HOW TUNKU – THE FATHER OF MALAYSIAN TELEVISION - CREATED MALAYSIAN TELEVISION SINGLEHANDEDLY BY REJECTING INFLUENCES FROM BBC BUT CHOSE TO SEEK CANADIAN HELP INSTEAD…(FOR RTM’S 75th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS.)

By Mansor bin Puteh

Tunku Abdul Rahman our beloved ‘Bapak Kemerdekaan’ and ‘Bapak Malaysia’ (Father of Independence’ and ‘Father of Malaysia’ who spent his teenage years in England arriving there in 1919 when he was barely sixteen years, when most Malaysian his age had not even been to Kuala Lumpur.

Tunku was also the ‘Father of Malaysian Television’, a recognition for which he deserved to get but which RTM and KKMM have not yet found the need to do so.

I was lucky to be able to come to Kuala Lumpur for the first time and asked my cousin, Zainuddin who we called ‘Zai’ a local Kuala Lumpur guy to show me the way to The Residency without asking for any reason for me to want to go to.

The two of us who were barely in Form Three walked along Jalan Dato’ Onn and got to the main entrance of the official residence of the First Prime Minister of Malaysia, and was stopped by the guard who asked who we wanted to see, for which I said, ‘My sister, Rokiah’. He let us in.

I had come from Melaka and it was my first trip to the capital city with my mother who wanted to see his younger brother, a police constable staying in the barracks in Campbell Road now Jalan Dang Wangi.

I learnt that Tunku, purposely and with a good reason for not wanting to go to the BBC to get experts and technicians to help Malaysia establish its own television station, but chose to go to CBC or Canadian Broadcasting Corporation instead.

Tunku also chose not to be driven in British-made vehicles such as the Rolls-Royces, Jaguars or Bentleys. He did not feel comfortable being driven in such cars ‘after kicking the British out of Tanah Melayu!’ – a statement he made which I recorded in the interview I had with him much later that was arranged by my sister, Rokiah at Tunku’s official residence in Bukit Tunku.

But Tunku opted instead to be driven in American-made vehicles such as the Chevrolets. This car now sits outside in the porch of the Memorial Tunku Abdul Rahman in Kuala Lumpur with the official residence called The Residence forming the main block of his memorial.

Yes, that was what Tunku personally told me in a recorded interview which was arranged later by my sister who lived in The Residency, in his own words and without mincing them.  

But this was not the most outrageous thing that freedom fighters who expelled the British from their land had done; Burmese (Now Myanmar) leader, Aung San, father of Aung Sang Suu Kyi, had done to his country upon getting their independence from Britain was more outrageous; he stopped using the British driving system for driving at the left and changed it to the American driving system, so Myanmas now drive at the right. 

I could not imagine what if Tunku had done the same, so today all of us are driving at the right!

And for that reason, he also chose to go to Canada to seek the help from the Canadians to establish Televisyen Malaysia which had its office in Jalan Ampang beside where Matic is today.

Here are some photos my brother-in-law, Syed Abdullah Barakhbah the husband of my sister, Rokiah, showed me, some of which he took when he joined Tunku on his official visit to Canada after which he was welcomed to the White House to meet with then American President Lyndon Johnson and Lady Baird Johnson. 

They later went to New York City and stayed at the Wardorf-Astoria on Park Avenue, where I would later go to for the Hari Raya Puasa prayers with other Muslims in the city, who rented the ballroom of this prestigious hotel of the stars, to pray.

At that time there were not many Muslim residents in the city; now Hari Raya Puasa and Haji prayers are held in the streets that the authorities blocked to allow tens of thousands of Muslims to pray. 

During my time there were two masjid; now I am told there are five hundred of them, most of which were opened by Bangladeshi residents.

It was also my brother-in-law Syed Abdullah Barakhbah (Nephew and adopted son of Tunku and Mak Engku Tun Sharifah Rodziah Barakhbah) who inspired me to pursue my education in New York City after he gave me catelogues of PanAmerican Airways or PanAm that they flew on, when I first saw photos of the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building which aroused me to want to go there, in the future.

And the opportunity came when I finally managed to gain admission into Columbia University to purse a graduate course in Film Directing, to be the first and last ‘student’ of Institut Teknologi Mara (ITM) to achieve such recognition that nobody cared to admit. 

The best part was when Columbia did not even require me to graduate from ITM, and when I finally got to the university a year later after Mara offered me a study loan, following an appeal I made with them, the staff or administrative assistant, John McLaughlin just asked me as we were walking along the corridor in the Film Division, if I had graduated from ITM, for which I replied in the affirmative.

What if I was not shown the PanAm catalogues with the photos of the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building by my brother-in-law, would I still have made it to Columbia University and New York City?

Maybe not.

I might even not be interested to pursue a degree in film but would choose another specialization instead. I had many options.

Do I regret going or trying to go into the film business? Yes, because I had only wanted to pursue a career in film directing but I was horrified when I returned to Malaysia I realized that there was no system that anyone with my formal background in film could enter.

It was not like those who majored in film at the Film Division at Columbia and were American who could immediately enter the film industry there, because it was set up by their political, psychological and military leaders who knew what they could get from if Hollywood were established and created.

Unfortunately, their counterparts in Malaysia did not know any better and who could not see beyond the entertainment aspect of film production and distribution, and to insist that promoting the development of the new Malaysian film industry ought to be a top priority for them to pursue and if that had happened, I was confident my return to the country would be received better, especially if they wanted to get more interesting ideas from me, that I could share with them.