As we all know, our Father of Independence or Bapa Kemerdekaan, Tunku Abdul Rahman is the hero of Malaysia as he leads the country to get its independence on 31/8/1957 and the formation of Malaysia on16/9/1963. However, how many of us still remember Dato' Onn Ja'afar? Some of you might ask, who is this guy?
Dato' Onn Ja'afar was a Malay politician born in 1895 in Johor Bahru.. He is also the father of Tun Hussein Onn, third Prime Minister of Malaysia.
Dato' Onn was the founder of United Malays National Organization(UMNO) and he was the leader who raise up Malays nationalism to congress against Malayan Union which was described as unfair policy to the Malays.Besides, he was responsible for the social economic welfare of the Malays by setting up the Rural Industrial Development Authority (RIDA).DAto' Onn was the one who introduce 'Sistem Ahli' which is now known as Cabinet. This Sistem Ahli was to train the people of Malaya to get involved in the administration of Tanah Melayu before getting independence from the British.
However, in year 1951, Dato' Onn was disgusted badly when he called for party membership to be opened to all Malayans, not only to Malays and for UMNO to be renamed as the United Malayans National Organisation. Malay society rejected this suggestion as they refused to amend the structure of UMNO. When his recommendations went unheeded, he left the party to form the Independence Malaya Party(IMP). However, the IMP failed to gain sufficient backing from the Chinese, Indians and other races. Tunku Abdul Rahman took over Dato' Onn position as the second president of UMNO, leading the party and the country to gain independence.
In my thought,I do appreciate Dato' Onn contribution to this country and he did sacrificed a lot for the independence of the country, but it seems like not many people think of him when we talk about Independence Day. I guess it is time for us to think deeper of what he had contributed to the country.
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