IT IS not surprising that wishes of longevity and good health are pouring in from friends and foes alike for retired DAP supremo Tan Sri Lim Kit Siang who celebrates his 83d birthday today (Feb 20).
As the longest-serving opposition leader in Malaysia, the Batu Pahat (Johor)-born politician held the position for a total of 29 years on three separate occasions as well as stood out as Malaysia’s second longest-serving MP (for 47 years) behind Gua Musang ‘prince’ Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (48 years).
At party level, Kit Siang who officially called it a day from politics on March 20, 2022 was DAP’s former secretary-general from 1969 to 1999 until he was elected party chairman to succeed Dr Chen Man Hin (1999-2004).
Throughout his political career spanning 56 years from 1966 when he first emerged as DAP’s national organising secretary to 2022, Kit Siang who is a lawyer by training had represented eight constituencies in five states, namely:
- Bandar Melaka, Melaka (1969–1974)
- Kota Melaka, Melaka (1974–1978)
- Petaling, Selangor (1978–1982)
- Kota Melaka, Melaka (1982–1986)
- Tanjong, Penang (1986–1999)
- Ipoh Timor, Perak (2004–2013)
- Gelang Patah, Johor (2013-2018)
- Iskandar Puteri, Johor (2018-2022)
In a birthday tribute to the father-cum-mentor of current party chairman Lim Guan Eng, DAP described Kit Siang as “a fighter with no substitute”.
“All his services and sacrifices for Malaysia regardless of race and religion have been proven since the first day itself as he was determined to make Malaysia a better place for every Malaysian,” asserted the party.
“He fought for justice and good governance; he is the icon of our democracy” is the respect accorded to Kit Siang by DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke Siew Fook.
Who else would be most qualified to wish Kit Siang a blessed birthday than his biographer Kee Thuan Chye who painstakingly authored two volumes of Lim Kit Siang: Malaysian First (Volume One: None But the Bold; Volume Two: Bold to The Last Battle):
“I got to know Lim Kit Siang up close and personal while working over four years on his biography. During that time, I interviewed him more than a dozen times, with each session lasting about three hours. He often laughingly said to me and others that in those sessions, I was “torturing” him.
This was so because Kit is an introvert, a private person, a self-effacing man who does not talk much – unless it was about politics. He is not used to expressing his feelings.
Apart from that, I found out how he had been able to stay in politics despite having been in the Opposition wilderness for decades, and getting maligned, relentlessly persecuted and unfairly punished. I found out how he managed to persist when others would have given up.
It lies in his ability to take things in his stride. In his ability to endure whatever is thrown at him, to remain stoic and be pragmatic, to separate the political from the personal so that he could forgive his persecutors and even accept them as allies for the sake of a greater cause.
That greater cause has always been, for him, “a just, fair, equal, democratic, united and prosperous Malaysian society”. That, in a nutshell, is his Malaysian Dream.
That dream is what has defined him all his life – from the time he was an adolescent schoolboy in the 1950s. And it has kept him going to this day.
Only two days ago, while giving a speech at a dinner to celebrate his 83rd birthday (which actually falls on Feb 20), he reminded all the attendees, which included the Prime Minister, that for Malaysia to become a top-class nation, we must not focus on any single race. We must instead adopt the Malaysian Narrative.
This is what Lim Kit Siang the Malaysian First visionary is all about.
It has been a great privilege for me to write his biography. I came to admire him even more from my experience of doing that. The project was an independent one, I was not commissioned by Kit to write it.
Yet even so, I acknowledge with much appreciation that throughout the four years, he never once asked me what I was going to write. He found out only when I presented him the published work. He left it all to me. As it should be. That speaks volumes about the man.
It was also fun working with Kit. He has a great sense of humour and we had a lot of laughs together. But above everything else, I made myself a friend. And I’m proud and pleased today to wish my friend Happy 83rd Birthday. – Feb 20, 2024
