SPEECH BY TAN SRI ABDUL KADIR BIN
SHAMSUDDIN AT THE OPENING OF THE SECOND INCHCAPE EXECUTIVE COURSE ON MONDAY, 24TH
APRIL 1978 AT 9.00 A.M. AT CONFERENCE ROOM II, FIRST FLOOR, MERLIN HOTEL (THE PRESENT CONCORDE HOTEL, JALAN SULTAN ISMAIL, KUALA LUMPUR).
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Short note by Dr.
Shamsul Bahar bin Abdul Kadir:
A few months before his death my late
father , having full knowledge of his health condition then, mentioned to me
that one of the things that he has not been able to do was to write his memoirs
– in which he intended to put in writing and made known to many of the tough challenges
the early Malayan and Malaysian leaders had to face in gaining Independence and
in nation building – building a united Malaysia. A very important matter that unfortunately is still controversial to many Malaysians to this day is the “Social Contract” made before Malaya’s
Independence leading to the provisions of Article 153 of the Malaysian
Constitution. My father called the “Social Contract” (or as Tan Sri T.H.Tan called it the "Merdeka Deal") as the “Magna Carta” for Malaya's & ultimately Malaysia's independence & nationhood. To gain some
insight into this matter, following is his speech at Inchcape Malaysia (www.inchcape.com – a multi-national company
which at that time had a big presence in Malaysia.) The speech was given about
six months before his passing away. Another speech touching on the same matter given a few months later is published at the beginning of this blog.
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“ I
am pleased to have the opportunity this morning to wish you ‘Selamat Datang’ to
this Second Inchcape Executive Course held in Malaysia not only on behalf of
myself but also on behalf of all members of the Board of Directors.
2. The 16 participants in the course
represent both the Group’s various activities, i.e. Motor, Trading,
Manufacturing, etc. and the various territories of this region, i.e. Peninsular
Malaysia, Sarawak, Sabah, Brunei and Singapore.
3. You will no doubt appreciate the
importance of a course like this in the upgrading of your knowledge and skill
and how you will benefit from it particularly through interaction with each
other. You had a general high standard of education which should have given you
a good sense of judgement and the ability to choose between alternatives. But
in any job for that matter you still have a lot to learn while in service, and training
courses like this are a necessity, particularly in view of the rapidity in
which knowledge, ideas and technology are changing and developing. Such courses
as this will give you an exposure to the Group’s philosophy and management
tools. This five-day intensive course will also give you the opportunity to
exchange views, ideas and experiences and interact with each other and thereby
better equip yourselves to perform the roles you are entrusted to play as well
as to impart knowledge to you subordinates.
4. Your lecturers on this course are
mostly Senior Managers and Directors of Inchcape Malaysia as well as
professional s from the Malaysian Institute of Management, which incidently
will also run the Financial Business Game. The Second Inchcape Executive Course
has three new features. First, all of you, regardless of where you come from
are accommodated at the same hotel and this will give you the opportunity to
get to know your fellow colleagues better and to exchange your experiences with
one another. Secondly, we have also introduced a panel of Directors at the end
of the course to answer any questions on problems which you may have
encountered in you respective areas. Thirdly, since Inchcape is in Malaysia to
stay and thereby committed to the Third Malaysia Plan, we have invited a senior
officer from the Prime Minister’s Department to give you an insight into the
requirements of the Third Malaysia Plan and the role the private sector is
expected to play in achieving the targets set.
5. Talking on the Third Malaysia Plan,
Encik Shahruddin bin Harun will no doubt direct you attention to the New
Economic Policy and the two-pronged objectives of the Government. I would,
however, like to add a few words on one particular aspect of this subject in
the hope that you as young Malaysians will better appreciated your role in the building up of a united Malaysian nation.
I like to talk on the philosophy underlining the policy, how it came to be
conceived and produced and what role each of us Malaysian, whether in the
government sector or private sector, and corporate bodies, whether national or
multi-national, should play to achieve the two-pronged objectives of the
Government. What I like to see is that all the executives in Inchcape should
feel committed to the implementation of the New Economic Policy.
6. At the Annual Dinner recently held
by the members of the Malaysian Administrative and Diplomatic Service, the
Prime Minister exhorted the civil servants to play their proper role in the
implementation of the policy. At the First International Management Conference
organised by the Institute of Management Graduates Association of Malaysia held
recently, it was reported that Tun Tan Siew Sin advised multi-national
corporations to consider the social and economic aspirations of the countries
in which they operate. He told the conference that in this way the companies
would advance not only the interests of their shareholders but also contribute
to the wellbeing and prosperity of their host countries.
7. Not
many have explained the underlining philosophy of this New Economic Policy and
justify its acceptance even though it may appear to be unfair or to favour
certain groups or communities in its implementation. As you are assistant
managers and managers and as such leaders of a certain number of men in the
staff of Inchcape, which as I have stated earlier, is committed to the Third
Malaysia Plan, and having myself been involved personally in its conception and
birth, I consider it a duty for me to share my knowledge with you for the
benefit of us all.
8. A
Malaya Merdeka Mission went to London in December 1955 immediately after the
first election ever held in Malaya, and came back in January 1956 having
reached an agreement with the British on many matters including a decision to
declare Independence on 31st August 1957. That did not give us much
time to draft a national constitution.
9. A
Constitutional Commission consisting of eminent lawyers, judges and wise men
form some Commonwealth countries was established to draft a constitution for
Malaya, but the contents of this constitution must include certain basic issues
to be agreed upon between the leaders of the three parties which represented
the peoples of Malaysia. A Constitutional Committee was formed by the Alliance
Party and the Committee established two working parties and incidently I was a
member of all three in my individual capacity. The most important issue which
was the subject of one of the working parties was ‘citizenship’.
10. In
this respect, the non-Malay leaders wanted a non-Malay to have the right to
acquire “citizenship in the strict constitutional sense” in accordance with the
principle of “jus soli” and “jus sanguine” and that on acquisition they should
enjoy equal civil and political rights with the Malays. I may remind you that
before Merdeka there were two different concepts: one was the concept of
“British subjects and subjects of the Rulers” which terms strictly refer to the
concept of citizenship in the strict constitutional sense, and second was the
concept of “Federal citizenship in accordance with the Federation of Malaya
Agreement 1948”, the holder of which enjoys certain civil and political rights
as may be granted to them as a matter of grace by the government.
11.
On the other hand, the Malay leaders referred to the Malays’ ‘special position’
as the settlers and founders of Malaya a few thousand years before the
immigration of the Chinese or Indians brought in during the British
colonisation of Singapore, Penang and Malacca and the protection of the Malay
States. These immigrants have come as “birds of passage” to earn a living by
trade or otherwise and make their fortune with some vague ultimate intention of
returning to their homelands and were not up to that date interested in the
national aspiration of the country. Any development of Malaya that had taken
place until then was purely incidental to the exploitation of resources. As a
result of British policy of “protection” the Malays as a community was the most
backward, socially and economically.
12. After
a lengthy discussion and long protracted hard bargaining lasting for over a
year, it was agreed by the Malay leaders that the non-Malays who are not
British subjects (who in fact were granted Malayan citizenship automatically)
should be given what they ask for, i.e. acquisition of Malayan citizenship on
birth in Malaya on Merdeka Day or thereafter or on being born of a Malayan
parent, by registration in respect of those who were born in Malaya before
Merdeka Day and by naturalisation in respect of the others, in return for a
“guarantee” or more correctly a “promise” or an undertaking by the non-Malays
that they would upgrade the Malays
socially and economically so as to bring them on par with the others and thus
the provision in the Constitution in Article 153. You will see that the concept
of “correcting the economic imbalance between the Malay race and the other
races” was the “magna carta” for the establishment of an independent Malaya and
constitutes the very basic foundation of the founding of the new nation.
Article 153 reads: " 'It shall be the responsibility of the Yang
di-Pertuan Agong to safeguard the special position of the Malays and natives of
any of the States of Sabah and Sarawak and the legitimate interests of other
communities in accordance with the provisions of this Article', and the provisions of the Article follows." Consider the possible implications if the Malay leaders agreed to a deferred "jus soli" and "jus sanguine" until the non-Malay leaders had shown proof that the undertaking would have been honoured. In fact this was the rule in Ceylon (Sri Langka) then. Or would there be different classes of citizenship with unlike rights, political or otherwise as you find today in Saudi Arabia? Would there be less citizens today? This would be obvious if citizen laws were different. What if the government were to treat citizens and non-citizens differently which in fact does happen today as you will find in a country nearby?
13. The
Government of Malaya 1957 to 1969 on whom the responsibility to implement the
“magna carta” was placed, produced the First, Second and Third Malayan
Development Plans which were expected to bring about the correction of the
economic imbalance by the very act of increasing the GNP and income per
capital, but the result achieved proved to be the contrary, i.e. the richer
became richer the poor poorer. Whatever it was, it was also shown that the
majority of the people and, particularly the younger politicians and the
younger Malayan nationals were not aware of this Merdeka agreement or contract
between the racial groups. So during the electioning campaign in the 1969
elections, many nasty remarks were made which make it clear to the Malays that
the basic foundation for the Constitution of Malaya has been forgotten thus
giving rise to the 1969 riots in Kuala Lumpur.
14.
The National Operation Council was established to run the government and I was
appointed a member of it and was made responsible for the civil side of the
administration. One of the duties I had to do was to work out the Second
Malaysia Plan that would help bring about national unity. The committee which I
was appointed to chair concluded that national unity could not be achieved
without first eradicating poverty irrespective of colour and race (this is
obvious, one can’t talk of ideals or sentiments when one is busy struggling for
survival) and secondly, correcting the economic imbalance between the Malays
and the other races, but for the later purpose we coined the phrase “the
restructure of society so as to eliminate the identification of race with
economic functions”. The “restructure of society” in economic terms really
means the Malays who were found in the low income producing sectors, i.e. the
rural traditional and urban traditional sectors, should be moved into the
higher income sectors, i..e modern rural and modern urban sectors. This finding
was accepted by the late Prime Minister, Tun Abdul Razak, endorsed by the
National Consultative Committee and became the two-pronged objectives of
Government and the basis of the New Economic Policy.
15. In
so far as trade and industry was concerned, Tun Tan Siew Sin as Chairman of the
Capital Investment Committee and also the then Minister of Finance, accepted
the recommendations of a public/private sector sub-committee/panel with regard
to the development of trade and industry which inter alia included that the
management and staff of public corporations/companies must reflect the
multi-racial character of the country and that Malays should be given the
opportunity to participate in their equities. In this connection, I may mention
here that immediately after the 1969 riots, Tun Tan Siew Sin called members of
the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and asked them: “Do you think the Malays care a
cent if the whole of Kuala Lumpur were burnt and if you think they couldn’t
care less, don’t you think you should give them a stake in the city?”
16. I
would like to congratulate Inchcape for adopting the policy of recruiting
executive of all races and for recently increasing the recruitment of Malays,
but his is not enough unless you as managers and other senior managers, particularly
the non-Malays, could consider themselves committed to the New Economic Policy
and welcome the Malay executives as colleagues in their midst. By welcome I
don’t mean you must say ‘selamat datang’ and then put them in a corner of you
office. And I am confident you will, if you remember that as a result of an
agreement made by your forebears, one party (the non-Malays) obtained on the
very day of Merdeka a certain invaluable “right” in return for a “promise” or undertaking to the other party (the Malays) and that promise has yet to be
fulfilled and may take one, two or three generations to do so.
17. Now, to come back to this executive
course, it is hoped you will attain :-
(a) a better knowledge of the Group;
(b) a greater knowledge of the business of the
Group;
(c) a greater desire to know about your business;
and
(d) additional knowledge on how to go about your
business effectively/productively and
also impart them to you subordinates.
18. Most of you are either managers or
assistant managers, and as such you are the leaders of men, you have to make
decisions, and most important you have to put your decisions into action and
also lead your men often by examples. A lot of work has been put into the
preparation of this course by many people and the success of the course will
really depend on whether you will provide better management in the future.
19. Finally, I hope you will take full
advantage of this course and finish up as better and more productive managers.
i wish you good luck and every success.
Thank you. "
