Waiting for statesman who can forge Bangsa Malaysia

I WAS inspired by a YouTube video about China (then and now) in a forum featuring Weijian Shan, the renown Chinese financier and author of the book Out of the Gobi, and Tom Friedman, the New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist. Their conversation and views were very insightful and enlightening.

I am no Shan or Friedman and have made no significant contribution to this world. However, I have watchedtheworldgobysinceI became aware of my own existence, and remember some of the momentous events that have happened around me or were told to me.

I am grateful for being born and living in this peaceful country called Malaysia. When I was born in January 1949, the Second World War and Japanese Occupation of Malaya had ended a few years before. Mao Zedong was to defeat Chiang Kai-Shek and proclaim the establishment of the People’s Republic of China that year. The Korean War was fought from 1950 to1953butIwastooyoungtobe aware of it. The only evidence I have seen of it is the statue of General Douglas MacArthur, who was then commander-in-chief of the United Nations forces, when I visited Jayu Park, Incheon in 2006.

My father, who was born in 1922 and lived through the Second World War, has vivid memories of the D-Day landing at Normandy by the Allied forces on June 6, 1944, and the proclamation of Japanese surrender by Emperor Hirohito on Aug 15, 1945. My dad said the counter attack on the Japanese in Malaya by the Allied forces was imminent at that time and the Japanese would have fought to a bitter end and inflicted maximum civilian casualties, especially on the Malayan Chinese, had the atomic bombs not been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If that had happened, I might not have been born.

Malaya was still under British rule when I entered kindergarten in 1955 and Standard One in 1956. The Chinese in Malaya were generally apolitical and were happy with the colonial administrators who introduced good governing systems in the country. They were content in earning their living peacefully and maintaining their way of life.

I do not have any special memories of Merdeka Day on Aug 31, 1957 but only remember some people going to Stadium Batu Pahat in Jalan Ampuan to join the Merdeka rally. The Chinese were anxious about their citizenship after independence and local Malayan Chinese association leaders came forward to help them in their citizenship application.

I remember an interesting personality in my neighbourhood, an old Chinese man by the name of Frank Tan who lived in a Malaystyle bungalow not far from my house and owned a licensed gun shop in Batu Pahat town. He always dressed up like a cowboy and spent his time fishing and hunting, normally with his deaf and mute Malay assistant who was a trishaw man.

Sometimes I saw a distinguished-looking elderly Malay man visiting him and I was told that he was Dato Onn Jaafar, founding president of Umno. He left the party to form Parti Negara after failing to turn Umno into a multi-racial party. Parti Negara lost badly in the first Malayan general election in 1959, ending his dream for non race-based political parties in Malaya.

I was in lower secondary school during the formation of Malaysia in 1963. The acrimony between Umno and Singapore’s PAP (People’s Action Party), especially after the 1964 general election, led to the separation of Singapore from Malaysia on Aug 9, 1965. It was the statesmanship of Tunku Abdul Rahman that saved Singapore as he refused to yield to the demand of Umno ultras to use the emergency power to arrest Lee Kuan Yew and send troops to Singapore.

I watched Lee on TV, crying when he made the announcement to Singaporeans about the separation. Johor residents had enjoyed TV before the rest of Malaysians as we could receive programmes from Singapore stations.

I was a senior teenager when Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966 and was shocked by what I read about the desecration of Chinese heritage and cultural places by the Red Guards. Before this, I was an ardent admirer of Mao due to the influence of a teacher. One day, my younger brother deliberately stepped on a picture of Mao in the newspaper, and that led to a fight between us.

The Vietnam War dominated the news in the 1960s and early 70s and I remember seeing images of President L. B. Johnson and Ho Chi Minh almost daily in the newspapers and TV. It was only in 2016 that I had the opportunity to visit one of the killing fields at the Cu Chi Tunnels.

I had finished the first year at Kuala Lumpur Technical College and was doing industrial training at the Technical Teachers Training College workshop, and staying in the college hostel, when the May 13 racial riot broke out in Kuala Lumpur in 1969. I was lucky to be in Jalan Cheras at that time and not at the Technical College campus in Jalan Gurney, which was close to the flash point. A state of emergency was declared by the King, parliament was suspended and the National Operations Council (NOC) headed by the then deputy prime minister Tun Abdul Razak was established. Tunku Abdul Rahman was forced to resign as prime minister and the nation was changed forever.

The New Economic Policy (NEP) was formulated, supposedly for 20 years from 1971. It had a twopronged objective of eradicating poverty for all and eliminating the identification of race by economic function, and Malaysians were divided into bumiputra and nonbumiputra.

However, the NEP was not implemented according to its true spirit! There were lots of abuses in the name of affirmative action by over-zealous government officers, as undeserving rich bumiputras were given priority in assistance over deserving poor non-bumiputras.

I faced the full brunt of the NEP as a civil servant in the Education Ministry but I am proud to have contributed in my small way to education in Malaysia during my career from 1972 until my retirement in 2005.

Fast forward to the watershed 14th General Election in May 2018, when the long-ruling Barisan National government was ousted by Pakatan Harapan and many Malaysians were hoping for a new Malaysia. For me, I am just praying for the emergence of a statesman who can lead Malaysians out of the quagmire of race, religion, insecurity and shallow thinking to become a confident Bangsa Malaysia with a progressive outlook and in sync with the global economy and true democracy!

GAN CHEE KUAN Ipoh