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It was only in the early school days, learning harsh foreign phrases and throwing them at an enemy as I did the other day; Il macabro would have sounded gruesome enough to hurl at a foreign enemy of yesterday.

But to think of a phrase even worse of an enemy seemed callous and definitely unpardonable, though I speak of some from the years past which so many of you will not know.

So though I apologise to you today, my long-felt grievances against those who would hurt my country even during, before or after the war years, whether I donned the uniform or not, remained the same. Perhaps worse in more mature times when memories were more, and the person engaged in writing a eulogy for a former prime minister of our country.

Dudley Senanayake was being eulogised on his birth anniversary recently, and I remembered him for other reasons, as foreign powers, who, to my mind, were undeservedly demonising the man.

Here was another admirer of Dudley Senanayake paying homage to a politician who I thought should have served our nation far longer than for the extremely brief period he did.

And here was at a different time and on a different subject, paying justice to the man, who in retrospect might have drawn the country out of war and its ugliness as we see happening far more than it would have been in the swathes of land and sea we would have been in. We had been discussing and engaging with these matters even before the formation of the Southeast Asia Command (SEATO) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). He was capable for as long as he needed to be, and the nation and its people knew he could.

Those of us, though in different professions, living in South and Southeast Asia were quite aware that, in one way or another, we were engaged, enmeshed, employed and working directly or indirectly for what was increasingly called the war machine.

And the political leaders of those nations immediately engaged in war or on its outskirts, wherever they are, are in war, and for different nations, big or small, near or far, they are faced by different objectives.

But the policies are limited. Some with politicians on their sides and moneybags in hiding places and more wealth accumulated elsewhere; the choice might be easier, but not for those who care for their people and have done so over time.

It is this dilemma that the more national-conscious, those not ready to survive and give power to the power-hungry and defend their national interests, rather than simply join the side of the powerful and militarily superior and win some power.

Those who remember the cauldron of war boiling—not everywhere but in areas far afield—causing death and destruction, people fleeing their homes while others at home sought ways to end war, some by surrendering to the powerful and others succumbing to unacceptable ideology and thought.

As students at university or newly recruited journalists, we were, in a way, in the political-military quagmire, though the country was on its outskirts, though not entirely free of it, as the political fires burnt outside and the political pressures burnt not too far away.

It was this war and another political war in the making that brought ideological conflict to the very heart of Asia and to my understanding of the various nuances of the time, the days of the making of ASEAN that parted and expanded in new directions as it grew from seed to tree.

To cut this short, when ASEAN was being discussed as to shape and form, there were only a handful of Southeast Asian countries that were being considered for membership and very much from the very heart of that region. One reason was the presence of some tough and strong negotiators who cherished more of the cake for themselves or supporters.

While discussions were on, Tunku Abdul Rahman, then the leader of Malaysia from 1957, invited Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake to Malaysia on an official visit. Prime Minister Senanayake, a keen agriculturist, keenly accepted.

During discussions, the Tunku invited Ceylon to join the ASEAN. Instead of playing a Hamlet, as some people equated the cautious prime minister, he said he would think about it.

The news of the Tunku’s invitation broke through, and my own interpretation at the time was that Singapore’s fiery foreign minister S. Shanmugam, of Sri Lankan origin I believe, was not in favour of the Malaysian invitation to Ceylon. Those who know the chequered history of the relationship might understand why.

The story goes that early on, Shanmugam objected to Ceylon that it was outside the geographical area of ASEAN. One story at the time went that at the very time of the signing, Shanmugam not only objected geographically but also that the previous Mrs Sirima Bandaranaike government had communists in it and ASEAN did not welcome communists.

Personally I cannot remember Mrs Bandaranaike’s cabinet (which I was told was a word that had been used) having communists, though I recall it having members of the LSSP.

Anyway, I heard a different story from Prime Minister Senanayake, from whom I was the first to ask about this at a press conference after returning from Malaysia. When I asked him about the invitation to ASEAN, he clearly said he must think about it.

Since I was accompanying Prime Minister Senanayake on his numerous district agricultural visits, I had several occasions to ask him slowly.

He said that ASEAN was an essentially agricultural, economic and social development association; he would not have minded, for that would be apolitical. But this proposed body had a very clear political purpose. I was intended to be political and a buffer against communism.

Here was Sri Lanka (Ceylon), which had already participated in the Bandung summit, though Prime Minister Kotelawala (inspired by an anti-Chinese diatribe apparently persuaded by Esmond Wickremesinghe) nearly threw Bandung asunder. Non-Alignment held its first and second NAM summits in Belgrade and Cairo before ASEAN could even sign its pro-Western, especially pro-US, piece of paper.

So today those countries, such as Singapore and Malaysia, from the original ASEAN belt, I hear are members of the Non-Alignment.

What has happened to politics? Would it be strange if Kim Jong-un vote for Donald Trump at the next election?