Book review: The Accidental Diplomat, by Maurice Baker
The most interesting aspect of Maurice Baker's autobiography is the revealing stories of diplomatic and political events which he witnessed in his long career as a Singaporean academic and diplomat.
by Maurice Baker
World Scientific
2 stars
The most interesting aspect of Maurice Baker's autobiography is the revealing stories of diplomatic and political events which he witnessed in his long career as a Singaporean academic and diplomat.
During the Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955, Carlos Pena Romulo, the late Filipino diplomat, had an argument with then Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, as Romulo later told Baker. In the heat of the argument, Romulo predicted that India would one day be attacked by China. Nehru, charmed by premier Zhou Enlai at the Bandung conference, dismissed Romulo's prediction as absurd.
In 1962, China attacked and defeated the Indian army over the two nations' disputed Himalayan border. Years later, Nehru told Romulo how right the latter had been.
In 1970, relations between Singapore and Malaysia were rocked by the "Long-Haired Crisis". At that time, the puritanical government of prime minister Lee Kuan Yew forbade men from sporting long hair. That year, three long-haired young Malaysian men were eating at a hawker centre in the city state. Detectives arrested the men, forced them to have haircuts and locked them up for one night. This action provoked Malaysian student demonstrations against the Singapore High Commission in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.
Baker, who was then the Singapore high commissioner in Malaysia, received a letter with a cartoon depicting Lee as bald. Baker also received locks of hair including pubic hair. He was also handed an official protest note by a Malaysian Foreign Ministry official expressing its "most serious concern" at the "ill-treatment" of the three Malaysians.
The Singapore authorities apologised, and the matter was closed.
During the 1980s, there were rumours circulating in Malaysia that the country's ethnic Malays were planning attacks against ethnic Chinese. On hearing these rumours, Baker asked businessman Daim Zainuddin whether arms were being smuggled into Kuala Lumpur to prepare for this racial assault. Daim, a friend of prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, told Baker that Malaysian intelligence reports confirmed some Malays were preparing to confront ethnic Chinese. Baker reported what he heard to Singapore.
Later, Mahathir severely reprimanded two younger ministers who had encouraged the incident. He nipped the problem in the bud, and subsequently appointed Daim as Malaysian finance minister in1984.
Although the real-life incidents are interesting, Baker's writing is poor. But if you can put up with the quality of the prose, you could learn something about Singapore, Malaysia, India and the Philippines from the 1950s to 1980s.
