By Olivia Miwil
KOTA KINABALU: The hardships and low points in Sabah's first chief minister Tun Fuad Stephens' life helped shape his character and taught him empathy, his daughter Fauziah said.
Fuad, born Donald Aloysius Marmaduke Stephens, struggled to make ends meet in Singapore following the Japanese invasion, at one point collecting and burying bodies.
"That was his job during the war. To me, those low points in life, particularly what he experienced during the war, helped build his character and taught him empathy.
"I knew him as someone who embraced people as if they were family. I remember growing up in Kota Kinabalu and Australia — there were always family members and friends coming and going. We were never short of guests," said Fauziah, the Pitas-born adopted daughter of the former chief minister.
Apart from his biological children — Affandy (Richard Bernard), Asgari (James Denis) and Faridah (Jean Heather) — with Toh Puan Rahimah Stephens, Fuad also adopted Johari (John Benedict) during his first marriage to Ida of Sarawak.
Fauziah was speaking at the "Tun Fuad Stephens Statesman Remembrance Programme: The Legacy of Huguan Siou in Building the Nation-State" here yesterday.
She said her father travelled to Singapore after receiving the Chee Swee Cheng Scholarship in 1937 and later worked various jobs, including as an army clerk, a busboy at a Japanese restaurant and an employee of the Straits Trading Company.
Fuad returned to Sabah in 1942, but his ordeal was far from over.
He was arrested by the Japanese because he was the son of Jules Stephens, a member of the North Borneo Volunteer Force (NBVF), which resisted Japanese occupation.
"They took Fuad, strung him up and tortured him. He was suspended from the ceiling by his arms and left there.
"Even after he was returned to his cell, his injuries were so severe that rats nibbled at his toes, keeping him awake all night," she said, citing an account given by her grandmother.
Fuad witnessed his father and fellow detainees, including resistance leader Dr Albert Kwok, being taken from their cells at dawn on Jan 21, 1944.
They were brought to Petagas, where they were executed and buried in a mass grave at what is now the Petagas War Memorial.
Afterward, Fuad's mother, Edith Margaret Mary Cope, who was of Japanese-English heritage, pleaded with the Japanese authorities to spare her son's life, convincing them he had not been involved in the rebellion.
He was eventually released and lived with his mother in a small hut in Likas, where he worked at a factory owned by a Japanese businessman named Takehana.
Fuad, who once dreamed of joining the Royal Air Force, was also diagnosed with cutaneous leprosy while in Singapore and continued to battle the illness until 1947.
In 1953, he founded The Sabah Times, a trilingual newspaper published in English, Malay and Kadazandusun.
He later acquired the North Borneo News in 1954.
His contributions to journalism earned him the posthumous Tokoh Wartawan Negara award from the Malaysian Press Institute in 1998.
He wrote under the pen names "Rambler", "Roderick" and "Vox Populi".
In 1954, during the opening of the Jesselton Hotel, Sir Ronald Turnbull identified Fuad, then still a journalist, as a potential leader and nominated him to the legislative council.
Fuad was appointed the first Huguan Siou (paramount leader) in 1960, founded the United National Kadazan Organisation (Unko) in 1961, chaired the Malaysia Solidarity Consultative Committee in 1962, became Sabah's first chief minister in 1963, served as federal minister for Sabah Affairs in 1964, and was appointed Malaysia's High Commissioner to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji in 1968.
He later became Yang di-Pertua Negari Sabah in 1973.
He died alongside 10 others in the "Double Six" air crash near Sembulan on June 6, 1976, just 54 days after being sworn in as Sabah's fifth chief minister.
Fauziah also shared her father's concerns over the formation of Malaysia, saying he was initially uncertain about the idea but was strongly influenced by then Singaporean Cambridge-trained lawyer Lee Kuan Yew, who would become the island republic's first prime minister.
"Lee convinced Fuad in 1961 that Chinese Malaysians could provide a balance within Malaysia and that minorities, including indigenous communities, could hold the balance of power.
"In the final copy of a letter to Lee Kuan Yew, whom he addressed as Harry, dated Aug 10, 1965 — the day after Singapore left Malaysia — the entire letter reflected his sadness and disappointment over Singapore's departure."
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