Did Lee Kuan Yew want Singapore ejected from Malaysia? (2005)

uesday, November 01, 2005
Did Lee Kuan Yew want Singapore ejected from Malaysia?

M.G.G.Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com

IT IS FORTY YEARS SINCE Singapore was ejected from Malaysia, on 9 August 1965, less than two years after it was formed on 16 September 1963; though in Malaysia the date is August 31, and the publication two months ago of the late Patrick Keith's book, Ousted.

We have different opinions on the affair. We are told, officially and in the history books, that it was a cordial affair. The Star repeats that canard. It was anything but cordial. The two prime ministers - Tunku Abdul Rahman of Malaysia and Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore - though both from Cambridge, did not get along. The Tunku, 62 at the time, believed in nature and Mr Lee, then 43, in nurture. Mr Lee upped the ante throughout, let people who were opposed to separation lead the negotiations, did not read the signals from Kuala Lumpur as he would now at 80.

The talks were bound to fail. The Peoples' Action Party saw itself as replacing the Malaysian Chinese Association in the Alliance, as the National Front was known at that time. The main Singapore negotiators, which included the then culture minister and later deputy prime minister, Mr S. Rajaratnam, did not want to leave Malaysia. Neither did Mr Devan Nair, the PAP MP for Bangsar, later President of Singapore and now living in exile in Canada. Whatever the history books might say, the fact is the Tunku took the decision while recuperating for shingles in a London clinic.

It took Mr Lee and his cabinet by surprise when Tun Razak, then Malaysian deputy prime minister, informed Mr Lee about it. There were furious negotiations between Malaysia and Singapore in the run up to the negotiations. The then Singapore deputy prime minister, Dr Toh Chin Chye, wrote to the Tunku and saw him, but he was told Singapore could stay if Mr Lee was out of the picture. Dr Toh's decline in Singapore politics began then in independent Singapore.

Mr Lee was brash then. He saw the PAP as the premier Chinese party in Malaysia and Singapore, which of course the Tunku did not agree. Mr Lee was emboldened by the 1964 general elections, when crowds from what is now Suleiman Court to the area surrounding Selangor Club turned up to hear him although PAP was returned in only one constituency, Bangsar. But there was the implied understanding that the PAP would remain in Singapore. The PAP broke that. It was downhill after that, which culminated in Singapore's expulsion two years later.

Mr Lee's message was not acceptable to UMNO at that time, nor is it now though it is much modified, and the assistant minister for information, Syed Jaafar Albar, the father of the Malaysian foreign minister and who did not want Singapore out although he resisted Singapore in Malaysia. On Singapore's independence, the PAP became the DAP and Mr Lim Kit Siang, Mr Devan Nair's assistant at that time, tool over. Mr Nair returned to Singapore in the 1969 general elections. Mr Lee did not want Singapore ejected from Malaysia, but when that was inevitable, he brought Singapore to what it is today: an efficient island republic but its people are brash, arrogant.

But this will last only so long as it gets its water from Johore. I happen to think Singapore will eventually have to merge with Malaysia, but as an adjunct of Johore. Patrick Keith's book is correct from his perspective as a senior information official of the Malaysian foreign ministry, but he wrote it from an official point of view. He knew the Tunku well, but he did not know what transpired behind his back. But it is important for an official point of view that contradicts the official history. There are other official accounts waiting to be written from the perspective of officials.

The history of Singapore's ejection from Malaysia is not as simple as it is made out in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur; as it should be. But we are not interested in the past but the UMNO version of the day. We are now worrying over an UMNO MP's description of the Indian as "keling". But more than 30 years ago, the man who was to become Malaysia's deputy prime minister was convicted for using that word. Much of Malaysia's written history, particularly the Tunku's papers in government (which is how I know of the details, recovered from the wastepaper basket at a time when the Tunku was to be decried at any cost, and is now in the National Archives). We have to read the politician's account to find out what happened. Mr Lee's account, in the first part of his autobiography, is the first politician's account of the ejection, but it is from his perspective.

No Malaysian politician has written his story (in English). Most are restrained by the official history, and I hear personal stories about the time, some important and some self-serving but nevertheless important. But they are a dying breed. The Malaysian politician who was one at the time of ejection is now in his late seventies or older. But he has not written his memoirs, although he has much to say. Once retired, the politician is forgotten and consigned to the political dustbin. Tun Mahathir does not see it that way. He is active in politics, though he resigned from office two years ago. But he has no plans yet to write his memoirs, which he should. He was elected in 1964, was against Singapore coming into Malaysia, was regarded as an ultra in Singapore, and against Singapore leaving, one of whom Mr Lee called the "ultras".

So we are left with the official history written with UMNO help and with no official papers of retired politicians. This is so with the history of Singapore's ejection from Malaysia. The University Kebangsan Malaysia has a "Scholar in Residence" programme, by which prominent Malaysians are invited to write their history of the country, or aspects of it. Tun Ghazali Shafie has written his memoirs on the formation of Malaysia in Malay, which is now being translated into English. This scheme allows aging Malays in Malaysia and Singapore to write their memoirs.

But the money is why they write it. A Singapore journalist told me, when I asked him why he had not written his memoirs, that it is a matter of economics: he would get more writing his journalistic pieces than he would writing his memoirs. The same rationale holds in Malaysia. But it enables the future historian to write sensibly of the events of the present time. Now we know of only different accounts by foreign historians and political scientists. It is also true that the foreigner gets an interview easier than the local. It is depicted in the ads. There is in "Deeparaya" until there is a Caucasian present if we believe the advertisements we see on television by government agencies or companies.

The non-Malay perception in Malaysia is different from the Malay. The Malay is the ruling power and non-Malay not. The perceptions therefore differ, for each carry with them his respective historical baggage. That is changing now. The country is divided between the rulers and the ruled. Many Malaysians - me, for instance, and I am 66 though I can remember Malay ruled by the British - know only the coalition controlled by UMNO, first the Alliance and then the National Front, and the history they learnt in school is what UMNO tells them the history of Malaysia.

With the press controlled by the National Front, the Star has whitewashed the ejection of Singapore by Malaysia. They have not explained why Singapore was ejected; only it was peaceful. But it was anything but. I was reporter with Reuters in Singapore though at the time of its ejection, I was in Trivandrum and it was my cousin, a professor of history then at the University of Kerala, who told me of it. I had seen it coming and could talk intelligently of the break. My view then and today is that the ejection of Singapore was preceded by often vociferous exchange of words and Mr Lee did not want the break. But history in Singapore and Malaysia says otherwise.