TRIBUTE ABDUL - Perdana Library

R. RAMAN I
the real and the practical and not lose his head in the clouds
f the ideal and, secondly, that even the real is unattainable if
one develops inflexibility in his approach to any problem.
This is not to say however that one can go through political
life without a basic regard to principles by which one must
needs be held as if by an anchor.
In modern democratic socieities where it is possible to
postulate of any citizen of a state that given a modicum of
intelligence, education and articulation, articulation most of all,
he or she can rise to the heights of political power, it is
doubly necessary to cultivate the aptitude for compromise in
the effort to see clearly and see whole what is possible. No
longer are hereditary attributes or any exceptional powers predicated
for political leadership. In the final analysis therefore a
successful politician has to have, whether inborn or cultivated,
an ability to understand and accommodate other points of
view, with his own, and the conscious desire to make his views
acceptable not only to those with whom he is in friendly contacts
but also to those with whom he will inevitably find himself
in conflict. Individuals in whom these attributes are inborn
become, given the opportunity, natural leaders of the
people: others who stray into politics by accident or design
earn to cultivate these attributes and then achieve the leadership
of a people.
The Tunku came late to politics and public affairs; and
when he came on to the stage he, quite understandably, gave
the impression of a stranger to a scene having inadvertently
walked on to the stage. There were many people who shook
their wise heads at that spectacle. They were not without
their excuse. Those were days in which administration meant
an intellectual elite and Government was principally an efficient
machine in the hands of a paternal Government which
was fully aware if not perhaps what the people wanted, at
least what they ought to have and which was fully conscious of
being in possession of the power to bestow it. That attitude
changed literally overnight and Government came to mean an
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