Abdul Aziz Ishak: A Giant Dies Unknown
M.G.G. Pillai
yesterday, and with it disappeared a large chunk of modern Malayan, and
Malaysian, history, besides reviving the current propensity for
rewriting history. A stormy petrel in UMNO politics, he was to Tengku
Abdul Rahman, the then prime minister, what Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim is
to Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed. He was a man of great convictions, and
the times I would meet him from the early 1970s on to until about ten
years ago, he would recount his old political battles with great gusto,
not regretting his political quarrels with the Tengku nor for what he
did. He was the first Malaysian cabinet minister detained under
the Internal Security Act for his pro-Indonesian views during
Confrontation. His elder brother, Yusof Ishak, became Singapore's first
governor and, later, first president; and younger was a deputy minister
in the Singapore cabinet. He, like his brothers, was a journalist in
Singapore when his elder brother was editor of "Utusan Melayu". He was
active in the politics of the post-war years, in the vanguard of Malay
protests against the formation of the Malayan Union, joining UMNO in
1950 when the then president, Dato' Onn Jaffar, asked him to, after he
failed to register the Gerakan Pemuda Malaya (Geram - Malayan Youth
Front), left UMNO with Dato' Onn for the Independence of Malaya Party
(IMP), but returned to UMNO in 1953 when the new UMNO president, Tengku
Abdul Rahman, asked him to. Two years later, he was a candidate in the
elections for the partially-elected Legislative Council, becoming
agriculture minister in the cabinet Tengku Abdul Rahman formed as chief
minister; the Alliance, the predecessor of the National Front, won 51
of the 52 seats; the other went to PAS.
A man of great conviction, he was unafraid to quarrel with the
Tengku over policy in his ministry and on other matters caused his
dismissal from the cabinet and UMNO in 1963. He formed the National
Convention Party which was routed in the 1964 general elections, held as
the next general elections would be, under the bogey for foreign
interference. (One NCP candidates who lost in 1964 was an UMNO MP
elected in 1959, the late Mr Dahari Ali, who then joined the Straits
Times, as it was then known, and retired after more than two decades as
its news editor.) In the ISA crackdown that followed the elections, Mr
Aziz was detained for a few years. He retired from politics after he
was released, and lived quietly for the rest of his long life, involving
himself in small business ventures, buying a house in Taman Tun Abdul
Razak when it was affordable. His quarrel with the Tengku was
shortlived. The two met patched up their differences after the 1969
riots, and while each looked upon the other as a cantankerous old man
who could not change his ways or views, there was the genuine affection.
The Tengku once told me of what a good friend and guide Mr Aziz Ishak
would have been if "the fellow" had not been "mixed" up in politics!
His left-of-centre politics was genuine, and he viewed events through
that perspective for all the time I had known him. And he maintained
his principles to the end. He steadfastly refused to accept any royal
award, and therefore the only member of the first cabinet to be a plain
Mister. He was annoyed once, when visiting him with the UMNO
secretary-general who informed him of his sacking from the party, Dato'
Senu Abdul Rahman, who lived nearly, when I raised this. All the time I
had known him, he was an intensely religious person who once told me his
personal convictions is framed by his religious faith.
But the Malaysian newspapers reporting his death indulged in its
silly fantasy of rewriting history. The barebones of the report in both
the New Straits Times and the Star is selective, irrelevant, based on a
Bernama obituary, which did not do justice to a man who until yesterday
afternoon was only one of two men of the 1955 cabinet still alive; the
other is Tun Omar Ong Yoke Lim. We let go of our history by ignoring
our past, ignorning unpallative events of the past, and rewriting the
past in the list of present political requirements. He was a giant in
his time, prepared to sacrifice everything for his convictions, suffered
much for it, but it also says of much of the times he lived in, that the
two men retained their frienship during their violent political
disagreements. While Mr Aziz was in detention, an officer from the
Prime Minister's Office would visit his wife, Wan Shamsiah Pak Wan Teh,
who outlives him, to ensure that they were not short of essentials.
Those genteel days cannot survive the money-framed politics of today. I
cannot imagine Dr Mahathir ever being as solicitious towards Dato' Seri
Anwar's family as the Tengku was to Mr Aziz's when the husband is in
political incarceration. But our sense of history is flawed: we do not
look upon ourselves as members of a caravanserai hobbling along through
history posting signposts to ensure that our future would be framed by
our past. Official Malaysia forgot him decades ago. History is written
by the victors, who reduces him to a footnote, if at all. But
Malaysia's history would have been the poorer had not such men as Aziz
Ismail walked into it.
M.G.G.
dRsam
M.G.G. Pillai wrote in message ...
>Malaya's first agriculture minister, Encik Abdul Aziz Ishak, 86, died
>yesterday,
Innalillah hi wa inna hilla hitur ja'un
Semoga Allah meredhai dan merahmati rohnya.
Amin.
dRsam
>
>M.G.G. Pillai wrote in message ...
>>yesterday,
>
>
>Semoga Allah meredhai dan merahmati rohnya.
>Amin.
>
should be Innalillah hi wa inna hilla hi ro ji'un.
Ipsum Lorem
his daughter and grandchildren are in Germany
Syammim Noori Arifin
All the reasons to repeat the same thing to Mahathir. But I bet Kadir
Jasin will fill up the whole newspaper with the grandest of the most
grandiose obituary for Mahathir, when the time comes.