AL FATIHAH - IN MEMORY TAN SRI A SAMAD ISMAIL

memoirs: published by UKM

Today, 5.58pm, Thursday, 4th September, 2008, the Nation lost a Great Man, Tan Sri A Samad Ismail.

Tan Sri Abdul Samad Ismail, born in Singapore on 24 April 1925, a journalist, political activist, and creative writer, known for promoting Malay nationalism. He was a founding member of the Gerakan Angkatan Muda (Geram) and of the PAP (People's Action Party).

He was Chairman of the Malaysian Press Institute and was also a founding member of the National Association of Writers (PENA). For his accomplishments in the literary and journalistic field, he was awarded the title, Pejuang Sastera by the Government in 1976.

From Javanese parentage, Samad Ismail was born and educated in Singapore. He completed his Senior Cambridge in 1940, just before World War II began, and launched into journalism almost immediately, starting as a cub reporter in the newly established Malay daily, Utusan Melayu.

During the Japanese Occupation, he did editorial work for the Japanese-sponsored, Berita Malai with Abdul Rahim Kajai and Ishak Haji Muhammad (Pak Sak) for RM10 per month. The returning British thus had him jailed in 1946 but only briefly. After the war, he returned to the Utusan Melayu as the assistant editor. His anticolonial stance led to a second arrest in 1951.

Upon his release in 1953, he returned to his job at the Utusan Melayu and became a founding member of the People's Action Party along with Lee Kuan Yew. However, disagreements with both Lee Kuan Yew and with the Utusan Melayu saw him leaving for Kuala Lumpur in 1959.

In Kuala Lumpur he head the Berita Harian and later the New Straits Times where he remained a strong advocate of the Malay language and culture, and continued to explore the complex dimensions of race and politics in Malaysia. He expressed some of these thoughts through his Malay novels which he began writing in the early 1960s. In 1976, he was again arrested under the Malaysian Internal Security Act and was not released until 1981. Upon his release, he returned to the New Straits Times.

My deepest condolences to Nuraina Samad and her family.

May Allah Forgive Him and Bless His Soul.

Al Fatihah.