Veteran Malay-language journalist Said Zahari, 75, seldom talked publicly about current politics in Malaysia and Singapore, especially on political personalities, but the recent release of the memoirs of the legendary secretary-general of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), Chin Peng, seems to have broken his self-imposed silence in public discourses.

In an exclusive interview with malaysiakini in his house in Subang Jaya USJ recently, Pak Said, as he is affectionately known, spoke passionately on the history and contemporary politics in both Malaysia and Singapore.

Certainly with a clear time-line in his mind, he even commented critically on "the strengths and weaknesses" of Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, his former nemesis and jailer, Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew and, above all, the 'national tragedy' resulting from the fall of Malaysia's former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Right to know

According to him, he had just obtained a copy of Chin Peng's My Side of History and started to read it, but only very slowly because of the advance of physical age.

"Chin Peng's memoirs should be welcome because people of all races have the right to know what had happened in the past on the other side, and we are now mature enough to decide and judge," he opined.

Asked how he thought about the memoirs, he, without hesitation, called on Malaysians and Singaporeans, especially Malays, to read the book "with an open mind".

Said said he hoped the 527-page memoirs, My Side of History, would also be translated into the Malay language.

He also said that he has started to read the memoirs "to find out those parts of history that even I still may not know or understand, like the many times CPM and the British cooperated during war times, or Chin Peng's life and activities in Beijing in 1960s and 1970s".

He said that younger generations of Malays must understand that all races and many political forces, including the Communist Party of Malaya, fought against British colonialism and for the independence of Malaya.

"The armed struggle for independence was directed against British colonialism, not the Malays or Muslims; and, as a matter of historical fact, quite a number of Malay nationalists and Muslims like Rashid Maidin, Abdullah CD and Mohamad Abu Samah also joined the armed struggle led by Chin Peng," he clarified.

All were multi-ethnic

"Although CPM is communist but its contribution to the multi-partisan anti-colonial struggle must now be recognised by all, including Malays and Muslims".

According to Said, both the pro-colonial and anti-colonial forces in those years were multi-ethnic in composition.

Said was a reporter assigned by Utusan Melayu in December 1955 to cover the Baling peace talks between Chin Peng and Tunku Abdul Rahman. Later, he was also tasked to report on the Tunku's 1956 return to Kuala Lumpur from London after the negotiation for independence.

"In 1957, I became a witness to history again when I saw the Union Jack being lowered in Kuala Lumpur, but at that time, I also quietly wondered if that was the end of colonialism or the beginning of neo-colonialism," recalled the also legendary journalist who was detained without trial for 17 years in Singapore for being labelled, among other allegations, "a communist".

Said consistently denies all the political allegations against him.

Said was detained without trial in 1963 after he was deported back to Singapore - where he was born - by Tunku Abdul Rahman who was also the then president of Umno. Earlier, he led a journalists' strike to protest against Umno's takeover of the independent Utusan Melayu .

In the two-hour interview, Said revealed that he is writing a second book focusing on details of his 17-year detention without trial in Singapore, including physical and psychological tortures meted out against him, and how he and his wife and children survived the many trials and tribulations "with human dignity intact".

"Just as Chin Peng has his side of history to tell, I have mine too," he said with a grandfatherly smile.

Not political enough

Asked why he needed to write a second book, he said that his first memoirs, titled Dark Clouds at Dawn , were "too general and personal and not political enough". Dark Clouds at Dawn was published in Kuala Lumpur in 2001.

"In the second book, I will also write about my opinions and analyses of the then prevailing situations and events like the formation of Malaysia in 1963, Singapore's inclusion and exclusion, Indonesian Confrontation, the Brunei incident as well as the Anglo-American roles in those upheavals," he said.

He revealed that he met Chin Peng thrice in 1955, 1999 and 2001.

"In the 2001 meeting in Haadyai, I also met Rashid Maidin, Abdullah CD and Mohamad Abu Samah; I wanted to interview them for information needed to write my second book," he said.

Rashid Maidin, Abdullah CD and Mohamad Abu Samad were also veteran leaders of the Communist Party of Malaya and the 10th Regiment of its armed units. Rashid, a war veteran of the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), was one of the two top CPM leaders who were in Chin Peng's delegation to the 1955 Baling peace talks.

Rashid, according to British historian Anthony Short in his book In Pursuit of Mountain Rats - The Communist Insurrection in Malaya (Singapore, Culture Lotus, 2001; first published in London in 1975 by Frederick Muller), was a CPM delegate to the (British) Empire Communist Conference held in London in 1947. Another delegate was RG Balan, an Indian labour activist.

On the progress of his writing of the second book, Said revealed that the first draft, in both Malay and English, would most likely be completed by the end of this year.

Also conversant with Chinese, Said said he wrote in Malay and English simultaneously because he had time and wanted not to "trouble translators". However, he also said the second book, like the first, would be translated into Chinese.

"Good translator will need to empathise with the passion and feelings of the writer, and they are difficult to find," observed the multilingual Malay public intellectual.

According to Said, he learnt the Chinese language from fellow political detainees in Singapore in 1960s, like Lim Guan Teik, and in return, he taught them Malay.

Lim is now the president of the influential Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia (ACCCIM) who publicly opposed the MCA takeover of Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press in 2001.

Tomorrow: Part 2 on Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Anwar Ibrahim and Lee Kuan Yew