SAID ZAHARI, a dark shadow over the face of our history. Nearly obliterated by the propaganda, it shows how by merely labelling a victim, a man can be destroyed by propaganda that naturally builds around that label. Said did not even have the dignity of a trial, unlike Nelson Mandela, but was swept away by the wave of Operation Cold Storage in early 1963, to be forgotten to the public, for some seventeen years. Fortunately, like Nelson Mandela, he did not break and was able to emerge from detention in Singapore under someone he had once trusted and believed in.

He did not even commit a crime as to warrant a punishment so hideous as to be almost inhuman. And the man who had him detained was none other than Lee Kuan Yew, the one time legal adviser to Utusan Melayu whom he so trusted as a comrade and who, according to the author, could together put " them" (meaning the leaders of UMNO) into his pocket. What had he done to justify such treatment he,  himself,  could not understand. And this book is all about this wonderment.

 "Why am I detained?" he asked continuously. "I'm no Communist." They said he was and they repeated it over and over again till, in the end no one questioned it, and the denial "I am no Communist. Why am I detained" fell on deaf ears and silent men.

He was detained prior to the Federation of Malaysia but when Singapore was kicked out of the Federation of Malaysia in 1965 and  sent packing, to constitute the biggest failure of Lee Kuan Yew, was this the reason why the detention continued for another 15 years or so due to exasperation caused by this failure?

"Yusof Ishak had been put under pressure from a number of individuals closely connected to the Alliance government from the start", writes Said. "In his discussions with me on newspaper policy, Yusof Ishak often emphasised that as news editor, I should exercise tight control on news so as not to expose the newspaper to criticisms for being anti-government. This was because several UMNO leaders had frequent unhappiness about the general reporting style and the editorial policy  of the Utusan Melayu when they met Yusof Ishak at official and unofficial gatherings.  Some of the unhappiness was also conveyed through Aziz Ishak, who was an Alliance government minister and a senior UMNO leader at the time.

It was pressure from the government of Malaya upon the Utusan and mounted by the Prime Minister who thought it the time for him to take a hand. There were many face to face meetings and once there was even one between the Tunku in the presence of his Ministers Abdul Rahman Talib and Khir Johari, and his Assistant Minister Syed Ja'afar Albar who confronted Yusof and Rahim Ishak, Salim Kajai, Tajuddin Kahar and the writer himself where the Utusan Melayu promised to take note of the government complaints. 

The pressure apparently continued in "face to face" meetings over breakfast between the Tunku and Yusof Ishak when the resistance and patience of the latter was tested to the hilt. In 1959, at a breakfast session, Yusof's patience broke.
"I can't take it anymore,  Said. It's too much. In all the years  of my journalistic career, I have never been so humiliated. Not even by the British colonialists. Enough is enough." 

With Yusof's resignation, Nordin Shazrif became the general manger and Said Zahari become the Editor. Said Zahari's fate was sealed. He held he editor's post and that was the most sensitive one. 

On the 21st of July 1961, a strike was called. He was a Singaporean. Not long thereafter, on his return from Singapore, he was banned from Malaya by the Tunku. 

Said was politically activated and became a friend of Boestamam and developed sympathies with with the Party Rakyat of Singapore. In exasperation, on 12th February 1962, he joined a weak Party Ralyat and was chosen to be its president because they needed to survive.

 That same night, he was taken in by the Special Branch of Singapore. The rest of his story was no more than repeated cries of anguish at nights and insistent protests of his innocence. 

We know now that there was no effective Communist existence in Singapore in 1963, as the the secret papers at Kew have revealed. So why was detention so pernicious and ruthless? There was no political threat against Singapore, much less from a simple outspoken journalist? 

As we read through this straightforward calm recounting we feel we also would like to add to his questions those of our own. Mandela was tried we know; he was detained because of apartheid. But Said was not tried, and Singapore claims to be democratic and run by a government "with Asian values". His questions for justice remain unanswered and his human rights have been trampled upon and his wife and children have suffered. In contrast, this man has proved himself to be a true gentleman of the press without pretensions to elitism and we ask whether his persecutors can claim as much. 

 It is a book we must not miss reading. It debunks much of what is written  of the history of our countries, not by saying as much but in making us question that if history is true and we are gentlemen who had worked honestly for democracy, how then could we have such a story from Said, a representative of our native press? 

******

Dark Clouds at Dawn : A Political Memoir
Published by INSAN, KL