Malaysian train on wrong track, says tycoon Kuok in memoir

Updated 6 years ago · Published on 25 Nov 2017 12:17PM · 8 Comments

MALAYSIAN tycoon Robert Kuok, who released his memoir recently, spoke of his relationship with the country’s leaders and of pivotal moments where he attempted to sway them for the betterment of the nation.

Kuok described Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj, the country’s first prime minister, as a well-educated man, having graduated with a law degree from Cambridge and having “great rhythm”.

“If you talk brains, Tunku was brilliant, and very shrewd,” Kuok wrote, adding, however, that the former prime minister was “less mindful” about administrative matters.

“But, he had a good No. 2 in Tun (Abdul) Razak (Hussein), who was extremely industrious, and Tunku left most of the paperwork to Razak.”

Kuok said Tunku had many friends and enjoyed the cases of champagne or slabs of “specially imported steak” that they gave him.

“He loved to grill steaks on his lawn and open champagne, wine or spirits. His favourite cognac was Hennessy VSOP.”

Kuok wrote that Tunku would “do favours” for his friends, but never “adopted cronies”, recounting an episode involving then finance minister Tan Siew Sin, to whom Tunku sent a letter about one of his poker-playing friends, a Penang businessman.

“It seems the man had run into tax trouble and was being investigated by the tax department, and he had turned to Tunku for help.”

Kuok said Tunku wrote: “You know so-and-so is my friend. I am not asking any favour of you, Siew Sin, but I am sure you can see your way to forgiving him.”

Kuok wrote that Tan was so upset at being asked to intervene and bend the rules that he marched into the office of then trade and industry minister Ismail Abdul Rahman.

Ismail took the letter, crumpled it into a ball and threw it into the wastepaper basket, before saying: “Siew Sin, Tunku has done his duty by his friend. Now, by ignoring Tunku, you will continue to do your duty properly.”

Kuok wrote about how Tunku was affected by the May 13, 1969, racial riots.

“After the riots, he was a different man,” the tycoon said in his book.

“Razak managed to convince him and the Cabinet to form the National Operations Council (NOC), a dictatorial organ of government, and Razak was appointed its director.

“Parliament went into deep freeze. By the time the NOC was disbanded, Razak had been installed as prime minister.

“Tunku felt bewildered. He had helped the country gain independence and had ruled as wisely as he could, yet the Malays turned against him for selling out to the Chinese. In fairness to Tunku, he had done nothing of the sort.

“He was a very fair man who loved the nation and its people. But he knew that if you favour one group, you only spoil them.”

Following the riots, Kuok wrote that a shift in policy to close the wealth gap by giving Malays an advantage was implemented. He said this later gave rise to cronyism.

“When they see that they have overdone it, they try to redress the problem. Their hearts are in the right place, but they just cannot see their way out of their problems.

“Since May 13, 1969, the Malay leadership has had one simple philosophy: the Malays need handicapping. Now, what amount of handicapping? The government laid down a simple structure, but the structure is full of loopholes.

“As a Chinese who was born and grew up in Malaysia, and went to school with the Malays, I was saddened to see the Malays being misled in this way. I felt that in their haste to bridge the economic gap between the Chinese and the Malays, harmful shortcuts were being taken.

“One of the side effects of their zeal to bridge the economic gap was that racism became increasingly ugly.”

Kuok wrote of “unscrupulous” individuals who took advantage of the loopholes, and of the suppression of those who tried to speak up against such a “robbery”.

“When people raise objections, it is called fomenting racial strife, punishable by three years in jail.”

All this made him see “very clearly” that the path being pursued by Malaysia’s leaders after 1969 was “dangerous”, said Kok.

“But hardly anyone was willing to listen to me. I made one – and only one – strong attempt to influence the course of history for Malaysia.”

He said he spoke privately to Hussein Onn, asking him to be colour-blind and use the best Malaysians to run the country before the latter became the third prime minister.

Kuok said his father and Hussein’s father, Onn Jaafar, had known each other since the 1930s, and that he and Hussein were even classmates at one time.

“You’re going to be the leader of a nation, and you have three sons, Hussein. The firstborn is Malay, the second-born is Chinese, the third-born is Indian. What we have been witnessing is that the firstborn is more favoured than the second or third. Hussein, if you do that in a family, your eldest son will grow up very spoiled.

“As soon as he attains manhood, he will be in the nightclubs every night. The second and third sons, feeling the discrimination, will grow up hard as nails.

“Please, Hussein, use the best brains, the people with their hearts in the right place, Malaysians of total integrity and strong ability, hardworking and persevering people. Use them regardless of race, colour or creed.

“The other way, Hussein, the way your people are going – excessive handicapping of Bumiputeras, showering love on your first son – your firstborn is going to grow up with an attitude of entitlement.”

Kuok said Hussein was quiet for a while, and after that said: “No, Robert. I cannot do it. The Malays are now in a state of mind such that they will not accept it.”

“I think Hussein understood my message, but he knew that the process had gone too far,” wrote Kuok, adding that he felt disappointed, but understood that there was nothing else he could have done.

“I had seen a picture developing all along of a train moving in the wrong direction. During Hussein’s administration, he was only partially successful in stemming the tide.

“The train of the nation had been put on the wrong track. Hussein wasn’t strong enough to lift up the train and set it down on the right track.” – December 8, 2017.

Robert Kuok, A Memoir was first released in Hong Kong exclusively at Bookazine, and in Singapore last month. It was released in Malaysia last week and will be released in Indonesia on January 1.

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Comments

  • wow - you have just put an ant nest into perkasa's undie - a thunderstorm will be coming to your biz

    Posted 6 years ago by Chris Ng · Reply

  • Kuok's remarks make sense. But trains CAN be moved onto different tracks -just check how railway stations do it! First, the train is gently moved onto slightly curved tracks. Those "adjusting tracks" slowly merge with a new set of tracks that move in the NEW direction that you want the train to travel now. After getting onto the new tracks, the heavy train DOES BEGIN to move in the new direction. Voila! It's accomplished!
    In our context, the "adjusting tracks" will be the few years when (a) lots of agent provocateurs like Perkasa, and that Jalil feller and others are rounded up and detained. Like Ops Lallang. Also a number of directives will go out-freeze Civil Service/GLC/GLIC recruitments. Probably martial law has to be declared first but administered by the Terrotorial Army, to ensure multiracial fairness. Meanwhile, all parties have to spend a year to study A. What's wrong, what's needed and how to establish milestones to get there. It will be like the NOC National Ops Council after May 13, but this time to be no up with a goal of eliminating all racial divisions and racial divisions and elevating nonMuslim religions and free thinkers to Official status, being able to receive public funds from taxes, in proportion to their numbers. During this turbulent period, any
    provocateurs will be severely dealt with -martial law, remember? All schools will be switched back, after 5 years for retraining of largely Malay teachers, into English-medium, with compulsory BM and availability of Mother tongue language instruction, if at least 30 students apply for it. Tamil and Mandarin schools will be converted into National schools, with the gtee of Tamil/Mandarin language instruction with a min 30 students. Five years later, the Perkasa and other malcontents can be released and a general el cation held to gauge national support for the new policies/new directions. I'm confident the majority will support this. Then, martial la can be lifted.

    Posted 6 years ago by James Dean · Reply

  • Only a truly honest man will see what is happening to this country. The life journey of Robert Kuok as a businessman interacting with the past PM has help him to gauge and know the pulse that the country is ticking on. To every partying of feasting there is always an ending and over feasting without filling the depot inventory will result in famine.
    After Hussein Onn most of the incoming PM were playing to a certain segment of gallery and the hard core extremist indoctrination becomes a norm and take for granted that it is theirs and a full entitlement. Never was there a thought to question that free entitlement without earning it through a collective effort will result in a depletion and depriving the country resources and its human capital the process of churning opportunities to perpetuate the flow of prosperities to be enjoyed by all.
    It is so obvious now that the NEP will never ever be reached or realised its target as there is no desire to reveal or to halt.

    Posted 6 years ago by Lee Lee · Reply

  • Words of wisdom and truth from Robert Kuok, which, if heeded, Malaysia would have blazed far ahead of Singapore.
    The third PM Hussein Onn knew Kuok’s message to be the truth, but he also admitted honestly that he was not able to overcome the tide of racism raging then, which soon developed into unbridled corruption and cronyism and repression. Nevertheless, Hussein had remained throughout his premiership an honourable leader of impeccable integrity, unsurpassed by any PM who came after him.
    Needless to say, the rest of Malaysia’s history is a sad tale of a train going on a wrong track towards a dangerous direction (as aptly put by Kuok),until it is now perched precariously on the edge of a precipice.
    Will the train take the plunge? GE 14 may provide the answer.

    Posted 6 years ago by Kim quek · Reply

  • They have betrayed their own people, their own culture and even their own religion and will always put the blame on others. Their train is on track to total destruction, only something extreme like in Zimbabwe may help this country.

    Posted 6 years ago by Xuz ZG · Reply

  • The ULTIMATE in cronyism ....... manufacturing in the 1990's a coterie of crony "Bumiputera Billionaires" (including his own sons) through funds (and eventual losses) from taxpayers, EPF, Kazanah, BNM, etc that NEVER benefited or developed the country but instead created immense wealth for the aforesaid cronies.

    Posted 6 years ago by Malaysian First · Reply

  • Entitlement is NOT a plan. It never has been. Time and again, it comes back to bite you back. The NEP and so called Malay Agenda, is still just entitlement and not a plan for the nation.

    Posted 6 years ago by Bigjoe Lam · Reply

  • Malaysia is similar to Zimbabwe where an elite group - dominate politic - and persistently rob and rape our nation. Look at their children and grand children - flaunting their ill-gotten wealth (like Mugabe and Grace) in their facebook.

    Posted 6 years ago by Chris Ng · Reply