cont from above
This book is a collection of reflective essays and tributes by Chin
Siong's former political colleagues and fellow detainees, friends
and admirers who had known him during his life-time, among whom are
Malaysian Professor of Anthropology Syed Husin Ali, Malaysian
Academy of Sciences Vice President Dr. M. K. Rajakumar, and
Malaysian poet laureate, Usman Awang. It, however, tends to be
repetitious as the essays have not been edited with regard to one
another. It is a pity there are no contributions from C.V. Devan
Nair -- Chin Siong's former political comrade and fellow detainee
and, later, president of Singapore -- and Dr. Lee Siew Choh, which
would have lent even greater political heft to this slender
volume.
However that may be, two very fine essays by British academic, Dr.
T.N. Harper, and his Australian counterpart, Dr. Greg Poulgrain,
give the book that extra edge, which for them alone makes the book
recommendable, notwithstanding the editorial and printing
limitations noted. They expose Lee's perfidy -- which was to
characterize his long tenure as prime minister -- and by
implication call into question his spin on those events in The
Singapore Story, whose debut as his political memoirs was assisted
by a legion of government personnel and staff from the Straits
Times newspaper. One small comment. Given the contents, the title
is a misnomer: Lim Chin Siong was not a comet. He is a star in
Singapore's political firmament, and, as such, occupies a place in
its political pantheon.
The second book, Dark Clouds at Dawn: A Political Memoir , by Said
Zahari, is important for several reasons: it provides a rare
insight into the interferences in the editorial direction of Utusan
Melayu, the leading pan-Malayan Malay newspaper, by UMNO -- the
United Malays National Organization -- the principal partner in the
Alliance government, which precipitated the unprecedented but
consequential Utusan Melayu strike action not so much over pay or
conditions of work but over those interferences, and its
acquisition by UMNO to become the mouthpiece of the UMNO-MCA
Alliance government. In the result, Said Zahari, a Singapore
citizen, was banished to Singapore. He also describes the roles
inter se of Utusan Melayu's several senior personnel, including
that of its owner, Yusuf Ishak, who became the first local head of
an independent Singapore, and his relations with A. Samad Ismail,
the legendary pan-Malaysian journalist and nationalist, Othman Wok,
a senior journalist who later became Singapore minister for social
affairs, and a host of Malaysian political luminaries.
It focuses on his own arrest in Operation Cold Store, his long
travails in detention, and his friendship with Chin Siong, among
other detainees. In a press conference at the 1971 Helsinki
International Press Institute conference, Lee -- to a question
asked by a journalist -- spun a convoluted tale of Said Zahari's
arrest and detention: that he was not arrested because of his
journalistic work but as a communist: eight years into his
detention, he was suddenly branded a communist. Said Zahari exposes
Lee's duplicity when he told Lord Goodman, Master of University
College, Oxford, inquiring on behalf of International P.E.N., over
his continued imprisonment that [his] detention was being
maintained "only because you have -- it is asserted -- refused to
renounce violence as a political instrument." It was a wholly
dishonest assertion -- a cheap forensic trick, which Lee repeatedly
uses to deflect international criticisms of his arbitrary
actions.
These books are written for an audience familiar with the
personalities and the locales mentioned. The interchanging use of
abbreviations, titles, names and nicknames can be confusing for
readers approaching this subject cold. Both books have no indexes,
and the latter, in particular, would have greatly benefitted with a
glossary of names and designations of the dramatis personae, the
political parties and organizations. But there is no excuse for
misspelling the names of well-known persons, of which James
Michener, the American novelist, is one example. These are
important books with a tale to tell which would have benefitted
from a stricter editorial pen and keener proof-readings. Be that as
it may, these books cannot be neglected by any serious students of
Singapore and Southeast Asia. They are published by Insan, Kuala
Lumpur.
