THE MEMOIRS OF MUSTAPHA HUSSAIN - Malaysia Today

PUTERA-AMCJA Conference 343
2. A popularly elected Federal Consultative Council.
3. Equal citizenship rights to be accorded to all those who considered
Malaya their permanent home and the object of their undivided
loyalty.
4. The Malay sultans to become constitutional monarchs. The British
would no longer have the right to interfere or advise the Malay
sultans. The popularly elected Federal Consultative Council would
be exclusively responsible for all such advice.
5. Islam and Malay customs would be fully controlled by the Malay
people through a special council, not by the sultans.
6. Special privileges for the advancement of Malays in all fields.
Having read the draft, I was certain that if the leftist Malay parties
accepted the draft in toto, the parties would lose credibility, influence and
support. However, in the draft’s preamble I saw a loophole in the words
‘the Nine Malay States’. I drew Dr Burhanuddin’s attention to the word
‘Malay’. If we ‘used’ this loophole wisely, the Malays would gain
substantially. During the tiresome mail train ride from Penang to Kuala
Lumpur, Dr Burhanuddin was happy with one boiled egg, a banana and
a cup of coffee. I had to supplement that with a plate of fried rice from
the buffet coach. Food was important to me.
As I had mentioned, as soon as we arrived in Kuala Lumpur from
North Malaya, we looked for lawyer John Thivy at his High Street office.
He was MIC’s Secretary-General, while Budd Singh was President; both
were socialists. Thivy, being from a notable Kuala Kangsar family, fully
understood Malay customs and aspirations. He confided in us that the
Indian community shared a common fear with the Malays – that of being
drowned by the Chinese. He therefore promised to support all proposals
beneficial to the ‘safety’ of the Malays and Indians. I believe Thivy left
MIC when it leaned to the right; I am told he is now in Fiji.
PUTERA-AMCJA Conference
Before attending the PUTERA-AMCJA Conference, we Malays met in
the rented Kampung Baru home of Ibrahim Karim, API’s Secretary-
General. We drank black coffee out of a pail for lack of proper utensils.
It was bought with the paltry balance of money collected from our
garland-auctions and the sale of photographs of Dr Burhanuddin and
Ibrahim Yaakub. Disappointingly, the photos were not selling. No one
bought the one of Ibrahim, although he was then deemed a Malay hero.
We took a bus to a five-storey building in Foch Avenue, the highest
building in Kuala Lumpur at the time, where the MCP flag fluttered in