I WAS a 15-year-old schoolboy when my father was transferred to the Klang District Police Headquarters from Alor Star, where he had been the OCPD. When told by the government housing officer that the house allocated to us, 76 Fort Road, on Fort Hill had just been vacated by Encik Hussein Onn of the Malay Administrative Service, the significance was not lost, even on me.
Two years earlier, I had been on the big padang in front of the Balai Besar in my native Alor Star with thousands of others to hear Datuk Onn telling us Malays to be united to fight Harold MacMichael’s plan to turn the Malay States into the Malayan Union. Much of the rest of what he said was wasted on me. Was not the previous tenant of our government quarters the scion of a famous father, Dato’ Onn Jaafar, the greatest Malay aristocrat and nationalist of his time? The bungalow, which was set in a large garden, was well-maintained. We were told that Hussein Onn had the bare wooden floor throughout the house beautifully varnished at his own expense. We were proud of that polished floor.
Years later, I got to know Hussein Onn through our passion for oxtail stew, the signature Wednesday luncheon dish of the Selangor Club. The regulars at our weekly gathering were Jaafar Hussein, then with Price Waterhouse, Wan Hamid was managing director of Pernas, Hussein Onn was a partner in the legal firm of Skrine & Co and I was then Adviser, Bank Negara Malaysia. The three of them were Johoreans; I am Kedahan — from states that had for decades before Merdeka produced outstanding professional Malays, the equal of any Englishman, as we in Kedah used to say.
Lunch was a makeshift affair served on the open verandah; the dining room was under renovation following the great flood of 1971. For all that, it was a splendid setting with its magnificent view of the great cricket ground and the iconic Sultan Abdul Samad Building, the centre of British colonial power until August 30, 1957.
The British influence was much in evidence on the club premises. It was very much the gentlemen’s club that the British had founded in 1884. After all, it was only fourteen years ago that the British had formally handed power to us and British club manners were de rigueur, and a very serious view was taken of breaches of house rules.
Hussein Onn, whom I knew socially, was meticulous in his habits. His chambers were in the Straits Trading Building, a stone’s throw from the club, across the padang. At 12.35pm, on the dot, he would be seen, with an umbrella in one hand and a large envelope in the other, crossing Jalan Raja heading towards the club. We would each order a glass of the club’s best-loved thirst quencher, the Gunner, followed by the most delectable Ox Tail Stew East of Suez, presented on a bed of flat Italian noodles. It was a dish worth dying for. With all that lovely fat coursing its way through our blood vessels, we got ourselves into serious problems with our hearts. Between the main course and the custard pudding, he would go over his legal brief, using a short ruler which he always carried in his shirt pocket to highlight important points.
What did we talk about week in, week out? Surprisingly, little of serious politics, and this was even more surprising considering that it was not so long after the fateful May 13, 1969 incident. There were some gossiping and leg-pulling with Jaafar, who was full of bright ideas about all kinds of quite impractical things. He said his ambition was to be finance minister. He came close to fulfilling that worthy ambition when much later he was appointed governor of Bank Negara.
Yes, we talked about greater Malay involvement in the economic life of the nation, and while the deceptively quiet and thoughtful future third prime minister held strong views on many national issues, he was clearly not a strident advocate of Malay supremacy at the expense of the non-Malays. A political animal he was not, and like his own illustrious father, and the prime ministers before him, politics were a means of serving people of all races. These aristocrats were natural leaders born into privilege and traditionally accustomed to providing leadership. Najib, our fifth prime minister, comes from the same mould. From what we have seen thus far, in spite of the callous, baseless allegations and provocative attacks against him and his family, he has maintained intact the proud traditions of an “old family”. He remains a gentleman.
When Hussein Onn became a cabinet minister, he stopped coming to the club for lunch and I lost touch with him, being careful not to presume on the old easy familiarity. After his retirement, he did me the great honour of dining in my Sime Darby house on Bukit Tunku in the company of Tan Sri Mubin Sheppard, former district officer of Klang and British adviser of Negeri Sembilan, who retired from service as director of the National Museum. It was a very private dinner party, arranged such that we could have a decent conversation about this and that without fear of attribution.
What did we talk about? As both Tun Hussein Onn and Tan Sri Mubin Sheppard are sadly no longer with us, what we talked about all those years ago shall remain, as it was always intended to be, a secret that would not be leaked for love or money. It was an unspoken gentlemen’s agreement.
The writer is a director of the International Institute for Public Ethics and chairman of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Advisory Board