SINGAPORE and Malaysian politics will be incomprehensible and an appreciation of Lee Kuan Yew as a politician and a leader will be difficult, without at least a rudimentary knowledge of the Malay people and their Press, and something, too, about the Chinese and, to a much lesser extent, the Indians.
The Chinese in Singapore lived for many years in a closely-knit exclusive society, in the sense that Chinese of many different tribes did not mingle with non-Chinese, and there was a great deal of clanishness among the Chinese themselves. In 1857, for example, there were 70,000 Chinese in Singapore, and not a single European resident understood their language. In the beginning, the British colonialists were mainly interested in them as traders, artisans, and colonizers: they were not concerned with their social behaviour, so long as the Chinese did not interfere with their authority and behaved themselves. The Chinese, like other communities, were only too pleased to accept this arrangement, since it guaranteed them the maximum freedom to lead their own peculiarly Chinese lives under the protection of the British.
Serious riots among quarrelling and criminal elements of the Chinese community, however, eventually forced the British to intervene and to provide sound administration for the people of Singapore as a whole. In 1889 the secret societies were suppressed, but it was not until 1920 that the colonial government began to supervise, and give grants-in-aid to Chinese schools.
For many reasons, mainly because of the Muslim religion, few Chinese married outside their own community, even though, for many years, the sex ratio among the Chinese was ten females to every thousand males, a state of affairs due partly to China’s unwillingness to let women go abroad, and partly to the fact that a new arrival in Singapore could not afford to keep a wife.
“Why did we come here? To find a livelihood and to get rich. My great-grandfather came here from China to seek a living, just like the others,” declared Lee Kuan Yew (in a speech in 1967). But, as Dr Maurice Freedman said (May, 1959), the general economic success of the Chinese abroad could not have been due to any special business training in China because the commercial class played too small a role in the emigration. Most of them were peasants and artisans. The first Chinese bank in Singapore, for example, was established by an emigrant who came to Singapore as a carpenter at the age of sixteen. He was Wong Ah Fook. He became a contractor, then a planter. Soon he was employing a large labour force and he paid them with his own notes. These circulated within the bounds of his extensive estates. Starting a public bank seemed just another natural step forward. Wong was then thirty-six years old. he was already a very rich man.
That is an example of the point stressed by Dr Freedman: that the peasant Chinese was and is above all a hard worker, and that the prosperity of a great many of the first generation of Southeast Asian Chinese generally rested on their industriousness. But, argued Freedman, the ability of Chinese to work hard could not of itself have been a sufficient reason for their progress in the amassing of riches. “They accumulated wealth because, in comparison with the people among whom they came to live, they were highly sophisticated in the handling of money. At the outset, they knew not only how to work themselves, but also how to make their money work.” Dr Freedman went on to say: “Shrewdness in handling money was an important part of the equipment which ordinary Chinese took with them when they went overseas in search of a livelihood. Their financial skill rested above all on three characteristics of the society in which they were raised: the respectability of the pursuit of riches, relative immunity of surplus wealth from confiscation by political superiors, and the legitimacy of careful and interested financial dealings between neighbours and even kinsmen.” The Chinese were economically successful in Southeast Asia (and nowhere so successful as in Singapore). The Singapore Chinese used their wealth to develop Johore and other parts of Malaya as well as Singapore, “not simply because they were energetic immigrants, but more fundamentally because in their quest for riches they knew how to handle money and organize men in relation to money”.
A Malay, according to the Constitution of Malaya (31 August, 1957), “means a person who professes the Muslim religion, habitually speaks the Malay language, conforms to Malay customs. . .” In Singapore in 1966, a Malay community leader, Inche Ahmad Haji Taff, told a Constitutional Commission that a Malay could be of another race provided he met these three conditions: it did not matter where he was born—Indonesia, England, India, anywhere.
An unexpected witness at this Commission was the Reverend Adam Ibrahim, an Anglican padre, and a Malay. He said that there were not more than ten Malays in Singapore who had become Christians. To his personal knowledge there were four or five. There are some 300,000 Malays in Singapore. The Reverend Ibrahim objected to a Malay being described as a person who must necessarily profess the Islamic faith, because this meant that a Malay would not have the right to embrace any religion of his choice. Besides, it was unfair that privileges normally given to Malays should be denied to those not professing Islam, although they were born Malays, as he was.
In Singapore, he said, “the law may control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among persons professing the Muslim religion”. There is, in fact, no law which specifically forbids Christians to propagate their faith among Muslims, but there is a tacit understanding that it is not done. The Reverend Adam Ibrahim insisted that everyone, including Malays, should have the right to profess any religion of his choice. The parson is a most unusual Malay. Most Malays in Singapore would consider that he is not a “real Malay”. How could he be if he rejected Islam? Race and religion are closely interwoven, even among progressive Singapore Malays.
Dr Judith Djamour, in her study, Malay Kinship and Marriage in Singapore (1950), noted that the Singapore Chinese on the whole considered the acquisition of wealth to be one of the most important aims in life, and also an end in itself. They were indefatigable workers and keen businessmen. Singapore Malays, on the other hand, attached great importance to easy and graceful living. Their attitude, Dr Djamour said, was: what was the use of earning a large salary if one could not rest and have some leisure? Dr Djamour said that the Malays were acutely aware that they were an economically depressed group. They frequently contrasted their status with that of the Chinese. They willingly admitted there were many very poor Chinese, but then they added: “But look at the big houses and the large cars in Singapore. Whom do they belong to? To the Chinese.”
On the other hand, most Malays readily stated that their community was not a rich one partly because Malays are not good businessmen and are not sufficiently industrious in accumulating capital and investing it profitably. “They do not like to work hard in order to acquire greater wealth, but prefer to spend what they earn, as they earn it.”
Instead of striking at the root causes of this attitude through education, racially inclined Malay leaders advocate, and apparently believe possible, an adjustment, “as in a game of golf”, as Tun Razak, then Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister, put it in a speech in 1965, between ruthless Chinese businessmen and ambitious untrained Malay aspirants. Tun Razak argued that the Malays were economically backward and needed to be helped, “so that they could have the same advantages as the others. In golf, if a player was new, he was given a handicap so that he could enjoy the game.” In the interests of “all-round welfare, peace and security,” he stated, “we have to make the Malays feel happy”. If, Tun Razak added, they did not have special rights they would feel unsafe, and remain backward.
Lee Kuan Yew and the People’s Action Party agreed to special rights for Malays when Singapore was part of Malaysia (though they thought they would be of little value to the mass of the poor Malay peasants) and in Singapore they are in a special position (subsidized housing, free education, even at the University). But Lee has always insisted that the Malays must be given a chance to develop through education, and through contact with other races, rather than be encouraged to rely forever on special rights.
In her book, Dr Djamour stressed the importance which Singapore Malays attach to personal happiness. She thought it would be difficult to over-emphasize this attitude: it permeated all fields of human behaviour. Thus, the Malay’s primary consideration is not the material advantages to be gained by a change but the serenity of mind which it would be likely to yield. This did not mean that earthly pleasures and worldly goods were despised. On the contrary, the Malay envied the Chinese his large house, car and luxury. Nor did the Malay believe that there is inherent good in renunciation: Dr Djamour said she could find no evidence whatever that asceticism, even in a mild form, was valued for its own sake, or as a means of spiritual joy. On the contrary, she found that the stress was always on gathering rosebuds while one may, and on leading as leisurely a life as possible. Every individual had a right to attain personal happiness by all legal means, and no Malay was expected to treat this right lightly.
These were the factors which produced the constant contradiction which challenged solution: an insistence upon a comparatively unproductive old social order, based upon a philosophy which called for happiness and leisure, conflicting with a human yearning for modern consumer goods and pleasures available only to those prepared to pay for them with long hours of hard work. Fortunately, in Singapore, with education, and the strong leadership of dynamic, progressive Malay leaders like Inche Othman Wok, Minister for Social Affairs, and Inche Rahim Ishak, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, the outlook and attitude of Malays in Singapore is gradually changing.
Winstedt, no imperialist, examined the effect of what he called “British protection” on the Malay economy. Down to 1941, the British gave the agriculturist and fisherman peace for their labours. British science introduced new forms of cultivation, especially rubber, which requires no large capital expenditure. Roads and railways were built. The exactions of chiefs were replaced by a uniform system of taxation. The British encouraged the emancipation of Malay women and provided Malay children with free and compulsory primary education. All this was to the credit of British influence on Malay material civilization.
On the debit side is the fact that Indian and Chinese immigrants, attracted by British rule in Malaya and Singapore, today outnumber the total Malay population. Britain also introduced to Malaya an industrial and capitalist system alien to Malay experience.
Winstedt contends that the real reason the Malays lag behind the Indian and Chinese is not laziness, but a failure to specialize and a failure to acquire and realize the importance of wealth. The Malay attitude, he says, is that work cannot be counted as a virtue even though it is necessary. “What the European moralist regards as lost time, the Malay regards as time gained.” According to Winstedt, the Malay failure to specialize was due first to his isolation in village communities encircled by forests and too small to maintain the specialist, and secondly to a bountiful nature which made living comparatively easy.
For the Malay’s failure to save his own capital Winstedt advanced three historical reasons. First, an accumulation of capital was impossible under the tribal system. To demand much more than cost for food was to invite bad harvest. Second, accumulation of possessions was to invite the attention of greedy chiefs. Third, the Muslim law against taking interest also mitigated against a modern use of capital. This attitude, Winstedt thought, was yielding to modernism.
Mills believed the Malays resented the success of the Chinese, an attitude not confined to Malaya: “The same hostility to the Chinese is found in every country of Southeast Asia. . .” Mills said that the final cause of hostility was political. “The Malays fear that under a democratic government they will be controlled by the Chinese. This seems very probable, since most of the Malays are rather naive and unsophisticated. This element of fear must not be underestimated: it is a major driving force in human affairs. Where fear is absent there can be friendship or at worst indifference, but when one individual or race is afraid of another it breeds hostility and, if it is strong enough, hatred.”
Inche Rahim Ishak, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and a member of the Central Committee of the PAP, in a speech which was given wide publicity in June, 1965, dealt with the “inherent fears of the Malays”. It was, he said, important that this “emotional factor”, this “natural fear and anxiety”, should not be dismissed as something trivial. In Malaysia, the Malays naturally harboured certain fears concerning the non-Malays who outnumbered them. Inche Rahim Ishak accused UMNO leaders, particularly the extremists, of playing up this insecurity for the purpose of extracting party political gain. “The truth is that UMNO leaders, in playing on the communal feelings of the Malays, are trying to ensure the perpetuation of their political position of power at the expense of progress and development of the Malays in the rural areas all over Malaysia.”
He argued that in the past the British colonialists deliberately “protected” the Malays from the influences of the more aggressive capitalist economy the British introduced. Now, under the pretext of “saving” the Malays, UMNO and Alliance leaders, he said, were perpetuating and extending the semi-feudal and colonial character of the country’s economy. “Tunku Abdul Rahman has often said that the Chinese are good businessmen. They should be allowed to carry on as in the past. Indians are good rubber tappers. They should be left alone in this ‘blissful state’ in the rubber estates to continue to tap rubber. The Malays are a happy people and they should also be left in their present position.”
Inche Rahim Ishak considered this “dangerous, if not stupid thinking. This is a deliberate attempt to maintain the status quo and at the same time to ensure the perpetuation of the semi-feudal structure of the economy of the Malays for purely selfish reasons.”
If references to the very valuable part the Indians have played in the economic development of Singapore and Malaya appear to be limited in these pages this is for no other reason than that this is a book about Lee Kuan Yew, and Lee is of Chinese descent. Modern Indian immigration to Malaya began in 1833 (India had contact with Malaya seven centuries before Christ) when pepper and coffee estates were being developed in Penang and Province Wellesley, and thousands more came later to tap rubber, build roads and railways. In spite of this, the Indian community never made much political impact on the country. In a physical sense they helped to build Singapore, as they helped to develop Malaya: nobody will ever know how many Indians died clearing the jungles in Malaya. In 1888, a thousand Indian labourers working on the railway in Sungei Ujong (now part of Negri Sembilan) were dying at the rate of twenty-three a month. They were paid three times as much in Malaya as they could get in India, but many of them had to pay off a heavy debt for the cost of passage from India. In 1968, thirty per cent of the Indian population in Singapore and Malaya are of the non-labouring class: they are general merchants, money-changers, small shopkeepers, clerks, doctors, lawyers, hawkers, bankers, government servants. Occasionally an Indian political leader has emerged (Singapore’s Foreign Minister, Mr S. Rajaratnam, is of Ceylonese descent) and, in recent years, effective trade unionists; but the political influence of the Indians has never matched their considerable practical influence on economic development. Modern Singaporeans and Malaysians are indebted to the Indians for physically constructing what today, in modern jargon, is called the infrastructure—the roads, the bridges, the railways, the clearings in the jungle, the wharfs, the houses, the factories—and there were no bulldozers in those days, and no mepacrin.
In an Asia Magazine interview (5 February, 1967), Tunku Abdul Rahman was asked whether in his judgment there was any justification for the “fairly common libel” that Malays are a lazy, indolent people. The Tunku replied that he personally felt that all the nicest people are regarded as the lazy people. “We are extremely kind, warm and friendly. But others have taken undue advantage of our kindness, hospitality and our good, easy-going nature. But to my mind, this so-called laziness, which is in fact kindness, is the thing which makes people happy, which perhaps conditions them to sit back and let others do the work, enjoy the benefits of their labour. But in the final analysis, when it comes to the time when our people must push themselves forward, they are capable of extreme sacrifice, extreme hard work.”
In an article in a Tamil newspaper (Tamil Malar) in July, 1965, Rahim Ishak wrote that only democratic socialism could correct the economic imbalance between the two major communities and this would ultimately bring about national solidarity and peace. He thought inter-racial harmony in Malaysia, particularly harmony between the Malays and Chinese, “is not attainable within the present scope of a profit-motivated society and system, where the Chinese and foreign capitalists, by and large, reap the profits”. Rahim’s argument was that, in a non-communal democratic socialist Malaysia, the one community to which would accrue the maximum gain was the Malay community, because “they have nothing to lose, since today they are the dispossessed”. He warned that the Malays would need time to adjust, to understand the new concepts and new approaches to their problems. Races and communities lived interspersed with each other: there were no separate cantonments where races and communities lived exclusively, although there were places where one race or community were in the preponderance. “In this respect we are unlike Switzerland: we live together. We work together. We play together. We suffer together. Therefore, the time has come for Malaysians of various races and communities to affiliate themselves to non-communal ideologies or organizations in political parties.” To work on the basis of race, as a political party, meant stagnation. This arrangement resulted in a tendency among racial leaders to appeal to communal chauvinism to hold their followers. Communal fears and prejudices were exploited. Strengthening of the communal parties meant their becoming entrenched in communal politics. That could only weaken the prospects for a Malaysian community, not encourage it.
That was the sum of Rahim’s argument: neither he nor Lee Kuan Yew wanted to abolish communal organizations at once, or indeed ever: they could always serve some useful purpose as social or cultural bodies. But what was vital if progress was to be made towards multiracialism was that the races should be encouraged to intermingle politically, that gradually the political-communal pressure upon them should be slackened, eventually dropped altogether. Instead, UMNO told every Malay he must join no other political organization except UMNO. Albar, Senu, Razak and others have made it abundantly clear that any Malay joining another political organization is a traitor to his race and religion. Tunku Abdul Rahman’s UMNO crushed Dato Onn’s multiracial Independence of Malaya Party ten years earlier by forbidding any UMNO member to join it. In ten years, UMNO’s resolve to resist any encroachment on its communalism had intensified. With political power came the firm decision that there was to be no effective intermingling of the Malays with others: their leaders would speak for all Malays.
In July, 1964, UMNO notified the PAP officially of this decision. In Singapore, they organized a Malay convention, attended by some 150 Malay organizations, and there twenty-three Malays were chosen to speak for the entire Malay community in the State, in all future dealings with the Singapore Government. Syed Jaafar Albar, speaking as national Secretary-General of UMNO, appealed to the Malays to unite. “Malays in Singapore have long been oppressed,” he declared. “First there were the British to whom the Malays gave their trust. But the British betrayed this trust. Then there were the Japanese with cruel oppression. Singapore is now independent with her entry into Malaysia, but the plight of the Malays remains. Malays must unite to defend their own interest.”
More than a thousand Malay leaders, from 114 cultural, social and welfare organizations, met Lee at another mass meeting the following Sunday. No political organizations were asked to attend. As Prime Minister of a State dedicated to multiracialism and a multi-party system, Lee could not accept Albar’s demand that his twenty-three-member Action Committee represented the Malay community. He reminded them that the popularly elected Singapore Government (elected in a general election in which the Malays freely rejected all UMNO candidates) had a right, indeed a duty, to solve the problems of all communities, including those of the Malay community. “We would like, before we make any decisions, to consult a wide range of representation in the Malay community. For any group to say that they exclusively represent all persons of a particular community is a claim as extravagant as it is unfounded.” He said that for any group to demand the right to represent all the members of a community and so demand the exclusive right to advise what the Government should do “is a challenge to the constitutional rights and obligations of the Singapore Government. We do not intend to abdicate from our right to govern.”
Lee promised at that meeting to do what was right and fair. The Government would not be intimidated: they would look after the interests of all the people of Singapore, including the Malays. “They must be trained in the building trade, they must be trained to be skilled technicians. There are just not enough jobs for primary school-leavers as messengers, peons, and other unskilled jobs. But there are openings as fitters, carpenters, masons and semi-skilled labourers in factories and industries. . . if they are prepared to undergo training.” Lee said the position could be improved if Malays could be persuaded to take advantage of training facilities which were available. He was anxious to adjust and remove the imbalance in development between the races. It would harm the unity and integrity of the nation if one section of the community lagged behind the other. Malay problems fell under three headings: education, employment and housing. Education was the most important. If this was solved all other Malay problems would be solved. “Once the Malays are as well educated and qualified as the others, then their capacity to hold better jobs and have a better standard of living will automatically follow.” At present very few Malay students went to secondary school, and very, very few went on to universities. The great majority finished their education at primary level. “Somehow we must provide them with a training that will qualify them for industrial jobs.”
Some historians say that the founding of Utusan Melayu in its present form, in 1939, was the first sign of a real nationalist movement in Malaya. Others say that the short-lived monthly, Al-Iman, which was more a religious magazine dedicated to Islamic reform, did in fact make the first nationalistic impact, the argument being that “one of the fundamental facts about Islam is that it is not simply a system of religious beliefs, but a political and social blue-print for a good society”. The Islamic reformers in Al-Iman, therefore, devoted a great deal of their attention to social, political and economic matters, as well as to religious affairs. An article written in 1907, by Syed Sheikh Al-Hadi, caused a stir because of its criticism of Malay leaders.
“Look what has happened to us here in the East,” wrote Syed Sheikh Al-Hadi. “The Europeans, better equipped with weapons for the battle of life, have taken over. We, on our part, have remained silent and submissive, like watchdogs or saddle-horses. We are satisfied with the scraps from their tables, and the grass that grows in their compounds. And when other Eastern people, like the Japanese, demonstrate to us the wealth of their knowledge and national glory, what do we do? Do we blame ourselves for our shortcomings? No, we hang down our heads and say it is the will of God.” But this attitude, the writer held, was “false and blasphemous. It is we who are to blame for our condition for not following the commandments of God as expressed in the Holy Koran, to strive for ourselves, to assist others, and to pursue knowledge. And the chief of those at fault are our own leaders. . . Contrast this state of affairs with that of the Chinese who come to this country. They arrive with a mat, a pair of shorts and a singlet. In no time at all, through their own efforts they have become towkays and millionaires. And it doesn’t stop at that. The leaders among the Chinese, unlike our own leaders, band together to establish welfare organizations and build schools for their community. If we are blind to the commands of our religion, surely we cannot be such fools as to fail to follow the example set by the industrious Chinese?”
Fifty years later, Malay political leaders blamed the British for the economic backwardness of the Malays. Al-Iman concentrated their criticism upon the Malay people themselves, more especially on their leaders. Al-Iman’s main concern was not to bring about political change, but to improve the conditions of the Malays by recalling them to the true ways of Islam. They criticized Islam as it was practised in Malaya, and while this did not lead directly to nationalist movements, it could not be denied that the reformists of the early twentieth century did much to foster and encourage discussion of the kind of changes which ultimately led to political nationalism.
In the 1960s powerful supporters of UMNO bought control of Utusan Melayu. Lee Kuan Yew was legal adviser to Utusan Melayu from 1950 until he became Prime Minister in 1959.