Conversations with Tunku Abdul Rahman by Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad (review)

To those familiar with the modern history and politics of Malaysia, the author of this latest book on the first prime minister and Father of Malaysia appears a most intriguing—yet qualified—person to write about Tunku Abdul Rahman. The late Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad (Dollah to his friends and close acquaintances) was a personal adviser to Tun Abdul Razak Malaysia’s second prime minister, and later a minister in the latter’s cabinet. Abdullah Ahmad was both an active participant and a close-range observer of Malaysian politics unfolding since the 1960s. The fact that Tunku Abdul Rahman agreed to be interviewed by Dollah who, in Tunku’s mind, was the man who was responsible for all the humiliations and black–ball treatments he had suffered by during the Razak administration, is in itself quite amazing. Even though it took Dollah all the years since 1985 to decide to have this revealing interview finally published for public consumption, Conversations with Tunku Abdul Rahman is a very welcome and refreshing addition to the existing immense volume of literature on the Father of Malaysia.

The book is, in essence, an edited record of the author’s interview with Tunku Abdul Rahman in the first half of the 1980s as a part of his research for his master’s dissertation at Cambridge University. The book is divided into two parts: The Foundation of Malaysia and The Peoples of Malaysia. Each part contains relevant chapters and at the beginning of each chapter the author takes trouble to provide brief background information and/or socio-political environments relevant to particular topics at hand. The interview/conversation between Tunku and the author is thus edited in accordance with the theme of the relevant chapters. It is pertinent to mention that Conversations is not the only record of candid interviews given by the Father of Malaysia. Tunku had granted such an interview with another well-respected journalist, K. Das, in 1988 which was later published in 2002 (Kua Kia Soong (ed.), K. Das & The Tunku Tapes, Petaling Jaya, SIRD, 2002). Conversations and K. Das & The Tunku Tapes are to a certain degree complementary.

Though the subjects covered by Conversations are political and foreign policy-oriented (such as the foundation of Malaysia, the expulsion of Singapore from Malaysia, ASEAN, policy toward Great Britain and the world at large)— topics which are well covered by various academic works and Tunku’s own contributions—there are also gems of the conversations found in Tunku’s personal and candid opinion on: political leaders and characters (Sultan of Brunei pp. 48–9; Malay monarchy, pp. 141–3; his evaluation of political personalities in Chapter 8, especially pp. 164–8, 189–95), and on certain sensitive socio-political situations (The Carcosa, Gift to Britain issue, pp. 87–90; Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew’s wish to be a part of the Federal government, pp. 91–4, 99–101; the Johore succession in 1982, pp. 138–9; Tunku’s interpretation of his own success, pp. 139–41).

Throughout the book, readers familiar with the socio-political landscape of Malaysia will undoubtedly detect certain different—even opposing—political stands and attachments between the interviewer and the interviewee. As stated earlier, Abdullah Ahmad came to the fore of Malaysian politics because he was the second prime minister’s confidante and, as such, his prime loyalty would be to Tun Razak and the latter’s socio-political legacy; consciously or not, he would do his best to show up Tunku in a not-so-positive light. A very good example is the author’s repeated efforts to get the aged Tunku (then well over eighty years old) to trip and give answers that Abdullah must have had in mind on the role of the British pressuring Tunku to include the PAP as a member of the federal government (pp. 90–5). At first, Tunku appears to oblige these repeated questions by the author. but eventually...