The Baling spirit lives on

Published by Malaysiakini on 3 June 2013.

Thirty-nine years ago, a little-known incident in Baling caused a seismic shift in Malaysian politics, but very few Malaysians are aware of the incident or realise its significance and the impact it created. If the full details of this incident had been divulged in 1974, the government might have fallen... 

The Baling event referred to is not the historic meeting in 1955 of Tunku Abdul Rahman, who was the head of the Malayan government and Chin Peng, the leader of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM).

Nor was it the Memali Incident of 1985, the shameful massacre of a defenceless community by forces loyal to Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s government.

The Baling Incident (BI) which occurred in 1974 was shrouded in secrecy. It was a series of many small expressions of the bottled-up feelings of anger, betrayal, fear and resentment, of the rural poor. 

In present-day Malaysia, the rakyat participated in democracy marches and rallies against oppression, injustice and the dictatorial rule of Najib and the BN government. In 1974, it was Abdul Razak, Najib’s father, who faced similar marches against social injustices. 

The root cause of the BI was abject poverty and starvation. The rubber smallholders faced ruin when the global price of rubber plummeted. The farmers could not cope with the rising cost of living and rural families had to forage for food in the jungles.

Bizarrely, in 1974 Abdul Razak announced in Parliament that the civil servants’ allowance would be increased by 50 percent, from RM1,000 to RM1,500.

When news broke of the deaths of a few children from eating ubi gadong, a type of poisonous wild yam, to stave off hunger pangs, the social unrest reached a tipping point. At its peak, around 25,000 of the rural poor took to the streets. 

Like father, like son; both Abdul Razak and Najib unleashed the might of the FRU and the police on peaceful protesters. Najib is a politician without imagination, but he knew that brutal action had served his father well. 

A dark chapter in our history

In 2013 Najib merely employed his father’s tried and tested methods of retaliation. The consequences of 1974 opened a dark chapter in our history. 

Then, like now, information was heavily censored. Abdul Razak did not want the rakyat to know that an uprising had occurred in Kedah. Five years earlier, the country had been overwhelmed by the May 13 clashes. The Chinese were convenient scapegoats.

Abdul Razak was in a quandary. The district of Baling was mainly populated by Malays. The significance of the BI had to be suppressed. 

In the BI there was no Chinese element, or communist subversives at work. BI was social unrest - a revolt by Malay smallholders and farmers. Peaceful hunger marches throughout Baling spread outwards from Baling town, Kulim and Sik. 

News travelled fast and despite media censorship in 1974, students at Universiti Malaya, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Kolej Mara, as well as the universities’ teaching fraternity expressed their support for the uprising. They organised a series of meetings and urged the government to address the plight of the poor. 

Syed Husin Ali, then an associate professor at Universiti Malaya, said: “At first they (the students) demonstrated within their campus. The police fired tear gas but some cannisters landed on the nearby squatter settlement, injuring some children. 

“The students joined forces and gathered in the centre of KL. When the police acted against them, they took refuge in the National Mosque. Over 1,000 students were arrested and detained for a few days. Some squatters joined some students to ‘run riot’ at the highway, putting up blockades and smashing traffic lights.” 

Abdul Razak warned of tough reprisals and over 40 students and lecturers were detained under the ISA. Among them was Anwar Ibrahim, who was detained for two years. 

Syed Husin said: “I was detained for six years. I was an associate professor and considered recalcitrant for refusing to admit guilt. “I was accused of being pro-communist and the brain behind the demos. They wanted me to serve as an example to create fear among those academic staff to prevent them from following my path. I think these are the reasons why I was incarcerated up to six years.” 

The education minister then was Mahathir. He and Ungku Aziz, the vice-chancellor of UM at the time, produced the Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA). 

The UUCA has effectively curbed students’ freedom and deprived universities of their autonomy. Students and lecturers are fearful of speaking out on issues which are deemed sensitive to BN. Our universities have never recovered from Mahathir’s despicable legacy. 

Abdul Razak, his peers and successors’ children were sent abroad for their education, whilst the rest of the rakyat received a stifling Malaysian schooling. 

Baling not an isolated incident

In 2013, history repeated itself and the nightmare which descended on Najib’s father is now his own. Today, Najib has warned that he would get tough with students Adam Adli Abdul Halim and Safwan Anang as well as other dissenters. The ISA has been repealed, so what has Najib up his sleeve? 

Let this column warn both Najib and Mahathir, the joint rulers of Malaysia that their efforts to subjugate the rakyat will not succeed. Baling was not an isolated incident.

Prior to BI, there were unreported acts of unrest against the BN government. In Tasik Utara, Johor Baru, poor urban Malays camped in front the residence of then MB Osman Saat to voice their disgust at being cheated of housing and land. 

In 1974 and in 2013, the Malays opposed the government, but Najib has created a red herring and claimed that in GE13, it was a Chinese tsunami. It is not! It is Malaysians fighting tyranny. 

The wounds which Abdul Razak, Mahathir and Najib opened are still festering. Our awareness of their crimes and of their despotic rule are more acute.

Their policies have cast long shadows and there will be more Baling incidents until Najib and the illegitimate BN government step down.

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MARIAM MOKHTAR is a non-conformist traditionalist from Perak, a bucket chemist and an armchair eco-warrior. In ‘real-speak', this translates into that she comes from Ipoh, values change but respects culture, is a petroleum chemist and also an environmental pollution-control scientist.

Read more here: http://www.malaysiakini.com/columns/231865