Bicara Merdeka ; Mustapha Hussain & KMM

[Megat Sri Rama]

Tribute kepada para pejuang kemerdekaan sebenar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Li4ORC_jJk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOVOgQzF1Dw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7BUWDaRlGk




Al-Fatihah untuk Mustapha Hussain, Dr Burhanuddin Al Helmy, Ahmad Boestamam, Pak Sako, Shamsiah Fakeh, serta lain-lain wirawan yang tidak didendang.

 

[Bionik]

Pencacai2 UMporNO mesti marah ni sebab tiada ahli UMporNO disebut pejuang sebenar.

 

[Megat Sri Rama]

korang baca memoir dia , "Mustapha Hussain : Nasionalisme Melayu sebelum UMNO"... memang terbaik.

 

[Megat Sri Rama]

Okay, now my version of history
NO HOLDS BARRED
Thursday, 28 January 2010 Super Admin

So, with due respect to Dr Mahathir, it was actually the other way around. Umno was the one that split the Malays. And now Umno grumbles that the opposition is splitting the Malays? And, worse still, Umno split the Malays to serve the British interest and as a British ‘running dog’.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin


Dr M blames PAS, PKR for dividing Malays
By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal, The Malaysian Insider

Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamed delivered a history lesson on Malay unity today and blamed PAS and PKR for dividing the community because of what he claimed was their greed for power.

He also described PAS and PKR among many other Malay-based political parties as Umno splinter groups responsible for disrupting unity among Malays.

Speaking at the National Library today at a special “Bicara Perdana” talk, he said that it was a historical fact that the first political party which was united and fought against the British for Malay rights was Umno.

He added that it was the unity of the Malays in backing Umno that made the British pull out and abandon their plans for a Malayan Union at the end of World War Two.

The former PM pointed out that it was the Umno ulamas, who had split from the Malay nationalist party in the 1950s to form PAS.

This was because they were “dissatisfied” when they were not given positions within the state and federal legislatures, according to Dr. Mahathir.

“PAS, in the beginning, were ulamas from Umno. They were upset that they were not chosen in the legislative and state legislative assembly...more educated and English-speaking Malay leaders were chosen and they were not happy with this.

“If you get selected, you become a YB, and then you got paid RM300,” he said.

The former premier said that these ulamas went into seclusion, then formed a new party so that they could “contest” to become candidates.

“The split between the Malays started just because they wanted positions. That was when PAS was formed.

“Later on the same thing happened with Keadilan, as well as the now-defunct Semangat 46..all these were splinter groups from Umno.”

Dr Mahathir also defended the social contract, the so-called unwritten agreement between the Malays and the non-Malays during independence, by affirming that without the agreement, Malaysia would not have been formed.

“If there was no social contract, the terms and conditions of allowing citizenship to non-Malays would have not taken place. One million outsiders were given citizenships at the time.”

Mustapha Hussain: Malay Nationalism Before UMNO

THE MEMOIRS OF MUSTAPHA HUSSAIN, 1910-1957

KMM: The Young Malay Union (1938)


Dr Burhanuddin Al Helmi

Dr Burhanuddin, a colossal name in Malay left politics, was not a KMM member. KMM only contacted him a week after the fall of Singapore. Ibrahim Yaakub and I interviewed him before suggesting that the Japanese Military Administration employ him as Advisor on Malay Customs and Religion. Dr Burhanuddin accepted the post graciously. Had he declined, KMM would have brought in Ustaz Abu Bakar Al Baqir, founder of the religious institute, Madrasah Maahad Il Ihya Assharif in Gunung Semanggul, Perak.

Dr Burhanuddin worked in Singapore initially, but when the Japanese Military Administration for Sumatra and Malaya was incorporated, and its HQ moved to Taiping, Perak, so did Dr Burhanuddin. We should commend Haniff bin Sulaiman, a faithful Taiping KMM member for introducing Dr Burhanuddin to the public in Perak through talks and religious sermons. That made it easy for the Malay Nationalist Party (MNP), the successor of KMM, to gain a foothold in Perak, when Dr Burhanuddin founded it in 1945.

Dr Burhanuddin was a remarkable religious figure, who combined the logic of science and Islam most effectively. Before World War II, he was a schoolteacher in Singapore and dabbled in politics from a distance. He had written many protest letters to the press on the Israeli Occupation of Palestine, and was once arrested and detained in a Police lock up. Although not a KMM member, he was very influenced by it.


Ahmad Boestamam

According to a statement given to me dated 12 November 1975, Ahmad Boestamam, another great name in Malay left politics, joined KMM a couple of months before the Japanese invasion. He took over the post of Assistant Secretary from Abdullah Kamil, who had left Kuala Lumpur. Boestamam stated that although he was a member of the daily Majlis editorial board, led by Ibrahim Yaakub in Kuala Lumpur, he was never once invited by Ibrahim Yaakub to join KMM, although two other editorial board members (Abdul Samad Ahmad and Mohamad Salehuddin) were.


National List of KMM Members Whom I Knew

Kuala Lumpur

Abdul Samad bin Ahmad, Majlis, Kuala Lumpur

Mohamad Salehuddin, Majlis, Kuala Lumpur

Ahmad Boestamam @ Abdullah Thani, Majlis, Kuala Lumpur

Mohd. Yassin bin Salleh, Malay schoolteacher, Kuala Lumpur

Hamzah bin Alang, businessman, Kampung Baru, Selangor

Abdul Rahman Tambi, clerk, Kampung Baru, Selangor

Mustaffa Yunus, barber, Kajang Selangor

Saidi Hashim, book store owner, Kajang, Selangor

Ahmad, Agricultural Department, Cheras, Selangor

Hashim bin Mat Dali, Pucung, Selangor

Ahmad bin Mohd. Amin, Agricultural Department, Selangor

Johar bin Kerong, Agricultural Department, Selangor

Rais bin Abdul Karim, Agricultural Department, Selangor

Abdul Rauf, Agricultural Department Selangor,

Hamzah Sanusi, Kuala Selangor

Perak

Tuan Haji Ariffin, Kuala Kangsar

Zainal Abidin bin Kassim, Technical School student, Kuala Lumpur (son of ‘Rich Man Kassim’ in Tapah Road)

Mohd. Nor bin Abdul Shukur, Ipoh

Mohd. Mustaffa bin Ali @ Majid, Ipoh

Aminuddin, Ipoh

Isa bin Sulaiman, Agricutural School graduate and Malay schoolteacher, Perak

Pak Cik Ahmad, self employed, Taiping

Haniff bin Sulaiman, insurance agent, Taiping

Mohd. Judin, Agricultural Department, Kuala Kangsar

Junid Mahmud, Malay schoolteacher, Tapah Road

Tuan Haji Mohd. Yusuf, Batu Gajah

Ahmad Shafik, Gunung Semanggul

Abdullah Che Dat or Abdullah C.D., Clifford English School, Kuala Kangsar (the youngest KMM member at 17)

Abdul Rahman Rahim

Mohd. Hanafiah Abdul Rahman

Pahang

Mohammad bin Baginda Besar, smallholder, Bentong

Yahaya bin Hussain, Agricultural Department (my brother)

Kamarulzaman bin Teh, Agricultural Department, Bentong

Negeri Sembilan

Jaafar Sidek

Achih bin Haji Masud

Thaharuddin Ahmad

Zubir Salam

Penang

Putih Badri bin Chek Mat, Al Mashoor schoolteacher

Abu Bakar Mohd Noor, Kelawai

Ustaz Abdul Majid

Kedah

Mohammad Ariff

Melaka

Mohd. Isa Mahmud

Ibrahim Endut

Abdul Hamid Abdul

Trengganu

Abdul Majid bin Haji Mohammad

Ibrahim Tahir

Wan Daud Ahmad (Datuk)

Johor

Haji Abdul Hamid Fadzil Tahir

Ilias Karim

Musa, Agricultural Department, Muar

Kelantan

Abdul Kadir Adabi, writer

Ibrahim Mustaffa, journalist

Endnotes To Chapter 18

British Police Officer J. Birch, who once served in Bagan Serai, Perak was sent to arrest me in Taiping, but the Japanese military’s speedy advance forced Birch to retreat. He diverted to Teluk Anson (now Teluk Intan), hoping to arrest Raja Yahaya, a Police Officer absent without leave, but Birch was unlucky to be in the Japanese way. He was killed.

Translated by Insun Mustapha

Edited by Jomo K. S.

Okay, you have read Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s lecture on history, which I republished above. Now, compare Dr Mahathir’s version of history to mine. And, to support my version, I offer you just a very small extract from Mustapha Hussain’s book, Malay Nationalism Before Umno.

If you were to read the entire book (which I have), you will discover that the Malays united to fight for independence from Britain long before the Second Word War and long before Umno was born in 1946.

Then the British ‘created’ Umno. And I have also written about this, about ten years or so ago, which was published in Harakah, when I interviewed an ‘old boy’ of MCKK, Datuk Andika, who died a couple of years ago in Kuala Terengganu at the age of 100.

Datuk Andika related how he was encouraged and financed by the British to set up the first Umno branch in the state of Terengganu, which was in Dungun.

The British allowed Umno to campaign for Merdeka the length and breadth of Malaya. But when the KMM people did the same, the British detained them without trial.

In short, the Malays were already united long ago. And they were united against the British. But along came the British who created Umno. And the purpose of creating Umno was to split the Malays and kill KMM.

It was actually a very clever strategy. The British in fact did the same in the Ottoman Empire, if you were to study the history of Lawrence of Arabia. The British invented this marvelous strategy called ‘divide and rule’. And it worked all over the British Empire.

So, with due respect to Dr Mahathir, it was actually the other way around. Umno was the one that split the Malays. And, worse still, Umno split the Malays to serve British interests and as a British ‘running dog’. And now Umno grumbles that the opposition is splitting the Malays?

And let Royal History Professor Khoo Kay Khim prove me wrong.

--end--

 

[Megat Sri Rama]

Mustapha Hussein’s memoirs present an interesting insight into a sharp, sensitive mind who turned to ethno-nationalism and later struggled for moral integrity, justice and recognition.

Perak-born Mustapha, a cousin of the first President of Singapore, Yusof Ishak, was an armchair, pipe-smoking, leftwing intellectual who taught at the Serdang Agricultural College before the war, but who fell on hard times after the war.

He loved to ride a fast motorcycle. He was an avid reader and a member of the (British) Left Book Club. He might have gone through life as a happy-go-lucky fellow if he had not been discriminated against in the colonial civil service by white Europeans.

Life for him would have remained idyllic, being almost the equal of an Englishman, teaching, reading and doing research, and ‘dressing and behaving like a white man’ on pay-days. But racial discrimination made him a bitter diehard Malay nationalist. Nationalist anger consumed his soul.

He owed his English education to his father, a land surveyor. His socialism he attributed to a few European teachers and to books by Gandhi, Nehru, Edgar Snow and other leftwing writers.

He married Mariah binti Haji Abdul Hamid (formerly Dorothy Aida Fenner) in 1934. She was only 14, he 25. Once the children came, he was anxious to further his (academic) career, but the lack of job promotions unsettled him.

He joined other young disillusioned Malay College graduates like Ishak Haji Muhammad and Ibrahim Yaacob, all angry young men like him imbued with nationalist ideals, to form the Young Malay Union (Kesatuan Melayu Muda) in 1938. He became its vice-president.

“KMM was founded by a group of radical left nationalists in their twenties. Influenced by world history in general, and political events in Turkey in particular, they desired a political body similar to the Young Turks,” he recalls. “One bone of contention was (the) British policy of allowing tens of thousands of ‘others’ into Malaya.”

But he little realized what trouble the KMM would get him into. For, without consulting him or the other KMM leaders, its president Ibrahim Yaacob had contacted the Japanese through their Consul-General in Singapore, Ken Tsurumi. For large sums of money, Ibrahim committed KMM members to serve as espionage agents and guides to assist an invading Japanese army in Malaya.

The Japanese Army attacked Kota Bharu in December 1941. British military intelligence belatedly intercepted a Japanese radio broadcast which announced that a Malay fifth column organization KAME (meaning ‘tortoise’ in Japanese) would assist the invading Japanese Army.

The name sounded too similar to the KMM. Without wasting any time, the British police rounded up over 100 KMM leaders and members in all parts of the country, including Ibrahim Yaacob and Ishak Haji Muhammad, who were detained and sent to Changi Jail in Singapore.

Mustapha, however, was in the Kuala Lumpur Hospital for treatment of a nervous disorder. Unaware that there was a warrant of arrest for him, he had discharged himself, gone back to the Agricultural College to collect his belongings, and left with his family for his father’s village in Matang, Perak, to recuperate. Three days later, the war began.

After the fall of Taiping, Japanese troops, accompanied by KMM members, entered his village looking for him. They asked him to come with them. “I was ‘invited’ to attend a crucial meeting in Taiping, after which I would be sent back to Matang (but this turned out to be false),” says Mustapha.

“How could I say no. I remember a Malay adage: jika tiada senapang, lebih baik beri jalan lapang, or ‘if one has no guns, it is best to give way.’ I tried to explain my legs were weak from a nervous disorder but a Japanese officer snapped, ‘Never mind! Four Japanese soldiers can carry you on a chair!’”

Thus, Mustapha’s forced collaboration with the Japanese began. Once he realized that he had no alternative, he began to cooperate. He used his influence with the Japanese to help family, friends, and any Malay in trouble, including captured Malay soldiers who had fought on the British side. This was what he did all along the way down to Singapore where the Japanese troops took him.

Mustapha’s candid memoirs confirm why memory of the war in multi-racial Malaya is so ethnically divisive and sensitive. Recalling Malay wartime roles and experiences tries to play down what he calls ‘collaboration’, conscious of the Japanese atrocities and massacres of the Chinese community or the role of anti-Japanese Chinese guerrillas.

Even before his death in 1987, his memories had been badly scarred by his deep sense of anguish, disillusionment, shame and betrayal brought on by the nightmare of ‘collaboration’.

With no reconciliation between him and Ibrahim Yaacob when the latter returned to Malaysia for a brief visit before his death in Jakarta in 1979, Mustapha did not forget or forgive the ‘wrongs’ done to him and others.

Mustapha, Ishak Haji Muhammad and others accused Ibrahim of not only abdicating his leadership and abandoning his supporters, but also of betraying their struggle in Indonesia for his own self-interest. In Mustapha’s memoirs, he appears as a Machiavellian manipulator, a grasping, corrupt, self-seeking, egocentric personality.

In exile in Indonesia, he became a supporter of President Sukarno, got involved in Indonesian politics, and later amassed a great fortune as a banker. When he died in 1979, he was honoured by Indonesia with burial in the Heroes’ Cemetery in Kalibata.

During the period of Indonesia’s konfrontasi against Malaysia, the UMNO newspaper Malaya Merdeka, of March 1963, described him as a “Malay coward and traitor who managed to **** many Indonesian leaders.”

Unlike Ibrahim who escaped to Indonesia, Mustapha was arrested and detained twice by the British authorities on charges of collaboration with the Japanese. He was only released after petitions were made to the British authorities by former members of the Malay Regiment, whose lives he had saved from the Japanese.

Because of the trauma he went through at the end of the war, Mustapha suffered a nervous breakdown. He endured poverty and ostracism. He was not re-employed into the civil service. To fend for himself and his family, he worked as a farmer, a fruit seller, a noodles hawker, a printer and an insurance agent.

His struggles to defend himself and clear his name engaged much of the rest of his life. Before his death, he was conferred a state award by the Sultan of Perak and received some monetary compensation in lieu of his pension from the Government, due to the intervention of a former Federal Minister.

A heavy tinge of bitterness, therefore, colours much of his memoirs.

Politically isolated as leftwing, Mustapha and his KMM compatriots were initially opposed to UMNO, but when all political channels were closed with the outbreak of the communist insurgency in 1948, many of them joined UMNO.

In what seems like a remarkable political comeback in 1951, his name resurfaced in the crisis-ridden UMNO General Assembly after Datuk Onn Jaafar had resigned as president on the grounds of the party’s refusal to open its doors to non-Malays.

Mustapha’s standing was so strong that he was nominated to stand against Tunku Abdul Rahman and Datuk (later Tun) Abdul Razak for the posts of UMNO president and deputy president respectively. But he lost to both these rivals by one vote each time.

These were contests he entered to please his old leftwing compatriots who were keen to capture UMNO. His energies were almost spent. Even had he won, Mustapha would not have lasted long in his post, given his state of health.

These memoirs make enthralling reading and were dutifully compiled and completed by his daughter Insun after his death on 15 January 1987. Throughout the memoirs, Mustapha’s voice cries out incessantly for justice and for recognition as a Malay nationalist.

In 1974, he had narrated his political struggles to a predominantly student audience at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, then in Kuala Lumpur. The encounter was an emotional experience for both Mustapha and the audience.

“I cried along with them as memories of my bitter and gruelling experiences came flooding back,” he recalls. “Involved in World War II as a Malay Fifth Columnist leader; detained in several Police lock-ups and prisons; taunted and jeered by Malays who saw me hawking food on the roadside; humiliated by people who slammed their doors in my face; asked to leave my rented cubicle in the middle of the night and even labelled as the Malay who ‘brought’ the Japanese into Malaya."

“I left them with a tremendous sense of mental and emotional fulfilment. I had sown in these educated young souls the urge to struggle for justice.”

In writing these memoirs, Mustapha was clearly able to release and assuage the cries of his own tormented soul for justice and recognition​

--------------------



Yang merah tu, itu perangai UMNO... kerja tali barut British.

memburukkan pejuang lain untuk mewangikan dirinya yang busuk.

 

[yushar]

mat sabu telah membuka mata rakyat malaysia utk tahu sejarah sebenar...

 

[habiburrahman]

Lepas isu Mat Sabu ni panas, banyak gak perihal sejarah yang aku bongkar balik. Memang ada betulnya, siapa pejuang kemerdekaan dengan siapa pencacai British.

 

[Megat Sri Rama]

persoalannya :

1. dari sebelum merdeka lagi SB (baca: polis) dah disalahgunakan untuk kepentingan politik tertentu oleh pihak dalam UMNO.

2. kenapa polis boleh allocate SB untuk mengekang calon tertentu di dalam pemilihan presiden UMNO?

3. kenapa nama Mustapha Hussain digelapkan dari dalam sejarah?

4. bukan sahaja Mustapha Hussain yang menerima nasib tersebut, tapi pakcik beliau, Aziz Ishak yang sempat menjadi Menteri Pertanian Malaya yang pertama, telah difitnah sehingga dikenakan ISA. Tak cukup dengan menyumbat Aziz Ishak ke dalam tahanan, keluarga beliau yang berpindah ke Balik Pulau dikenakan tekanan demi tekanan. UMNO mengadakan ceramah mencerca Aziz Ishak dengan semua pembesar suara ditala ke rumah keluarga beliau. Mengapa?

5. Apa yang British lihat pada Tunku Abdul Rahman?

6. Abdullah CD sering dicop komunis, tapi lama sebelum beliau menubuhkan rejimen ke-10, beliau adalah pejuang anti-British. Ketua Kesatuan Buruh Negeri, kemudian KMM, setelah ditangkap baru dia lari masuk hutan. UMNO tak mahu pandang kisah latar belakang ini semua, tetapi mahu secara dogmatik melabelkan beliau komunis. Mengapa? British sudah pulang tetapi UMNO tetap bermain rentak British... tanyakan kenapa?

7. Mungkinkah kes dengan Mat Indera juga sama macam Mustapha Hussein dan Abdullah CD? Dalam memoir Shamsiah Fakeh, beliau mengingati Mat Indera bukan sebagai komrad PKM, tapi sebagai rakan perjuangan kiri. Ada juga cerita tentang Panglima Salleh tak kasi anak buah dia kacau Mat Indera... tapi sengaja dilupakan? Kenapa?

 

[habiburrahman]

Rosli DHobi bagaimana pula?

 

[deaftonejoe]

persoalannya :

1. dari sebelum merdeka lagi SB (baca: polis) dah disalahgunakan untuk kepentingan politik tertentu oleh pihak dalam UMNO.

2. kenapa polis boleh allocate SB untuk mengekang calon tertentu di dalam pemilihan presiden UMNO?

3. kenapa nama Mustapha Hussain digelapkan dari dalam sejarah?

4. bukan sahaja Mustapha Hussain yang menerima nasib tersebut, tapi pakcik beliau, Aziz Ishak yang sempat menjadi Menteri Pertanian Malaya yang pertama, telah difitnah sehingga dikenakan ISA. Tak cukup dengan menyumbat Aziz Ishak ke dalam tahanan, keluarga beliau yang berpindah ke Balik Pulau dikenakan tekanan demi tekanan. UMNO mengadakan ceramah mencerca Aziz Ishak dengan semua pembesar suara ditala ke rumah keluarga beliau. Mengapa?

5. Apa yang British lihat pada Tunku Abdul Rahman?

6. Abdullah CD sering dicop komunis, tapi lama sebelum beliau menubuhkan rejimen ke-10, beliau adalah pejuang anti-British. Ketua Kesatuan Buruh Negeri, kemudian KMM, setelah ditangkap baru dia lari masuk hutan. UMNO tak mahu pandang kisah latar belakang ini semua, tetapi mahu secara dogmatik melabelkan beliau komunis. Mengapa? British sudah pulang tetapi UMNO tetap bermain rentak British... tanyakan kenapa?

7. Mungkinkah kes dengan Mat Indera juga sama macam Mustapha Hussein dan Abdullah CD? Dalam memoir Shamsiah Fakeh, beliau mengingati Mat Indera bukan sebagai komrad PKM, tapi sebagai rakan perjuangan kiri. Ada juga cerita tentang Panglima Salleh tak kasi anak buah dia kacau Mat Indera... tapi sengaja dilupakan? Kenapa?

kalau x silap aku Mat indera adlh guru agama/ustaz di muar.. sama perguruan dgn bapa muhyidin yassin..

Panglima Salleh tidak membenarkan krn pada ms itu mat indera mengetuai org2 melayu johor yg berhaluan kiri dan msh blum bergabung/bersekutu dgn PKM.. (sblm tahun 1950)


tetapi parut yg ditinggalkan PKM terhadap org batu pahat terutama di sri medan adlh parut yg amat dalam.. di harap agar ia dpt diolah dan dicernakan dgn cermat..