IN early April this year, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyddin Yassin was in Kuching.
Before he left for the capital, he had declared that from then on, Sarawak was to be known as a ‘region’.
I gave it a few days before asking members of my chat-group (CG) for their individual take of that declaration. This was followed by a cursory survey of opinions among certain vociferous politicians in Kuching, Sibu and Miri.
Coming as it did from the top politician of the country, the PM’s statement must have carried a lot of weight. Perhaps, there was a message that we ought to have noted well and responded to positively; perhaps, he was just letting ‘the cat among the pigeons’ and waiting for the Sarawakians – or Sabahans, for that matter – to take it seriously, or keep it in view.
The ball, as it were, would be in our court, not his.
A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since that April statement, yet there has been no further development of this proposal for the change of status.
To all intents and purposes, Sarawak is still a state. The status is still enshrined in the Federal Constitution and there has been no public announcement to amend the appropriate provisions of that Constitution to effect change – at least, not that I know of.
Differing opinions
The opinion survey that I undertook among the very limited number of political enthusiasts – some of them are ardent Sarawak nationalists – showed that they were in two or three minds.
A step forward?
One group of Sarawakians have jumped into conclusion: interpreting ‘region’ to mean ‘entity’; in this context, Sarawak would no longer be a state, they say. Not being in the same category as any other state such as Penang or Melaka or Perlis, you know!
A step forward, they believe.
They are sure that the Prime Minister, being the chairman of the Special Committee on Malaysia Agreement 1963, would – if he has not already done so – move that his ‘region’ be adopted at the next meeting of that committee.
When, when, and when? They can’t wait for the good news.
I was trying to figure out what this euphoria was all about, or what these people had been celebrating.
They’re talking about having achieved what they had been wanting to hear from someone in authority all this while. End of their search for the proper place for Sarawak in the Federation of Malaysia.
Are they being naive, I wonder?
The ‘diehards’
There was another group, the political veterans. They were more cautious – not the type who would grab and swallow a statement ‘hook line and sinker’.
Reading between the lines, they questioned the use of any terminology that had not been clearly defined.
They thought that the Cobbold Commission should have accepted the recommendation of the Malaysia Solidarity Consultative Committee (MSCC) dated Feb 3, 1962, to the effect that the proposed Federation would be a federation of five partners of equal standing – namely, the Federation of Malaya (one entity), the State of Singapore (another), Brunei, and the British colonies of Sarawak and North Borneo the others.
In fact, this was the type of Federation that would be suitable for Sarawak, they reasoned. The new nation called Malaysia was, in fact, envisaged by the MSCC, and was acceptable to the local Sarawak leaders meeting in Singapore in February 1962.
The MSCC had submitted a memorandum to this effect on Feb 23, 1962. Unfortunately, that proposal was rejected by the Cobbold Commission as being ‘non-representational in character’.
This was despite the appeal by the Malayan representatives to give the MSCC’s recommendations serious consideration as: “Most of the participants were leaders in their own right, either as leaders of political parties or as accepted heads of their respective communities.
“The fact that their membership of the State Legislatures and in some cases, also the Executive Council or the Supreme Council of the respective territories, reminded us that the Government concerned have placed high value in respect of their judgement and ability of their influence and leadership.”
There was no Sarawakian or Sabahan on that Commission!
After more than half a century, it’s a question of what had happened, not what should have happened. See what you can do to sort this out – you politicians and statesmen and stateswomen.
The ‘veterans’
A third group had a different perspective, those who would prefer ‘region’ to mean ‘partner’.
In other words, they would rejoice if Sarawak were to be enshrined in the Federal Constitution as a partner with ‘Tanah Melayu’ (Federation of Malaya) and ‘North Borneo’ (Sabah) – three partners of equal status.
‘Primus Inter Pares’ — nothing short of that.
They would keep on pressing for this recognition and would, no doubt, raise the issue during the next elections, at state or federal level, whichever comes first – whenever that happens.
Waiting for second coming
As everybody is busily involved in the war against Covid-19, I don’t expect the Special Committee on MA63 to release information about the progress of their talks any time soon.
I have the feeling that the PM would pay us a visit again during the election campaign period, when and if the state elections are held. That’s when the mass-media people would have the chance to seek clarifications from him as to what actually he had meant by ‘region’ with reference to Sarawak or Sabah.
Until then, the ordinary people would keep on speculating – on what decisions that the Special Committee on Malaysia Agreement 1963 has made so far, and what its final recommendations would be like, including the new status of Sarawak.
One thing is sure: whatever other status that would be given to Sarawak at the end of the day, it would not be categorised as a ‘wilayah’ of the same status as the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, or the Federal Territory of Putrajaya, or the Federal Territory of Labuan.
No way!