DEC 4 — In the 1960s and 70s, Malaysian and Singaporean students were involved in progressive politics in London. They had a strong sense of social justice and strived to create a non-racial, just and truly democratic society in their newly independent nations.
In that mix of activists was a left-wing extremist Aravindan Balakrishnan — a disciple of Chairman Mao, the late Chinese communist leader — whose alleged shackling of three women including Malaysian Siti Aishah Wahab, 69, in a Maoist collective recently captured world headlines.
In the aftermath of the rescue of the women from the collective, certain British dailies branded Malaysian and Singaporean students in that era as revolutionary.
Then student leader, Amir Dastan, now a businessman aged 72, who was a trenchant critic of Aravindan and his delusional politics dispels that extremist notion.
Being Frank (BF): What is your assessment of the reports on the London ‘slaves’?
Amir Dastan (AD): Most of the media reports are sensationalist and misleading when they characterise as slavery the relationship of the key personalities of the ‘commune’ in question.
Such a portrayal diminishes the meaning of slavery, generally associated with a horrendously cruel and inhumane system of physical subjugation of Africans, Latin Americans and others by Europeans during the early phase of mercantile capitalism.
Slaves were forcibly transported with shackles and chains in overcrowded vessels from their homes in Africa to provide unpaid labour to plantation owners and the like in the United States of America.
BF: How would you describe the relationship if this highly publicised case does not fit the slavery tag?
AD: Aravindan had exhibited personality traits in his early encounter with student bodies which was dogmatic and intolerant of views contrary to that held by him.
Over the years he became a control freak and would demand his friends and supporters to give him unquestioned loyalty.
In a commune environment such as the one in which he was the leader, he would have the last word.
Aravindan mentally controlled his followers through intellectual intimidation and emotional blackmail.
He even had his followers believe he was arrested by the British police based on information provided by someone in the group.
This further heightened the paranoia in the sect where everyone was suspicious of each other and were all looking to the leader for psychological comfort.
This type of relationship in which the followers were blindly devoted to Aravindan is more appropriately described as a cult.
The rationale for such cults to maintain allegiance of its members is usually underpinned by a perverse interpretation of a political ideology or religion.
Some cults can be reasonably harmless to their members, but others degenerate into dangerous sects harming their own members as well as the public. We are familiar with some of these phenomena such as the Al-Mauna and others in the religious sphere.
Aravindan even prevented his followers in the commune from reading books or publications other than that prescribed or approved by him.
He was also nihilistic and anti-intellectual. He had forced quite a number of students to drop their courses of study for which they were in the UK in the first place, convincing them that dropping out of tertiary education was a revolutionary act.
Fortunately, some broke away in time, due to the influence of more rational voices in the student movement, and went back to complete their studies. Others were not so lucky.
BF: Who was Aravindan, variously described in the media as an Indian by some and a Singaporean by others?
AD: He was a Singapore national when he went to London around 1963 after graduating from the University of Singapore with an economics degree. He joined the London School of Economics as an undergraduate to repeat his first degree because he had graduated with a general degree. After a few years he dropped out of LSE as well.
Compared to Malaysian and Singaporean student activists in the mid-1960s to mid-1970s, he was widely read in economics and politics.
He used his knowledge to both intimidate and impress those he wanted to influence.
Students who were part of his sect were expelled when they disagreed with his views or proposals, others left disillusioned with his dogmatism and unrealistic delusional revolutionary sloganeering in London.
Those expelled were stigmatised as political deviants, some as ultra-left and others as ultraright, only the wise guru understanding the meaning of being in the correct political place.
As Malaysian and Singaporean members of his group abandoned him in the early 1970s, with the exception of few hardcore individuals, he turned more towards British politics via the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist), which also later expelled him.
His Singapore citizenship was revoked around 1976-77, suggesting he might have been born in India.
BF: Which Malaysian/Singaporean student organisations in UK was he active in?
AD: The main student movements, particularly operating in Malaysia Hall London in the 1960s and 1970s and recognised by the Malaysian Students Department (MSD) were (according to year of inception):
— Kesatuan Melayu United Kingdom (KMUK);
— Malayan Forum (later Malaysian and then Malaysian and Singaporean Students Forum, reflecting the evolving changes in the national landscape);
— Federation of UK and Eire Malaysian and Singaporean Students Organisation (FUEMSSO) consisting of constituent organisations across the UK and Ireland numbering at least a dozen at any one time;
— Malaysian Islamic Study Group;
— London Union of Malaysianand Singaporean Students (LUMSS); and
— Malaysian and Singaporean Students Law Society.
Aravindan did not play any role other than attend some of the public meetings organised by one or other of above bodies.
Nor did he ever stand for any positions in these bodies. In 1971, the Malaysian Students’ Department and its Singaporean counterpart gave notice to student bodies to restructure and not use the name of both countries to describe their movements to reflect the separated status of both nations.
They were not allowed to have office bearers and members from the other national groups. Some of the movements refused to comply with this directive as it was considered an infringement of the student’s right of association and they operated outside Malaysia Hall.
One of the organisations that came under the control of Aravindan’s supporters when they operated outside Malaysia Hall was MASS Forum.
They used this name for a short period but it was soon abandoned and changed to the more exotic MASS Movement.
MASS Forum had its history in the pre-Independence period when it was called Malayan Forum and Tun Abdul Razak was its chairman.
Other Malaysian leaders when they were students had been members, as were former Singaporean leaders Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Keng Swee.
From 1967 its members were political awakened by the antiwar movement across Europe and the US and began to oppose the US war of aggression against Vietnam.
MASS Forum also supported the Palestinian peoples’ struggle and invited speakers with the knowledge and expertise on the Middle East conflict.
The first Palestinian leader allowed by the British authorities to visit the UK to present the Palestinian side of argument in the then ongoing Israeli aggression against the Palestinians was the late Abu Omar.
He had been invited to Malaysia Hall to speak to the students under the MASS Forum platform. The recent report by UK’s Daily Telegraph was off the mark in describing this organisation as being Maoist.
BF: What lessons can be drawn from this episode of the student movement, which you deem to be a cult?
AD: The pre-condition for ensuring such groups do not emerge, whether in the religious or political spheres, is by providing maximum democratic space for the exchange of ideas and open debate.
Such open environment prevents conspiracies and cult formation; though it is no guarantee as the realm of human relations can be and indeed is very complex.
It is slightly akin to the institution of marriage. Though a very old institution, there continues to be domination by one partner, usually by the male in our patriarchal society, leading to quite grotesque bullying.
In a cultist environment, the bullied never reveal or admit to their subservient predicament vis-à-vis their relationship with their leader, just as in a bad marriage, the wife rarely admits to being bullied or cruelly treated by the husband.
There is no simple panacea in the realm of human relations, particularly as it applies in the private sphere.
However, open democratic debate and discussion allows people to rationally evaluate whether they should accept a particular political/religious platform or whether the leaders are providing them a distorted interpretation that they should reject it.
Those in Aravindan’s commune/cult who were exposed to ideas outside the group generally abandoned the group.
Only those who remained over the long haul, such as the women now subjected to a media frenzy in the so-called London slavery issue, can throw some light on the reasons for their choice of remaining loyal to the delusional Aravindan and his cultism.
That, however, may be expecting too much from victims locked in a long complex relationship with their guru.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
