The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (74 page)

Violence had also come from another direction. A few days after the election, an Indonesian saboteur had exploded two bombs within 72 hours of each other on the south coast near Katong Park. Confrontation was now a reality. But an even more ominous development was beginning.

The day after the election, the Tunku had expressed shock that Malays in Singapore who had always supported UMNO had voted for the PAP. “I think there must be a few traitors amongst the members who have brought about this change of heart of the people here,” he said. On 27 September, he came down to a rally organised by Singapore UMNO at Geylang Serai, a Malay settlement, at which he again criticised “certain Malays” (i.e., pro-PAP) who had “betrayed UMNO” in the election. “In future, I will play an important part in elections,” he said. He went on to say that the control of Singapore was not in the hands of Mr Lee or the PAP any more, but with the central government in Kuala Lumpur.

Accompanying the Tunku was Syed Ja’afar Albar, who wanted to make sure that the Malays who had been “misled” into voting for us would be made to return to the fold. In his speech, he warned me that the people could only be fooled once, and vowed that he would fix Singapore at the proper time. Local UMNO leaders began to talk in truculent terms. They felt they were the masters now. The American consul-general, Arthur H. Rosen, reported to Washington that “passions were … stirred by a violent anti-PAP speech with strong racist overtones by Ja’afar Albar”. They burnt an effigy of me before a screaming crowd.

At the time, I did not take much notice. I thought it was just post-election morale-boosting. I did not then understand the nuances of Malay talk and it took me another nine months to grasp the real implications. Little knowing that this was the prelude to a bitter campaign of hate, which would come to a head in Malay-Chinese riots, I had blithely told the crowd at a rally in Fullerton Square that time would heal hurt feelings. I had had to say some harsh things before and during the election, but my task now was to reestablish good relations and mutual confidence with Kuala Lumpur. I was sure Singapore would then hum with industrial activity and be the prosperous hub of Malaysia. I promised that the government would cooperate with the centre on a fair and equal basis, not as servant with master.

I was still talking in terms of UMNO and the PAP fighting our common enemies, the MCP with their united front supporters and Sukarno’s Indonesia, which was under communist influence. I did not know that the Tunku’s lieutenants, like Albar, thought differently. They left the British to protect them from the Indonesians. For them, it was more important to deal with the enemy within – the PAP, which, unless stopped in its tracks, would start to win over Malays from the kampongs in Malaya itself.

Speaking at City Hall on 29 September, I had said, “We understand that for the next two decades the prime minister of Malaysia must be a Malay. There are 43 per cent Malays, an indigenous people, 41 per cent Chinese, 10 per cent Indians and 6 per cent others. We are not out to capture power in Kuala Lumpur. We want to cooperate and work in the common interest of Malaysia.” But I referred to the MCA leaders Khaw Kai Boh and Tan Siew Sin dismissively, and the Tunku disapproved of this. The next day, he responded by saying that although the MCA represented the Chinese community, they had not lost sight of national interests, and their ability to care for both at the same time had contributed much towards the success of the Alliance at elections; UMNO, the
MCA and the MIC must stand together. He was signalling that he was not willing to give up his Alliance partners. I did not understand until nearly a year later that if the PAP wanted to join the Alliance as part of a coalition it must accept the role of an MCA, and bring the Chinese around to cooperating in the national interest to further UMNO’s programme, which basically was to help the Malays.

Geofroy Tory’s assessment of these political trends in the new Federation was succinctly summarised in his report of 5 October 1963 to Duncan Sandys:

“But the position of the Alliance in the long term is certainly not unshakeable. Mr Lee Kuan Yew has shown in the recent Singapore elections that he is able to unite all the non-communists of Singapore, including the Malays, in a common front at the Alliance’s expense. (However,) much of his success must be ascribed to his performance as a defender of Singapore’s interests against Malaya; and it is unlikely, therefore, to bring him much credit elsewhere in the Federation.

“On the other hand, if the tale of communal grievances against the more extreme policies of UMNO becomes too long, and if for this and other reasons the Chinese wing of the Alliance weakens still further, a serious communal Chinese opposition based on the Malayan West Coast, but with assistance from the other Malaysian opposition parties, could begin to develop. Once seriously alarmed, the Malays would certainly not be prevented by constitutional forms from protecting their position, even if the cost were the bitter one of exchanging their present relatively enlightened and moderate form of parliamentary democracy for some kind of more closely guided democracy.”

Geofroy Tory was prescient. He more or less predicted what was to happen in 1965, when the Malaysian Solidarity Convention would bring the opposition parties together.

In early October, Choo and I drove up to the Cameron Highlands for a two-week break. The mountain air and the relative isolation helped me to think out our position under the new dispensation. For the next fortnight, I played golf, often alone. Walking around the nine-hole course with Choo, my half bag of clubs carried by an aborigine boy, I pondered over the problems that would now have to be tackled. We faced danger from Indonesia, but we had contained the communists for the time being. They were dazed, keeping their heads down, taking stock of their vulnerability in a new situation. They knew Kuala Lumpur was out to crush them.

We too had to adjust to a central government that openly stood for Malay interests. This we could only accommodate if the Chinese, Indians and others were given enough space. Nevertheless, when I had seen the Tunku in Kuala Lumpur five days before, I had left him in a good mood, and some questions seemed to have been settled amicably, despite all that had happened. He had spoken of closing the Bank of China and the Bank Negara Indonesia (National Bank of Indonesia) in Singapore, but added that he had not taken any firm decision and wanted to discuss the matter again. I was able to tell the press that he had promised to allow them to stay open provided they were not staffed by senior government officials from China or Indonesia.

After my return to Singapore on 14 October, I met Philip Moore and told him I had proposed that we should appoint a Malay as one of our two senators in the federal parliament. The Tunku had been pleased and had suggested the UMNO leader in Singapore, Ahmad Haji Taff. I had agreed. The other senator was to be Ko Teck Kin.

The Tunku had also wanted us to close our trade commission in Jakarta, and although I was unenthusiastic, we recalled the commissioner, leaving a junior officer in charge. Moore himself was worried that we were having secret discussions with the Indonesians in Singapore to find a way to lift the embargo they had announced. I assured him that
discussions had taken place only between our traders and their officials, not with Singapore government officers. I added that I was happy with the way things had worked out with Ismail. Kuala Lumpur’s security action in Singapore had gone off well. Ismail had phoned to tell me of the planned arrest of the SATU union leaders, and asked me to confirm that this would have the support of the Singapore government. I gave him that assurance. We had then exchanged letters, which kept me in the picture on the internal security situation; my regular Saturday morning meetings with the police and Special Branch were to continue.

It was a period of deceptive calm. The new Legislative Assembly was sworn in on 22 October and the first bill passed was for elections to the House of Representatives in Kuala Lumpur. It was carried on a voice vote and we named 12 PAP and three Barisan assemblymen. As I was leaving for the opening session on 3 November, I described the PAP’s role in the federal parliament as that of a “‘cross-bencher’ – friend, loyal opposition and critic, not like the Barisan or the Malayan Socialist Front, which were destructive and disloyal”. While in Kuala Lumpur, I agreed with the Tunku that we should receive an official visit by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the king of Malaysia, and when he came, he was welcomed with pomp and ceremony. The Tunku was a great upholder of the mystique of royalty.

I myself was not entirely happy with my time in the federal capital. The Tunku was too busy to have any effective discussion with me on our relationship, and meanwhile, there was renewed discord. In reporting a thinly veiled attack on me by Albar, the Malay press had lashed out at Alex Josey for writing an article in which he had represented me as the leader of the four million Chinese in Malaysia. This had given particular offence. Razak had also taken me to task for describing the PAP as cross-benchers, friendly but critical – how could we be both?

In response to Razak’s objection to my idea of the PAP as cross-benchers, I had asked the Tunku where our MPs should sit in the House.
He proposed that some of the 12 PAP MPs sit on the government side and some with the opposition. We were in an equivocal position. On my return to Singapore, I told Moore that our relationship with the Tunku and UMNO would have to be settled one way or another within two or three years of the coming federal election. The Tunku would have to decide either to drop the MCA and work with the PAP, or fight the PAP for control of the towns of Malaya.

Not that we were forgetting the countryside. On 21 December, I spoke for the first time in the House of Representatives during a debate on Tan Siew Sin’s budget. I criticised it for its lack of a broader sweep of the Federation’s problems. It was good for big business, which was centred in the towns, but would not benefit the have-nots outside them. I stressed the need to bring prosperity to the rural areas where the bulk of Malays lived as farmers. The opposition leaders in Malaya had not talked in these terms before; we had brought our Fabian thinking to bear on Malaysian problems and believed that this was the solution.

Moore reported to London that Keng Swee, who had previously been doubtful about our prospects in Malaya, was now convinced that within a year or so, the PAP would rout both the Socialist Front and the MCA. With Singapore now a part of Malaysia, Moore’s reports were sent through the new UK high commissioner in Kuala Lumpur, Viscount Head, who had replaced Geofroy Tory. Antony Head had a totally different cast of mind from his predecessor. He was a political heavyweight. A Sandhurst cadet, he was awarded a Military Cross in World War II and was a brigadier when he entered the House of Commons in 1945. He became minister of defence in Anthony Eden’s cabinet at the time of the Suez invasion, resigning when it failed. He was elevated as viscount to the House of Lords. His wife Dorothy was a great character, thoroughly undiplomatic and openly interested in politics. Head had been British high commissioner in Nigeria for three years and she was a great lover of the birds of Africa. Some of the most glorious and exotic of them,
including golden-crested cranes, would wander all over the grounds and into the drawing rooms of Carcosa, their official residence in Kuala Lumpur, to leave their droppings on the beautiful chintz-covered cushions. Neither of them batted an eyelid. They would just wipe up the mess with some paper and continue the conversation. I liked both of them and we got on. Whenever I was in Kuala Lumpur, I would have lunch or dinner with him and his wonderfully eccentric wife.

Head had an understanding of the ups and downs of peoples and nations. He thought things through. While the British were resolutely holding the line against Sukarno’s now ceaseless incursions into Borneo, he cautioned me that British and Malaysians must both conduct operations in such a way that when all this was over, we would be able to live together peacefully with the Indonesians, that if we rubbed their noses in the dirt, it would make future relations more difficult. British restraint dragged out the conflict, but it did make the subsequent reconciliation easier. When Sukarno had been removed from power in 1965, General Suharto, then the
de facto
ruler, sent emissaries to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore to establish contact and begin to restore our confidence in Indonesia. Head had wisdom, that rare quality of learning from one’s mistakes and, better still, from the mistakes of others. He also understood the Tunku and the hierarchical structure of Malay society. It was not unlike what he had found in northern Nigeria.

It was fortunate for me that the British prime minister had decided to send a top-ranking politician from the establishment to Kuala Lumpur instead of a professional diplomat like Tory. The history of Malaysia and Singapore would have been very different otherwise. Head brought to bear his varied experience, including what he had seen of the problems in Nigeria. He knew too well the difficulties in the evolution from colonial rule to self-government and nationhood. In the two years before August 1965, I would have much to do with him. His assessments and reports to London made an enormous difference to the outcome of the tussle between the Tunku and his Ultras on one side, and my colleagues and me on the other. The Ultras pressed for a completely Malay-dominated Malaysia. We in Singapore – especially those born in or deeply attached to Malaya like Chin Chye, Pang Boon and Raja – were determined to establish a multiracial Malaysian Malaysia. This was the heart of the matter.