Syed Husin Ali's last formal interview (Part 1)

Interviewed by Cecilia Ng and Diana Wong

Cecilia Ng: Pak Syed, it’s important for us to get a sense of your legacy – your political as well as your academic legacy, and your views on society and Malaysia generally.

Early years

Syed Husin Ali: Well, you know, both my parents (in Batu Pahat, Johor) were religious teachers. My mother was teaching trainee teachers to become full-time teachers. And my father taught how to read the Quran to young people.

Both of them had no formal education. They were informally educated. My mother was only practically educated by her family, and my father through his own connections. So, I was brought up in an almost religious environment.

But my mother was involved in politics, although she went around with the Kaum Ibu (Women’s Group) at that time.

My father did not involve himself in politics, but he knew a hell of a lot about political developments. He discussed and talked about it, and many people who were politicians came to the house to get advice from him. He was suffering from heart and high blood pressure and kidney problems, and so he did not get out of the house very much. So, people would come to the house and I would be listening every time they discussed and listened to his advice.

The other thing he did was that he used to read Utusan Melayu[the most influential Malay newspaper then]. So, what he would do as he stayed lying down in bed, was to ask me to lie down beside him and read the newspaper to him. So, through that, I had a fair knowledge of political developments, and he would explain to me the implications of some of the news and views expressed in the paper.

That’s how I got interested very early in politics – it is from my mother and from my father. My father’s attitude was very critical and not very supportive of the government of the day.

And then, of course, I went to school. There was not much of a political influence from my teachers. Most of them were just plain teachers and not involved in politics.

University days

CN: What about your university days?

SHA: I went to the University of Malaya, then in Singapore, in 1955. Once in the university, there was a lot of involvement. There was a socialist club, but I wasn’t a member of the Socialist Club, although I attended almost all their functions.

One reason why I was not involved in the Socialist Club was that I was active in some of the Malay student organisations, like the GPMS [Gabungan Pelajar Melayu Semenanjung or Peninsular Malay Students Federation]. I was also secretary and later president of the Malay Language Society [PBMUM]. And then I was treasurer of the Muslim Students Society.

Being involved in these Malay-Muslim organisations deterred me from being involved in the Socialist Club. But, nevertheless, I was very close with the Socialist Club members at the time. People like Kassim Ahmad, Dr MK Rajakumar and Poh Soo Kai. In fact, they all regarded me as one of them because my views were almost similar to their views, although I was involved with the Malay student organisations.

During that time, the system was that you would have three years for BA and then one year for honours. During my BA third year, which was in 1957, two things happened.

One, we were invited as representatives of GPMS to the Merdeka celebration in Kuala Lumpur. So, we went and, of course, we were impressed by Merdeka and all that. The idea and spirit of Merdeka was very strong in us. But we were not influenced by Tunku [Abdul Rahman] or Umno.

On the other hand, we were influenced by people like Ahmad Boestamam, Ishak Hj Muhammad and Burhanuddin [al-Helmy] – they were all progressive nationalists detained previously by the British. They, in fact, all came and spoke to the students at the university.

When I was secretary of the Malay Language Society, I organised a series of talks by these people. And that opened up my views regarding the left.

And then, after the Merdeka celebration, there was a meeting of Parti Rakyat, which was founded by Ahmad Boestamam in 1955. I went to that meeting and I was further influenced by the ideas they expressed – to help the poor, to look after the welfare of the Malays and so on.

Involvement in Parti Rakyat

Diana Wong: That’s interesting. Now please tell us more about Parti Rakyat – your involvement in it.

SHA: Oh yes. I was so influenced by them that, when I went back to Singapore in early 1958, I decided to join Parti Rakyat. That was the beginning of my involvement with party politics.

When I was in Parti Rakyat, we interacted very closely with the Labour Party. Dr Rajakumar was one of its top leadership. I was not only close to Dr Rajakumar party-wise, but I was staying in the flat where he was staying. He was then staying near the General Hospital, Kuala Lumpur.

I also stayed with Kassim Ahmad at the time. But later Kassim got married. So I and Agus Salim who were staying with him then decided to move in with Dr Ungku Omar [Ahmad]. But Dr Ungku Omar had nine children.

Fortunately, Rajakumar was staying alone. Later, he went for a course in Singapore. As the house was unoccupied, we just moved in. So that’s how we stayed for a long time and became close with Rajakumar during that period – close not only as housemates but also as political colleagues. He’s a very knowledgeable and intelligent person. And to a large extent, I was influenced by him – reading and discussing all kinds of things.

And that flat was a meeting place for all kinds of leftist groups. The old Socialist Club gang gathered there. And then the Socialist Front (SF) parliamentarians, about six of them.

In fact, I wrote a number of speeches for V David at that time. And even for Dr Tan Chee Khoon, both leaders of SF and Members of Parliament. Besides me writing speeches, Rajakumar was another speech writer. And there was another person – I wonder whether you know him – Ponniah Arudsothy [then lecturer at the Faculty of Economics, University of Malaya]. The three of us were the main speech writers.

DW: I think that’s the striking thing about you, Pak Syed. Your gift for friendship. And friendship across ethnic boundaries in a country like Malaysia. This openness that you have. That’s not very typical of a politician.

In fact, I always had the impression of you that you were a reluctant politician. Where did this openness come from? Growing up in a Malay environment with very religious, not cosmopolitan parents. Where do you think this came from in your case?

SHA: I think in school in Batu Pahat. Especially in my primary and secondary schools. Where there were mixed schools. And I interacted very closely with the students there.

And secondly, my father. My father had a very open mind. He was not the typical Malay religious conservative. In a way, he was quite modernist in his outlook. And multi-ethnic in his ideas.

CN: Did he mix with other races?

SHA: As I said, he hardly went out of the house. But all kinds of people came. Not just Malays. There were Chinese, a few Indians. They either discussed with him or they sought his views.

CN: What was he professionally?

SHA: He was nothing. In fact, at one stage, he was doing business – rubber business. He was selling and buying rubber.

But during the Depression years of the 1930s, he started making gravestones. And for a long time, he was doing that. In fact, he was still doing it when I was in university. Whenever I came back from university, I would be helping him make a gravestone. So, I am very expert in that. That was the main income.

But my mother, as I said, was teaching trainee teachers. She got a salary from that. And she became some kind of inspector for religion to hospitals – which made it necessary for her to visit patients in the hospital and teach them some fundamentals of Islam. She received some kind of small allowance from that.

So, both their incomes supported our family. We did not find it very, very difficult to live. But before my father started this gravestone business, it was difficult. Because we had to depend on just my mother’s income.

DW: We would like to come back to your involvement in Parti Rakyat which you joined in 1958. Can you say something about it?

SHA: Well, I later became a central committee member, then secretary general of the party, after which I was president of the party in 1990.

I had always wanted to be an academic. But then, after about 30 years of teaching and becoming a professor of anthropology and sociology, I finally decided to end it like that in 1990. Actually, one of the big influences was that I felt that in the university itself, there was a lot of politicking. So, why don’t I just go out and do real politics? That’s my first point.

Secondly, at that time, Parti Rakyat needed leadership. Normally, in this house [referring to his house in Petaling Jaya], we had a series of discussions. We called it the Ulama Group. The Ulama Group consisted of Jomo [Kwami Sundaram], Ishak Shari, Ikmal Said, Zain Majid, myself and a few others.

So, we normally discussed religion because at that time, there was a lot of dawah movement and we wanted to understand it. So, we assigned people to read books and to discuss, to initiate discussion. But at the same time, we also discussed politics.

So, about the time when I decided to leave the university, we discussed whether I should leave or not. Sanusi Osman [a former academic at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia] was also in the group. So, Sanusi stated that if I leave, he would join me.

So, that’s how I took over as the president of Parti Rakyat and he became the secretary general. So, it was almost a done deal.

Equally, I felt very involved in politics, as much as in the academic field. But then, people like Rajakumar felt that I should be better in academic work rather than in politics. Because he felt that I could have a greater impact in the academic field. In fact, he said that actually, Sabariah, my late wife, was a better politician than me.

CN: But Sabariah was not really involved in politics, right?

SHA: No, she wasn’t involved, but she talks politics and she understands it. And she says that her approach to people is more political and down to earth than my approach. My approach is too academic.

DW: Yes, I mean, that’s the amazing thing about you. You had this friendship with the people around Rajakumar in the 60s. And then, in the 90s, in fact earlier in the 80s, you had your Ulama Group. It was a different generation, a younger generation. And yet, you were central to both groups and had relationships, friendships with quite a different set of people as well. Two different generations.

SHA: Actually, the first group was more ideological.

Rajakumar was, of course, a founding member of the Socialist Club when we were in Singapore. And he was very knowledgeable about socialism.

So too was Poh Soo Kai, who was also a founding member of the Socialist Club. He was involved with the PAP [People’s Action Party] and later the Barisan Sosialis in Singapore.

And then, Arudsothy, who was not involved with politics, but was involved with the Socialist Club. Very well-read and knowledgeable too.

And then, occasionally, people like Tan Chee Khoon and Lim Kean Siew would come along. Lim Kean Siew was more knowledgeable about left-wing politics – he was secretary general of the Labour Party.

CN: But what was your position, your ideological position, in the 1960s at that time? And in the 1990s, were there any changes? What was your vision? What did you want to do?

SHA: Well, in the 1950s, especially in the late 50s, I would have considered myself as a nationalist. Very involved, in a sense, intellectually, in the struggle for independence. I was not in any political party but I was in the struggle for independence.

I was already quite close to Parti Rakyat then. But later, as I mixed with these groups in the university and outside the university later, I was attracted to, as I said, Parti Rakyat. Well, my ideas, even before going to Parti Rakyat, were always similar to the party.

I was concerned with ethnic unity; I was concerned with active participation in inter-ethnic politics and all that. So, it did not feel strange for me to be involved with Parti Rakyat. The switch could have occurred after Merdeka – because after Merdeka, we began to decide which direction to go: either a more capitalist direction or something quite different, socialist. And at that time, I chose socialism.

CN: And Burhanuddin, the Pas option, did not appeal to you at that time?

SHA: Well, Burhanuddin, although he was Pas president for a while, and although he was knowledgeable in Islam, at the same time he was, in his political ideology, very socialistic.

In fact, there was not much difference in ideology between him and Pak Sako (Ishak Hj Muhammad), and Boestamam. And they were always close to one another. They were involved with the PKMM [Parti Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya formed in October 1945 but banned in 1948]. And they wanted to have a socialist kind of equality.

DW: But you are very religious.

SHA: As I said, this is the influence of my parents. In fact, I also went to a religious school. What happens is that in the morning we go to Malay school or English school. When I joined the English school, in the evening, I had religious lessons from 2 o’clock to 4.30. And I finished until what they call the Kelas Khas, the special class.

After six years in the religious school, you go to the special class. If you complete the special class, you can become a religious teacher. In fact, I was trained to be a religious teacher because at that time I was in the Kelas Khasreligious school when I was studying in the English school.

But then my parents said, “No, you don’t become a religious teacher, you should continue with this education.”

In fact, it was my father who influenced me to continue with my English education. Although he himself was religious, he didn’t see as much advantage as being in the English school – because he could see that people who come out of the English school and graduate from universities would do much better in life than those who go to the religious school.

CN: And you wanted to continue as well in English?

SHA: Yes, I pursued that. After Senior Cambridge, I passed with first grade. We called it Senior Cambridge then. Now it’s SPM [Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia or Malaysian Certificate of Education], right? It was Standard 9 at that time.

Then I went to the PSC class, the Post School Certificate. There was no Higher School Certificate (HSC) then. It was just Post School Certificate. So, after one and a half years in Johor Bahru, in the PSC class at English College, I sat for the entry exam to University of Malaya and then was admitted to the university. It was a special exam.

CN: Your father must have been proud of you.

SHA: Yes, I think they were.

DW: So, you had one group, Rajakumar, that generation. And then next was your Ulama Group?

SHA: There were also these politicians, Ishak Hj Muhammad, Boestamam, Burhanuddin whom I interacted with after Merdeka. At that time, the secretary general of Parti Rakyat was Wahab Majid, brother of Abdullah Majid.

I was a third-year student then, doing my BA. I can’t remember who, but the general discussion was that, look, Syed, you are now a university student. University students have a responsibility, you know. You should be thinking in terms of the poor people. You should be thinking in terms of the welfare of the Malays generally. And you should be talking in terms of ethnic unity, national unity, rather than ethnic division. So, I hope you will follow that line.

Together with these people, then I interacted with people like Rajakumar, Burhanuddin, Kassim Ahmad, and Lim Kean Siew.

Tan Chee Khoon used to have a monthly discussion in his house, and I was invited by Chee Khoon to join that discussion. There were four of us in Rajakumar’s house. Myself, Rajakumar, Dr Agus Salim, and Arudsothy who came once in a while. I was invited, but Chee Khoon did not invite Agus or Arudsothy. So, I was the only one together with Rajakumar. It was an exclusive group. And he considered it to be a sort of Fabian group, along the lines of the Fabians in Britain. That brought the idea of democratic socialism to me.

But the discussions with Rajakumar, Kassim and Arudsothy were more ideological. Not of the Fabian type. Closer to the Marxian type.

And then the next generation was Jomo, Sanusi and others mentioned earlier as the Ulama Group.

DW: How different was it?

SHA: This latter group was not homogenous. People with various ideas. The world had some different ideas and all showing different shades of socialism. Certainly not with Marxism as such.

To a great extent, the earlier group with Rajakumar was more ideological than this group. But this group, the Ulama Group, discussed politics more.

CN: But they never wanted to enter party politics. They didn’t want to enter party politics, except Sanusi.

SHA: The first people who joined party politics were Sanusi and I.

DW: Anwar Ibrahim was never part of the group?

SHA: Anwar, no. Anwar was a much younger generation. We were all lecturers, and Anwar was a student. And Anwar was much closer to Abim.

DW: But Anwar was your student?

SHA: Anwar was my student; so too was Hishamuddin Rais and Kamaruzaman Yaakob [student leaders and members of the University of Malaya’s Socialist Club in the early 1970s].

DW: Some people would say that was the problem in the 70s. There was this ‘animosity’ – this sense of rivalry – between two groups within the university: the Abim group, led by Anwar, and the socialist group, led by Syed Hamid Ali and the others.

Whereas in your time, your generation, in the 50s and 60s, it was one group that was still interacting closely with each other.

SHA: Well actually, in the late 50s and early 60s, there were two groups at Universiti Malaya in Singapore: one was the socialist group; the other was the democratic group. Both were equally influential. The democratic group was anti-socialist and pro-capitalist.

DW: Yes indeed. A capitalist-oriented group would also have been present in the 70s. Within that group who were concerned about poverty, who were concerned about progressiveness, in the 70s there was this split – Abim and the socialist group. I think when I look back now, from what you say, that was a major difference to the 60s.

SHA: Well, to a certain extent. But Abim’s outlook on poverty was positive – I would consider that this was part of my influence on Anwar.

You see, I gave lectures on rural poverty in the university, and Anwar was in my class. At that time, he was known to skip lectures, because he was active with Abim and all kinds of student groups. But he never skipped my lectures.

And then, I didn’t know this – only much later I came to know about it; I didn’t know that for the exam, I gave him an A. I didn’t know it was his paper. Because there was no name written on it.

It was when we were in detention in Kamunting together, we were talking about it, then he asked me: “Syed, do you know that you gave me an A?”

I said, “No, I don’t know.” I didn’t know whose paper it was. There were so many papers at that time.

And to a great extent, not only the classes, but also the involvement with peasant leaders like Hamid Tuah, and the peasant movement, and other activities, the movement in Baling, Kedah – I was the one who pulled him along.

So, with regard to Anwar, to a certain extent, I would take the credit of influencing him until now on issues of poverty.

A lot of his ideas today on poverty and the people’s plight were based on those lectures, and the involvement with the people. I took him to Hamid Tuah and Baling, and also later, of course, my writings. There was also my book on the Malays and their future, Malaysian future. He also read the revised version that I did.

At a PKR congress, he recommended that everybody must read it, make it a text of reading.

Cecilia Ng is a life member of the Malaysian Social Science Association. Diana Wong is with Pusat Sejarah Rakyat (the People’s History Centre) in Kuala Lumpur.

Courtesy of Southeast Asian Social Science Review Vol. 9, No 2, 2024, pp 123-144, ISSN 0128-0406, e-ISSN 2550-2298

...