Historic moment:Sabah's first Governor Tun Mustapha Datu Harun taking his oath of office on Sept 16, 1963
The idea of Malaysia came to fruition in 1963 as a culmination of
the combined forces of decolonisation and expanding South-East Asian
nationalisms.
THE famous announcement on May 27, 1961
by Tunku Abdul Rahman, then the Prime Minister of the Federation of
Malaya, calling for forging closer political and economic cooperation
between Malaya, Singapore, North Borneo, Brunei and Sarawak, is
generally taken as the starting point for the formation of Malaysia on
Sept 16, 1963. The roots of the Malaysia scheme, however, go further
back in time and were embedded in British plans hatched in 1942 for the
decolonisation of South-East Asia in the post-Second World War period.
In fact, such an idea was first suggested in 1893 by Lord Brassey,
director of the British North Borneo Company, who proposed the
amalgamation of all British possessions in South-East Asia into “one
large colony”. Brassey’s proposal, however, did not find favour with the
British Government.
The outbreak of the Second World War and
the subsequent capture of all British colonial possessions in South-East
Asia by the Japanese changed everything. The British felt humiliated
and partly laid the blame for their defeat on the disunited nature of
their territorial possessions in South-East Asia which made it difficult
to organise a coordinated defence.
In 1942, the Colonial Office
led by its Eastern Department headed by G. Edward Gent began to lay
plans for a more coordinated post-war policy in South-East Asia. This
policy was founded on two principles: preparing dependent territories
for the goal of self-rule, and integrating smaller units into larger
political blocs.
The justification given for the second
objective was administrative efficiency, economic development, political
stability and defence viability. Anchoring their policy on these two
principles, the Colonial Office laid plans for a “Grand Design” in
South-East Asia after the Second World War. This called for the creation
of a “union”, a “federation”; a “confederation” or a “dominion” of all
British territories in the Malayan-Borneo region.
This large
union or federation was to include the Malay states, Straits
Settlements, North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei. This “Grand Design”,
which may be appropriately named the “Colonial Malaysia Scheme”, was to
be achieved gradually and in stages beginning with political integration
in two separate blocs, that is, between Malaya and Singapore on the one
hand, and between the Borneo territories on the other.
Confirming this line of action, J. D. Higham of the Colonial Office
minuted on Jan 20, 1953 as follows: “Our original idea was that Malaya
and Singapore would form one bloc and Sarawak, North Borneo and Brunei,
another, and that the two blocs might then merge into some sort of
confederation.”
From 1946 to 1949, and even later, the British
Government wished to push ahead with the process of integration within
the two blocs, but political, strategic and economic exigencies and
contingencies on the ground, such as the importance of maintaining
Singapore as a naval base, the desire to push the Malayan Union
proposals in Malaya, managing the Anti-Cession movement in Sarawak, and
the wide gap in the political, economic and social development between
the Malayan and Borneo territories, hindered all attempts to bring about
any union within these blocs.
Seeing that integration in two
separate blocs was not working, the British Government revived the
“Grand Design” or the “Colonial Malaysia Scheme” idea in 1949.
Towards this end, the British Government created the post of the British
Commissioner-General for South-East Asia to act as a coordinating body
in the region. The man chosen for the job was Malcolm MacDonald.
Although he tried very hard, MacDonald achieved little success from
1949 to 1951, however. In 1951, he began to introduce new innovations,
the most important being the setting up of branches of the Commonwealth
Parliamentary Association (CPA) in the British territories in the
Malayan-Borneo region.
By this move, MacDonald was able to
foster much regional solidarity and goodwill among the local leaders
through the mechanism of CPA meetings. In light of strong support
especially from non-officials for a wider regional integration,
MacDonald began to push vigorously for the realisation of the “Grand
Design” or a British Dominion of South-East Asia in 1952.
Independence and
expansion
But the Commissioner-General’s exuberance was
short-lived. By the early months of 1953, support for the Grand Design
or Colonial Malaysia began to dissipate mainly as a result of
uncompromising attitudes of British colonial officials in Malaya and
Singapore. Ongoing animosity between top British administrators of these
two states forced the Colonial Office to abandon the idea of forming an
overall British Dominion of South-East Asia in favour of the pre-1951
formula of encouraging the formation of separate political blocs.
While the Colonial Office concentrated its efforts in improving
relations between Malaya and Singapore, a strong initiative commenced in
the Borneo region in 1953 to promote greater administrative
coordination between North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei with a view of
their “ultimate federation”.
Political developments in Malaya
also began to take fundamental decision-making out of the hands of the
colonial masters. The formation of the Alliance Party comprising Umno,
MCA and MIC in 1954 and its resounding victory in the 1955 elections to
the Federal Council effectively placed Malayan leaders in charge of
their destiny.
Under the dynamic leadership of Tunku, Umno and
the Alliance, Malaya thus began to move towards independence at a pace
far ahead of the British “time-table”. In this context, the views of
Tunku and Umno concerning the Malaya-Singapore merger and the wider
Colonial Malaysia Scheme became decisive.
Although there grew a
strong body of opinion in Singapore in 1954 and 1955 advocating merger
with the Federation of Malaya, Tunku and Umno strongly opposed such a
union. They feared being outnumbered by the addition of over a million
Chinese; that the Malays would lose political dominance; and that
Malaya’s security would be seriously threatened. The British, taking
stock of the situation, could not countenance merger in the face of
Umno’s rejection.
As far as the Colonial Malaysia Scheme was
concerned, Tunku in fact lent support to the idea in 1955 and 1956, but
the format was to be “Greater Malaya”, which was to be established in
the future after Singapore, Sarawak, Brunei and North Borneo had
achieved independence.
In 1956, Tunku was more concerned in
winning independence for Malaya in a hurry and did not want any scheme
of merger or territorial expansion to derail this supreme objective.
“At this stage,” he declared in 1956, “it is wise to be prudent like
Kamal Ataturk who resolutely opposed territorial expansion in favour of
improving Turkey itself first. Thus, when Malaya achieved independence
in 1957 ahead of the colonial “time-table” and ahead of Singapore, the
British Grand Design was rendered untenable and therefore remained
unfulfilled.
But the idea of Malaysia remained alive both in the
minds of the British and Tunku, and finally came to fruition in 1963 as
a culmination of the combined forces of decolonisation and expanding
South-East Asian nationalisms.
Tunku’s Malaysia
After achieving independence for Malaya in 1957, Tunku Abdul Rahman
again broached the subject of forming Malaysia on May 27, 1961. His
motivation were, however, slightly different than those of the British.
One was to help complete the unfinished British Grand Design of
decolonisation, which had been derailed as a result of Malaya’s
unexpected independence. When this Grand Design had to be aborted in
1957, Britain began to face an intractable dilemma of finding a workable
solution for decolonising the rest of her colonial possessions in the
region.
The British found it unfeasible to grant independence
separately to Singapore, North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei as they were
too small or too weak politically, economically and in security terms to
survive alone. They were also extremely vulnerable to the forces of
expanding communism, a situation the British colonial masters wished to
avoid for the preservation of their own interests in the region.
In Borneo, the British tried to find a workable solution by fostering
the formation of a North Borneo Federation from 1957 to 1960. This
attempt failed miserably due to the opposition of the Sultan of Brunei,
the rise of Party Rakyat Brunei which wanted to establish Negara
Kalimantan Utara linked to Indonesia, and the rising tide of communism
in Sarawak spearheaded by the Sarawak Communist Clandestine
Organisation.
The Singapore problem became even more alarming with the stark possibility of a communist takeover of the government in 1961.
In these dire circumstances, the British began to look to Malaya and
Tunku Abdul Rahman, who was quite ready to do the job for them but had
another motive as well for the creation of Malaysia. This second
orientation was the desire for territorial expansion, an impulse very
much consistent with the phenomenon of expanding nationalisms at the
time especially in insular South-East Asia.
Paradoxically, the
rise of nationalism in the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei and the
Federation of Malaya also produced a desire among the leaders of these
countries for territorial expansion in the region for various reasons.
In the Philippines, the main architect of this nationalist expansion
was Diosdado Macapagal who, since the country’s independence in 1946,
began to advocate the extension of Philippine jurisdiction on all former
Spanish possessions including the Turtle Islands and North Borneo.
Sukarno in Indonesia, wanting to resurrect the Majapahit Empire, laid
claim to all former Dutch colonies in the region, including West New
Guinea (West Irian) which was not handed over by the Dutch to the
Indonesian Republic in 1949. Indonesia also had designs over British
Borneo, over which it was casting “covetous eyes” as early as 1953.
Tunku’s Malaysia Scheme also smacked of expansionist aims. He basically
wanted North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei as part of Greater Malaya and
was willing to bring in Singapore only if the British Borneo territories
were brought in first. In Brunei, Party Rakyat Brunei led by A. M.
Azahari was seriously advocating the revival of the former Brunei Empire
in the form of Negara Kalimantan Utara from 1956 to 1962.
These
expanding nationalisms overlapped in the territorial milieu and
produced a period of intense conflict. The concepts of Greater Malaya,
Greater Brunei, Greater Indonesia and Greater Philippines were totally
irreconcilable and were bound to produce political turmoil in the
region.
There was in fact also strong opposition initially from
the peoples of British Borneo against Tunku’s Greater Malaya. A great
deal of diplomacy and safeguards were necessary to gain their support,
and even then Brunei stayed out.
Sabah and Sarawak indeed claim they did not join Malaysia, but formed Malaysia as equal partners with Malaya and Singapore.
Contributed by By Prof Dr D.S. Ranjit Singh
>
The
writer is Visiting Professor at the College of Law, Government and
International Studies, Universiti Utara Malaysia (ranjit@uum.edu.my
