The Angkatan Amanah Merdeka (Amanah) president, who is affectionately known as Ku Li, said those from Peninsular Malaysia had no intention to purposely belittle or brush aside the issues brought up by the people from the two states in regard to their rights.
However, they lack the knowledge and understanding of historical facts that could enable them to grasp the significance of the issues being raised to Sabah and Sarawak, particularly the 20 Points and the 18 Points.
“From my observation, I think it is not too much to say that most of the people from the middle age group in Sabah and Sarawak do not know much about the formation of Malaysia, let alone the same age group in Semenanjung Malaysia,” he said when delivering his keynote address for the Roundtable Forum on ‘Malaysia and the Non-Fulfillment of the 20-Point Agreement with Sabah’, here, yesterday.
Razaleigh reasoned that information on the formation of Malaysia in the public domain were either insufficient or none existent at all.
This absence of information and the consequent ignorance and misconceptions, he said, has caused a lot of tension between Malaysians on the opposite sides of the South China Sea.
Razaleigh, who in May presented a talk on the same topic for the Royal Asiatic Society in Kuala Lumpur, said there had been many complaints voiced out by the people and leaders from Sabah and Sarawak on the issue but they were never taken seriously.
He regretted that the continuing outcry from Sabah and Sarawak on the matter over the years had not encouraged many people to find out and learn about the widely forgotten historical facts despite the availability of the Internet that has made accessing such information much easier.
Among the common misconceptions that irked east Malaysians the most, he noted, was the inaccurate labeling of Sabah and Sarawak as just another two states with the same state status like the 11 member states of Malaya.
Even more saddening, the lack of knowledge was not limited to the people on the ground but also very common among leaders and those with political influences in Peninsular Malaysia, he said.
“Certainly, this misconception is not on purpose but due to poor knowledge. I am confident that this misunderstanding (between east and west Malaysia) is not due to any ill intention or misgivings,” he said.
Razaleigh said Sabah and Sarawak had been voicing their dissatisfaction since the early 80s but the issue was never discussed in official forums and remained a ticking time bomb that could explode and cause chaos at any time.
The current Parliament, like the previous ones, has also seen the 20-Point Agreement being brought up by representatives from Sabah but the issue was not given priority nor debated.
He stressed that the issue must be addressed and all the misconceptions be corrected before they become a much more serious issue that could put the nation’s stability in jeopardy.
He suggested accurate and clear information on the formation of Malaysia, including the role and special rights of Sabah and Sarawak, should be made available and easier to access, by incorporating them into the school curriculum.
“We need to explain that 31 August is not significant to Sabah and Sarawak, no matter how grandeur the celebration. It is only a date when Malaya gained its independence.
“Sept 16, or Hari Malaysia on the other hand, is much more important and should be celebrated as one of the important dates in Malaysia’s history.
“I must also say that even though the 20-Points and 18-Points have been incorporated into the Constitution, it is not befitting to say that these two agreements no longer exist or relevant,” he said.
He noted both documents were supposed to be reviewed 10 years after the formation of Malaysia and a special committee was set up in 1973 to review the Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC) Agreement.
However other pressing matters at that moment prevented the committee from completing the task, and the review was further delayed and eventually forgotten after Tun Dr Ismail, the chairman of the committee, died in 1973 followed by the passing of the then Prime Minister Tun Razak in 1976.
“Tun Razak had a noble intention of preserving the good relationship between Malaya and Sabah/Sarawak, but this goodwill was put on hold due to pressing matters at the time.
Perhaps, the review can be reconsidered in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of Malaysia this year,” he said.
IT must be just happy coincidence that as Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was talking about the state-federal partnership during Malaysia Day celebrations in Bintulu, the same theme of partnership was bandied about in Kuching by the opposition.
ReplyDeleteThe prime minister was expounding on partnership as a fact over the last 49 years since the Malaysia Agreement was inked. The Malaysia Agreement was forged on the basis of a federal arrangement whereby the state and federal governments each has a clearly defined set of responsibilities, with certain overlapping responsibilities coming under a concurrent list.
ReplyDeleteThe Agreement was freely entered into by the expanded nation's founding fathers. It has withstood the test of time, despite some clamour by some quarters from time to time for a vaguely defined "review" of points in the Agreement.
ReplyDeleteAny call for a "review" may suggest some unhappiness over the terms of the Agreement but unless it is clearly spelt out if any dissatisfaction actually arises out of some breach or contravention of the Agreement and any attempts at seeking redress having been tried and found wanting, any "review" is at best premature.
ReplyDeleteWhatever dissatisfaction there may be over the so-called 20 points of the Malaysia Agreement in the case of Sabah and 18 points in Sarawak's case has not really amounted to any solid basis for a legal challenge over any breach or contravention of the Agreement so far.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, Sarawak has recently just got another reaffirmation of the state's rights when a legal challenge to its barring of a citizen from Peninsular Malaysia from entering the state filed in a court in the peninsula was thrown out for lack of competent jurisdiction by the said court.
ReplyDeleteAnother persistent matter of contention in Sabah and Sarawak has been over the five per cent petroleum royalty that each state receives from Petronas. Again, it must be recalled that the five per cent quantum was something freely and readily agreed to between Sarawak and the Federal Government after extensive negotiations. The Sabah government quickly followed in signing a similar agreement thereafter.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone should find fault with these particular agreements now, any blame must fall at least equally between the Federal Government and either state government unless it can be shown that the state or federal authorities then put pressure to bear on the other party to sign a pre-drafted agreement.
ReplyDeleteThe first recourse for anyone in either state must be to hold the state government to account and justify the basis for signing the agreement. Partnership, after all, must be a two-way street if it is to mean anything at all.
DeleteIndeed, the record thus far would suggest that the Federal Government has usually bent over backwards to accommodate the expectations and demands of the people in both Sabah and Sarawak. Najib brought up the concrete examples of how he readily approved the setting up of a university each in Kuching and Miri while education minister and now a university for Sibu has also been approved. All these universities had been state initiatives.
ReplyDeleteYet another loaded accusation has been a complaint that the autonomy enjoyed by both Sabah and Sarawak has somehow been eroded over time. General ignorance may be more at fault here, such as when even senior state officials mistakenly assume Islam to be the official religion for the entire country when constitutional provisions excluding Sabah and Sarawak from having any official religion remain in place.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the imperative of national integration will naturally have taken its course after almost half a century of Malaysia. This is largely for the greater good of the nation as a whole. But admittedly there will be some areas where the people in both Sabah and Sarawak quite firmly believe importing certain norms from the peninsula is unhealthy. Increasingly, even people in the peninsula realise as much and are actually advocating importing Sabah and Sarawak norms over to the peninsula.
ReplyDeleteIt is therefore somewhat mystifying that instead of re-affirming and seeking to strengthen the provisions of the Malaysia Agreement, the opposition sees fit to draw up its so-called "Kuching Declaration" committing the opposition parties to some ill-defined "equal partnership" agreement between state and federal governments and promising that it is a legally-binding document that will stand up in court should a future opposition-led Federal Government not live up to its provisions.
ReplyDeleteWill someone enlighten us as to what precisely may be wrong with the Malaysia Agreement to warrant an "alternative" agreement now and why, if indeed the original Agreement has its shortcomings, nobody bothered to legally test those shortcomings and the few who actually did find fault find that they themselves come up short?
ReplyDeleteLet us see
ReplyDeleteNah tugas kamurang la kasi sedar drg tu
ReplyDeleteSo they need to be educated la
ReplyDeleteAfter all this while then they make noise?
ReplyDeleteStop making accusations
ReplyDelete