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Wednesday, March 11, 2015

A Tribute to Tun Abdul Razak Hussein

COMMENT: I am happy to have been asked by Malaysiakini to write this article to commemorate the 93rd year of birth of our second Prime Minister, Abdul Razak Hussein, with his birthday falling today.
Had Razak not died early, the history of Malaysia, and that of some of its personalities, would have been vastly different. We would be, for sure, less divisive, less orthodox and definitely less uncertain about the future.
This is a dispassionate narrative, which I hope is a good introduction to a leader who rescued and revitalised a nation that was at a nadir in 1969.
Abdullah Ahmad and Tun Razak
It was in 1954 that I was introduced to Razak, who was then the state secretary of Pahang and deputy president of UMNO. Then, civil servants could become members of any political party they chose and also hold public office. I got to know him closely when I became a journalist in 1957. The friendship flourished after I came back from the United States in 1962, following a two-year stint on a Congressional Fellowship.
At age 25, I became Razak’s special officer. Then, in succession, I became his Political Secretary and Deputy Minister, Chief Assistant whip and a member of the UMNO Supreme Council until Razak’s premature death of leukemia in London on Jan 14, 1976. He was 53.
I was subsequently detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) for five years for what is now admitted to be a settling of old scores to halt my political career. What would become clear to me was the innuendo to discredit Razak’s leadership.
Razak had been Deputy Prime Minister since independence and became the director of the National Operations Council (NOC) that was established after the vicious race riots of May 1969, when a state of emergency was declared.
Reinstated parliamentary democracy
Although Razak held absolute power between May 1969 and September 1970 as Head of the NOC, he did not seek to entrench his position, nor did he rob the Treasury, plunder the pension fund and rape the nation for natural resources.
Instead, as soon as he thought the country had returned to normalcy, he disbanded the NOC and reinstated parliamentary democracy in September 1970, becoming the country’s second Prime Minister. He resisted and rebuffed the advances of many predators and con men with their suspicious deals.
During Razak’s six-year administration (1970-1976) – apart from the emergency interregnum – UMNO and Barisan Nasional (BN), which he formed in 1974, emphasised constitutional rule for Malaysia. The Razak administration, I dare say, was easily more democratic, united, stable and enlightened than its successors, and the people, happier.
Nearly 40 years ago, our second Prime Minister and one of the founding fathers of modern Malaysia, was buried, on Jan 16, 1976. It was the nation’s second state funeral; Razak’s deputy, Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, who had died just three years earlier, was the first to be given such an honour.
Both leaders’ tombs are at the Makam Pahlawan (Heroes’ Mausoleum) on the grounds of Masjid Negara in Kuala Lumpur. Razak had great respect for Ismail. When he realised that it would be a Herculean task to restore public confidence and security after 1969, he grabbed enthusiastically at Ismail’s offer to rejoin the government. Together, they courted the fearful and angry people; first, to stabilise Kuala Lumpur, and then to prevent the troubles from spreading beyond the federal capital.
In the early years of independence, intellectual life wasn’t prized – integrity and prudence were. Razak was not an intellectual per se but he lived in pursuit of the mind and pragmatism. He upheld and promoted human values and freedoms as guaranteed by the Federal Constitution that he had a role in framing.
Under the Malaysian system, he often said to me, the people were entirely free to reject or accept the views of others and their stereotyping, and no government should deny the rakyat that freedom.
I learnt much from Razak because he was, as it were, gifting me and the other “Young Turks” who were my colleagues with the mental empowerment to shape policies and events. He encouraged us to broaden our minds so we could build a better society for all Malaysians.
Razak understood that poverty does not have a race or a religion, and that no ethnic group should have the monopoly of any profession, trade or service. He left behind a sizeable legacy that remains to be seriously assessed and written about.
Though hardly remembered these days, the man remains an interesting study. Indeed, of late, he has even become topical again.
Modesty was his habit, economy his custom
Razak was a shy man who never enjoyed public speaking, but he was a very able and skilful Prime Minister and an outstanding UMNO President and BN Chairperson. When I was at Malay College Kuala Kangsar, I had heard of an all-round student who was equally at home in the classroom as on the sports field.
Razak was Head Boy 10 years before I arrived at the college in 1948. In the time I knew him, modesty was his habit, and economy his custom. Ever polite, he treated people with respect and consideration.
He was known as a workaholic – he loved politics, his family, his country and the idea of ‘khidmat’, or being in the service of people. He loved his home town of Pekan, which was his constituency, and he loved golf. Razak led a regulated life and loved “living and loving” like all of us.
It does seem to me that at the centre of his early life was his mother and, in later life, his wife Rahah Noah, now 82. (She was made a Tun in 1976). These two women were, like him, modesty personified.
Simplicity was their habit and they were thrifty by disposition. Rahah is more diffident and reserved than her husband. She shuns publicity. Then, and now, she goes about life with little fanfare.
When compelled, she makes a brief appearance, after which she happily slips away with great relief. Razak had longed for a daughter they never had. Of their five sons, Prime Minister Najib (above) is the eldest and banker Nazir, the youngest.
Razak’s abhorrence of corruption and abuse of power is well noted. He was popular because he was sincere and easily accessible, having the uncanny ability to make even the most irrelevant person feel wanted and important.
In my 14 years of working closely with him, he lost his cool with me only once, at the JFK Airport in New York. I had kept him waiting a good 30 minutes and he and the entourage could not board the plane because their passports were with me. Deservedly, he sacked me on the spot only to reinstate me halfway across the Atlantic to London! He may have been soft-spoken, but he was also a dry wit.
In the 40 years since Razak’s death, we might have reached the Promised Land, but we have not. We could have relearned old lessons and not strayed from the path, as many insist we have. I have, in my small way, tried to prevent even worse lapses.
Let us reiterate – loud and clear – that all citizens are alike before the law and their fundamental liberties are guaranteed. However, no community must conduct its affairs to deliberately insult the others – this is the bedrock of mutual respect upon which the country has been built.
More importantly, no citizen should question the ‘taat setia’ (loyalty) of another simply because he belongs to a particular race or religion.
Historic decision to visit China
mao-met-razak
Razak was the best Prime Minister we could have wished for. He was an enlightened and a far-sighted leader, a patrician who believed in meritocracy. He assembled around himself talented Malaysians and appointed the best candidates.
During his short but momentous years on Jalan Dato Onn (the country’s seat of power before Putrajaya), Razak made the boldly historic and, if I may say, creative decision to go to Beijing to commence diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic  of China, signalling the end of the long communist rebellion in Malaysia.
He managed bilateral relations with our closest neighbour in the same way. Despite the perception that he and Lee Kuan Yew did not get along too well, I must stress they had a very “pragmatic relationship”, even if each was suspicious of the other.
Razak introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP), which laid the foundations for social engineering to help narrow the economic gap between and within each ethnic community, believing that economic prosperity would trump racism and extremism and enhance national solidarity.
He was no megalomaniac who would allow fervid nationalism to make Malaysia a failed state. I can vouch his honesty in this. If I may add, Razak was definitely committed to racial harmony, economic prosperity and social justice and did his utmost as Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister to enhance all that.
He was a great Prime Minister of great integrity; decent, dignified and good. Above all, he was universally acclaimed as a straight and honest man. Of that, there is no doubt. He was the towering figure of the third quarter of 20th century Malaysian politics.
No other Malaysian Prime Minister sought, and succeeded in some measure, to change Malaysians – especially the Malays and their place in the country – as radically as he did through the NEP, social engineering and constitutional rule. What Razak did stands as a powerful statement of his legacy.

(Tan Sri) ABDULLAH AHMAD is a former New Straits Times Editor-in-Chief and was once Political Secretary to  Tun Abdul Razak Hussein.

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