Writing a post on September 16th and its significance has been an annual fixture for the past four years since I started this blog back in year 2007 and this post will be the fifth. Just before we start:
Selamat Menyambut Ulangtahun Pembentukan Persekutuan Malaysia yang ke-48.
Marilah kita menghayati semula erti persaudaraan demi kesejahteraan dan kemakmuran sejagat.
Enough with the pleasantries and self-congratulatory fist-pump. Let's us take step back and observe everything that's happening in our recent reality. The meaning of the word "history" has taken a rather contentious angle for last few weeks ranging from Mat Sabu (PAS Veep)-is-a-Commie-bastard controversy (complete with former servicemen and NGOs and BN government jumping at him for glorifying the Commies in Bukit Kepong incident while PR peeps going all out denial saying that the media has misconstrued his speech and what not. Fact: The commies does play a part in fighting colonialist whether it's the Japs or the Brits. The thing that's wrong with them: armed struggle, sabotage and guerrilla war. Their initial goal/motivation is right but their execution is wrong and just by that, the history has cast them as evil.) to the notion postulated by certain historian that the Malay States (those with their own monarch) have been "independent" (emphasis on the loose meaning of independence) for the past few centuries because they were not abolished by the successive colonialist government (Apparently simply existing can be deemed as independent or tidak pernah ditakluk while everything else such as administration and economic development is all under British Colonial Office. Oh, remember Malacca Sultanate when the Portuguese galleon came? The meaning of "independence" might be a bit of stretch when one is a protectorate.). And to think while all these reinterpretation of history and what not rages on over mainstream media (in particular Peninsularites), the year 2011 is only the second year September 16 has given its due recognition as Malaysia Day on federal level as a mandated public holiday and this first time the bigger celebration falls on September 16 instead of the usual 31 August (whether it's just mere convenience since 31 August 2011 falls on 2nd day of Raya or an actual move to redress the 47 years of discontent of Malaysian Bornean.).
This year's Malaysia Day + Merdeka Day Celebration is notable not just because of the promise of sweeping reform declared by the PM in his annual speech (which includes repealing ISA and replace it with two new laws that it's more relevant to present situation. He can promise as much as he wants though but he still need to go through the Home Ministry and the MPs in the parliament.) but as well as how muted it was in recent years whether it's because of the economic downturn or a matter of general apathy. (it's holiday? Time for rest.) Behind all the flag-waving and pomps however, there's one question that has been lingering in certain section of Sabahan and Sarawakian's mind for the longest time:
After 48 years, has Sabah and Sarawak got themselves a fair deal in the formation of Malaysia?
On first glance, it seems like Sabah and Sarawak get themselves a fair deal from the formation of Malaysia. The 20/18 Points Agreement has laid a ground work for the formation of Malaysia under the basis of asymmetric federalism with certain exclusive rights reserved to Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore (the original parties of the negotiations in the formation of Malaysia) when compared to the equal entities within Federation of Malaya. In other word, the Malaysia Agreement is reached by four parties of equal standing, namely Federation of Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak. Some of the vestiges of Malaysia Agreement still remain til this day: Malaysian citizen outside of Sabah and Sarawak still have to go through immigration checkpoint at major entry point such as airport in Sabah and Sarawak, they can only remain in Sabah and Sarawak for three months and anything longer (for students and private sector employee. Not sure about civil servants in federal department and agencies though.) have to obtain a permit or risk expulsion. All this hurdles for other citizen of Malaysia while there's no such
limitation for Malaysian Bornean when we are at Peninsula (or Malaya, as
we called it). Sabahan and Sarawakian executive are known as cabinet and their title are termed Ministers instead of SUKN for the states over Malaya. Sabahan and Sarawakian have more remits of power in the state list. All these provisions are embodied in the Constitution of Malaysia 1963 so Sabahan and Sarawakian should feel all well and merry, right?
On the contrary, things turned sour almost immediately after 1963. Singapore was unceremoniously ejected from the Federation of Malaysia in 1965 after protracted political conflict, Stephen Kalong Ningkan, the first CM of Sarawak was unceremoniously removed by the Governor due to motion of no-confidence in which the federal government immediately declared emergency in 1966, May 13 Incident over Malaya which saw the government declaring state of emergency immediately after a hotly contested 1969 GE and last but not least, Double Six Tragedy which saw the top leaders of Sabah dies in one place crash of dubious circumstances and tenuous time. Tenuous time indeed in 1974 because that's the year Petroleum Development Act of 1974 were enacted which saw Sabah and Sarawak (& Terengganu) to cede all petroleum exploration and production right to the Federal Government in exchange of measly 5% royalty from the petroleum production. Meanwhile, the constitution has been amended in such frequency which saw the special provisions to Sabah and Sarawak has been stripped bit by bit until the vastly watered down version that we are in today. All those initial fanfare about our new found sovereignty within Federation of Malaysia has been quickly overshadowed by conflicts and subjugation. After all, Sabah and Sarawak were included in the grand scheme of thing because of the post-war international geopolitics narrative of decolonisation with a tinge of red i.e. Cold War and Iron Curtain which only the end of it in 1990 (for Sarawak). In fact, the formation of Malaysia as mooted by Tunku carries a racialist undertone (go check your Form 4/5 Sejarah textbook. It's explicitly said so.) as well that is to even up the ratio between Malay and the migrants population in Peninsula Malaysia and Singapore by incorporating the concept of Bumiputera to indigenous population in Sabah and Sarawak without much consideration of the diversity and complicity of the concept of race over Malaysian Bornean side which causes much grievance as time moves along. Was Malaysia a shattered dream and broken promises for Sabah and Sarawak? It's all history now I supposed.
Anyone who knows me personally enough to talk about serious topic such as politics and ideology will know that I am a Regionalist-Sovereigntist (for the purpose of discussion, it will mostly centered on Sarawak but it's applicable to Sabah too but maybe with different context/example) and I believe there's a latent undercurrent (though not that mainstream yet) among the people of Sarawak. There are various justification held by Sarawakian regionalist whether it's because geography (South China Sea), of divergent history, the plurality of the people that's incompatible with the federal racialist relation narrative (the so-called Malay Chinese Indian), the encroachment of our sovereignty as promised in the 18/20 Points Agreement, the vast disparity in distribution of wealth (with the 5% Petroleum royalty taking center stage), the resentment toward the perceived arrogance of the Westies or a combination of everything. As much as I hope that my Fair Land Sarawak will achieve its sovereignty within my lifetime and the right of self-determination is definitely recognised within UN Charter, it seems that secession from one nation to form own sovereign nation especially in peace time today is unfortunately remote. (Case in point: The newest sovereign nation on earth, South Sudan achieved its independence this year by seceding from Sudan ONLY after protracted civil warswhich causes millions of death and millions more as refugees and total deterioration of security and infrastructure.). Do note however that even though armed struggle is definitely ONE of the possible path one could take, it's by doubt the costliest and dangerous way with high risk of failure. Diplomacy exist in international geopolitic to ensure agreement through negotiation thus achieving constructive and certain outcome which benefits all. Thus, any movement to improve sovereignty in Sarawak has to be done by diplomacy and diplomacy alone.
Another issue worthy of concern for me is that there are people within regionalist side that has taken a fairly dim, parochial view that every single woes that Sarawakian is facing right now has to be blamed on Westies (especially federal Barisan Nasional though same sentiment exist for federal Pakatan Rakyat too) while fact remains throughout the history of Sarawak in Malaysia, it is our own local political leaders (the most prominent one included) that repeatedly sold us out to the federal government by colluding with their western counterpart in order to protect their own personal interest. The continuous collusion is evident in both sides of the political fold with Sarawak Barisan Nasional remains mum on various grievance despite the fact that all parties in Sarawak BN is organizationally independent and local all in the name of "solidarity of BN" while Sarawak Pakatan Rakyat is still organizationally disparate and incoherent with perpetual string-tugging from their respective federal puppetmeisters. Both BN and PR seems to be comfortable with the currently diminishing arrangement and didn't pursue the issue of sovereignty rigorously and thoroughly enough. Instead, they spent most of their time engaging in mud-slinging, name calling, shouting and lawsuits which does nothing except driving people away from engaging healthily in politic. In fact, I would say it frankly that both BN and PR are colluding with each other too, thriving in the technical irregularities of first past the post voting system to ensure that it will be them and only them that remain in the political arena and any parties (including any possible party to advocate exclusively on our sovereignty) will be pushed to the margin and doomed of irrelevance.
Going back to the point of "blame west" mentalities, we would still have to deal with them Westies even after we actually achieve independence (if we ever actually did in the far future) simply because we were partner before and within the same region of geopolitics. There are hundreds and thousands of our brethren over Peninsula and theirs over our side not to mention asset, pending debts and wealth redistribution between both sides (especially the petroleum now that Petronas is holding various Petroleum reserves). Any breakdown of negotiation between our government and the federal government might not be helpful in ensuring peaceful transfer of sovereignty. Remember, we judged them as much as they judged us and only a healthy, proactive and constructive engagement (but of course has to be more rigourous than what we had now) between the state government and federal government can ensure the right of our people to be maintained. In pursuit of petroleum royalty issues, we will have to work with Terengganu, one of the party in the original PDA in order to form a coherent stand with regards to petroleum royalty negotiation or risk of being considered as selfish. Furthermore with regards of reaffirming or even expanding the remits of power within the state list and shared list of power, we will have to deal with every other state government within the federation with the only goal deemed reasonable (for us and for them) is when every states in the federation have their remits of power expanded to form a looser, decentralised federation. Federal-State relation will be tense as evident by the failure of Charlottetown Accord in Canada with regards to their provincial-federal government relation. (By the way, Quebec Sovereignty Movement one of the major inspiration for me and even then, Quebec is still in Canada. Spanish model specifically for Catalonia and Basque Community too is a good example.)
Last but not least, any prospective sovereignty movement in Sarawak should avoid taking an overt racialist focus. I believe we can clearly see how incompatible the racialist-nationalist narrative of Malaysia for the diversity of Sarawak and definitely there's no need to for us to use the exact same racialist undertone when we strive for our own independence. In order to be relevant, any prospective sovereignty movement should be able to reach as much base support as possible regardless of urban/rural divide or education level. Most importantly of all, any ideals carried by the prospective sovereignty movement has be to be able to resonated among massed and any racialist undertone will undermine our cause and could be thrown into further jeopardy by being cast as ethnocentric by any section opposing our sovereignty movement.
Overall, my assessment might sound pessimistic on first glance but I believe these are the issues that are pertinent to any prospective sovereignty movement in Sarawak (by extension, Sabah too) that has to be answered before we can see our movement as relevant to the our people's interest. Not all hope is lost though as I believe there are rooms for discussion and expansion of sovereignty within the mainstream political narrative in Malaysia. The thing that we should think of right now is how to push the Sovereignty Question into the limelight and touched the latent desire of sovereignty within our psyche to become more active in pursuit. Perhaps we can start from pressing our local MPs and ADUNs more rigorously about the sovereignty questions and actions that should be taken to redress any injustice that we experienced for the past 48 years. Perhaps we can remind them about their current balance in power for effective collective bargaining. Get yourself registered as a voter (Do it at POST OFFICE. Just bring your IC) and made your decision through the ballot box. Actively engage in healthy debate while equipping self with more knowledge to ensure the clarity and certainty of our movement. We might not achieve the ultimate goal of independence in next two years (50 years for Malaysia) and probably not even within next 20 to 50 years but at least we've to make the possibility of our own sovereign nation more CERTAIN instead being a remote pipe dream. Encroachment of our sovereignty should no go further and any changes should be moving outward, towards greater sovereignty within Malaysia before we can actually reach the ultimate goal. It's a high time to reexamine our position within the federation, put the sovereignty question in centerfold and from there, resolve whatever issues raised with matured, constructive diplomacy. Passion sparks and burns but only pragmatism, a value that tend to be underrated in emotionally charge world today, can bring us to achieve our goal continuously, persistently, constructively and meaningfully. I believe Sarawak can do it, I believe Malaysia can do it too.
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| Dum Spiro Spero, While I breath I hope, Haraplah Selagi Bernafas, Agi Idup Agi Ngelaban |
Epilogue: Years of thoughts and ideas all poured out in one post after typing and thinking for six hours. My brain hurts and my back hurts. I think I will keep the discussion of any future arrangement for Sarawak in terms of nationhood and administration ideal and what not for future post. Maybe next year same day again or a few more years down the line. Let us all hope for that day to come. Meanwhile, I shall retreat back to usual boring postgrads self and I will occasionally spam food pic and rant post about how slow my progress is in future posts. Thoughtful post like this are hard to come by especially when my motivation seems to ebb most of the time and procrastination keeps me away for engaging deep thought. That explains my slow progress in research too. Tata now. Watch out for more post in the future!
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