A Son's Defense

SYED HAMID ALBAR, MALAYSIA'S defense minister, is the son of the late Syed Jaafar Albar, former secretary-general of the dominant United Malays National Organization. In his memoirs, Lee Kuan Yew writes that Syed Jaafar "was the hatchet man of the UMNO leaders hostile to Singapore." Lee accuses him of fomenting race riots in the island in 1964. Asiaweek provided Syed Hamid, 54, with excerpts from the book and asked him to respond to the allegations against his father. His response, edited for space:



My father never minced words. But to say that he was racist shows a lack of understanding about the history of UMNO and the Alliance [government]. My father was one of the men responsible for selling the concept of the Alliance to the kampung [village] people. The fact that he disagreed with Lee Kuan Yew does not mean he was anti-Chinese.

From the start, what he saw in Lee Kuan Yew was that he never kept his word about his coming into Malaysia. The marriage of Singapore with the Federation of Malaya went into rough waters from the beginning because of the way Lee ruffled feathers. Lee's intention was to gain Independence through Malaysia because those were the terms that the British had made. He cleverly made use of joining Malaysia to enable him to win the Singapore election [just before joining Malaysia] on the Malaysia ticket. At the same time, he encouraged the Malaysian authorities to arrest [Communists in the opposition] so that he was not the one doing the dirty job and would not be unpopular. When the opposition leaders got into trouble, it was very easy for [Lee's People's Action Party] to win the elections with an astounding majority.

Lee Kuan Yew also made a promise that he would not interfere in Malaysian politics, but this promise was never kept. He put candidates in the Peninsula [in the April 1964 general elections] to instigate the Chinese population in Malaysia to support the PAP when the understanding was that the PAP should limit its political activities to Singapore.

So what do you expect [my father] the secretary-general of UMNO to do? He is responsible for ensuring that UMNO as a political party, and the Alliance, are not threatened by a newcomer. With that charge, he went around making speeches which were not in favor of Lee Kuan Yew and the PAP because their concept then of Malaysian Malaysia was not acceptable to us. So to say that he was the hatchet man just because he spoke critically of Lee, is just like saying that Lee, as the secretary-general of the PAP, was doing the same thing for his own party.

To suggest the riot or trouble in Singapore started just because of [my father's] speech is to ignore that things don't happen on the spur of the moment. There was strong, valid discontent among the Malay population on the way that Lee Kuan Yew had treated them. Rightly or wrongly, that's how they felt then. To quote my father's speech out of context and to take some of his words to suggest he instigated riots is not fair reporting. It shows Lee Kuan Yew is trying to get old scores on a person who has passed away, who is not able to respond to him directly.

Lee Kuan Yew didn't like UMNO Singapore to be related in any way to UMNO in Malaysia. Even though the original history was intertwined, he wanted it to be separated. And yet he interfered in our own political scene.