I spent a great deal of time and effort between 1955 and 1959, when I assumed office, trying to convince him that in the long run he had to reckon with Singapore, and that it was easier if he included us in his overall calculations and started on the basis of Singapore as part of his overall problems than if he tried to pass the problem-child over to the British. I will tell you that I was amazed and astonished at the turn of events which, between 1959 and 1961, helped me to bring home to him the realities of the position. Of course, the British, in their own pragmatic way, also helped, but I would say that nobody, however well-informed, could have foreseen the rapidity with which events developed in and around Malaysia. I certainly did not, because I had envisaged an unpleasant time trying to contain an almost uncontainable situation in isolation from Malaya. But, fortunately, our enemies made a number of mistakes which helped us: first in convincing the Tunku that Singapore mattered to him, that the British could not look after Singapore for him indefinitely, that he had to come to terms with Singapore, and that the best way of coming to terms with Singapore was to come to terms with Malaysia in the context of Southeast Asia. That is really the heart of the matter with regard to Malaysia. The Tunku never thought about the Borneo territories. He never imagined that he would be a sponsor of a plan that would form a viable broadly-based nation in Southeast Asia comprising these five British possessions. His attitude between 1955 and 1959 was one which is not unnatural in people who have just inherited tremendous problems of their own, of just minding their own business, and he had a lot of business to mind in Malaya. He was doing well, and he saw no reason why he should undertake problems, the nature of which he did not like and the prospects of providing solutions to which he was uncertain of.
All of you are well-informed on Malaya and Malaysia, and all of you, no doubt, can read between the lines of what politicians often leave unsaid, but, because I am talking to an audience not of immediate political flavour, I think I can afford myself the privilege of talking between the lines, which is perhaps what you would like. Let me now explain to you why we are in the present position:
I will not pretend to try to explain British policy, because there are people more competent and more knowledgeable than I am, but whatever the policy was designed to achieve it certainly helped me, because it convinced the Tunku that he had to come to terms with immediate realities – that was Singapore. It has got 1.6 million people of which 1.2 are Chinese, 200,000 Malays and about 200,000 Indians, 2,000 Eurasians and others. After his experience in Malaya he was convinced that Singapore was not an easy place to govern, because the communists are able to manipulate Chinese sentiments, Chinese feelings and love of Chinese things, such as language, culture and civilisation, to much greater effectiveness than anybody else, certainly to much greater effectiveness than he and his colleagues.
The man asked him, “What happens if Malaysia does not succeed?” and the Tunku replied, “I would be the most happy man in the world.”
But in the course of the first 18 months we were able to convince him and his colleagues that if he allowed the Singapore situation to continue in isolation to Malaya he would create a position where it was worthwhile to make a political appeal based on the Chinese alone. Because if 70 per cent of the people in Singapore are Chinese, and you can win the majority of the 70, you can win political power on the basis of one-man-one-vote, and whatever he tried to do with his 2.5 million Chinese in the Federation, as long as a contrary cause was going on in Singapore, he would fail to win over these 2.5 million Chinese in the Federation, because they are one people and one political situation; what happened in the Federation had its effect on Singapore and vice versa. The argument convinced him, and he was coming round to the view that it was better to move ahead of events, hence that momentous speech when he casually mentioned closer political and economic association. We responded, we welcomed it, and we said that if Malaysia helped merger we were all in favour of it, and that led off a chain of events which has completely altered the outlook in Malaysia for the next decade.
Briefly, the reactions were as follows: the communists, being over-suspicious, believed that we had already reached an agreement with the British and the Federation – in fact, we had not – to create this federation called Malaysia. For various reasons they decided that they would force the fight into the open and stop it, and that very act accelerated the whole process and brought home to the Tunku and his colleagues the dire necessity of having Malaysia, or of being undermined by a communist-manipulated situation from Singapore. An Independent Television man interviewed the Tunku in April of this year; he casually laughed and asked the Tunku how Malaysia was going, and the Tunku said, “I do not know – I hope all is well.” He was at that time somewhat angry at what was going on in Borneo. The man asked him, “What happens if Malaysia does not succeed?” and the Tunku replied, “I would be the most happy man in the world.” That is true; without Malaysia he would feel a sense of relief without these problems; with Malaysia he would feel that it was the lesser of the two evils, but he has not got the answer to some of the many problems he will inherit. These are the immediate problems:
The racial mix
In Malaya today there are 3.4 million Malays against 2.5 million Chinese against 0.8 million Indians. A society which is not completely integrated. Part of the Chinese are English-educated and would fit in with the Malayan scene – anything between 30 and 40 per cent. The balance are not English-educated, and half of that balance will probably have their loyalties tied up with the country of the origin of their ancestors. The Indians do not form a sizeable force, nor do they constitute any problem. The Tunku has been doing well because the Malayan Communist Party has been sufficiently unwise to pursue a policy which rallies all the forces in the Malay world around him, and leaves the forces in the Chinese world who are not for the communists no choice but to reach a working basis with whoever leads the Malay majority.
Let me explain this: 99 per cent of the Malayan Communist Party is Chinese. They have fought for the last 17 years, since 1945, to establish a Soviet republic based on the efforts and sacrifices of the Chinese. They cannot conceive of a situation in which communism can come to Malaya without their efforts; and they use the obvious and the simple method of winning more people over to communism by pointing to the illustrious example of China. The result is that they win more recruits from the Chinese into the Malayan Communist Party and present communism to the non-Chinese in Malaya as Chinese imperialism, and so they get themselves more and more isolated in this Chinese world.
The Malays watching this have a tremendous fear that their position will be jeopardised, and, therefore, playing around their traditional leaders – and the Tunku is an extremely shrewd and able leader of his people, have kept all the traditional forms of leadership. He himself is the son of a Sultan, a traditional leader of his people; and he has proved over seven years that his leadership over the Malays is likely to be undisputed for a long time, and certainly for as long as the Malayan Communist Party pursues this stupid policy of augmenting their strength on the basis of the prestige and reputation of China, making an appeal only to the Chinese.
Malaysia is the answer, because that would more or less maintain the present balance of the communal forces in Malaya.
But with Malaysia the Tunku inherits different problems. In the first place, if he had merger with Singapore without Malaysia he is quite convinced that enormous differences will arise, because the population of Singapore is 1.2 million Chinese; plus the 2.5 million in the Federation, this will make it 3.7 million as against 3.6 million Malays. I am not saying this is a desirable method of computing, but I am saying that this is basic political arithmetic which weighs in the minds of political leaders – communist, non-communist and anti-communist – because of the situation. Therefore, he is adamant that with merger – which he sees no escape from – he must have Malaysia. For then he will have 1 million Malays, Dusuns, Dayaks, Muruts and others, to add to the 3.5 million,
which will make it 4.5 million, and the Chinese would be 3.6 million plus 400,000 in Sarawak and North Borneo to make it roughly 4 million. In other words, merger without Malaysia lands him in a situation which he fears: a Chinese-led communist party may in the extreme manipulate Chinese sentiments to a point where the Chinese with electoral weighting can upset a constitutionally elected government. Therefore, Malaysia is the answer, because that would more or less maintain the present balance of the communal forces in Malaya. The communists know this; they are resigned to merger because they understand that it is impossible to have an independent Singapore, but they want merger alone without Malaysia because they believe that what the Tunku fears is right, that they have got the power with China communists to manipulate the Chinese to a point where they might be able to constitutionally upset the government.
We have certainly got a better base and a better start with Malaysia than without Malaysia for this one simple reason – that the Chinese, being an extremely practical-minded people, never embark on a gamble which they do not think is likely to succeed.
Why Malaysia must succeed
My next thesis is, I do not think the one-man-one-vote system is going to endure in Southeast Asia for various reasons which I shall discuss briefly, but the present generation of leaders in this particular phase envisage a continuance of the one-man-one-vote system and see in this a workable solution to prevent any communist manipulation of Chinese sentiments on behalf of the communists. Now, are they right? It is very difficult to say. But we have certainly got a better base and a better start with Malaysia than without Malaysia for this one simple reason – that the Chinese, being an extremely practical-minded people, never embark on a gamble which they do not think is likely to succeed. Therefore, if you start with Malaysia they will not ever embark or allow themselves to be persuaded to embark on a scheme to capture power which they may otherwise be tempted to do.
So, in my estimation, the way in which events have developed between May and now have been such as to have heightened the conflict and the cleavage between the China Chinese and the rest of the community. But the China Chinese are not communists – that is important. They are for themselves with all their prejudices and pride in their ancient culture and civilisation; and if we start off from a situation in which they are not going to win anyway by pursuing a Chinese line, I think we stand a very good chance of pulling a considerable proportion of them across to the other side, away from the communists, and that is what I think people like me can do if given a chance. You can govern Malaysia without the Chinese because you will have a situation where the Chinese are not a majority, but you will not govern it well; because 40 per cent, though they may be of Malaysia, are the 40 per cent that makes the Malaysian economy tick. That is a fact which, fortunately, the Federation leaders understand; the Tunku and all his colleagues understand this, and there is no desire and no inclination on their part to start on any anti-Chinese crusade, as was attempted by the Indonesians. Therefore, I say that the prospect of Malaysia failing presents such awful consequences that I am pretty sure it will succeed because it is in our power to make it succeed. The only thing which I think is necessary before it succeeds is a considerable amount of common sense, first in the British who run the administration in Borneo and who have considerable influence amongst the population there through chieftains, trade associations and so on, a certain amount of reasonableness from the Federation in acknowledging that Borneo is, after all, 1,000 miles over the sea, and that the local population has got aspirations of its own, local ambitions which they want to be fulfilled with their own men, and the planning to bring it into being without much fuss and bother.
I do not envisage the present period of gestation coming to an otherwise but happy conclusion. No doubt there will be a great deal of trouble from time to time as adjustments are made in attitudes and approaches to resolve the problem of good government in the new Federation of Malaysia. But I believe it will come about before June 1963.
In this hard-hitting speech to the Malaysian Students Association of New South Wales at Malaysia Hall in Sydney on March 20, 1965, Lee spoke bluntly and frankly about Singapore’s problem in its 18-month merger with Malaysia: the PAP was for a more open and competitive economy while the Malay leadership in Kuala Lumpur was intent on continuing the status quo and preserving special Malay rights. These differences would lead eventually to separation.
Preserving Malay special rights
The man, the boy who is admired in a Malay community is the person with the social graces, a good athlete; not necessarily the intense individual.
One of the problems we discovered in about six years of trying to implement our education policy in Singapore is that the Malay is not basically a money-conscious man. He does not seek gold as tenaciously as the immigrants. The immigrants came here seeking gold, fulfilment, success.
If you go to any school in Malaysia you will find in the immigrant communities, particularly amongst the Chinese and the Indians, a tremendous emphasis on education and high performance. This is not necessarily so amongst the Malays. The man, the boy who is admired in a Malay community is the person with the social graces, a good athlete; not necessarily the intense individual. Now this creates a very difficult problem of adjustment when they both have to live in the same milieu and work in the same society, having to cooperate with each other and to find an equitable way of distributing the fruits of that society.
I do not believe the problems that we are confronted with are Malay special rights and Malay as the national language. Nobody quarrels with that. Nobody in his right mind quarrels with that. The problem is, special rights and Malay as the national language will not by themselves resolve the basic imbalance in economic development between Malays and non-Malays.
I could speak to you today in Malay, if my Malay were good enough and you could understand me. I do not see how that can resolve the problem of low income, or the padi crops, or their poor rubber. There’s no nexus between the two. We could have a bit more national pride if today we sat here and your Australian friends had to sit back and probably listen to us through the aid of an interpreter. And I think in the end it is necessary. There must be that amour propre in a nation. We can’t always live on a borrowed language. But at the same time, the problem that is arising because of these economic and social problems of imbalance between indigenous and immigrants have not been resolved – quite a number of politicians who are unable to explain the failure of their economic and social policies pick upon national language and Malay special rights as an explanation for why they are not doing well.
You can give as many jobs as you like, reserve as many taxi licences, contract licences, bus licences, the right to operate factories; the Indonesians have tried the whole gamut. Finally, they have taken over everything.
This is a very dangerous situation. You can give as many jobs as you like, reserve as many taxi licences, contract licences, bus licences, the right to operate factories; the Indonesians have tried the whole gamut. Finally, they have taken over everything. They have only got themselves to take over now. But I suggest that the day they do that, the day they get a grip on themselves, that day they begin to tick. You cannot resolve these problems of economic development, which require skills, technical skills, managerial skills, organisational methods, by just making speeches, and when you fail because your policies were inadequate you give xenophobic slogans as an excuse. This is a very grave problem for us, for it could very easily happen. You read – well, many of you can’t read because it is in Jawi – the Utusan Melayu. Now we are taking the trouble every day to translate all these important statements that they are making, feeding to the Malay peasantry, a philosophy which in the end if it goes unchecked must lead to the same reckless xenophobic slogans which we have heard from our neighbours.
No society which has this imbalance can be altogether at ease. The eight years that have passed from 1955 to 1963 were unique in that really what happened was a Western-ed
ucated Malay leadership, traditionalist by birth, conservative by temperament, continued the laissez-faire policies of the old colonial government and with good rubber and tin prices ended up with a considerable degree of public development, public construction, which is monuments, museums, roads. But because the economy is based on the profit incentive, it produced successful response in the towns and in the urban areas and has not been equally successful in the country.
The urban areas are largely occupied by peoples of immigrant stock, Chinese and Indians and others, who respond to high rewards. They work hard for high pay, they work harder to get overtime, in fact they make a point of making sure there is overtime in order to make money. So you see, they understand the profit incentive. Having bought a scooter, they save to buy a refrigerator. Having got a refrigerator, they want a television set. Having got a television set, they buy the flat they’re living in.
But not so in the rural areas. It’s the people who are not accustomed to this money economy who do not acquire wealth just for the sake of acquiring wealth, and are therefore afraid of transition, education, adjustment, to a highly monetised economy that must take place. And in fact it’s already taking place in a very unfortunate way, because as development in the country does not keep pace with development in the towns the young men are drifting from the country into shanty areas around the big towns, looking for jobs. And if they don’t find the jobs to satisfy them subsequently, there will be a great deal of social unrest.
So having told you what I think is the real problem, I will ask you now to view what you have heard in the newspapers, some of it even in the Australian newspapers, against this background. What do you get coming out from Malaysia? A great deal of noise, disharmony, discord, competition, it would appear, between the PAP and the Alliance, competition between the present government and my colleagues and I who want to form the next government – so they say.
Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas Page 36
