Growing Up To Tell The Truth: The Memoirs

An expansive story of migration, lineage, family and the highest positions in public office by one of Malaysia's most experienced cabinet ministers.

The son of Syed Jaafar Albar, known as The Lion of UMNO, an inveterate figure in the nationalist politics of pre- and post-independence Malaya/Malaysia, Syed Hamid Albar grew into politics from the experience of the legal profession and an early involvement in social movements.

Growing Up To Tell The Truth is a lyrical, lucid, historically insightful reflection by one of Malaysia’s most experienced and longest-serving cabinet ministers. Having occupied some of the most important positions in various Malaysian administrations, and during some of the most critical periods in Malaysia’s recent history, the Memoirs provide a living testament to the shifting politics, governmental preoccupations and regional and international challenges of a nation- in-becoming.

The Memoirs offer respectful observations of the first generation of Malaysian public figures, including Malaysia’s first and second Prime Ministers Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tun Abdul Razak respectively; candid and forthright reflections on a relationship with Malaysia’s longest-serving and most enigmatic Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, and insight into the vacillating fortunes of Abdullah Badawi, Mahathir’s successor.

The Memoirs commences with recollections of lineage and genealogy and is also an intimate remembrance of early family life, of a formative generation of local Malays venturing to study abroad and, most prominently, a narrative of the