THE MEMOIRS OF MUSTAPHA HUSSAIN - Malaysia Today

Arrested Again 327
a recently released detainee? Or were these nationalists nervous over the
presence of Sutan Jenain and his Malayan Communist Party connections?
Perhaps we were both branded carriers of dreaded epidemics? I left the
office feeling disturbed but not angry, for they were young and inexperienced
in Malay political agitations.
After staying in Kuala Lumpur for several days, I returned to my farm.
I don’t remember who gave me the fare home. It was not Sutan Jenain;
he was always penniless. That is my story. Apart from my father, from
the time I was detained until my release Sutan Jenain was the only other
person who bothered to check on me and my friends in Perak. No one
else dared come near me or my family. I did not take this to heart because
many political fighters were then not as experienced as other nationalists,
like the Burmese.
In the 24 hours following my release from British supervision, I had
violated all conditions imposed on me. This could not be helped. The
struggle for Independence was a greater cause. We could not become
another Asian community whose independence efforts were halted each
time a leader was arrested or died. Upon my return to the hill-farm, I
received not only my dismissal notification, but also an order of eviction
from the bountiful land I had tilled with sweat and blood. 3 The hill-farm
had not only provided my livelihood, but also that of hundreds of others
in the area. 4
Notes
1. In Red Star over Malaya (p. 274), Dr Cheah Boon Kheng notes: “Mustapha Hussein
was subsequently taken into custody, but several months later, after petitions were
made to the BMA from several former members of the Malay Regiment whose lives
he had saved from the Japanese, he was released.”
2. Everything that took place in the room has been narrated in Chapter 22.
3. During the Japanese Occupation, Batu 20 folks called my hill-farm ‘Che Mustapha’s
Hill’.
4. Translator’s note: My father’s imprisonment was cruel. My heart aches each time I
read about how he was treated like a common criminal. Even if there was a charge
against him (and he was never charged), it should have been a political one.
His job dismissal was unfair to say the least. He did not leave his job in December
1941, as he was on a long sick leave from 5 December after receiving treatment at
the Kuala Lumpur Malay Hospital for a nerve disorder. Documents attesting to his
sick leave and a doctor’s certificate were left at the School of Agriculture in Serdang,
but they must have been destroyed in the chaos of war. We have in our possession a
letter from Dr Abbas bin Haji Alias (later Director of University Hospital) who
testified to treating my father for several weeks until just before the outbreak of
World War II.
Till his death in 1987, my father tried everything within his means to claim his
pension and arrears by writing to both the Malaysian and British governments, but