Syed Husin Ali: Memoirs of a Political Struggle

This book contains Syed Husin Ali’s recollections and reflections on his struggles to establish justice, truth and welfare for the people. It relates his participation, activities, experiences and views on a number of political events related to the people. The author describes early childhood experiences, parental influences, as well as family, educational, academic and non-academic environments as they have influenced to a great extent the attitudes and views of the writer towards politics, which he has been involved with for more than half a century.

The issues focused in the Memoirs are therefore related to the participation and experiences of the author, including his views and thoughts on the political development, events and controversies that have taken place over time within the parties he has been a member of and the country as a whole.

The Memoirs also provide backgrounds to and clarifications on several issues, such as: what happened after the opposition parties captured five states, the formation of PAKATAN, attempts by UMNO-BN to topple the PAKATAN-controlled state governments, especially Selangor, and the attempt by Anwar to win over the central government in connection with the 16th September event, which has been regarded by some as a failure.

An attempt is also made to reveal and even explain the decision process among the leaders of the parties and the things that led them to make various political decisions, most of which are unknown or unfamiliar to the public.

This book is a translation of the original Malay language version. It contains several amendments and corrections and includes two new sections – one on the APCET II conference and another on the author’s deportation from Indonesia during the Suharto regime – both of which were unfortunately overlooked during the preparation of the Malay version. It also has a list of abbreviations and indexes which are absent in the Malay edition. In a way, this present version appears to be a better version of the author’s Memoirs.

Published by SIRD
Paperback
2012
ISBN: 9789675832499