‘Siti Aishah was never enslaved’

Hishamuddin Rais reveals that the meeting between the two sisters did not turn out well, adding that Aishah stayed with Comrade Bala willingly.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysia–Singapore Students Forum or MASS – of which Siti Aishah Wahab was an active member – was an outstanding left leaning student movement in England with hard working comrades, said activist Hishamuddin Rais last night.

Speaking to FMT after a live radio show, Hishamuddin described the group as a ‘very famous student organisation’ by recalling an incident in the late 60s, where a visiting American professor was not allowed to deliver a lecture due to strong protest by the MASS group.

“If I am not mistaken, the incident took place at the London School of Economics, where this American professor was invited to give a lecture,” he recalled.

“However, he was a racist professor with racist ideology. So there was a very strong campaign organized by MASS’ students and because it was so strong the professor was not allowed to carry on with his speech,” he added.

Hishamuddin who handles a satirical blog Tukar Tiub then added that even an Iraqi student he met in Iraq back in 1975 knows about the existence of the group.

“I met this student in Iraq and he said to me, “do you know there is a Malayan Maoist group in England”, that is how famous the group was back in those days,” he added.

The MASS under the leadership of Aravindan Balakrishnan and his Tanzanian partner Chandra Pattni, had a solid reputation as an extreme Maoist group in London; and when Siti Aishah together with her fiance arrived in the UK they were quickly attracted to the organisation.

Siti Aishah was not enslaved
Hishamuddin then rebutted claims made by various news agencies that Siti Aishah was a slave under the command of Comrade Bala, by saying that Siti Aishah who went ‘missing’ for 40 years decided to stay with the couple where they shared a common belief in Mao Zedong Thought.

“There is no way that Aishah was a slave. How can you become a slave when you are free to go in and out of the house,”

“For me it was a loyalty to the ideology and that is why Aishah stayed with them for so long,” he said.

“They were caught in their own time-line and they were stuck in it,” he added.

When asked to explain about the meeting of Siti Aishah with her 73-year-old sister Kamar Mahtum, Hishamuddin said that meeting was not as warm as it should have been.

“Firstly, the meeting went over an hour and 40 minutes not 40 minutes as reported.

“Secondly, one of the British police officers interjected their conversation twice asking Kamar to talk about their family instead of giving Siti Aishah a lecture.

“The next day, Cikgu Kamar told me that she regretted what she said to Siti Aishah. She scolded her and she was very emotional but Siti Aishah did not show any sign of emotion,” Hishamuddin added.

The secret location of the meeting was revealed by Hishamuddin last night after he was told by Kamar who saw a signboard during the six hour long drive.

“Cikgu Kamar was smart. She did not just sit in the car but she was looking for signs. She told me the location was in Manchester.”

Last week, the nation was shocked to learnt about the missing case of a Malaysian woman who was allegedly enslaved for almost 40 years in London.

Siti Aishah’s epilogue exploded when Hishamuddin, hinself a former student activist, first broke the story in his blog claiming that the woman being held captive by Comrade Bala in the UK was Aishah who disappeared in the 70s.

Hishamuddin who spent almost 20 years in London was first asked by Siti Aishah’s brother to locate her after she suddenly went out of radar in 1991.