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Sunday, May 19, 2013

Tan Sri Wong Foon Meng


Can you see that long before the 2008/2013 Tsunami, the Malays and Chinese of Kuala Terengganu already set aside their racial/political differences and supported the candidate rather than the race or party? The Chinese supported and worked/campaigned for an Islamist from PAS while the Malays supported and worked/campaigned for a ‘kafir’ from MCA.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
I spoke (by telephone) to Tan Sri Wong Foon Meng a couple of months ago after more than 20 years of no contact. So, today, is my story about my good friend Wong who I was so pleased to have been able to contact after more than 20 years of ‘absence’.
From late-1978 to 1990, Wong was with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment in Kuala Terengganu. Now he is the Chairman of Bina Puri Holdings Berhad, a very successful construction and property development company that used to be aligned to Anwar Ibrahim and was regarded as one of Anwar’s many crony-companies in the days when Anwar was the Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia.
The ‘problem’ with Wong, if I may be permitted to call it that, is that his friends were mostly (if not all) Malays. And if you sat with your back to him when he spoke, you would swear on your mother’s grave that it was a Malay person who was talking.
Wong can speak fluent Bahasa Malaysia and he would use phrases like ‘ya-Allah’, ‘insha-Allah’, alhamdu-lillah’, ‘masha-Allah’, and so on. And no one, the Terengganu Religious Department included, would get upset that a ‘kafir’ was using the Allah word. That is only a problem in ‘developed’ places like Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. In ‘backward’ places like Terengganu this is not an issue at all.
Terengganu has eight parliamentary seats and 32 state assembly seats. Only one of them, the Bandar Kuala Terengganu state seat, is a MCA seat. The rest are all Umno seats.
Tok Teng Sai
Prior to 1990, Tok Teng Sai, the MCA chief for Terengganu, was the wakil rakyat (State Assemblyman) for Kuala Terengganu. After a long and illustrious career, MCA decided to replace Tok with Wong. MCA had always won that seat so it should not be a problem for Wong to win as well since he is a more likeable person and certainly more a ‘rakyat’s man’ compared to Tok.
Or so they thought.
In the 1990 general election, Wong lost to PAS’s Harun Jusoh who won 4,628 votes against Wong’s 3,958. And that was a real shocker for many of us.
Both candidates were my friends (still are). In fact, Harun was my neighbour and I was very close to him, as I was to Wong.
Now you know why sometimes I need to be ‘neutral’? This is not about not having a stand. What do you do when two very close friends contest on opposite sides of the political fence? I lived next door to Harun (in fact, Harun let me stay in his house almost rent-free for about a year when my house was being rebuilt) while I had breakfast with Wong almost every morning in Hamid Buyung’s coffee shop. 
Anyway, Harun won, surprisingly, while Wong lost. But what was more interesting is that the Chinese in Kampung Cina boycotted Wong and would slam the door in his face when he did his door-to-door campaign. And they did this for two reasons.
Wong Foon Meng
One was that Tok was still very popular amongst the Chinese compared to Wong (Tok had done a lot for the Kuala Terengganu Chinese while Wong had done nothing -- mainly because Tok was the wakil rakyat and not Wong). Secondly, Wong was more ‘Malay’ than Tok (Wong spoke Malay like a Muslim and all his friends were Malays).
Now, during the election campaign, the Chinese from Kuala Terengganu helped put up Harun’s flags, banners and posters. It was hilarious seeing the Chinese climbing the trees and lampposts to put up the PAS flags, banners and posters.
The Malays did the same for Wong -- they climbed the trees and lampposts to put up the Barisan Nasional flags, banners and posters.
Can you see that long before the 2008/2013 Tsunami, the Malays and Chinese of Kuala Terengganu already set aside their racial/political differences and supported the candidate rather than the race or party? The Chinese supported and worked/campaigned for an Islamist from PAS while the Malays supported and worked/campaigned for a ‘kafir’ from MCA.
Nevertheless, with the Chinese ‘united’ against Wong and the Malays split between Umno and PAS, Harun won and Wong lost. If the Malays had been ‘united’ as well (against PAS), then Wong would have won because there are more Malay than Chinese voters in Kuala Terengganu.
In 1995, though, the Chinese ‘forgave’ Wong and this time around he won the election against PAS’s Mustafa Hassan with 6,970 votes against PAS’s 5,562 votes.
In 1999, however, Wong, again, lost -- but with a very narrow 6,245 votes against Md Azmi Lop Yusof of PAS’s 6,756 votes. Azmi Lop was another very good friend of mine. So, yet again, I had two very close friends contesting against each other on opposite sides of the political fence.
By the way, Azmi Lop was ex-Umno who had joined PAS so I was very close to him when he was still in Umno and not just since he joined PAS. And Wong and Azmi, of course, knew each other very well -- hence this was a contest between friends and not between enemies.
So you see, when you live in a town like Kuala Terengganu, it does not matter what race you are and what your political inclinations are as well. We are all friends, very good friends, and we do not hate each other just because we happen to be of different races or of different political loyalties.
In fact, if you can remember, when at different times in our history we have seen race riots in Singapore, Johor, Penang, Selangor/Kuala Lumpur and so on (the biggest but not the only being May 13, 1969, of course) Terengganu and Kelantan were peaceful. There were no curfews there and people went about their business as usual without a single incident. 
So don’t be too fast in condemning the ‘backward’ and ‘stupid’ Malays of the Malay heartland. They are more civilised than you give them credit for. Ask any Chinese or Indian who has lived or worked there and they can testify to this.
Oh, and regarding Harun Jusoh, not too long ago his wife died and recently two of his sons and a grandson drowned. Sigh...I have never known a friend who has had to bear so many tragedies in such a short space of time.

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