THE MEMOIRS OF MUSTAPHA HUSSAIN - Malaysia Today

Political Conversations, Clandestine Meetings 129
politics with all its obstacles, such as the Malay States Laws and the
‘General Orders’?
I was lucky. Although friends from this elitist group were not keen
on politics, they did not keep me at arm’s length. In fact, they liked me
going out with them. Not interested in dancing and drinking, I was often
their treasurer. Their money was safe with me.
Meeting Youths Who Craved Independence
Although quite unsuccessful in getting my political message across to
Malay officers, who could be described as the Malay bourgeoisie, I was
not daunted. I continued searching until I found a receptive group – a
younger set of Malays not holding high-ranking positions. To discuss
politics, which I had mentally absorbed from hundreds of publications, I
often travelled to Kuala Lumpur, twenty miles away, to contact Malays I
had met while attending the FMS Volunteer Force camps in Port Dickson.
I also cultivated new acquaintances, such as Malay students at the Kuala
Lumpur Trade School. At the Sentul Railway Workshop, I renewed my
friendship with typist Othman Mohd Noor (M.N. Othman) from Tapah
Road, with whom I had discussed Malay politics while at the Port Dickson
camp. A true kampung boy, my discussions with him seemed to affect
him deeply.
In Kuala Lumpur, I frequented a Melaka Malay eating stall located
within a Chinese coffee shop at the fifteenth milestone where many Malay
labourers or subordinates ate. There I met Sulung bin Chik, a Pahang boy
and former student of the Kuala Lumpur Technical School, now working
at the Malayan Railways. It was there that I also met Bahar bin Abik, an
Indonesian from Bawean Island working at the Government Printers.
Gaining the attention of one Bawean was like gaining a hundred supporters
as most of them lived in a cluster of over-crowded huts.
I later met Idris Hakim, a clerk at the Kuala Lumpur Customs Department.
From Sumatra’s Mandahiling clan, his family home was a hut in a
cramped little village, much like an Indian Reservation in the US,
surrounded by a sea of Chinese inhabitants. Coming from this tiny Malay
settlement behind the Kampar Mosque, it is no surprise he became a
political agitator.
These friends were collaborators in transmitting my political
messages. They were not only receptive, but willing disseminators. One
afternoon, they took me to a Malay Hostel in Kampung Baru, Kuala
Lumpur, where I met many hostelites, such as Badrillah, Kassim, Kundor
and Abdul Aziz (later to marry Tan Sri Hajah Aishah Ghani, Malaysia’s