The readable life story of Mr Opposition

From Fadzilah Amin

Before reading Kee Thuan Chye’s book, “Lim Kit Siang – Malaysian First” (Volume One: None But The Bold), I didn’t know very much about Kit Siang.

I knew he was a leader of DAP, perhaps the most prominent leader, and that he has a son called Guan Eng, who is now the secretary-general of DAP and used to be the Penang chief minister and later finance minister in the Pakatan Harapan government.

I had assumed that Kit Siang came from Melaka since his earlier parliamentary and state seats were in Melaka and so were his son’s.

I must explain at the outset that this ignorance came not from any prejudice against Kit Siang. I am not a member or supporter of any political party and voted in each general election according to my judgment at that time.

Imagine my surprise to find out from Kee’s book that Kit Siang was born and bred in Batu Pahat, in my home state of Johor! Also that I knew his good friend Michael Ong and his classmate Bob Tjoa, when we were colleagues at Universiti Malaya.

Kee’s book is very readable and thoroughly researched. He drew from a wide range of sources besides the subject himself. These were personal interviews with Kit Siang’s family and relatives, friends, associates, other political figures (including Musa Hitam), articles, books, and at least one PhD dissertation. This first volume of a two-volume biography is titled None But the Bold.

One of the qualities that makes the book a pleasure to read is the use of quotations in their original Malaysian English. Take this, for example, from one of Kit Siang’s school teachers, as quoted by a school friend. It is about the teaching staff’s expectation that Kit Siang and his classmate Tjoa would break the school record and get 8As in the 1959 School Certificate examination:

“… I had high hopes for these two, but now I think it’s going to be very difficult. Aiyo! One of them, Bobby lah has no time to do anything except spend his time in church, church, church. The other fella, every day after school, girlfriend’s house. Every day not interested to study …”

Still, Kit Siang and Tjoa managed five and six As, respectively, and both came near the top in the entrance examination to the only Sixth Form class in the state at that time.

Perhaps the first bold step that Kit Siang took in his life came two months after entering Sixth Form at English College, Johor Bahru. I have heard of girls giving up the prospect of higher education in order to get married and have a family. But I had never heard of a boy of 19 doing this! This is what Kit Siang did in 1960. And it was not a hasty elopement that ended disastrously. It resulted in a stable and happy marriage to Yok Tee, the girlfriend, that has lasted to this day when he is 80. By the time he was in his early 20s, Kit Siang and his wife had had three children, but he always managed to find work to support his wife and family. He might have been precocious, but he was not irresponsible.

The biography then took us to his work as a young journalist in Singapore (after about a year’s teaching in Senai) at a politically interesting time when the formation of Malaysia was being discussed. He got to cover important events, like the national referendum on joining Malaysia and the detention of some opposition figures. He also got to know Devan Nair, who was instrumental in bringing him back to Malaysia as his political secretary after Singapore split from Malaysia in 1965. The details are all covered in this book.

When PAP was deregistered in Malaysia after the split, Nair got together with Dr Chen Man Hin and a few other people to form DAP, which was formally registered on March 8, 1966. Kit Siang was among the first members.

Thus began Kit Siang’s long career in politics which seemed to run parallel to DAP’s progress as an opposition party. Kee details this career while showing its effects on his family. A clear instance is how the family coped when he was detained in Muar under the ISA from July 1969 to October 1970 after a 60-day remand in Kuala Selangor.

There is also drama in the telling of the Kit Siang story. One would expect a politician’s life to be full of drama, and confrontations in parliament and out of it, especially if the politician is an outspoken member of the opposition. Among the dramatic events highlighted by Kee are Kit Siang’s insistence that the government thoroughly investigate the BMF scandal of 1983 culminating in a three-and-a-half-hour speech in parliament, and his relentless campaign to save Bukit China as a national heritage, which included an unplanned long walk by him and his supporters that blistered their feet. Both campaigns were successful, although there were other campaigners besides DAP, and there are still unanswered questions about the BMF scandal.

This book is certainly worth reading for the light it throws on Lim Kit Siang the man, as well as the ups and downs of his party, its challenges in dealing with the government and also its infighting. There is also a lot of interesting material about political developments in Malaysia outside the party. It would make a useful reference book for a general reader interested in Malaysian politics. However, there is no index at the end, so it is rather hard to find something you have read that you want to read again. I hope future reprints and the next volume would include an index.

The photographs, especially the black-and-white ones of Kit Siang’s family and schoolmates add another dimension to the book. The school photographs might make adult readers nostalgic for the time when they were in uniform and sat down with their schoolmates and teachers for those official photographs taken by a photographer with a camera on a tripod and not a smartphone.

The book will be launched in Penang on Dec 5. - FMT

 

Fadzilah Amin taught English literature at Universiti Malaya before her retirement many years ago.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.