An interview with Dr. Hj. Zaini Ahmad, Kuala Lumpur, 1985.

I first met Zaini Ahmad in Kuala Lumpur in 1985 when he was in charge of the hostel for Sabah students in Jalan Ampang while working for PERKIM, the Muslim Welfare Association of Malaysia. As executive secretary of Partai Ra'ayat Brunei (PRB), he had been in Manila en route to New York to present a joint memorandum to the United Nations on behalf of the three Borneo territories' major political parties when the Brunei Rebellion erupted on 8 December 1962. The memorandum suggested that in place of the Malaysia proposal there should be a Borneo Federation with Sultan Sir Omar Ali Saifuddin as its Head of State, but all this was overtaken by events. Detained by the British authorities in Hong Kong, where he had sought asylum, he was returned to Brunei in early 1963 and subsequently spent more than ten years at Jerudong prison camp. Efforts by the Commonwealth Relations Office in London, Amnesty International and the United Nations Committee on Human Rights to have him released were made in vain. He was subsequently reported in 1966 to have offered to renounce his Brunei citizenship if he was allowed to go into exile and to have been offered political asylum in Malaysia in 1968, but the Brunei authorities did not respond.

On 12 July 1973 (which happened to be Sultan Sir Omar All Saifuddin's birthday), Zaini, Secretary-General Jasin Affandy and six other senior PRB detainees escaped by sea to nearby Limbang in Sarawak in an operation orchestrated by PRB leader A.M. Azahari's brother, Sheikh Saleh Sheikh Mahmud, and his nephew. Reportedly, the "springing" had covert support from the Malaysian government in the person of Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie who was then Minister for Foreign Affairs. At this point the Malaysian government, still irked by the Sultan's refusal to join the new Federation in 1963 and by the treatment of some of its senior civil servants who had been seconded to Brunei, was committed to supporting free elections in Brunei. The freeing of Zaini and the others was probably intended as a warning to the Sultan to be more liberal or bear the consequences.

Safely established in Kuala Lumpur, Zaini was by no means content with his status in Malaysia. As a political refugee, he could not obtain a Malaysian passport and was consequently unable to travel freely outside the country. However, he played an active part together with Azahari in the re-grouping of the PRB in exile in Kuala Lumpur in May 1974 and its subsequent efforts (vigorously assisted by the Malaysian government) to mount sufficient international pressure through Commonwealth and Middle Eastern leaders as well as the United Nations to force elections in Brunei. Indeed, in 1975 the Malaysian government went so far as to sponsor a PRB delegation to present the case for Brunei's independence to the UN Committee on Decolonization. In addition to his diplomatic efforts, Zaini published a number of books, including a collection of documents on the history of the PRB, to publicize its cause. He also completed an M.A. thesis on nationalism in Brunei at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia which was published in 1984 and reprinted in 1989.

Relations between Kuala Lumpur and Brunei deteriorated rapidly as a result of this pressure, with Sir Omar Ali (who had abdicated in his eldest son's favor in 1967 but was still highly influential) expressing renewed interest in regaining control of the Limbang territory which had been ceded to Rajah Charles Brooke of Sarawak in 1890. Sarawak's Chief Minister, Datuk Abdul Rahman bin Ya'akub, subsequently led anti-Brunei demonstrations. In the tit-for-tat exchange, Brunei withdrew all its students from Malaysian educational institutions and banned Sarawak government vehicles from passing through its territory. While the subsequent revival of the PRB in Limbang was countenanced by the Malaysian authorities, there were also petitions and demonstrations there which favored the return of Brunei rule.

When the revived PRB's campaign had come to nothing after ten years of effort, and relations between Kuala Lumpur and Brunei had warmed, particularly after it achieved independence in 1984 and joined ASEAN, Zaini decided to return to Brunei where he believed he had something to offer. He wanted an official assurance that he would not once again be placed in detention, but his letters to the Brunei authorities expressing his desire to return were never answered, in the meantime, he was anxious to complete a higher degree in international relations in Australia or the United Kingdom and I endeavored to assist him in this through my contacts at the Australian National University and the London School of Economics (LSE), where Dr. Michael Leifer arranged a six-month unpaid fellowship (which was not taken up). It was no doubt Zaini's intention to obtain a further qualification as a means of obtaining a senior post in Brunei's newly-created Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where his long political experience and intellectual sophistication could have been put to extremely good use. However, as long as the former sultan, Sir Omar All Saifuddin, was alive, there was little chance of that happening. Sir Omar (better known as the Seri Begawan), as can be seen from the interview below, seems never to have forgiven Zaini for his political involvement which he saw as a personal betrayal as well as a threat to the security of the kingdom. When Sir Omar died in September 1986, Zaini no doubt believed that the main obstacle to his return had been removed.

Thwarted in his ambition to complete a doctoral degree overseas, Zaini enrolled instead in 1988 at the University of Malaya where he was supervised by Professor Khoo Kay Kim for a dissertation on the history of the PRB. On I April 1993, when it seemed that there would never be any assurance from the authorities that he would not be further punished, Zaini took a big chance and returned to Brunei. He was promptly placed in detention once again--this time for more than two years. Released on 19 July 1995 after being pardoned by Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, he suffered a stroke in December 1997 which caused him to lose the use of his left side for some time. After his recovery, he was given employment in the Pusat Sejarah, the History Centre established and run by Pehin Dr. Jamil, Brunei's official historian, in order to prepare his doctoral thesis for publication. He now lives in quiet retirement in Bandar Seri Begawan with his eldest son and family, receiving physiotherapy for his ailment and attending to his responsibilities as a devout Muslim. When I last saw him in July 2008 he was physically frail but in good spirits and had lost none of the remarkable mental acuteness that I remembered so well. He presented me with a copy of his revised doctoral thesis which he had published in Brunei in 2003, Brunei Merdeka: sejarah dan budaya politik. This had apparently been approved by Brunei's Special Branch, which continues to pay him a modest pension.

If we can think "counter-factually" for a moment and consider what might have happened if the December 1962 Brunei rebellion had been successful and PRB had become the dominant political force in Brunei, there is no doubt that Zaini would have played a major part in shaping the destiny not just of Brunei but of Sabah and Sarawak. The intriguing question is whether he and his supporters would have been able to counter the strongly pro-Indonesia stance adopted by Azahari and his followers. Zaini's British-educated and democratic-constitutionalist background contrasted starkly with Azahari's pro-Indonesian and militant revolutionary approach. One of the great ironies of British policy in the post-war period is that the idea of a Borneo Federation, so vigorously promoted by Britain's Special Commissioner to Southeast Asia, Malcolm MacDonald, took root within the three Borneo territories' emerging elite and caused many of them to resist the more ambitious concept of Malaysia as something entirely premature. They wanted independence in their own right before considering any broader arrangement. When incorporation in Malaysia was presented to them as the condition of British protection against Sukarno's (real or imagined) expansionism, they were thrown into turmoil. Another irony is that Brunei, which was the first of the Borneo territories to experience a political awakening from the mid-1940s in the form of the Barisan Pemuda Brunei and the PRB, has subsequently experienced an extended period of political stultification. It is difficult to imagine the hundred or more rebels killed in December 1962 ever being accorded hero status. Although they did not succeed in winning independence for Brunei, they did help prevent its incorporation into Malaysia and, after all, this was something that had been strongly opposed by most Brunei Malays.

Interviewed more recently by Greg Poulgrain (1998) and Harun Abdul Majid (2002), Zaini's account of the origins of PRB and his relations with Azahari have been dealt with (although by no means thoroughly) in their published works. His own most recent book has also documented the story. In the process, however, his early life and experience, together with the major influences on his thinking, have been largely ignored. Through his education in Brunei, Sarawak, Malaya and Singapore, and subsequently his work with the Partai Ra'yat, he met and knew an astonishing number of people who were to become significant political figures in both Malaya and Borneo.

Edited only to remove repetition and without altering the occasionally fractured chronology, the following account constitutes a unique narrative of the family background, political awakening and early political career of one of northern Borneo's first Malay nationalist political leaders of the post-WWII era. There is a dearth of political biography and autobiography for both Malaysian Borneo and Brunei, and Zaini's personal testimony is a valuable building block in our understanding of the origins of formal political life in the region. More specifically, it provides some useful insights into the origins of the Brunei Rebellion. At the same time, like any other piece of oral testimony, it needs to be read critically and with an eye to what has already been documented for the period in question.

Q. Do you have any early memories of what it meant to be a Brunei Malay? Was there a special sense of Brunei identity?

A. In fact, in my earliest years of involvement in politics I never thought of myself as a Brunei Malay. I always thought of myself as a Malay nationalist. I never identified myself with Brunei. I always looked [on myself] in a broader sense as a Malay nationalist. For me, all the political boundaries of Sarawak, Sabah do not exist. I mean, there are boundaries imposed on us by the colonial power. This is what I thought myself and still [do) today. Of course ! am proud to be called a Brunei Malay because I was born there, especially now because for us the Brunei Malays would never think of federating again with Sarawak and Sabah. So we have only to look for our own interests as Brunei Malays, that territory of Brunei. Every one of us l think is quite proud to be identified with this new political entity. I must emphasize here before the formation of Malaysia every one of us thought in terms of somebody from that part of the world--north Borneo. We never thought [of ourselves] as Sarawakians, Bruneians, Sabahans. But once the issue of Malaysia.... What we have to be concerned with ourselves from now on is to be only interested in Brunei politics and Brunei's future and to identify ourselves with that new concept of national identity. And I think that everybody should be proud of this new identity, this Brunei identity.

Q. There was a Borneo identity before Malaysia?

A. There was a very strong one, actually. But when everybody realized that Malaysia was already a fair accompli, nothing could be done about it. Nobody dares to challenge that now, especially as Malaysia has been in existence for twenty-two years.

Q. What were the values instilled in you in your early upbringing?

A. I was born to a Muslim family and of course my mother was quite religious although my father [Hj. Ahmad bin Daud] was not very [religious] until his late age. So l was in between those two individuals, but very much influenced by my mother. But the values of Islam were not really put into practice in our society then, so I was very much detached from Islam itself'. I don't mind admitting that I was not very religious at my early stage. My mother always wanted me to become a good Muslim but because of the society then I was very detached from Islam. I can give you one or two examples. I never said my daily prayers before I was eighteen. So from the age often until I was eighteen I rarely said my prayers, I hardly fasted during Ramadan and of course I never performed the Haj. And also I was very much involved in the young life--going to all those places, drinking and so on. But after I was detained things changed. I really detached myself from all these evil things. In fact at one stage one member of my family went to see my mother--this was during the detention period--and asked her to see the Sultan and ask for my pardon on my behalf. She really refused to go to the Palace and she never set foot in the Palace except once when my father took her to Mecca, just to pay respect to the Sultan. That was the first and the last time she ever went to the Palace. In fact, she said she was very happy that I was detained because that had changed my life. She was very grateful to God for having punished me. This was related to me by a sister of my mother, actually. Of course she never told me. So in my early life I had very little knowledge of moral values, about Islamic values. I never read the Koran until I was detained. So my upbringing as a Suni Muslim in my early stages was very disappointing. I think that I agree with my mother. I didn't regret that I was detained because that changed my life from a very wild individual to something which I am proud of now. I was influenced to a certain extent by Malay culture and I was very active in the promotion of Malay culture in Brunei. I was involved with the Barisan Pemuda Brunei. Before the formation of the Partai Ra'ayat I used to write in a Malay newspaper published in Singapore, Malaya Raya, edited by Harun Amin Al-Rashid who is very old now. This newspaper was supposed to represent the Malay nationalist movement. I was very much encouraged by Harun Amin Al-Rashid to write on whatever I wished, including how we see Malay culture as a unifying factor in the wider nationalist movement in Brunei. As for other values--I value a sense of individualism, freedom. I was very much an individualist myself. I was never really under the control either of my father or my mother. I was very much a rebel in the family. But I was the only child in the family. I had no brothers and no sisters. And so both my father and my mother loved me very much. And because I realized that both of them loved me very much, I became rebellious, kept demanding--I think this is very typical of a Malay society. If there is only one in the family, both mother and father look upon that son or daughter as something they have to value. In other words, I can say that both of them spoiled me in my early life.

Q. Did you have a closely-knit family?

A. My mother came from a family which was from the ruling class of Brunei even during the pre-colonial time: a family of pehin, commoners who have been appointed by the sultan to be something like lords in England. I am very proud of this conservative status of my mother. But my father's grandfather was an Indian Muslim who came over here from India to settle down in north Borneo--Labuan. He came to Borneo as a trader and my father was born in Brunei, so was my grandfather. Because my mother came from the aristocracy in Brunei, I understand that my father was treated at some time, in the early stages, as an outcast, somebody who came from outside. It was not normal for a lady from this aristocratic group to marry someone from outside the aristocratic class in Brunei. Somehow or other my father managed to get along with her family, joined the civil service, and became accepted as one of them. I remember my mother used to tell me that I should be proud of her blood rather than my father's because her family came from very high society in Brunei. My father was the Shahbandar--one of the first four pehin in the hierarchy of Malay society in Brunei. At the top you have the Sultan, then you have the four wazir, and then you have the ceteriah. But these are only reserved for the royal family or people with royal blood. Immediately after that you have the pehin, the first four pehin, then the eight, then the sixteen, then the thirty-two. My father was right at the top, one of the four. These are the Pehin Orang Kaya Di-Gadong, Pehin Orang Kaya Laksamana, Pehin Jawatan Dalam and then my father. So whenever there was a royal event he was always at the Palace. In fact, he was one of the traditional advisers who went with the Sultan to England and had constitutional talks with the British government. My father was very close with the old Sultan, Sir Omar All. Even up to his death he was never really regarded as someone who had committed something against the state. The Begawan was quite straightforward with me and said whatever I did had nothing to do with my father. But of course my father felt very badly to find his only son on the other side of the border. But I believe he died a peaceful man.

Q. Do you think that in your childhood you were brought up with the idea that Brunei traditionally controlled the coast of northern Borneo? Was there a very strong established feeling that this was Brunei's area of influence?

A. My mother used to say this. My grandfather, that is my mother's father, was always in trading circles. There were three brothers. One of them went to Sambas, Banjarmasin and got married there--his name is Daud. Another went to Sabah. And my grandfather remained in Brunei. So I remember my mother used to say [that] these places at one time belonged to Brunei. And that's why I find my grandfather's [brothers], one in Sabah, one in Banjarmasin married to a Banjarese woman where they had two children, one boy and one girl. One is still living, my uncle. And one went to Sabah and settled down and married a local Dusun [woman]. In fact, I have second cousins in Sabah and second cousins in Banjarmasin also. My mother always felt proud of this social background that she had and wanted to see that I inherited that feeling. She always said that I belonged to the awangan and that I should be proud of that. And at one time ! was really influenced by her. I remember when my father was conferred with the title of Pehin Orang Kaya Shahbandar I felt very inflated about it. Because of that my relationship with Begawan was very close. I would say that Sir Omar Ali Saifuddin always thought I was one of those who was going to inherit something from his father, to be one of his supporters, to be one of his men in the Palace. I remember when I went to England in 1959 I went to see him at the Palace and he asked me what I wanted to be. I said I would like to take up law. He said "That's good. I want you to come back and serve me." And then he gave me $2,000. Then suddenly I realized that this man, the Sultan, really liked me very much. And when I went to the UK he asked me to stay at his palace in Kingsford Manor. And I stayed there with the ex-Resident, Mr. [Eric] Pretty, who didn't really welcome me because he thought that it was his castle. And then you find here a Brunei Malay, although the son of somebody, but then a Brunei Malay, staying with an English family. And there was some sort of confrontation going on between me and Mrs. Pretty. Eric Pretty was a little bit fussy, but I stayed there and really felt like a big shot with all the Portuguese amahs. We had about six [servants], two drivers, and here was an ex- British Resident staying with me under the same roof. That really changed my life a little bit. I lived like a lord. I bought a car. I was the first Brunei student to own a car in London--a small Ford Anglia. And the Sultan gave me 100 [pounds sterling] to purchase that car. The car was about 400 [pounds sterling] but he gave me 100 [pounds sterling]. And whenever he visited England in those days, of course with my father, he used to call me, give me some extra money. I really felt that up to the Brunei revolt he was very much putting a hope in me to come back and serve with the government. I think also this could be one of the personal reasons why he felt very bad about my involvement with the Brunei rebellion. And so much so [that] he really wanted me to repent, like some sort of father punishing a son who was doing a lot of evil things in the family.

Q. In a sense it was a special punishment that he gave you.

A. That's right. That's what I feel. Because I don't see any reason why he should be having this attitude towards me up to this moment, apart from this personal thing. 1 mean, [as] for security reasons, I was very much for Brunei always. Even the former head of Special Branch, Peter [Pehin G.E.] Coster, told me. He had cleared me very honestly and recommended my release not only one [sic] but several times. And I believe that because even after Peter left Brunei I checked with his successor, Dato [Paduka Awang Hj.] Ismail. He knew my case very well. He feels I should be allowed to go back to Brunei.

Q. But you believe it was the Seri Begawan who kept you there in spite of these clearances?

A. Yes, exactly. Actually, what he wants me to do is to write him a letter (this is what I feel) and ask for forgiveness, not pardon, forgiveness for my involvement. And I think if I do that, I believe he will ... I mean, he's very old now and I think he wants to see me back in Brunei. But as a son coming back to the family, discredited as a politician. You see, he really didn't want me to take up politics from the earliest stages. He always objected to that. I remember when I left the service, when I first got back from England, [after] my study at the London School of Economics, he straight away called me to the Palace and asked me to take a job, any head of department. I still remember he was asking if I wanted to become head of the Welfare Dept., whether I would like to work in the Secretariat--or any department. I didn't have to go [for] an interview, the normal thing to do. So when I told my father, he suggested I should ask for the State Welfare Officer. He said it was a good job, handling poor people, and very easy to have access to the Sultan because the Sultan really wanted to do something for the people, for the poor people. When I decided to take up the job in the Labour Dept. my father was shocked. He said "that's a place you shouldn't go, a trouble spot, you know." And then when I decided to resign to take up politics back in 1956 I still remember the Sultan was having his dental check-up here in Kuala Lumpur. And he went to Singapore and I met him at Francis Gamier Hotel, Orchard Road. I said to him: "Well, Your Highness, I'm quitting. I'm giving 24 hours and I want to take up politics." He was shocked: "Is that your final decision?" I said: "I'm afraid so." "Well," he said, "you can go." After that I seldom saw him but there were occasions when he sent his ADC, his nephew, Brigadier [Pengiran Muda Hj.] Ismail, to come to the house and ask me to go to the Palace and play chess with him. And he used to tell me about his hobbies, hoarding krises. He used to call me in also when I was with Partai Ra'ayat but never talked politics. I think that what he wanted was maybe to ask me to resign from politics and come back to his fold.

Q. Tell me about your early education.

A. In the early stages I went to a Catholic school in Brunei Town. That was in 1947. First, of course, I went to Malay school in Temburong where my father was District Officer. Then when he was transferred back to Brunei in early 1947 and became Superintendent of Customs, I joined the English school. There was no government school in Brunei until 1951, so I joined the R.C. school. My mother objected to this because [she believed] I could easily become a Christian, but my father said: "No, don't be foolish about it. Although it is a mission school, they don't teach catechism to Muslims." Which was true. 1 was allowed to stay in that school until 1948, then my father was transferred to Kuala Belait and became District Officer there. Then I went to another R.C. school in Kuala Belait until 1959, then my father sent me to study in Penang with three sons of the wazir--Pn. Kamshuddin, Pn. Ja'afar, Pn. Hassim. These three were brothers, sons of Orang Kaya Pemancha, the second wazir, and another three sons of the private secretary to the Sultan, Datu Ibrahim Ja'afar, Pehin Isa (General Adviser now to the Sultan), his elder brother Annuar and another elder brother, Idin, and also the son of the Orang Kaya di-Gadong, Awang Hussain, who is now Pehin Hussain, Director-General of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports in Brunei. Of course all these people are at the top now. I am the only one still at the bottom. I don't know whether I am going up or down. I am not complaining about that. Somehow this first group of students, [were] all of us from the aristocracy, the wazir and the pehin, because our parents could afford to send us to Penang to study. There was no English in Brunei so we went to this school, the Stafford School, and I studied there up to 1950. Every year, towards the end of the year, we came back to Brunei. You remember the Emergency was declared in June 1948 and I went there in 1949, so it was at the height of the Emergency. It was quite dangerous for young people to travel by train from Penang to Kuala Lumpur right up to Singapore. And then from Singapore we used to take a slow boat to Brunei. We stopped in Miri or Labuan. While we were on our way home in December 1950 we stopped in Singapore and suddenly there was this [Maria] Hertogh riot and i physically witnessed this event. I think that this was the beginning of a new era in my life because that was the first time I saw political confrontation between the colonial people and the colonial power. I didn't take part but I followed the events because there was a curfew. This was the first time I saw real [political] positions in practice.

Q. Did you see it as a Malay nationalist phenomenon?

A. Yes. It created an impression in my mind. Why do people go to the extent of killing each other just for a cause, for something? Of course the issue was religion, but it had some impact on me also. Although I saw Islam very lightly, but when I saw how this thing came up and flared into something violent, it created an impression on me as a Malayan nationalist and also as a Muslim later on. Then after the curfew we were allowed to come back. And then of course when January came my mother protested that I should not be sent back to Penang because of this happening in Singapore and also because of the Communist uprising. It became so violent that my mother said: "No, because Zaini is our only son. I don't want him to go." So my father decided to send me to St. Joseph's School in Kuching. So I studied there and at the end of 1951 I went back to Singapore and stayed there. So I spent just only one year in Kuching. That's when I made acquaintances with Tun [Abdul] Rahman [bin Ya'kub], Abang Ahmad Urai and all these leaders now. In fact, Ahmad Urai was my schoolmate: we were in the same class. When I went to Singapore I went to Beatty Secondary School, a government school, and stayed there up to my [Senior] Cambridge in 1954. I came back to Brunei in 1955 and I decided to work. The first time I worked with the government as a clerk. In those days they had two types of clerk. One is Malay, one is English. So I was an English clerk. I worked with the Immigration Dept. which was still under the Police Dept. So I was directly under the Immigration Officer who was also the head of the Special Branch, Mr. Baker. He was trying to recruit me to become his informer, actually. He liked me very much. I worked there as a clerk and I was attached to the Immigration Dept., handling passports, issuing British passports and so on. Then it was in that year, 1955, while I was still a clerk, when Azahari approached me. He approached me as to whether I would like to join forces with him and form a political party. Before that I used to attend his meetings. As soon as he came back to Brunei in 1951 he used to have discussions with people in his house. There was a crowd of people going to his house every night. He was something like the new messiah, [a] prophet. I remember [when] I was still a student, I used to go to the house and listen to the talks he used to give. All the while he was telling us about his bitter experience in the Indonesian revolution, his involvement with the TNE, fighting against the Dutch. He was very proud of it. Azahari, as you know, is an orator, he could convince you, easily, sway you to his way of thinking. And I thought at that moment he was really someone who would do something for Brunei and I was very much attracted by that. And most probably he noticed that during these talks, maybe he noticed that I was interested. So he approached me. We wanted to form the first political party in Brunei--January 1955. But then the colonial authorities heard rumors about this. Suddenly they ransacked his house. We met and decided to form one and we asked Azahari to draft the constitution. Azahari is a genius, you know. He really can do things very fast. Within two weeks he came with a constitution. We hadn't decided on a name but there was a draft of the constitution of the proposed party. But in between the police took action. They went to his house, ransacked the whole house, and they found the constitution of the party and took it. So when they took it a few of us decided that we should wait for awhile because we didn't want to be arrested for nothing. So Azahari was not very happy about it. Anyway, because the majority of us decided not to proceed with it he stayed alone for awhile and then about October he went to Singapore and Malaya and attended a Malay congress sponsored by Dato Onn bin Ja'afar, Baharuddin, Ahmad Boestamam, those people. He attended the conference at Kampong Bahru, in the Selamat Club. After that he also attended UMNO's general assembly and then when he came back he called us and said he had already made an arrangement with people from Malaya--Ishak Hj. Mohd, Boestamam--[that] we should form a branch of the People's Party in Brunei. That was about November 1955. So we agreed. After all, we had always wanted to form a party. And we held a meeting in early January in H.M. Saleh's [Saleh bin Masri's] house ... and there we decided we should form this party and we submitted for registration. But this was objected to by the police; they said we would not be able to affiliate with any organization outside Brunei. So there was a tug of war between us and the police and the British Resident. But finally we met again as and decided: "Alright, if the police will not allow us to form a branch of the Partai Ra'ayat, we would be happy to have a Partai Ra'ayat with branches in Sarawak and Sabah and in Brunei." Even that was not agreed upon. Somehow D.C. White (he was the British Resident), came into the picture and suggested: "Why not just register for Brunei, forget about Sabah and Sarawak?" The registration was approved eight months later, that was August.

Coming back to education, after Beatty Secondary School I came back and worked in the Immigration Dept. Then when we decided to form the party, I was still a civil servant. I remember my boss, Mr. Baker, after attending the first meeting in January 1955 he called the next morning when I reported for duty and said: "Where did you go last night?" I said: "I went to Brunei." He said: "Where else? I know you attended a meeting somewhere." You see, they always had their people. He was trying to get information from me and at the same time threatening me with dismissal and so on. Most probably he got something from me [about] what took place. I told him we had this meeting and decided to form the party. When the party appointed me as the first political organizing secretary, I resigned from the civil service and took up politics seriously. That's when I saw the Sultan in Singapore. Between late 1955 and 1957 I was very much involved in the position of [organizing secretary of] the Partai Ra'ayat, forming branches, representing the party abroad, attending conferences, organizing the party within the country, going to Sabah and Sarawak to try to get support, especially after the concept of Malaysia was announced. After we sent our Merdeka delegation to London [in September 1957], I came back to Brunei and then I decided that I had to equip myself with higher education and legal education. I wrote back to our legal adviser, Walter Raeburn, Q.C., who drafted our memorandum. Through his influence I managed to enroll myself as a law student at the Middle Temple in 1958.

Q. How were you supporting yourself in those days?

A. My father and also, as I said, the Sultan. He allowed me to stay in the Manor. So I went back to London and enrolled as a student. But somehow I couldn't get politics out of my mind. I was very active with the Malay Society at Malaya Hall, as with the Malay Forum which was the most extreme group among the Malayan students there. I think the President was Mr. Lee San.... Lee Kuan Yew's brother, a doctor. So I was involved with these two organizations. One was a Malay group, the Malaya Society, and the other was the Malaya Forum. And there was another group who were more extreme--that is Wan Harold, John Eber, these are the people who were involved with the Malayan Union before, Democratic Union. I mixed with these people most of the time. Then I met that character Wan Harold. He was Deputy State Secretary in Johore. He went to LSE and when he was a student there on [a] state scholarship he went to attend a youth congress organized by the Youth Democratic Union, which was a Moscow-organized group. So because he went right up to Peking, when he came back to London his scholarship was cancelled. He was very much a frustrated young man. And I was very much associated with Wan Hamid and from him I learnt Left politics. So he told me: "Why do you take up law? Even Gandhi, he became a lawyer and finally they sent him to jail." So l was very much influenced by Wan Hamid and also John Eber and Ian Page who was an Executive Committee member of the Labour Party (married to Gladys Lim). My involvement with the Malaya Society was just as a member, with the Malaya Forum as a friend of Lee, but I was very taken with these people who were associated with the colonial freedom movement--Lord Fenner Brockway. That is why I became close to Fenner. That's why today I am still in communication with him and he is really helping us in Parliament. I didn't give up law, but Hamid said: "You'd better go to LSE, that's your place." But it was quite hard to get into LSE, so I enrolled for a diploma in trade union studies. That gave me some background because I was involved in the labor movement in Brunei. I was under Professor Ben Roberts and while a student I was mixing with these Latin American people and somehow or other I was asked to become President of the Labour Society of the LSE. That's the time when I really did both jobs--study and involvement in politics. So whenever the Colonial Freedom Group organized demonstrations in London ... I was involved, especially in Hyde Park politics. After that I came back to Brunei and joined the civil service again--that was the time when I was asked by the Sultan to pick any department I wished because I was the first Brunei Malay student to have gone to England and got something. Even my cousin, Pehin Isa, who is now the General Secretary, was in his final year doing law at Southampton College. I was attached first to the Secretariat with the Deputy Mentri Besar and the Economic Planning Unit. Later on they put me into the Labour Dept. So within the year I worked in three departments and while I was in the Secretariat I was asked to be a member of the Brunei delegation attending the 17th conference of ECAFE. I was supposed to be secretary to the head of the delegation and also his interpreter because the Mentri Besar ... didn't speak English. So that was the first time I found experience in attending international conferences. In fact I really dominated the delegation because whenever he told me to translate, I put in some of my ideas.... This exposure created something in my mind. I thought that we had to do something about Brunei. We had to fight for our independence seriously. We couldn't always remain under the tutelage of Great Britain. So I worked for only one year in the government and then the election was to be held--August 1961. But that election was never held--it was delayed for another year to August 1962. And during that one year I was involved in the formation of the party again, representing the party abroad, much more mature in my political approach. In fact I was no longer a yes-man to Azahari. I began to show myself, not only disagreeing with what he said but representing a dissenting group in the Parti Ra'ayat. I remember during a meeting of the Executive Party Committee about what we were going to put in our memorandum to the Colonial Office, especially about languages. Now Azahari wanted to have multilingualism introduced into Brunei, with Malay, English and Chinese. I objected very strongly. I said: "Why should we? We are Malay, and Malay should be the official and also the national language." Then we came to loggerheads. Azahari is a very tactful man. He became so submissive and said: "Yes, OK." But there was another member of the Executive Committee who was very pro-Azahari and he came to the front [of the meeting] and confronted me. During this confrontation in the party the feeling was more or less there for Malay language only. And then somehow Azahari put the thing to the vote and I won. And then Azahari suspended that man from the party for being too critical on this issue, suspended him from the Executive Committee of the party rather than me. So that was the time I realized Azahari respected my view. And all along, up to the revolt, I became more and more independent and began to cause a worry in Azahari's mind. But he couldn't just get rid of me--he needed me because of my social background. I was supposed to represent the aristocracy and he needed someone from this class to be in the party. The other person was Awang Hapidz Laksamana. He came from the same group of people. Secondly, because of my education. I had a little education with some English background and of course whenever there was anything to be done in English, I did it--translation, press releases, etc. That was not my job but Azahari always referred the matter to me. In fact, during our talks with Alan Lennox Boyd, most of the time he referred things to me. The memorandum which we submitted to the British government, to the United Nations later on--I was the man who drafted it. Of course he gave me the ideas and I just did it. Azahari could not get rid of me; at the same time, he could not just ignore my existence in the party. That was the beginning of our rift, not so much because of ideology but because of personality. He thought he could no longer consult me and when he organized the underground movement he never consulted me. He thought that 1 would never agree to that. He knew it from the very beginning. He did it all by himself, together with the Secretary-General of the party, Jasin Affandy. Affandy was Azahari's man, even right up to this very moment he is very much Azahari's man. They have some blood relationship--Azahari's father married Affandy's sister. Again, Affandy is a very submissive type of man. I never heard him objecting to Azahari on any issue.

Q. There weren't any substantial ideological differences between you and Azahari in 1961-62?

A. No. We were always for independence for the Federation of British Borneo. We were on the same track of thinking, except [for] his pro-Indonesia thing which I didn't like. Azahari very much looked towards indonesia. I don't blame him because he was brought up there from 1943 to 1951. Anything he did was Indonesian, even in his speech. He was very much an Indonesian type of orator ...

Bibliography of published works by Dr Hj. Zaini Hj. Abroad

Rakis (suatu testemen politik) oleh Pengiran Indera Mahkota Syarmayuda. Anotasi dan analisa oleh Zaini Haji Ahmad AI-Haji Berunai, Singapore: Great East Press, 1978. Pp. 204.

Brunei kearah kemerdekaan. Ulu Kelang [Selangor], 1984, pp. 97.

Pertumbahan Nationalisme de Brunei, 1939-1962. Selangor, 1984.280 pp. [Reprinted in 1989 by ZR Publications, Kuala Lumpur, and again in Brunei, Asia Printers, 2004.]

Triwarna. Petal ing Jaya [Selangor]: Heinemann, 1986. Pp. 219. [Fiction]

The People's Party of Brunei: Selected Documents. Petaling Jaya [Selangor]: Institute of Social Analysis, 1987.

Negeri Brunei, 1939-1962--suatu tinjauan perkembangan sejarah politik. Kuala Lumpur: Jabatan Sejarah, Universiti Malaya, 1987, pp. 54.

Brunei Merdeka: Sejarah dan Budaya Politik Brunei. Bandar Seri Begawan: De'lmas Printing, 2003. 402pp.

The following is a list of articles which Zaini wrote for the ASEAN Review, a journal published briefly in Kuala Lumpur between 1976 and 1978 [and not to be confused with a similarly named Australian journal]. The list was compiled by Simon Francis, former librarian, Universiti Brunei Darussalam.

Just a Sisterly Concern, ASEAN Review, Vol. 1, No. 9 (17 April 1976), pp. 20-21.

Brunei Women Strike One, ASEAN Review Vol. 1, No. 10 (24 April 1976), pp. 18-19.

The Other Face of Brunei, ASEAN Review, Vol. 1, No. 12 (8 May 1976), pp. 20-21.

Brunei's Sterling Loss, ASEAN Review, Vol. 1, No. 13 (15 May 1976), pp. 20-21.

Political Detainees in Brunei, ASEAN Review, Vol. 1, No. 16 (5 June 1976), pp. 40-41.

The Royal Brunei Regiment, ASEAN Review Vol. 1, No. 17 (12 June 1976). pp. 21- 23.

A Satire on Brunei's Past, ASEAN Review, Vol. 1, No. 17 (12 June 1976), p. 27. (review of the novel Abode of Peace by George Fernandez)

University College for Brunei, ASEAN Review, Vol. 1, No. 20 (3 July 1976), pp. 17-18.

Hidden Treasures, ASEAN Review, Vol. 1, No. 23 (24 July 1976), pp. 27-28.

Brunei Refugees in Malaysia, ASEAN Review, Vol. 1, No. 25 (7-13 August 1976), p.17.

Other works cited

Harun Abdul Majid 2007 Rebellion in Brunei: The 1962 Revolt, Imperialism, Confrontation and Oil. London: I.B. Tauris.

Poulgrain, G. 1998 The Genesis of Konfrontasi: Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, 1945-1965. Bathurst [NSW]: Crawford House Publishing, 1998.

Bob Reece 

Professor in History

School of Social Sciences and Humanities

Murdoch University

Western, Australia