Tuesday May 7, 2013
A bridge of words
By MENG YEW CHOONG
star2@thestar.com.my
Beginnings: A young Hussain Najadi (right) meeting with then Malaysian Prime Minister, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein in the early 1970s. — Photo courtesy of Hussain Najadi By sharing his life, he hopes to create more understanding between Malaysia and the Arab world.
THE Sea And The Hills tells the tale of a small town boy who had nothing, gained nearly everything, lost it all in a matter of days, and then climbed back out of the pit of despair.
It is the story of Hussain Najadi, a Bahrain-born commoner who founded the Arab Malaysian Development Bank – yes, the bank with the camel mascot! – in 1975. In 1982, Najadi sold his stake in the bank to Tan Sri Azman Hashim, who subsequently renamed it AmBank.
“My friends insisted that I write something as a record that I can leave behind. After all, we all grow old, and we need to leave something behind,” says the soft-spoken Najadi, who speaks fluent French, German, Farsi, Arabic and English.
We are in his office in Kuala Lumpur to talk about The Sea And The Hills, which was released last month by publish-on-demand agency Xlibris.
Najadi, now 75, started putting his thoughts down on paper three years ago: “I wrote the book over weekends, and in the evenings, after work,” he says.
And he has much to share in the 289-page book, beginning with how his parents met in Iran, and how his father, Ahmad, in defiance of tradition that was still practised back in the 1930s, chose his own bride and broke off the engagement arrangement that had been made by his parents. Hussain was born in 1938 in Bahrain’s capital, Manama.
As Ahmad’s only child, Hussain displayed the same rebellious streak and, in his youth, joined the increasing number of people agitating for more personal freedom and liberties in then Britain-ruled Bahrain, resulting in repeated detentions.
After being caught leading several demonstrations, he was told to leave the country when he was 18 years old (in 1956), and he opted to go to Germany, where his training and career in business began. Young Najadi’s adventures in life included selling encyclopaedias to US servicemen in military bases in the Middle East and gaining a foothold in selling mutual funds, then a novel product in the Middle East, before ending up in banking and corporate advisory services.
Amazingly, at just 26, Najadi became an advisor to what was then the biggest financial services client in the Middle East, Kuwait’s Ministry of Finance and Oil. He soon went on to advise many other Middle Eastern countries, as well as Asian countries, on financial matters, and facilitated much trade between South-East Asia (Malaysia and Singapore, in particular) and the Middle East.
He was in his early 30s when he led a Kuwaiti delegation to Malaysia in the early 1970s; Najadi recalls the day vividly: “Malaysia was the last stop on our South-East Asian tour, and we met Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein Al-Haj as well as Tun Ismail Mohd Ali, first Malaysian governor of Bank Negara. With a simple nod from Tun Razak, the Arab Malaysian Bank was born in April 1975.”
After founding the bank, Najadi moved Arab Investments for Asia Kuwait Ltd (AIAK) to KL. He had formed the company in Kuwait some 40 years ago; since moving it to KL and, now, with more than 30 years of investment banking history in Malaysia, the Middle East, Europe and the Asia-Pacific, the AIAK Group is a specialist in cross-border corporate finance, and acts as a bridge between the oil-producing countries of the Middle East and Asean countries.
And then, at the height of his professional success, the boy who came from nothing to gain so much was thrown into jail. He had had the temerity to ask that a loan, nine years overdue, be paid back – the problem was, the loan had been made to very senior Bahraini minister.
Knowing the political situation in Bahrain – it had gained independence from the British in 1971 but remains a strongly controlled Constitutional monarchy – why did Najadi make his demand?
Perhaps it had something do with his formative years when, unlike his peers, he was a voracious reader, and he had the good fortune of reading not just capitalist tomes, but also works by socialists and communists and other characters that are considered radical for capitalist-leaning Bahrain.
“My dad did say that one day, those books are going to get me into trouble. And he was right,” Najadi says with a laugh.
It was no laughing matter at the time, though: He lost his freedom for nearly eight years, and only continuous pressure from the international community finally saw him freed. By a stroke of luck, he was able to obtain an Iranian passport and fled as soon as he was let out of jail. Until today, Najadi remains persona non grata in his homeland and cannot re-enter Bahrain.
He does not shy away from talking at length about the rise of citizen movements like the Arab Spring demanding more democratic space in the Middle East.
“Bahrain is in turmoil now, and it is also running out of oil. It has had the same prime minister for the last 42 years. In a way, you could say that the Arab Spring started from Bahrain, and spread onwards from there, though the tsunami has yet to reach its conclusion.”
Neither does he think highly of Europe at the moment. “I am worried that we have not yet seen the bottom of the European problem yet. The difference between them and the United States is that the US can still print dollars, and people still buy them.”
Najadi remains rather bullish when it comes to Asia, though. “I am very much a believer in Asia, which I feel is the future in the world economic scene. If you developed the Asian market, you are looking at a population of 550 million, which is practically twice the size of the European market. And Africa is the last frontier. Many multinationals, and even China, are going into Africa.”
How about Malaysia? “It is a small country that doesn’t have the problems of large countries like India, Indonesia, and China. Things are still manageable, and it still has elasticity in the economic basket. I foresee that Malaysia, despite problems in Europe, is not going to have its prosperity affected much.”
While Najadi’s life has centred on finance, The Sea And The Hills is not about making money.
“I have a zero ROI (return on investment) target for this book, which is purely about fostering better understanding between countries and civilisations. Malaysians still misunderstand the Arab world, and whatever they know about it usually comes from Hollywood movies and other Western perspectives of the Middle East.”
On his part, Najadi’s insatiable thirst for knowledge has not dimmed a bit. A typical day would entail reading at least 20 international, regional and local publications, including The Star. And despite having a personal assistant, he still writes his own e-mails. Off and on, he also flies to the Middle East to meet clients.
As such, this book is a tasty distillation of his adventures, the hard lessons of life, and more importantly, his philosophy. Reading it is like getting a crash course on the Middle East, Islam, colonialism, oppressive dictatorial rule, banking, and finance, all at one go. It was an extremely engaging read for me, and I can’t remember the last time I finished a book in a mere two days.
> The Sea And The Hills is available at major bookstores nationwide as well as at online retailers.
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