Thread by @FreeMsian

Tuesday 25 May 1965, The then YDPA delivered a Speech in Parliament, which then sets off historical events that permanently framed Malaysia. The YDP Agong alluded to two threats: 1) The Konfrontasi threat from Indonesia which wanted to annex Malaysia and 2) Threats from Within

The next day, on 26 May 1965, Lee Kuan Yew sets about to debate YDPA's speech. He correctly recognises that the speech was ceremonial and actually written by the Government of the Day. He just worries about its impact in the Malay Press.

Lee Kuan Yew then gets adamant to address the very vague "insider threat to Malaysia's sovereignty" allegation. He doesn't want it to be left grey, which would then allow people to insinuate in so many ways.

He then considers who the Government of the Day could have meant as 'insider threat." He considers PAS whose leader was arrested for conspiring with Indonesia! He discounts them. (Didn't know PAS was traitorous even at that point in time).

He then looks at his own opposition MPs from Singapore, 3 MPs from Barisan Sosialis (who were covertly communists). He don't think of them much.

And then LKY passes cynical remarks on Dr Tan Chee Khoon, the then Labour Party MP (and later founded Gerakan) of Batu who won the seat with two votes. LKY was naughty but he also saw through characters. 😀 He concludes the "internal threat" can't be Batu MP.

He then zeroes in on the crux of the matter and asks whether it was them (the PAP), which called Malaysia is a nation for Malaysians is the real "internal threat." He insists on @TheTunku to take responsibility over the speech.

Calling your political opponent as the "Enemy of the State" is an art perfected in 1960s. Perhaps copied from the Colonial British!

Calling for Malay unity for the sake of attaining political power is also an old trick. But overall Malay wealth and economic wellbeing remain backwards. What happened after 65 years?

LKY reminds the Dewan Rakyat of the oath they have taken.

He asks as to what was it that they (Malaysian Solidarity Convention that united PAP with Chinese and pribumi based parties in West and East Malaysia) have done justifies the label that they are the "enemy of the state?" He insists that it was very Constitutional.

While LKY advocated for Malaysian Malaysia, he did acknowledge the Special Position of Malays under Article 153 and Article 152 Malay as the National Language.

You can read the rest of his speech in the following tweet but the standout was his courage to take the issue heads on.

After the speech, it dawned on UMNO that LKY would have been a grave threat politically and Tunku decided the softer approach of kicking them out contrasted with Malay Ultras' demand of arresting LKY and suspending Singapore Constitution. nas.gov.sg/archivesonline…

Moral of the story is resist the politicians who keep us divided along racial lines. We lost 60+ years in this battle and cannot afford to keep losing.

Can't resist this. We were often told that Singapore seceded but this speech by LKY in Malaysian parliament says he was forced out and he was very reluctant to leave.

Dr Mahathir v Lee Kuan Yew. You be the judge!

Lee talks about how achieving political equality between races is very constitutional and it does not impede on the obligations on all Msians to preserve the special position of Malays. He says if we don't respect this principle, we don't need Sokorno to destroy us.

Just like today, the Pendatang term was very much a live issue. Much more intensity then than now. For obvious reasons.

According to LKY, UMNO Ultras did threaten to annex Malaysia into Indonesia if PAP pushed too hard. LKY then queried Johore Tenggara MP Syed Ja'afar Albar (also a migrant of Arab origin to Singapore from Sulawesi) to state his stand as to where his loyalty lied.

LKY goes on to call Syed Ja'afar Albar's bluff. He says if it is true that they are intending to join Malaysia with Indonesia, state it so so that they (Singapore) can look to alternatives. He alludes to that he is not without any alternatives and he has friends overseas.

LKY dismisses the notion that Chinese are superior as a race.

LKY swears his allegiance to the Constitution once again. He reiterates his obligation to honour the special position of the Malays and the indigenous people of Sabah and Sarawak. He also talks about part of the Constitution, which is being disputed today. Article 43(4)

The fundamental difference between UMNO and PAP is that the former believes in quotas for Malays, while the later had a different idea altogether.

LKY said that his policies and what they stand for will bring about a more just and equal society in which Malays, Dayaks, Dusuns, Kadazans would slowly find themselves not just with paddings on their shoulders and added heels, ....

but LKY argued that real strength can only come through education, training the techniques and methods of modern industrial production. Here is that part of his speech. Essentially, LKY argued don't give fish but teach him how to fish!

The other fundamental difference between UMNO and PAP came on the extended use of Malay. LKY agreed that there must be one National Language (i.e. Malay) to unify Malaysians.

Where he differed with UMNO was the propaganda that switching to Malay in Courts and other official transmittals from 1967 would change the economic well being of the Malays.

LKY said: "This is a very dangerous thing leading people to believe that if we just switch in 1967 from talking English in the courts and in the business, to speaking Malay, therefore the imbalance in social and economic development will disappear."

He says: "It will not disappear. How does our talking Malay here or writing to the Ministers of the Federal Government, both Malaya and non—Malaya, in Malay, how does that increase the production of the Malay farmers?"

"The price he gets for his products, the facilities he gets from the Government, fertIlization, research into better seeds, marketing boards. How does that raise him?" He says Article 153 was in operation for 10 years and yet, Malays got more poorer.

Even in 1965, 10,000 youths from rural areas (35% of them Malays) flooded Singapore because the rural areas were getting more poorer and MCA which held the Finance Ministry did nothing. "Kongres Ekonomi Bumiputra" also talked big about their lofty goals but seemed unachievable.

The next difference between UMNO and PAP was on how they planned to improve the economic well being of the Malays. UMNO thought of creating few filthy rich Malays to compete with few filthy rich Chinese but LKY had other idea. Mind you at that time, NEP was not born yet.

Lee Kuan Yew tells how much MCA was conning them. In the name of Malay upliftment, MCA spend a lot of money in rural areas but most of it goes to Chinese Capital Owners. LKY says he tries to raise this privately but UMNO never listened and as such, he was raising it publicly.

Lee Kuan Yew takes a potshot at MCA's consumption taxes (now known as Sales and Service Tax and some time ago it was known as GST). He tells how Malay Special Rights doesn't exempt the poor from paying taxes on his Coca Cola.

LKY take on Malay Ultra Dr M's frequent complaint that there were too many Chinese Millionaires. LKY says that the answer was not to create few Malay millionaires. That's not going to help most poor Malays. Indeed that's what happened. Few people from all races have most wealth!

LKY: "You let people in the kampongs believe that they are poor because we don't speak Malay, because the Government does not write in Malay, so he expects a
miracle to take place in 1967."

LKY: " (You make them believe) The moment we all start speaking Malay, he is going to have an uplift in the standard of living and if it doesn't happen, what happens then?"

LKY: "Oh, you say, well they are opposing Malay rights. We are not opposing Malay rights. We honour and support it, but how does Malay rights solve your Malay Rakyat's living standards?"

LKY: "So whenever there is a failure of economic, social and educational policies, you come back and say, oh, these wicked Chinese, Indians and others opposing Malay rights. They don't oppose Malay rights."

LKY: "They have the right as Malaysian citizens to go up
to the level of training and education which the more competitive societies, the non-Malay society has produced."

LKY: "That is what must be done, isn't it? Not to feed them (the Malays) with this obscurantist doctrine, that all they've got to do is to get Malay rights for a few special Malays and their problem has been resolved." Until today, this is what happening in Malaysia.

Note: Meaning of obscurantism according to Oxford Dictionary - "The practice of deliberately preventing the facts or full details of something from becoming known."

Lee Kuan Yew exposes how UMNO used the Special Rights of Malays and special position of Malay language to distract from the real issue. That was, they were taxing the poor people more (mostly Malays) to spend rather than taxing the rich people (mostly Chinese).

Then LKY goes on to address how he was going to bring about upliftment of the Malays: "In 10 years, we will breed a generation of Malays with educated minds, not filled with obscurantist stuff, but understanding the techniques of science n modern industrial management, capable,"

"competent and assured the family background., the diet -- health problems, the economic and social problems that prevent a Malay child from taking advantage of the educational opportunities which we offer free from the primary school to university."

LKY: "We will solve them, we will meet them, because in
no other way can you hold this multi-racial society together if over the years the urban areas populated largely by people of migrant stock goes up and up and the rural areas remain stagnant."

After all the soft talk, LKY changes into hardtalk mode. He says no way Malaysia can forcefully by way of guns change Singapore's laws unless they win the elections there. He make use of Sarawak too in this threat.

An MP, presumably MCA member, interfere and asks about the strength of democracy in Singapore, whereby their parliament had not met for more than 6 months. For which LKY gives a cynical response mocking MCA, claiming it remain oblivious to racist threats from UMNO.

LKY pays special attention to MP Johore Tenggara, Syed Ja'afar Albar, who talks one thing in Malay and another thing in English and MCA seem unaware because they were so focussed in making money from business. LKY says he don't do business. He don't trade in people's miseries.

LKY tells of "Alliancism" (today's BNism). Their goal is accumulation of wealth. And it takes care of the Top 1% according to him. Remains a fact until today. Look at their taxation policies. Hardly anything to tax the rich. More APs and licences to billionaires.

Lee Kuan Yew pooh-poohs the threat from Malay Ultras that they would annex Malaysia with Indonesia. He says no way they would do that as they were rich and won't give up their richness to the communist-like Indonesia.

And then LKY takes on the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Enche Senu bin Abdul Rahman that they were not doing much to educate and liberate minds but more of stifling and preventing people from being heard. Nothing changed much today in RTM.

And there was tiff between the two when the Minister insist that they were going to integrate Singapore radio and TV into national stream. LKY challenges them to do it above board and in a lawful manner.

LKY finally concludes his speech by seeking to amend YDPA's speech in which His Majesty made reference to "Internal threats" to Malaysia. LKY concludes his loyalty was to Malaysia and not the Alliance party political alliance.

LKY made the entire speech unscripted for more than an hour but it shocked the Alliance Party to its core, they made a decision to kick Singapore out of Malaysia on 9 August 1965.
eresources.nlb.gov.sg/history/events…

Tunku explained at a press conference after the passage of the Separation Act: "It was my idea that Singapore should leave the federation and be independent."

"The differences between the state government of Singapore and the central government of Malaysia had become so acrimonious that I decided that it was best that Singapore went its own way. Otherwise, there was no hope for peace," Tunku Abdul Rahman.