MALAYSIA Day, 16 September, 1963, was Lee Kuan Yew’s fortieth birthday, but any high hopes which might have been entertained that this happy coincidence would lead to a rapid, smooth and deeper understanding between Lee Kuan Yew and Tunku Abdul Rahman and between Singapore and Malaya (relations had never been harmonious since Lee Kuan Yew’s arrival on the political scene) were shattered within the week. Malaysia, as we shall see, got off to a very bad start.
On 21 September, when Malaysia was five days old, Lee was swept back into office as Prime Minister of Singapore, in a snap general election. The minimum of legal notice had been given because for weeks Singapore had been politically agitated over the referendum to determine whether or not it should become part of Malaysia, and Lee Kuan Yew considered, not unreasonably, that the people were ready to vote again for their government without another prolonged political campaign. He reckoned the people knew which way they wanted to vote. It was also time to lower the temperature and for every one to get back to work.
On the eve of the Singapore poll, in a dramatic gesture, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia’s Prime Minister, president of the United Malays National Organization, and leader of the ruling Alliance Party (comprising the United Malays National Organization, the Malayan Chinese Association and the Malayan Indian Congress), surprisingly persuaded by his Kuala Lumpur Chinese advisers, intervened in the general election. Lee was shocked. Earlier, he had made a public announcement that the People’s Action Party would not contest the following year’s Federal elections. He was also given to understand that the Tunku would not interfere in Singapore’s elections. Yet, a few hours before 618,000 voters went to the polling booths, the Tunku appealed publicly to the Singapore electorate to vote for his Alliance Party. People thought that the weight of the Tunku’s great prestige would seriously affect the PAP’s chances, especially in those constituencies with large numbers of Malays.
Nothing of the sort happened. On the contrary, most Malays voted for the PAP, and non-racialism. In an emphatic manner the Malays in Singapore told the Tunku they preferred Lee Kuan Yew’s leadership in Singapore to the Chinese leadership the Tunku was recommending, even though this meant voting against United Malays National Organization candidates.
Disappointed and angry that the Singapore Malays rejected all the UMNO candidates, the Tunku, famed for his sporting activities on the football field and the race track, failed to send Lee a word of congratulation on winning the elections, but instead issued a churlish statement saying how shocked he was. He blamed Malay traitors for UMNO’s staggering defeat. He criticized the elections, as “hurriedly arranged”, though he grudgingly admitted that the PAP was a well-organized political force capable of keeping the communists in their proper place.
Then Syed Jaafar Albar, a prominent official of UMNO, made some explosive and much less philosophical comments, charging Lee Kuan Yew with being a 100 per cent dictator. Albar promised to “fix him” when he showed up in the Malaysian parliament, and added, “We are prepared to use both fists and words to teach Lee a lesson in democracy.”
Most observers could understand the Tunku’s delicate position. As the leader of the Malays he could hardly refuse to associate himself with an outburst of Malay surprise and pain (illogical though the outburst might appear to him as a non-racist) if he wished to continue to be their fearless defender.
In such a mood, the Tunku hastened to Singapore, accompanied by Syed Jaafar Albar, and at a mass rally of UMNO supporters made the rather odd remark that Lee had profited by playing upon the people’s fear of communism. At the same time he repeated that certain Malays had betrayed UMNO during the elections. He predicted they would not last long. In cold print, away from the emotionalism of a Malay political meeting, this severe criticism of sophisticated Malays, condemned because they voted for Lee Kuan Yew’s non-communalism, appears strange coming from such a noted non-communalist as the Tunku. But it was mild compared to the vicious outburst from Albar. The Tunku was forced to watch while Lee’s pictures were burnt.
Lee did not remain silent. At a public meeting the following day he stressed the need for co-operation “on equal terms, not that of master and servant”, and he called for an intelligent appraisal of realities. “In Malaysia,” he pointed out, “there are forty-three per cent Malays and indigenous people, forty-one per cent Chinese, ten per cent Indians, and six per cent others.” He warned the Malays, in other words, that they were in no position to throw their weight about. He asked UMNO not to look upon the PAP as a hostile force just because the PAP in the Singapore general elections defeated all the UMNO candidates, but as a political rival, like themselves pro-democratic and pro-Malaysia. He said that the PAP Government was anxious to co-operate fully with the Central Government. He acknowledged their final supremacy.
Within hours, the Tunku came out with a carefully worded statement, stoutly defending his Chinese advisers and the MCA against Lee’s telling arguments. At the same time, he promised that the Central Government would work closely with the Government of Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew, preparing to leave for Kuala Lumpur, at once welcomed the Tunku’s response and offer of co-operation, and added, “I accept his condition.” Gestures having been made on both sides, Lee began discussions in the capital to “sort out difficulties and set the course for honourable co-operation for the next five years”.
In a message to the Tunku on his sixtieth birthday earlier in the year, Lee described the Tunku as “the symbol of a tolerant, happy and prosperous country”. Lee added: “Every time the Tunku appears, it is always the tolerant, cheerful personality—moving easily among all races and classes—a man completely at ease, relaxed, at peace with himself and with the world, practical, and, most important of all, successful.”
Unlike the relaxed Tunku, Lee’s attitude towards life is unsmilingly serious. He is a thoughtful man. When he was meeting the Malayan Communist Party head-on he found little to laugh about. From 1954, until the battle was won in 1963, he was tough, determined and unsmiling. Nowadays, anxious to soften his public image, he will hurriedly relax his expression in a smile when the occasion demands. But then, as the Malays say, the heart does not smile. Lee is intense. Life is too grim for him to chuckle over trivialities: chuckling will not solve problems, serious intellectual exercise may. Malicious observers say that a political opponent’s discomfort is certain to raise a laugh with Lee at any time, and this is probably true. It is not an abnormal characteristic. When told, for example, that Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew had been pushed into a deep drain by a mob he was trying to reason with, the genial Tunku is reported to have laughed until tears came to his eyes.
Because he is unrelaxed, because he cannot suffer fools, because he believes there are so many wrongs and deficiencies and problems in the world that must be rectified and solved so that people can eat more and live better and more reasonable lives, and because he is preoccupied most of the time by these problems, Lee does not make friends easily. He is not willing to mingle socially. He derives no enjoyment from cocktail parties and refuses to attend unless protocol insists. He will rarely accept an invitation to a meal unless business is to be discussed over food. He seldom goes to the cinema, except with his children. But he can be tempted to play chess with them, or to talk with them in English, Mandarin, or Malay. He lives a full life, much of it dedicated to putting his world right, the rest being given over to his family and to physical and healthful exercise. His daily schedule leaves him little time to enlarge his circle of friends, even if he wished to, and he has no such inclination. Closest to him, after the immediate members of his family, are his political colleagues. They have gone through political fire together, they have been tested, and friendship has survived and been cemented.
What must be remembered when examining the relationship between Lee and the Tunku is the fact that Lee is a socialist and a hardworking citizen of Chinese origin, conscious of a culture that goes back 4,000 years, a culture with a profound literature and language, enriched by hosts of philosophers, painters, poets, writers, administrators and soldiers. Tunku Abdul Rahman is an educated prince of a people with no comparable culture. Both in their different ways wanted to better the lot of the people, Lee by planning and organization, the Tunku in other ways.
Lee Kuan Yew is of Hakka stock. The Hakkas are men from the north: tough invaders, the aggressors. Lee is kindly, sensitive, and sensible, and believes strongly in the need for a high standard of public and private morals. He was genuinely puzzled by the Profumo-Keeler scandal, and could not begin to understand how a Minister could involve himself in so sordid an affair. In short, Lee is an essentially decent man: impatient, perhaps, of man’s weaknesses, intolerant of slipshod work, angered by dereliction of duty, abuse of trust, and misuse of the public’s confidence.
This does not make Lee stuffy, so much as tough. Whatever he says or does, the fighting, suspicious Hakka peers through. Lee has not always been conscious of his tough exterior. He was, in fact, shocked to discover how aggressive, almost bellicose (“gangster-like”, to use his own words) he appeared, when he saw himself on television for the first time. He was silent for a few moments. Then he said “Good God!” He saw a fierce, menacing figure glowering at him, unsmiling, ready to give or take a blow. He did not like what he saw. This was not the figure the political Lee wanted to present to the electorate: and from that moment he set out, unwisely some thought, to soften the image.
But the screen did not lie, and in Asia, where politics and living call for tough leadership, friends wondered whether advantage was to be gained from hiding the truth—which is that Hakka Lee is an admixture of aggression and wary defence. In 1963, his public speeches, if not his television smiles, were punctuated with evidence of his true personality. “I am prepared to meet you, anywhere, anytime,” he says. “I’ll fix you,” he threatens. To some, this fighting spirit, always apparent, is a symptom of latent inferiority, or basic insecurity. “What’s the matter with Lee?” demanded his old political enemy, Lim Yew Hock. “The man keeps on saying he will fight, fight, fight. He’s always wanting to fight.” But to most people all this is a manifestation of Lee’s intellectual and physical courage. “You have just got to face these things,” he will say. “You can’t run away.”
Now, Lee Kuan Yew, more confident, the early battles over and won, the enemy routed, is less threatening, more philosophical, older and wiser.
Lee’s aggressive personality is noticeable, and immediately felt, just as the Tunku’s relaxed affability instantly charms and soothes. He possesses astonishing ability to focus his powerful intellect directly upon the problem under consideration, forcefully and rapidly, and this, combined with his readiness to judge the other person’s motives highly suspicious and most likely damaging to his own interests, leaves him, with few endearing qualities. Not many men have been able, at one and the same time, to be tough, realistic, capable of working efficiently under great pressure and at high speed for long hours, and yet to remain relaxed, ready to accept men and matters at face value, and popular.
In the end, most ruthless seekers of high standards and efficiency must be content with men’s grudging respect until they become old enough to be legends worthy of affection and love. Lee would not quarrel with that: he would rather be respected than loved.
Oddly enough, Lee’s natural suspicion of motives and actions, and his experience of meeting many men in high positions, has not made him a good judge of character, though he never fails to recognize a man’s intelligence. He is capable of assessing outstanding merit, but on occasions his judgment of lesser men is faulty. He relentlessly drives the civil service as he drives himself, and there are times when he mistakes enthusiasm, eagerness or pushfulness, for talent. Praise or criticism, perhaps misplaced, can upset civil servants, although nobody doubts the honesty of purpose behind the Prime Minister’s remarks.
Lee is a supremely confident person, whose confidence causes his enemies to brand him as arrogant, and the People’s Action Party to look upon him as an anchor to sanity and resolve. If arrogance means conceit, Lee is not arrogant, but his confidence is realistically based upon his belief that he is cleverer than most, and this has been proved in scholastic examinations and political tussles, to which Lee, in his early political days, did not hesitate publicly to refer.
He once told a group of civil servants, in illustration of a point he was making: “I speak to Harold Macmillan and Duncan Sandys as equals. At Cambridge I got two firsts and a star for distinction. Harold Macmillan did not.” In the political arena he asked: “Where are Lim Yew Hock and his party now? We have smashed them. We thought these things out better than they did.” He was justified: the Singapore Alliance Party failed to win a single seat in the 1963 general elections.
Lee’s confidence, essential to Asian leadership, his sureness, his highly developed critical faculty, his impatience with less than what he feels entitled to expect, tend to make him unfair. He refuses to listen to explanations, and this can be a fault. “I want no excuse,” he will say. “Produce the goods, and on time.” Lee believes, with sincerity, that he could make a good film, write a good book, produce a good newspaper, build a good house or road, as well as or better than most. And the exasperating truth is that, given the appropriate technical training, he probably could. Certain of this, Lee will not readily listen to explanation of failure or shortcomings. A snag is that, like many other leaders and commanders, Lee is not proficient at giving verbal instructions. What may be no more than the germ of an idea in his mind, he will toss out for action. What finally appears may be very different from what Lee himself would have produced. In the absence of clear-cut and precise instructions this is inevitable: minds work differently. What is dangerous is that in trying to probe his mind, and to please him and avoid unjust criticism, there is atendency for assistants to play safe and create in consequence a climate of sycophancy, and this is a grave threat to efficiency which Lee tries desperately to avoid.
Because of this difficulty in giving precise verbal instructions in detail, Lee does not rank as an outstanding organizer. Probably his mind is too sharp, for frequently, no sooner is a decision made, than it is amended or improved upon. This may be one of the reasons why critics in Kuala Lumpur say he is far too agile. Yet there are probably few men in Asia capable of matching Lee in presenting an argument, forcefully, reasonably, lucidly. His skilful explanation to the United Nations Committee on Colonialism of the true meaning of Malaysia impressed seasoned statesmen from the West as well as from the East. They felt that there was a performance not often witnessed at the United Nations. Lee’s skill as a debater began during his Cambridge days, and, although he is not above a descent into frivolity, appearing anxious to score childish points, his oratory, in the opinion of experienced British members of parliament who have listened to him, is equal to anything heard in the House of Commons.
Lee is best in debate. In English, if not in Malay, he is no great platform speaker. He is no rabble-rouser and could never arouse a mob as Sukarno could. This is because he directs his words to a man’s common sense, not to his emotions. Sukarno shouted and ranted, whereas Lee must explain and argue, sometimes using words which send even the well-educated to their dictionaries. One of Lee’s most pleasant attributes, for a man reputed to be arrogant, is his readiness to treat everybody, at first meeting, as his intellectual equal. His attitude changes only if he discovers that the person is not. Friends have been amazed that Lee should pay attention to arguments from persons obviously his intellectual inferiors, but Lee’s natural instinct is to expect them to be as sensible as he is, until proved otherwise.
Keeping in touch with modern developments, Lee studies television techniques, and it is on the screen rather than the public platform that he now makes the better impression. His appeal continues to be to common sense, to what is reasonable and sensible. He has never made extravagant promises to the people. He believes the ordinary man is not a fool, and expects people to make the correct judgment if they are told the truth and given the facts. That is why he reasoned that the people of Singapore must reject communism. “Let us meet the communists in open argument”: that was his policy. “Confront them: match their lies with truth: give facts when they distort.” That is how Lee beat them at the polls in September, 1963, scoring thirty-seven seats to the thirteen captured by the pro-communist Barisan Sosialis, the fifty-first falling to Ong Eng Guan, the former Mayor. Ong was the only successful United People’s Party candidate. The party, created by Ong in 1961 after his expulsion from the PAP, fielded forty-six candidates, as many as the Barisans. Only the PAP contested all fifty-one seats. In 1965, Ong suddenly and rather mysteriously resigned his seat, thus causing a by-election in a constituency at a time when the relationship between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur was under severe strain.
What made Lee Kuan Yew enter politics? “I did not enter politics,” Lee insists. “The Japanese brought politics to me.” In a speech he spoke about the Japanese invasion of Singapore in 1942. He was then a student at Raffles College, later to become the University of Singapore. Lee said his whole world suddenly collapsed. All the false values were smashed. Overnight the country that was Malaya and was theirs became strange. Road signs appeared in Japanese. The Japanese said: “Look, this is our country, yours and mine.” Lee said that he and his friends asked themselves: Have the Japanese a right to do this? “Slowly enough we decided that they had none: that this was our country. We will govern it ourselves.”
Lee said that the Japanese occupying forces were blind and brutal and made him, and a whole generation like him, in Singapore and Malaya, work for freedom—freedom from servitude and foreign domination. “We decided that from then on our lives should be ours to decide, that we should not be the pawn and playthings of foreign powers.” In that hour a Malaysian nationalist leader was born. This solemn promise to free Singapore from foreign rule, from colonial domination, was made in Singapore’s awful darkness, when thousands of British and Indian and Australian soldiers rotted in Changi Gaol, when the people of Singapore groaned under the oppressive rule of an alien dictatorship, and when the young, rather bewildered and hapless Lee Kuan Yew was nineteen years old.
During the Japanese occupation, Lee learned Japanese and became a translator for the official news agency. When the misery of those years finally ended, he hurried off to Cambridge to complete his education. He studied hard, paid court to the girl student at Girton later to become his wife, found time to play golf, make a few visits to the Continent, explore the south of England on his motorcycle, and prepare himself mentally for what he believed would be a stern struggle to free Malaya from the bonds of British colonialism. To this day Lee is not prepared to believe that all he had to do was to push an open door. Clement Attlee had already freed India and Burma. Britain wanted to liquidate colonial commitments as quickly as possible. In Malaya, the communists’ revolt held up constitutional progress, but when the Tunku reorganized the United Malays National Organization and formed the Alliance, the British Government needed little persuasion to work with an independent Malaya. Lee believed the British intended to hold Singapore as a colony for as long as possible.
In January, 1950, while the Malayan communists, who were mostly Chinese, fought to set up liberated areas (and were forced instead still further into the jungle), Lee escaped briefly from his studies at Cambridge to debate the future of Malaya in the Malayan Forum. This was a group of overseas Malayans, created by the Tunku, in which several of today’s leaders of Singapore and Malaysia, including Dr Toh Chin Chye, Singapore’s Minister of Science and Technology, Tun Razak, who became Prime Minister of Malaysia in 1970, and Dr Goh Keng Swee, Singapore’s Defence Minister and Deputy Chairman of the PAP, tested their first serious political beliefs. Lee Kuan Yew spoke to the Malayan Forum on “The Returned Student”. He was twenty-seven.
Foreign undergraduates in London have always received the closest attention from British communists. Some of the best African revolutionaries against colonialism have been produced in British universities. Lee Kuan Yew was, therefore, in an excellent position to study dispassionately, though eagerly, the best arguments which communism could advance. In London and Cambridge there were opportunities to examine these arguments critically. He came to the conclusion that communism was not suitable for Singapore or Malaya. In this talk, his first political address, Lee explained why. He also underlined the importance of the returned student to Malaya, believing that whether he was communist or a non-communist nationalist, the student’s role in the post-war future could be vital. He said that the superior social and economic position of the returned student was an important fact in Malayan society. Whether this privileged position he enjoyed as a member of a social or monied class was justifiable was another matter. But it was the inevitable accompaniment of the supremacy of the British in the country. The English in Malaya formed the ruling caste. The Englishman had superimposed on the people his language, institutions and way of life. His was the model of perfection, and the closer an approximation to his standards the individual Asian attained, the better would be his social and economic position. That was beyond controversy. In the few years the Japanese were the ruling caste, there were already signs that the nearer one was to being a Japanese, the better off one was going to be in a Japanese-dominated Malaya. “Had they stayed long enough, I have no doubt that those of us who could speak Japanese, who behaved like the Japanese, and who had been educated in Japan, would have been the most favoured class of Malayan. For we would have been the most acceptable to the rulers, who because of their economic and military hold on the country could dispense such extra privileges. Many of us will remember the unhappy spectacle of English-speaking, Western-educated colleagues suddenly changing in their manner of speech, dress and behaviour, making blatant attempts at being good imitation Japs. Indeed, some were sent to Japan so as to be better educated to enlighten their ignorant countrymen in Malaya and doubtless also to become the privileged class, second only to the genuine Japanese himself. It is pertinent to note that the Malayan student returned from Britain ceased under Japanese domination to occupy that second-class status, except in so far as it was impracticable to dispense with his services for the time being.
“It is four years now since the British have returned. For them, nothing could be better than to revert to the pleasant orderly society of 1939. Once again the English-educated are given their old privileges: and, of this English-educated class, the returned students form the uppermost crust.”
Lee said it was relevant to observe the part this class (the returned students) played in British-dominated India, Dutch-dominated Indonesia, and the American-dominated Philippines. “In the brief space of four years, we have seen the emergence of six Asiatic countries to national independence: India, Pakistan, Burma, Ceylon, Indonesia, the Philippines. Malaya now finds herself the only remnant of colonial imperialism left in Southeast Asia surrounded by these new Asiatic national states. The only other fragment of colonialism left in Asia is French Indo-China.
“In all these new Asiatic states it is the returned students who have led the fight for independence. The Indians, Pakistanis, Ceylonese, and Burmese returned from England, the Indonesians returned from Holland, the Filipinos returned from America: they have formed the spear-head of national movements.
“If this should conjure visions of future greatness in any of us, I hasten to add that the pattern of events never quite repeats itself, and there are cogent reasons for believing that this pattern will not do so in Malaya. Had there not been the difficult racial problem in Malaya, had there not been a Chinese community almost as large as the Malay, had the population been six million, all Malays, I venture to suggest that British imperialism in Malaya would be well on its way out. But the facts being what they are, we must accept British rule for some time, during which we can attain a sufficient degree of social cohesion, and arouse a sufficient degree of civic and political consciousness among the various races of Malaya. This time is vital if we are to avoid a political vacuum that may otherwise follow British withdrawal from Malaya.
“Returned students in any British colony fall broadly into two classes: (1) the rich man’s son, and (2) the impecunious government scholar. The first on returning home finds himself better equipped to be a bigger and more efficient capitalist entrepreneur. The second finds himself linked up with the colonial administrative system, given positions second only to the Englishman who must, necessarily, in a colonial system always be at the top. But they will be better off than their fellow Asiatics who have not been to England. Hence both groups on returning to Malaya find themselves a part of the vested interests of the country, both somewhat reluctant to dislodge the system under which they enjoy these advantages. . .
“Empires never last forever. Either the master and subject races finally merge into one unified society, as in Britain, where the Welsh and Scots, once English-dominated, now form part of one political society, enjoying equal rights with the English. Or the Empire ends with subject races violently resisting and finally emerging as a separate national and political entity, as in the case of the Irish Republic, India, Pakistan and Indonesia. The indefinite continuance of the subjugation of one race by another is only possible where the subject race is inherently, both mentally and physically, inferior.
“Anthropologists are unable to prove any innate superiority of one race over another. This scientific fact, and the historical fact that no empire has been able to last more than a thousand years is, I think, no mere coincidence. We in Malaya are now seeing British domination, after over a hundred years, enter its last phase. Colonial imperialism in Southeast Asia is dead except in Malaya, and our generation will see it out.
“No sane man, whether he be English, Malay, Indian, Eurasian, or Chinese, can honestly study the situation in that part of the world, and not come to the conclusion that, either with or without the opposition of the Western-educated intelligentsia in Malaya, British imperialism will end. The two things we the returned students can help to decide are: firstly, how soon and orderly the change will be, and secondly, whether we shall find a place at all in the new Malaya. At the moment it is clear that the only party organized to force the British to leave, and to run the country, is the communist party. They are not merely so many bandits, shooting and being shot at in the jungle, and creating terror for the sake of terror. Theirs is a tightly knit organization making their bid for power.
“It is this element of international communism which I fear will make the pattern of development that has unfolded in India, Burma, Ceylon, etc., unlikely in Malaya. In all these countries the leaders from the educated classes, the returned students, had time to organize and were already organized, like the Indian Congress Party, before communism became a force in the political life of these countries. But this does not mean that communism is not a force in these countries. It is, right now, the biggest threat to the newly established national governments of Asia. How far these governments can counter the appeal and force of communism will depend on how far they are bold enough to carry out social reforms in the teeth of their own vested interest. That is another feature in the political development of our neighbours: the active support of native capitalists in the national aspirations of their fellow countrymen. But it is abundantly clear to Malayan vested interests, and that would include Chinese and Indian commercial interests, the Malay royal families, and the professional classes, that with the disappearance of the British Raj must also disappear the great inequality in wealth of the peoples of Malaya. For any independent Malayan government to exist, it must win popular support, and to gain any popular support it must promise, and do, social justice. Indeed, and this is a fact important enough to warrant repetition, the continued existence of the new Asiatic states depends upon whether they are able to carry out long overdue reforms; whether they can, without the communist religion, do all that a communist state can do for the masses.
“We, the returned students, would be the type of leaders that the British would find relatively the more acceptable. For if the choice lies, as in fact it does, between a communist republic of Malaya, and a Malaya within the British Commonwealth, led by people who despite their opposition to imperialism still share certain ideals in common with the Commonwealth, there is little doubt which alternative the British will find the lesser evil.
“Despite the general political apathy that exists in Malaya there are many who are awakening to the critical position Malaya is in, both internally and in relation to the rest of Southeast Asia. If we, who can become the most privileged part of the local population under British rule, openly declare that British imperialism must go, the effect will be immediate. But if we do not give leadership, it will come from the other ranks of society, and if these leaders attain power, as they will with the support of the masses, we shall find that we, as a class, have merely changed masters. The difference between the British, the Japanese and the new masters who will arise if we remain unorganized will be a difference only of degree and not of kind.
“The first problem we face is that of racial harmony between Chinese and Malays. The second is the development of a united political front that will be strong enough, without resorting to armed force, to demand a transfer of power. To both these problems we, the Malayan students in England, whatever our race and creed, can make a substantial contribution. If we who are thought of as the intelligentsia of Malaya cannot make a sincere start now towards a solution of these problems, the future is grim. No class in Malaya is better equipped to lead a Malayan nationalist movement. The common man in Malaya, rightly or wrongly, associates intelligence and ability with an education in England, perhaps for the reason that such an education makes possible a greater and more rapid acquisition of wealth in a British Malaya.
“We have already seen the birth of Malay nationalism, we are seeing the first movements of a Malayan Chinese nationalism. There is no doubt that the other racial groups will also organize themselves. This may be a prelude to a pan-Malayan movement, or it may be the beginning of serious dissensions and communalism that may end in another Palestine. The prerequisite of Malayan independence is the existence of a Malayan society, not Malay, not Malayan Chinese, not Malayan Indian, not Malayan Eurasian, but Malayan, one that embraces the various races already in the country. Were it possible to eliminate the non-Malay population by deporting them to their countries of origin, there would be no danger of another Palestine. But even the most extreme Malay nationalist will concede that the Chinese, Indian and Eurasian population already in the country cannot be excluded by this simple process. Irresponsible communal leadership will bring disaster. Since, therefore, the non-Malay communities must be accepted as part of the present and future Malaya, it follows that unity must be attained.
“We can study with profit the solution Switzerland has found for her racial problems. Here is a national state, with three large racial groups—French, German and Italian—and a fourth small group, the Romansh, able to maintain its unity and independence through all the strain and stress of two world wars, when French, Germans and Italians were fighting on different sides. Whether we have the Palestinian or Swiss pattern emerging in Malaya is still in the balance.
“The present political situation is rapidly changing. Colonialism, with its fantastic discrepancies in wealth and power, will end whether or not we do anything. It is not a question of our fighting for independence in the way the Indian Congress Party fought for theirs. It is whether we are to play any part at all in the political life of the country. There is still time for us to organize ourselves into a force in the country. But the final question is what each individual returned student will do when he goes back to Malaya, for, in the last eventuality, any party, any society, any body politic, consists of individuals.
“There can be no leaders without a body to lead. There can be no body to lead if there be no cohesion. As a single individual, any Malayan nationalist who attempted to propagate ideas that would lead to the end of British Malaya would be considered undesirable by the British authorities. Their main interest is to prolong British control of our country. For them Malaya means dollars. Losing Malaya would mean a big widening of the dollar gap, with consequent loss of essential imports to Britain and resulting unemployment. We must be prepared to see that, whatever the political label of the British Government in Britain, be it Conservative, Labour, or even Communist, British colonial policy in Malaya may remain unchanged in its fundamentals. A British Labour government may sincerely believe in socialist, egalitarian principles, but no British government can of its own free will give independence to Malaya, and face the British electorate unabashed when the British cost of living index has gone up by some twenty points.
“But our trump-card is that responsible British leaders realize that independence must and will come to Malaya and that therefore, it will be better to hand Malaya to leaders sympathetic to the British mode of life, willing for Malaya to be a member of the British Commonwealth, and, what is most important, willing to remain in the sterling area. For the alternative is military suppression, a policy which another imperialist power has found impossible in Indonesia. We may take heart in the knowledge that no one can concede more graciously an already untenable position than the English. Our duty is clear: to help to bring about social cohesion, and to bring home to even the most die-hard imperialist that his is an untenable position.
“What actual steps we take when we get back will depend on the political temper at that time. Whether we can openly advocate and propagate our views, or whether we should be more discreet and less vociferous, is something that can be answered only when the time comes. Only if a spirit of co-operation and political independence be infused among our fellow Malayans can pan-Malayan political parties really exist, and Malayan leadership emerge. We must break the soporific Malayan atmosphere and bring home the urgency of the problems facing us. We must break down the belief that we are inferior and will always remain inferior to the Europeans. If every returned student makes known his convictions to his own immediate circle, the cumulative effect will be tremendous. . .
“If,” concluded Lee Kuan Yew, “we fail to fulfil our duty, the change that still will come must be a violent one, for, whatever the rights and wrongs of communism, no one can deny its tremendous appeal to the masses. Whatever our political complexion, from deep blue Tory to bright red Communist, we must all remember that we are not indispensable in this struggle for freedom. But we can affect the speed and orderliness of the change. What the individual returning home chooses to do is a question of personal inclination, economic circumstances, and political convictions. But if the majority of us choose to believe that Malaya can be insulated from the nationalist revolts that have swept the European powers from Asia, then we may find that there is no place for us in the Malaya that is to be after the British have departed.”
Six months after making this speech, which contained in essence his basic political beliefs, Lee Kuan Yew was back in Singapore.