An honour and a privilege

The late Tan Sri Dato' Harun Mahmud Hashim was a man to be admired, a man who stood for dedication, honour, integrity and sincerity in all that he did. In September 2001, a collection of his The Benchmark articles, which had appeared in the New Straits Times, was published in a book. I was honoured and privileged to have been the book's editor.

The initiator of the book was my good friend Yasmin Gan Abdullah, to whom Tan Sri Harun's family is her keluarga angkat (adopted family). She felt that Tan Sri Harun's articles needed to be in a more permanent form, thus the idea of compiling them into a book. Yasmin asked me to help and for the two of us, I believe it was our way of showing our admiration for a man who lived his life without fear or favour.

After having agreed to edit the book, Yasmin then introduced me to Tan Sri Harun and I had a delightful time talking to him. The work began when I was presented with thick files of newspaper cuttings of his articles. At that time (the year 2000), he was still contributing to the newspaper but I chose to focus on the years from 1994 (when he began the column) to 1999. He wrote on a wide range of issues, from the law to education, and of course, corruption. My task was to read each and every article, and organise them into a number of categories for the book. At the end of the day, due to space constraints, only 149 of the 281 articles that he wrote over the period could be included.

Editing the book and working together with Yasmin to bring it to fruition was one of my most satisfying projects. It was a heartfelt effort and I was certainly saddened when Tan Sri Harun, a fearless champion of justice, passed away on 30 September 2003.