Oldtimers in Malaysia would have followed reports on the platinum jubilee celebration of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II from June 2 to 5 in the United Kingdom and elsewhere with nostalgia.
News channels – especially the BBC and Skynews – carried various reports and live coverage of the celebration while British newspapers – which can be read online anywhere – were filled with reports about the monarch and the jubilee events. Local news channels, newspapers and news portals too carried news about the celebration.
This is understandable as 96-year-old Queen Elizabeth II is the first British monarch to be on the throne for 70 long years. The previous longest-serving monarch was her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria, who reigned for 63 years before her death at the age of 81 in 1901.
Let me put that in perspective: Queen Elizabeth has seen 14 prime ministers come and go in the UK during her reign.
The platinum jubilee was marked in several other nations too, notably in members of the Commonwealth of Nations as Queen Elizabeth II is the head of the Commonwealth. She is currently the head of state of the UK and 14 other Commonwealth countries.
The Commonwealth today is a loose grouping of 54 countries, including Malaysia, almost all of whom were once part of the British Empire. Interestingly, two members of the Commonwealth – Rwanda and Mozambique – chose to become members although they were not colonised by the British.
More than 600 “Big Jubilee Lunches” have been or will be held in more than 80 countries across the Commonwealth and the rest of the world to celebrate the platinum jubilee.
Queen Elizabeth II is undeniably one of the most recognised and respected persons on the planet
When Malaya was under colonial administration, British monarchs, including Queen Elizabeth II, ruled Malaya too. Now, of course, we have our own King – the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.
Queen Elizabeth II is still popular in the UK, and a recent poll by YouGov showed that 62% of British citizens feel the monarchy should remain. How long the monarchy will stand, however, is in question as the number of people in favour has been declining over the years. In 2012, for instance, a YouGov poll showed that 75% of those polled supported the monarchy.
I suppose monarchies are seen as anachronisms in today’s democratised world. Which explains why Barbados last year removed Queen Elizabeth II as the country’s head of state and transitioned into a republic.
Six other countries – Belize, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Kitts and Nevis – have indicated that they plan to remove the queen as their head of state. Even in Canada there is a heated debate as to whether it should dump the royals after Queen Elizabeth II’s reign ends. Debate on this has also been renewed in Australia by the platinum jubilee celebration.
I suppose too that in reading about the British monarchy, some Malaysians will be reflecting on our own monarchs, or sultans, and the similarities and differences between the monarchy in the UK and here and the uniqueness of our royal institution.
Although Princess Elizabeth ascended the British throne on Feb 6, 1952 upon the death of her father, King George VI, she was crowned Queen Elizabeth II on June 2, 1953.
A total of 8,251 guests, from 129 countries, attended the coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey and more than 2,000 journalists covered the event. It is said that in 1953, there were about 600 million British subjects throughout the world.
I read a report which said 12 members of the Malaysian Armed Forces were part of the military procession from 24 Commonwealth countries that marched past Buckingham Palace from Wellington Barracks for the platinum jubilee celebration.
This is a far cry from the number of Malayans who were in London for her coronation in 1953. The coronation in London‘s Westminster Abbey was attended by four Sultans from the then Federation of Malaya, and Malayan soldiers and policemen were prominently represented in the event.
The four sultans were among the rulers of British colonies who were in the vanguard of the coronation procession from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey.
The Sultan of Kelantan was in the first open horse-drawn landau, with his back to the horses and facing the Queen of Tonga, while the Sultan of Perak came in the next landau with the Sultan of Zanzibar.
In the third was the Sultan of Johor, wearing his major-general’s uniform and a blue cape, accompanied by the Sultanah. They were followed by the Sultan of Selangor with the Tengku Ampuan.
Two Malayans were given the honour of being among the queen’s mounted escort: Lieutenant Mohamed Nor Jamin and Second Lieutenant Hassan Lokeh of the Malay Regiment who wore white uniforms and green songkoks.
On the return journey to Buckingham Palace after the ceremony at Westminster Abbey, the queen’s procession was preceded by one representative of all the fighting services throughout the commonwealth. Guess which country was chosen to be the representative?
Yes. Members of the armed forces of the Federation of Malaya, the King’s African Rifles, and the Fiji military forces, all of which were then serving in Malaya, led the procession.
Three Malayan journalists were among 25 Commonwealth journalists taken to witness the coronation as guests of the British Government: Abdul Aziz Ishak of Utusan Melayu, George Tan Eng Leong of the Singapore Standard and R N Vengkatarajulu of Tamil Nesan in Kuala Lumpur. Also there was Dennis Law of the Sarawak Tribune.
Aziz – who served in the 1955 and post-Merdeka Cabinets under Tunku Abdul Rahman, becoming the minister for agriculture and cooperatives between 1955 and 1963 – had a seat in the abbey while the others were at The Mall.
Most Malaysians today, alas, will not remember Aziz. Let me give a fleeting view of the man by quoting an incident mentioned in the book “Templer and the Road to Malayan Independence: The Man and His Time” by Leon Comber.
Aziz himself mentions this incident in his book “Katak Keluar dari Bawah Tempurong”.
The then British High Commissioner to Malaya Sir General Gerald Templer was upset with the way Aziz had reported the coronation – he had made some unflattering remarks about some aspects of the ceremony – and summoned the journalist to his official residence.
Templer gave Aziz a terrible scolding, calling him a “rat, and a rotten journalist whose name stinks in Southeast Asia“.
When Aziz stood up to leave after repeatedly protesting the name calling, including “idiot” and “bloody fool”, Templer challenged him to publish what transpired at the meeting.
Aziz, of course, was not intimidated by probably the most powerful man in the country at that time, and went ahead to publish it in both the Singapore Standard and Utusan Melayu. The British government sent the Special Branch after him to dig up his faults. Finally, the authorities managed to impose a $25 fine on Aziz for wrongful parking.
This colonial tactic of placing those who disagree with the government or who don’t toe the government line under special scrutiny, it appears, is being followed even today.
Templer, however, was not a vengeful man, for he reappointed Aziz as a member of the Federal Legislative Council in January 1954.
Templer, in fact, was among the five in Malaya who were given knighthoods in conjunction with the coronation. It was his third knighthood. The others on the Queen’s honours list were: Onn Jaafar, the founder-leader of Umno, Raja Uda Raja Muhammad, a former Selangor menteri besar and our first high commissioner to the UK, the Sultan of Pahang and the chief justice of the Federation of Malaya Charles Mathew. All of them were entitled to use the honorific “Sir” before their name.
Next: How the coronation was celebrated in Malaya
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.