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In 1970, as chairman of the university's Malay Language Society, Anwar was one of the leading voices calling for more support of the Malay language as the official language of the country. The discontent was among predominantly Malay-speaking students who found that the disparity between talk and action in the implementation of the Bahasa Malaysia policy, was more pronounced in the university.

"In the 60s, there was a lot of lip service as far as this policy was concerned." Phillip Koh recalls. "Although it was officially acknowledged as the national language, the Malay language was largely ignored and its treatment, frankly, scandalous."

In October 1970, as a sign of protest, a group of students, allegedly led by Anwar, went around the campus and "obliterated all signboards and notices written in English" (from 'allegation of fact #2' in Anwar's 1975 ISA detention order).

This reaction was basically a manifestation of the frustration among students who, having been instructed in the Malay medium, felt that the predominant use of the English language in the lecture halls and books was a form of discrimination against them.

While Anwar had already graduated from UM by 1971, he continued to be the unofficial leader of students on campus. His position at the helm of Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (Abim) and Majlis Belia Malaysia and the influence he continued to wield in societies like Persatuan Kebangsaan Pelajar-Pelajar Islam Malaysia (PKPIM), Malaysia's national coalition of Muslim students and the PMUM, ensured that he remained very much a part of student activism until the 1974 crackdown.

'Lincoln lingkup!'

This was the time that Isham came in contact with Anwar. "Although we did not exactly 'hang out' together, we shared a lot of common ground as far as international issues were concerned. While Anwar's approach to issues was more Islamic and mine, socialist, we were on the same platform".

Their first "shared platform" was the 1971 PKPIM-organised mass demonstration against the visit of the Thai premier to Malaysia for the alleged mistreatment by the Thai government of Muslims in southern Thailand. The demonstration, which involved thousands, began at the airport in Subang and continued all the way to the Federal Highway and Pantai Valley. The students were finally tear-gassed and pushed back into the campus. Seventeen, including Anwar, were arrested for blocking traffic.

"It really politicised me," Isham says, as he recalls the incident. It was also the first of a series of demonstrations and protests both Anwar and Isham would work together on, one notable incident being the protest in front of the American Embassy in 1973.

The issue was America's support of Israeli aggression in the 1973 October War (or Yom Kippur War) that culminated with the taking over of the Sinai peninsula from the Palestinians. "When the war began, the student union took a stand immediately and we were convicted that we had to demonstrate. On Oct 13, PMUM organised a demonstration in front of the American Embassy. About a thousand of us were tear-gassed," Isham remembers.

Three days later, a bigger demonstration, which was organized by the Anwar-led MBM, started at the American Embassy on Jalan Ampang, and moved on to the Lincoln Centre nearby. At the embassy, one of the students had managed to pull down the American flag and it was burnt. By the time the group moved on to the Lincoln Centre, it was clear that they were not going to be thwarted by tear-gas alone. Anwar led the crowd, supported by Isham and the other leaders, calling for the closure of the centre, chanting " Lincoln tutup, Lincoln lingkup !"

By late afternoon, Home Affairs Minister Ghazali Shafie arrived to talk to the protesters. He managed to defuse the tension by persuading the crowd to adjourn to the National Mosque for prayers.

"We demanded that the Malaysian government close the Lincoln Centre and break diplomatic ties with the US," Isham laughs. "Well, you can see that our position then was of youthful optimism."

This led to a meeting between prime minister Tun Abdul Razak and a group of student leaders, including Anwar and Isham. "Over tea at his residence, he explained to us the government's official position vis-a-vis the US-Israel issue. He explained that Malaysia could not put too much pressure because the US could always release the stockpile of rubber and rubber prices.

Union banned

"Tun Razak was a nationalist at heart," says Isham as he recollects that meeting. "He understood the issues. That's why he invited us for a dialogue. I thought that it was encouraging." By the time 1974 came around, the students' enthusiasm remained unabated. The authorities had yet to take any serious punitive action. After all, the issues involved were safely outside the boundaries of the nation. This was to change with the Tasik Utara incident.

In September that year, Isham received a telegram from squatters in Tasik Utara, near Johor Bahru, asking for help. The Johor state government had just issued a notice of eviction to a large group of squatters. The piece of land they were living on was to be developed into a golf course.

Isham, accompanied by fellow students Adi Satria, Abu Zer Ali and Yunus Ali Hassan, got to Johor Bahru in time to watch municipal council tractors demolish squatter homes. A second trip was organised, and this time a bus load of students from UM joined other students from USSU (university of Singapore Student Union) and squatters who had already set up camp in front of Chief Minister Osman Saat's office. After three days and nights, the police moved in. Isham was among those arrested and locked up for a week. "They moved in at about 3am while we were asleep." Isham recalls.

Back in KL, the PMUM organised its own demonstration which culminated in the historic taking over of the university. The short-lived coup resulted in the banning of the union and the sealing of the union's building on campus.

The students were in the process of negotiations with the university council to reopen the building in late November when news came that there was some trouble in Baling, Kedah. "Although there was a news blackout, we heard of a massive peasant protest in Kedah from students who were returning for the new term," Isham recalls.

Rising inflation coupled with the depression of rubber process at that time added to the already poverty-stricken peasants' frustration with the government, who then took to the streets of Baling. Says Adi Satria, "Thousands were demonstrating on the streets. It was a manifestation of poverty and frustration."

At 10am on Dec 3, 1974, thousands of students converged on the Selangor Club Padang (now Dataran Merdeka) to demonstrate their support for the peasants of Baling. However, before the demonstration could begin, the Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) moved in, tear-gassing the students. Students were dispersed around KL, chased by the police. "Anwar was arrested in the vicinity of the National Mosque with a group of students," Isham recalls. "They tear-gassed them even in the mosque. The police even went in with their shoes on to arrest students and bundle them into FRU trucks."

Poignant reminder

What followed was the now-famous 'Liberation of Anwar' incident in front of the National Museum at Jalan Bangsar. Students, Having blocked the FRU trucks transporting Anwar and others who were detained at the mosque, forced the police to let them go.

However, Anwar's freedom was short-lived. When he returned in the evening to post bail for students who had been arrested, he was detained at the Jalan Bandar police station.

When the students heard this, all hell broke loose. Students from UM, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Institut Teknologi Mara (ITM) gathered at UM's Pantai Valley entrance and began what would be a week-long ongoing demonstration, protesting the detention of Anwar.

In the early hours of morning on December 8, 1974, Operasi Mayang had begun, and student activism has never been the same again.

"Hishamuddin Rais!" someone calls out. Isham puts down his cup of coffee and turns to look at the caller. It is a stranger walking by Isham acknowledges him with a wave and a smile.

We are at the Central Market's Riverbank, lunching alfresco , halfway through our interview. I am struck by how many people still recognise him - even after two decades.

"You know," he muses, as if reading my thoughts, "it all started on the 3rd of December, 1974. Twenty years later, on the same date - 3rd December 1994 - after nine days of debriefing, I was free." He pauses as if for dramatic effect, then laughs. "Dramatic, isn't it?"

As I laugh with him, I watch as his gaze sweeps along the other side of the river, as if he were trying to pick out familiar buildings in the vastly changed skyline. As I wait for him to come back to the present, I remember something Jomo said. "Isham's re-entry into Malaysia after 20 years is a poignant reminder of our shifting alliances, and how much we've changed. It's almost a time-warp thing. We have all changed. But it's the same Isham."

Then, he turns back abruptly, shaking off the past. His face breaks into a smile that makes him look almost 22 again.

"I'm back - that's it!"

Isham's odd odyssey

After a week of battling with the police at Universiti Malaya's gates, the students realised that, sooner or later, the weary varsity authorities are going to give in and open all campuses throughout the country to the FRU. Hishamuddin 'Isham' Rais and Adi Satria are at UM's 7th College on Saturday night, contemplating their chances should a crackdown happen. Adi decides that he will be 'safe' enough if he stays put in the college, reasoning that, unlike Isham, he is not a member of the Socialist Club. The latter, however, decides not to take chances and leaves to spend the night in the jungle area around the water tank near the 5th College.

At 2am, early Sunday morning, Operasi Mayang begins. Police storm the campuses of Universiti Malaya, Institut Teknologi Mara and Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang. In Singapore, a similar crackdown takes place at the University of Singapore and the Nanyang Institute of Technology.

At the 7th College in UM, the students lock the gates and manage to hold back the police until about 7am, before finally capitulating. Among the students arrested is Adi Satria, who discovers too late that the 'most-wanted list' is a little more extensive than just the Socialist Club membership roll. Also detained is an economics faculty undergraduate from Johor - one 'Hishamuddin', who had the bad luck of choosing the 7th College to 'squat' for that night and being mistaken for Isham Rais. (This was not going to be the last of his misadventure of mistaken identity. Some years later, this 'Hishamuddin' will be detained while in transit in Pakistan's Karachi Airport for the same reason).

By the next evening, Isham Rais decides that the coast is clear enough to attempt leaving the campus. It is the rainy season, and this evening, it is Isham's good fortune that the rain has whipped itself up into a tropical storm, an effective cover from the police swarming the campus.

He walks through the torrent up the hill behind the 5th college to Pantai Hills, using the Doshi mansion as a landmark. Reaching a predetermined 'safe house' in the vicinity - the home of a sympathetic member of the Middle Eastern diplomatic corps, he goes straight to the bathroom for a shave as the police are circulating his photograph. A car with diplomatic plates arrives to transfer the young runaway to another diplomatic enclave in the city. There, he is joined by Kamarazaman Yacob, Abu Zer Ali and Yunus Ali, three fellow activists who have slipped through the net. For the moment, the four are safe and wait out the storm.

Strange creatures

Nov '94 - On his second day back in Malaysia, Hishamuddin Rais takes a bus trip to his hometown Jelebu, Negeri Sembilan - alone. The first place he seeks out is the Ruby Cinema, where much of this budding film-maker's youth was spent. As if in a scene out of Cinema Paradiso (get used to the film references - most of Isham's life reads like scenes out of various movies), Isham stands at a vacant lot in front of what used to be his favourite cinema, with his Super 8 camera. It is now a bus terminal. A man approaches him, breaking the flashback moment.

He mistakes Isham for a property developer who is interested in the land. The irony does not escape Isham Rais, who, until Nov 1994, was wanted by Malaysian police on charges linked to a massive public protest against the development of the Tasik Utara property and the eviction of its squatters in Johor Bahru in September 1974.

Malaysian exiles have always been strange creatures. I say strange because of the nature of their flights into exile. For me, the word 'exile' has always had connotations of a forced or unwanted absence from one's country for political reasons, like the forced exile of Sakharov to Gorky and the deportation of Solzhenitsyn to Switzerland.

In recent Malaysian history, we have seen the return of a number of 'exiles'. With the disbanding of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) and what has been widely perceived as the post-87 'liberalisation policy' of the government, Malaysia has had its arms open to welcome prodigal sons and daughters back into the fold of Malaysia Sejahtera . Exiles, after all, are bad for a country's image - whether economic, cultural and or political - and Malaysia is no different, in this respect. We seem to be calling everyone home - from doctors to dissidents.

The difference between the traditional exile and the typical Malaysian exile, however, lies in the process of and reasons for actually going into exile. Except for Raja Abdullah who was exiled by the British to the Seychelles in the wake of the Birch murder and a few thousand suspected "communists" in the 40s and 50s, one would be hard-pressed to fin any other notable cases of Malaysians actually being 'exiled' - going by the traditional semantics of the word.

Yet, when a Malaysian returns after a sojourn overseas, the media and the public hail the moment as the 'Return of an Exile'. There has always been a certain romanticism about the state of exile - whether self imposed or otherwise, and as a member of the press, I am particularly guilty of contributing to this romantic myth worthy of the best of Boy's Own . Looking at hard facts, though, it would be difficult to argue with the opinion that many of our exiles are actually glorified runaways.

Fear and disgust

Rehman Rashid, a recent 'returnee' and a former journalist, is a good example. He left on his own accord after being questioned by the Special Branch for an editorial he wrote for the New Straits Times lamenting the closure of three newspapers in the wake of Operasi Lalang in October 1987. He accepted a job offer with Asiaweek in Hong Kong and left the country.

He then returned and wrote a hugely successful book - A Malaysian Journey - in which he frequently referred to his years abroad as his "exile years". To Rehman's credit, though, he admits that it was his capitulation to fear and disgust that forced him to leave. He could not be the journalist he was before, and so, he went into self-imposed exile abroad.

[Part 3 will appear tomorrow]

SHERYLL STOTHARD is vice-president of Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM). She originally wrote the above article for the Men's Review in February and March 1995. The above is the second of a five-part series.

DOTMAI

Hishamuddin Rais

Penulis kolum ini sedang dinilai oleh polis sama ada akan dibawa ke kem tahanan lanjutan atau dibebaskan. Beliau telah ditahan selama 49 hari sejak 10 April lalu.

Hishamuddin Rais dibenarkan menerima lawatan anggota keluarga Rabu lalu.

Penulis kolum 'Dotmai' di malaysiakini kini sedang menjalani soal siasat secara intensif oleh unit-unit khas pasukan polis Cawangan Khas (SB).

Selepas 60 hari dikurung seorang diri dalam bilik kecil dan gelap dalam keadaan rehat yang tidak mencukupi, Hishamuddin akan dibawa ke kem tahanan lanjutan selama dua tahun di Kemunting, Perak jika Menteri Dalam Negeri Abdullah Badawi menurunkan tandatangan sebagai persetujuan.