KOTA KINABALU: Sabahans were yesterday urged to rationally think whether or not it is wise to secede from Malaysia.
Former State Archive Department director Datuk Datu Tiga Belas Datu Zainal Abidin made the call when presenting his working paper entitled “Socio-Cultural Development of the Sabah Community: Research in the context of the Malaysia Cultural History Corpus” at the Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) Recital Hall yesterday.
He said that without Malaysia, Sabah might have already fallen into the hands of parties that have been claiming Sabah from this country.
“Imagine if there is no Malaysia, there will be no unity and we will not be joined together with the Federation of Malaya which was already at an advantage stage since it achieved independence first,” he said.
“Maybe we would have been taken over a long time ago,” he said during the Nation-building seminar 2015: Sabah Development in Malaysia Series 2/2015.
He said that at the moment when Sabah and Sarawak were joining in the formation of Malaysia, Indonesia which was practicing the communist ideology objected and wanted to seize Sabah and Sarawak using the Communist method and even established the North Kalimantan National Army.
He said that on Sept 29, 1963, Indonesia began attacking Sabah after Malaysia was formed. And recently, the Philippines staked its claim on Sabah until the rebel incident transpired in the Tanduo attack,” he said.
He reminded that they joined in the formation of the federation based on the policy of security, unity and for development.
“We need friends that are developing and we also need to accept the fact that we were lacking in terms of capacity and financial ability,” he said.
He also said that although history was fixed, the balance can be achieved through rationality and logic for the sake of unity, security, development and for the common good of all.
He warned that if the people of Sabah and Peninsular (Malaysia) including Sarawak want to continue looking for differences, we would not arrive at anywhere…”we need to find the similarities between us as Malaysians”.
He also added that “we need to continue nurturing and taking care of Malaysia. And personally, I do not agree if Sabah secedes from Malaysia,” he said.