The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew by Lee Kuan Yew Read Free Book Online Page B

non-Malays, especially Chinese, was totally different from that of Singapore Malays.
    One student from Kedah told me in my second year, after we had become friends, “You Chinese are too energetic and too clever for us. In Kedah, we have too many of you. We cannot stand the pressure.” He meant the pressure of competition for jobs, for business, for places in schools and universities. The Malays were the owners of the land, yet seemed to be in danger of being displaced from top positions by recent arrivals, who were smarter, more competitive and more determined. Probably because they did better and were self-confident, the Chinese and the Indians lacked this sense of solidarity. There was no unity among them because they did not feel threatened.
    One incident stands out in my memory. In my second year, there was much unhappiness over the arrangements for the annual Raffles College Students’ Union dinner at the old Seaview Hotel. The non-Malays were incensed at the sharp and cavalier responses of the honorary secretary, Ungku Aziz bin Abdul Hamid, to their complaints. A few students started a move for an extraordinary general meeting to censure him and deprive him of office. But he was a Malay. As the collection of signatures for an EGM gathered momentum, the Malay students rallied round him, and made it clear that if he were removed, they would resign
en masse
from the union. This presented the non-Malays with a challenge. I was approached and asked to make the opening speech setting out their complaints against Ungku Aziz. I had not attended the dinner, and I had no personal quarrel with him. But since nobody wanted to take on this unpleasant job, I decided to do it. The meeting took place on a Saturday afternoon, and all the day students had left, probably because they wished to avoid the unpleasantness. Of those in halls of residence, the Malays turned up in force. The tension was high, and racial feelings strong.
    It was my first experience of Malayism, a deep and intense pro-Malay, anti-immigrant sentiment. I made out the case in measured tones, firmly but, I hoped, not aggressively. Ungku Aziz spoke up torefute all the allegations of rude behaviour. I could sense that the crowd of some 80 students felt most uncomfortable about the confrontation. When the votes were cast, the Malays carried the day for Ungku Aziz, and the break-up never came. But the non-Malays felt they had registered their point. This incident faded from my memory. It was only later, between 1963 and 1965, when we were in Malaysia and ran into similar problems with Malayism, that I was to recall it.
    But if it was a time of rivalry, it was also a time for forming lasting friendships. Many of those I first met in Raffles College were to become close political colleagues, among them Toh Chin Chye, a science student one year my senior, hardworking, systematic, quiet and consistent, and Goh Keng Swee, a tutor in economics with a first-class mind, a poor speaker but a crisp writer.
    When I started my career as a lawyer in the 1950s, therefore, I already had a network of friends and acquaintances in important positions in government and the professions in Singapore and Malaya. Even if one did not know someone personally, just sharing the same background made for easy acceptance, and the old school tie worked well in Singapore and Malaya, even between Chinese, Indians and Malays. Before the days of active politics, when power was still completely in the hands of the British, I did not feel any personal animosity or resentment from the upcountry Malays. I made friends with many of them, including two Malay sessions judges before whom I later appeared.
    It was the easy old-boy network of an elite at the very top of the English-educated group nurtured by the British colonial education system. We went through similar schools, read the same textbooks and shared certain common attitudes and characteristics. The British public school was not the only system that