Re: Sabah, Sarawak could have ended up Indonesian

On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:49:13 +0800, Jojong <jojon@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

uncle yap always wish he could rewrite history..

Sometimes I wonder whether our education system has gone so rotten
that our (meaning Malaysian) knowledge of English has gone to the
dogs. Writers after writers have not addressed what I wrote about.
They did not think before they write; they just felt and then tried to
hantam me.

I wrote to Malaysiakini to try and stop this annual whining among East
Malaysians about the date of independence and nationhood. The
operative phrase I use throughout my dissertation was
"Substance over form"

Yes, the form of the merger of certain British territories in the Far
East was like what many thought was a negotiation between equals.
Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

Singapore was a desperado case where LKY's PAP was in danger of being
wiped out. Internal split plus two consecutive losses in bye-elections
in Hong Lim and Anson (won by Ong Eng Guan and David Marshall) saw LKY
practically begging Tunku to come to his rescue. The Tunku May 1961
speech at the Press Club in Singapore was actually a British-inspired
thingee and LKY grasped tightly and said "Hallelujah!"

LKY's Singapore, a British Crown Colony an equal? Come off it!
Tunku was arm-twisted to take Singapore under its wings; otherwise the
Communist forces were just too great for LKY and the PAP to handle

North Borneo and Sarawak, the British colonies whose national anthem
was "God Save the Queen" as an equal to the Federation of Malaya.
Come on, what are you smoking?

But the British had their ways. They arm-twisted Tunku and his
Alliance to "take over" the 3 other British colonies on the promises
of military protection. The British were astute people who thus
ensured that their commercial possessions (like all the big plantation
groups, the large tin minesand ) were vested in friendly hands.
(Brunei is yet another subject which I will omit so as not to make
this subject even more convoluted)

So Tunku cho-hay (Chinese for play-act) for the face of the North
Borneons and Sarawakians and today, the latter-day people are so
gullible and simple-minded as to believe that their leaders then were
negotiating as equals. Come on. Stop smoking whatever you are smoking
and face the substance of the truth. How can the leaders of colonial
possessions be treated as equals to the Prime Minister of an
independent nation and member of the United Nations?

And the thingee with the dates. You all must be sleeping. All the
necessary legislations in the British House of Commons, the Malaysan
Parliament, the Singapore Legislative Assembly, the North Borneo and
Sarawak whatever were worded so as to effect Malaysia co-terminusly
on 31st August 1963. Soekarno's strident charges of "neo-colonialism"
had to be answered and U Thant (then the UNO Secretary-General) had
sent a task force to "ascertain the wishes of the people of North
Borneo and Sarawak" (Singapore people having made their intentions
clear through a referendum).

Alas, they could not get their work done in time and the whole shebang
had to be postponed to 16 September 1963. A well-meant move to ensure
we all celebrate national day on 31st August went awry and astray and
certain people in Sabah and Sarawak use this to bolster their
desperate position that North Borneo ans Sarawak negotiated with the
Federation of Malaya as independent states and equals.
Carry on, take another puff of whatever you are smoking

Singapore, North Borneo and Sarawak were British colonies rescued from
imperialism by Tunku (so please give thanks to him as a liberator) and
each of the three was absorbed as additional states to the eleven
already in place as the Federation of Malaya.

Anyone who still sees otherwise, carry on smoking whatever you are
smoking and delude yourself

.

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