tunku came to his rescue. Sink or swim, UMNO would stand by the MCA; even if there were only five of them left, he would never throw his partners overboard – unlike the PAP, which came into power with the help of the communists and had now got rid of them, the Tunku said. With the Tunku behind him, Tan retaliated in strong terms. The PAP was capable of stabbing one in the back; principle and honour counted for little with its leaders, and Lee himself was like a chameleon, he charged, whose idea of democracy itself was in doubt, judging by the lack of democracy in the PAP. He called on me to give details to support the allegations I had made that the MCA was corrupt, which were close to libel. I replied that I was prepared to do so if he would agree to a commission of inquiry to follow them up. He did not respond.

While the Tunku, Razak and his ministers took the high road, Syed Ja’afar Albar took the low road. On 25 May, he pointedly asked if I advocated the eventual disappearance of the sultans and the nationalisation of rubber estates and tin mines when I talked of social revolution. Just as British military power had maintained me in office, so the Alliance government had saved me from being eliminated by the Barisan, but I still treated the Singapore Malays as stepsons and antagonised them, he said. “Lee Kuan Yew is so contemptuous of the Malays that his government refused to appoint any Malay to serve on statutory bodies in Singapore,” he added. He then denounced me for having said, during a speech made in Chinese in Seremban, that the Tunku was not a politician of high calibre, hinting that his leadership was inept. This was utterly false, but the Tunku was sore, and riposted that while he favoured social revolution, my version was an alien concept unsuited to the genius of the people and therefore unwelcome to them.