10 ways to really help bumis

10 ways to really help bumis

P Gunasegaram
Malaysiakini
Sep 20, 2013
 
QUESTION TIME The recent RM30 billion package (although I am not sure how it works out to that) for bumiputera economic empowerment is certainly not something that will help or have any kind of impact on the vast majority of bumiputeras who form 67 percent of the population.

Just think of that figure for a moment. Nearly seven out of ten people in the country are bumiputeras. Help everyone in the country who needs it and you help the bumiputera community the most. More on that later.
Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s plans to economically empower bumiputeras will not help the ordinary bumiputera because he is not the one who owns shares, or will become a major entrepreneur, or live off government contracts. That affects only the rich bumiputeras.

Realistically, the economic empowerment programme is a thinly disguised ruse to help those who continue to live off the government through patronage and corruption. And in this case this is the Umno elite and many of them are likely to be among the 150,000 delegates who will vote in Umno’s forthcoming general assembly.
It’s another form of vote buying.

So what will help ALL bumiputeras and especially those who are in the poor and middle classes and thereby help bridge the income gap between bumiputeras on the one side and Chinese and Indians on the other?
For that, you simply go back to the basics. Here are are 10 things we can identify immediately. If the government had been doing this without respite and full sincerity for the last 56 years from independence we would long ago have become a developed a country, even far surpassing that of our southern neighbour Singapore which has no natural resources to speak of.

1. Raise school education levels
In the haste to increase Malay usage and hire more Malay teachers into the education system after 1970, educational quality dropped in national schools. Until today this is a major problem because of poor quality of teachers (entry standards were foolishly dropped) and lowering examination standards to favour bumiputera students.


It will require much more than the national education blueprint, a document laced with political considerations. Education has to be de-politicised, secularised and its syllabus reoriented to modern needs.
And this has to be done by true educationists, not nationalists who tend to be blinkered because of their political overzealousness and who think of education as brainwashing instead of a development process. Education needs to be taken out of the hands of politicians.

This is crucial for bumiputera development. If they don’t get good education right from the start – and that includes preschool – then they are going to be handicapped relative to the rest because most bumiputeras go to national schools. National schools must be at least as good as vernacular schools. That would also mean that non-Malays will start coming back to national schools.

Education is such an important thing to improve incomes that it covers several of our other points. No country has managed to improve and equalise incomes without a superb education system. Putting as much resources as possible into this is vital.

2. Revamp higher education
The entire education system must be revamped to put meritocracy and higher educational standards in place. If bumiputera students lack minimum standards, you must enable them to reach those standards through tuition and other means and not drop minimum standards. Only then will bumiputera students take the trouble to be on par.

Genetic studies have shown beyond doubt that no race is superior in terms of intelligence which implies that attitude and environment is all important.

There is really no point in government universities churning out graduates in the thousands if they don’t have the basic skills to be employable.

3. Don’t compromise on education quality and standards
In education as in life, one cannot aim for equalisation of outcomes – you can only hope to equalise opportunities. Then it is up to those given the opportunity to make use of it. If results are adjusted to sort of equalise the eventual outcome, inefficiency and incompetence will be the result.

If our programme of eradicating poverty and eliminating the identification of race with economic function – the original and oft-forgotten twin pillars of the New Economic Policy of 1971 – was premised on these methods, we would most likely have been able to bring about the change in attitude necessary to produce better outcomes. Instead spoon-feeding has needlessly lengthened dependence.

4. Empower bumiputeras with English
Sometime back, I witnessed the unhappy spectacle of a young, suave, urbane, Malay Oxford graduate defending the move by the government to revert to teaching of science and maths in English who swore blue that evidence is that teaching these subjects in the mother tongue made it easier for them to understand them. I told him that in his case – he was the son of a diplomat, I believe, and educated all over the world – it did not seem to have done him much harm.

That young man is Khairy Jamaluddin, son-in-law of former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and current Umno Youth chief. I just cannot understand the attitude of people who have benefited so much from the English language and yet who are so keen to deny this benefit to millions of others from their own race. Does being a politician blind them to what is good for their own race? Or is it something else that motivates them?

5. Cut corruption
If the government wants to reduce income gaps, then it must cut corruption, bring it down to virtually zero. Look where it got Singapore to. Just one illustration will be sufficient for this. Let’s say our chief ministers were corrupt. Then this land proposal comes up – one of them de-gazettes forest reserves, allocates the land to a developer and then approves the conversion for mixed development.

The chief minister, who may be bumiputera, will get, oh, let’s say anywhere between RM1 million and RM10 million. And the developer, most likely non-bumiputera, will make anywhere between a RM100 million and RM1 billion from the deal. A precious state resource is sold way below its value and the income gap between the bumiputera and non-bumiputera is considerably widened – because of corruption.

And to make it worse, this bumiputera chief minister may well go out on his political rounds and talk self righteously to rallies and such and rail against the wide gap between bumiputera and non-bumiputera incomes!

This is just by way of illustration of course, the point being corruption when analysed and tracked almost always increases income gaps..

6. Cut subsidies and import taxes
One of the myths is that the poor are helped considerably by subsidies on say fuel and electricity. That’s wrong because the poor don’t use much of this. The rich and industries use much more of this than the poor. The clear implication is that subsidies while helping the poor, help the rich much more.

What should be done in tandem with subsidy cuts is to cut or remove import taxes altogether so that the prices of goods come down and local industries (such as cars for instance) are not protected by tariffs which make their product prices higher. This is a policy which will help the poor but since probably more than 70 percent of them are likely to be bumiputera, they will be the prime beneficiaries.

7. Have open tenders
Contrary to popular belief negotiated tenders are not likely to benefit bumiputeras – instead they are likely to benefit connected bumiputeras through patronage. Best to have an open tender. If it is deemed necessary to give bumiputeras an advantage, then this can be done via a price differential, say 5 percent.

That does two things – one, bumiputera pricing is not way out of line with the others, and two it still does give a preference to bumiputeras but a quantified one.

8. Use all resources available
Any wise country will use all the resources available to it and not restrict it to a particular race. It is important to staff government departments on merit to ensure proper performance and to cast the net for recruitment as far and as wide as possible.

The rush and needless urgency to put more Malays into the education system ahead of time resulted in a huge and rapid decline in the quality of education as entry standards for teachers were lowered. This directly affected most the quality of national schools which most bumiputeras attended.

9. Raise government efficiency
There is one imperative for raising efficiency – those who are not efficient must be made efficient or removed altogether. Government departments cannot be made refuge for idlers and shirkers. They must earn their income and to do their part for the betterment of the nation – we can’t afford a subsidy mentality in government.

Once that is established, we must put in all effort needed to make our government services really top class and one that facilitates rather than hinders all legitimate private efforts to initiate economic and other activity.

10. Give loans, not grants
Najib’s bumiputera empowerment programme even envisages grants for entrepreneurs. That’s absolutely the wrong move which is sure to encourage abuse and breach of trust. Instead grant loans instead. That way only those confident of their projects will seek them. And the repayment of these loans will ensure that financing is available for future generations.

The same should be the case for scholarships. Limited number of merit scholarships are fine but it is pointless extending scholarships in the thousands indiscriminately. What is given free is seldom appreciated. Instead, these can be loans which will have to be repaid and which will then enable others to take advantage of opportunities in future.

These measures are not anywhere near rocket science and I trust most Malaysians will agree with them. But unless politicians eschew race politics and become really and genuinely interested in helping their communities, things are not likely to change.

I wish these politicians had the “scrotal gumption” (to borrow the words of retired judge Mahadev Shankar) to put aside politics and do the best for their own race. In the process, they can’t help but do well for all Malaysians too as all these 10 measures will help all of them no matter their race, religion, creed or social status.

With seven out of 10 people in the country being bumiputeras and perhaps more in the lower income category, Isn’t it about time we moved to a Malaysian agenda? Even if it is 56 years too late?

——————————————————————————–
P GUNASEGARAM is the founding editor of KiniBiz.

Source: http://www.malaysiakini.com/columns/241655
 

The world will laughs at us, says ex-top cop who negotiated 1989 peace treaty with Chin Peng

A former top cop has warned that Malaysia will be made a laughing stock if the government is adamant about its “naïve” decision to refuse to allow Chin Peng’s ashes to be brought back to be interred.

Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Mohd Noor, a former inspector-general of police, said this would also help turn the ex-communist leader into an icon and that it was a step backwards in the government’s attempts to win back Chinese support following the poor performance in the last general election.

“There is a hue and cry from the public not to even allow his ashes (back into Malaysia). My God... this is stretching the argument a bit too far. It’s a bit naive I think.

“If the government succumbs to this public pressure not to allow Chin Peng's ashes to be brought back, I think, we are making Malaysia a laughing stock to the whole world,” he said in an interview from the United Kingdom that aired on BFM yesterday.

Abdul Rahim, who was Special Branch director at that time, led the peace talks which culminated in the Haadyai Peace Treaty 1989. It officially ended the Communist Party of Malaya’s armed struggle against the government.

The refusal to allow Chin Peng into the country even when he was alive, he said, also made a mockery of the 1989 treaty.

He said he convinced the government at that time to engage with the communists in talks, more than 30 years after the failed 1955 Baling negotiations.

He said that even though the 12-year Emergency was lifted in 1960, security forces were still battling communist remnants in the 1980s, but the decline of communism in the region was an opportunity for renewed peace negotiations.

At that time, there were still around 2,000 communists along the Malaysian-Thai border, with the two largest groups being the North Malayan Bureau and the 10th Regiment, which largely comprised Malays, he said.

He said that with the backing of then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the Special Branch secretly initiated negotiations with the communists at the end of 1987 and early 1988 on Phuket Island over five rounds of talks.

As a result, the 1989 treaty was signed in Haadyai comprising two agreements, one containing the core terms and the other administrative details on how the terms would be implemented.

“I was involved in the drafting of both agreements, so I know full well that under the terms of the agreements, all the agreements applied are binding on every CPM member, from the highest topmost to the bottom.

“So if you say that Chin Peng, as secretary-general of the party (CPM) is the highest most member, then he qualifies to get all the privileges, advantages or whatever promises made in the agreement, which includes for him to be allowed to come back (to Malaysia),” Abdul Rahim said.

He said, according to the agreement, in the event these former communist members were not allowed to permanently return to Malaysia, they should be allowed to enter the country on social visits.

“But in the case of Chin Peng, he was not allowed both. To me, it’s absurd, totally absurd. It’s unfair, grossly unfair... There were other ex-communists who were allowed to come back and they were mainly Malays,” he said.

“Abdullah CD (CPM chairperson) was allowed to come back to Malaysia and was even given an audience with the current sultan of Perak. Rashid Maidin (CPM central committee member), I was told, performed his pilgrimage through KL with the help of the Malaysian authorities. What’s all this?”

He, however, was not prepared to presume that the government’s decision was along racial lines. As far as he was concerned, in Chin Peng’s case, the government had made a mockery of the peace agreement.

He said the public did not seem to understand the context of the international communist struggle and instead perceived the 40 years of communist insurrection in Malaya was Chin Peng’s fight alone and that he was the only one calling all the shots.

“I do not know why it should develop along this line (Chin Peng versus government). The fact is that good or bad - whatever Chin Peng was - the background is a peace treaty had been signed. We got to jolly well honour the terms and conditions,” he said.

Chin Peng spent a third of his life in exile in Thailand.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has said the country will not budge from its stand to prevent Chin Peng’s remains from being brought back, and challenged those unhappy with the decision to seek legal redress.

Checkpoints into the country were also on high alert to prevent his remains from being smuggled in.

Yesterday, Barisan National coalition party MCA said that Chin Peng's remains should be allowed to be brought back here for last rites.

The party's bureau chairman Datuk Heng Seai Kie, in explanation, pointed out that the remains of terrorists Dr Azahari Husin and Nordin Mohamad Top were allowed to be buried in Malaysia.

In response, Malay rights group Perkasa took MCA to task, warning the party not to “upset the Malays”.

Its secretary-general Syed Hassan Syed Ali said many Malays and Chinese had died at the hands of the communists.

Chin Peng, whose real name was Ong Boon Hua, died in a Bangkok hospital on Malaysia Day, a month short of his 89th birthday. He had repeatedly voiced his wish to be buried in his hometown of Sitiawan, Perak.

He fled to China in 1961 and later settled in Bangkok where he was granted an alien passport.

He reportedly moved to Haadyai in recent years and shuttled between Haadyai and Bangkok for cancer treatment.

He became secretary-general of the Communist Party of Malaya at the age of 23 and was Britain’s “enemy number one” in Southeast Asia at the height of the communist insurgency in Malaya. - September 21, 2013.

Chin Peng Deserves a Place in His Country

By Kee Thuan Chye

The pettiness of the Government has not been so clearly exposed as it is now over the issue of whether the former Communist leader Chin Peng’s ashes should be allowed into Malaysia to be buried in the land he loved and fought for. Even the police – who should have better things to look out for like the increasing incidences of crime – are putting out alerts to prevent the ashes from being brought back from Thailand, where he died. As if these ashes were lethal and could, by some preternatural means, maim the Malaysian populace.

The authorities still quibble over the trivia that Chin Peng was not Malaysian because he could not produce the necessary documents to prove he was so, but it seems more likely that they did not want to let him return, full stop.

He first applied, under the guarantees of the peace agreement, to resettle in Malaysia in 1990, but his application was rejected the following year. In 2004, he wrote to then prime minister Abdullah Badawi, but got no reply. That year, he received instead a letter from the Home Ministry’s secretary-general saying that his request to enter Malaysia had been rejected. No explanation was given.

He took the matter to the courts. But in 2005, the High Court rejected his application to enter Malaysia on the grounds that he had to show identification papers to prove his citizenship. Chin Peng, however, said he could not do so because his birth certificate was seized by the police in 1948. In 2008, the Court of Appeal upheld the ruling.

Just a few days ago, Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Khalid Abu Bakar reiterated that Chin Peng was never a Malaysian citizen and, as such, the question of his being buried in Malaysia should not arise.

But documents are only stuff on paper. They are no match for what a person feels for his country and the things he does in respect of that feeling. Whatever you call that feeling – patriotism if you like – it is far and above more meaningful than a piece of paper.

The fact is, Chin Peng fought against the Japanese when they invaded Malaya and the British retreated. If this alone does not automatically qualify him to be Malaysian, what will? Entering the country illegally and agreeing to vote for Barisan Nasional, like the immigrants in Sabah who have been given identity cards for doing just that? In the latter case, in fact, having documents doesn’t mean diddly squat.

More tangible than this, the Malaysian Government signed a peace treaty in 1989 with the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), of which Chin Peng was its head. And in that agreement, the CPM agreed to disband and cease all armed activities while the Government agreed to allow the CPM’s members to settle down in Malaysia.

Since then, many have been allowed home, including leaders like Rashid Maidin and Shamsiah Fakeh. But why not Chin Peng? Why was he discriminated against?

The other favourite argument of the Government’s against Chin Peng’s return to Malaysia is that he was a terrorist and the head of a terrorist organisation that had caused the deaths of thousands. But when you hold this up against the terms of the agreement, you can straight away see that the argument is unfair. The man and his comrades had given up the fight, they would no longer “terrorise”. It was time for both sides to put the past aside and move on. For the sake of peace. That’s what an agreement is about. So how could the Government sign an agreement and still call the other signatory a villain? Might as well not sign the agreement in the first place!

Why does the Government want to behave in such bad form over this? Because it thinks maintaining Chin Peng as a bogeyman is worth its tarnishing its honour?

But even on the issue of Chin Peng being a terrorist, the lines are not clear-cut. To some, he was one, but to others, he was a freedom fighter. When he served the British cause in fighting against the Japanese, he was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire), but when he consequently fought against the British to gain independence for Malaya, he was a terrorist.

True, his Communist ideology was not everyone’s cup of tea and the CPM did kill many people to fulfil its mission, for which it should be condemned, but Chin Peng has also taken responsibility for the CPM’s taking of thousands of lives. In an interview with history professor Cheah Boon Kheng in 1998, he said, “This was inevitable. It was a war for national independence.”

That this was so is affirmed by our first prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, in his book Lest We Forget: “Just as Indonesia was fighting a bloody battle, so were the Communists of Malaya, who, too, fought for independence.”

The Japanese, on the other hand, were invaders, and they tortured and killed thousands more of our countrymen during their invasion, and yet we have forgiven them their atrocities. In fact, the Japanese are now our friends, and they are a people we look up to, thanks to ex-premiere Mahathir Mohamad’s Look East policy. So why is it that we cut them more slack?

Is the Government hard on Chin Peng because it feels embarrassed that Umno, the party that it has heaped so much credit on for winning independence, did not fight any bloody battles for it, like Chin Peng and the CPM did? And that, also, one of Umno’s revered leaders of the past, Abdul Razak Hussein, actually worked for the Japanese?

Well, in the book Tun Abdul Razak: Potret dalam Kenangan, a collection of reminiscences by people who knew the country’s second prime minister, there is a mention of his having been an administrative officer for the Japanese. It is in the chapter entitled ‘Saya Mendayung, Dia Mengemudi’ (I Rowed, He Held the Helm), written by former Cabinet minister Ghazali Shafie.

And in a study called ‘Sejarah Penubuhan Universiti Teknologi Mara UITM’ (http://coredev.fsktm.um.edu.my/servlet/sreport.sReportShow?report_id=154&xslFile=all), there is a photograph of Razak with three others dressed in Japanese uniform with the rising sun insignia pinned on their shirt pockets. This apparently depicts the time he was being trained by the Japanese.

To be sure, Ghazali also mentions in his chapter that he and Razak were actually nationalists. “We felt that since we had known the British much longer … it was easier to stand up to them than the Japanese, whom we had not got a full measure of yet … Therefore, we felt we had to master [the] Japanese [language] and at the same time, we had to look for channels to contact the British … so as to obtain their assistance in fighting the Japanese.”

From his account, it looks like the strategy adopted by him and Razak was a pragmatic play-both-sides one that is different from the direct warfare approach opted for by Chin Peng.

In view of this, do we still say that Chin Peng doesn’t deserve to even have his ashes brought home to the country he wanted to return to and die in?

Well, I would say that he has more right to be buried in Malaysia than many people I could name. For example, those who have been behind the giving of illegal identity cards to illegal immigrants in Sabah are certainly not as worthy as Chin Peng in claiming this country as their home. He never sold out his country; in fact, he wanted it to be free. His problem was, his ideology was not accepted. And he was on the wrong side of history.

I think it’s time to set the history right.

* Kee Thuan Chye is the author of the new book The Elections Bullshit, now available in bookstores.

Exciting future for Malaysia oil and gas industry

BY KAMARUL YUNUS

Published: 2013/01/17

TREMENDOUS POTENTIAL: Billions of ringgit going into risk service contracts, more oil discoveries plus billions to spend in capex 

THE future looks stimulating for the local oil and gas industry, with billions of ringgit of investments going into risk service contracts (RSCs), more discovery of deepwater reserves, plus tens of billions of ringgit in upstream capital expenditure (capex).

The potential in technologically demanding areas such as enhanced oil recovery, asset integrity, integra-ted operations and deepwater exploration is expected to provide opportunities for local players to develop indigenous technology.

Besides marginal fields development, analysts and industry players see the merger between SapuraCrest Petroleum Bhd and Kencana Petroleum Bhd into SapuraKencana Petroleum Bhd, the liquefied natural gas regasification terminal and the Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex, as major highlights of the industry in the year 2012.

According to Frost & Sullivan, Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) is expected to award more RSCs to potential oil and gas industry players for the development of marginal fields with at least 22 identified for this year onwards, with estimated investments of RM22 billion.

"Considering around RM750 million to RM1 billion per field cluster for development, the total expenditure for 22 marginal fields could be RM16.5 billion to RM22 billion," Frost & Sullivan director of energy practice Subramanya Bettadapura told Business Times.

Currently, he said, RSCs for three marginal fields have already been signed and more RSCs are expected to be signed from this year onwards.

Out of the 105 marginal fields identified under the Economic Transformation Programme, as announced in 2010, he said 25 fields have been marked for development under the new RSC arrangement.

The first RSC for the development of Berantai marginal field offshore Peninsular Malaysia was awarded in January 2011 to a consortium comprising Petrofac Energy Development Sdn Bhd, holding a 50 per cent working interest, and Kencana Energy Sdn Bhd and Sapura Energy Ventures Sdn Bhd (each holding a 25 per cent interest).

This was followed by the award of the SFRSC licence on August 2011 to ROC Oil Holdings Sdn Bhd, with a 48 per cent interest, Dialog Group Bhd (32 per cent) and Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd (20 per cent) for the development of Balai cluster fields offshore Bintulu, Sarawak.

In July last year, a RSC licence was awarded to a group comprising Coastal Energy (70 per cent interest) and Petra Energy Bhd (30 per cent) for the development of Kapal, Banang and Meranti cluster of small fields offshore Peninsular Malaysia.

On the prospect of the development of marginal fields, Subramanya said small platforms such as mobile offshore production units and small floating, production, storage and offload vessels are the solutions for developing such small fields.

"With more marginal fields coming into the concept development stage, there are further opportunities for the providers of the solutions to compete," he said when asked on the outlook for the Malaysian oil and gas industry in 2013 as well as its progress last year.

Moving forward, Subramanya said Malaysia has the potential to become the regional hub for oil and gas in this region, especially in the deepwater and services segment.

"Malaysia's deepwater reserves potential is estimated to be 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent (bboe). Of this, only three bboe have been discovered so far. So, this leaves another seven bboe yet to be discovered," he said.

In terms of investment, Subramanya said the upstream capital expenditure is estimated to be upwards of RM75 billion for the next four years. Besides the development of marginal fields, he said other major highlights of last year are the merger of SapuraCrest Petroleum and Kencana Petroleum to form SapuraKencana Petroleum Bhd; Malaysia's first liquefied natural gas regasification terminal in Sungai Udang, Malacca; and the development of RM135 billion Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex in Johor.

Meanwhile, Malaysian Oil and Gas Services Council president Sofiyan Yahya said the next few years will present a period of great opportuni-ties for the local oil and gas services sector as a direct impact of the major investments made by Petronas.

"With the number of projects in the coming years that will keep the industry busy, it will also be an opportunity for the local services sector to be creative and innovative, and promote Malaysia as a centre of research and development.

"The potential in technologically demanding areas such as the enhanced oil recovery, asset integrity, integrated operations, deepwater exploration and other challenges mean that we have greater opportunities to develop our own technology, and in future be able to export homegrown expertise.

"The oil and gas industry has always been a global industry, and the Malaysian services sectors are now familiar with working to global standards as part of the normal business delivery, therefore there is no better time to grow into international players on the platform of the boost of activities locally and in the region in the coming years."

Shell Malaysia chairman Iain Lo said Malaysia's economic resilience in 2012 was remarkable, especially against the backdrop of a European financial crisis and sluggish growth in China. The year saw the growth in domestic demand for energy that required the industry to draw on all its resources.

"As an industry, we have made investments to increase capacity over the years, so we are able to meet the demand growth. The Gumusut-Kakap development, a deepwater joint venture between Petronas, Shell, ConocoPhilips and Murphy, is an example - its early production added 25,000 barrels per day of oil to the country's production.

"To address issues pertaining to production decline, we will continue investing in new fields as well as extending the life of existing fields with the aim to maintain the production levels," he said.

For example, he said, Shell is working with Petronas Carigali to extend the life of the oil fields in the Baram Delta and North Sabah by employing new enhanced oil recovery technology.

 

East Malaysia: primus inter pares

By James Chin, Guest Contributor
New Mandala
4 September 2013

Last Saturday Malaysia celebrated her 56th year of independence in Dataran Merdeka in central Kuala Lumpur.

Many people in East Malaysia, however, may not be celebrating. Why? 31th August is the date of independence for Malaya but not the Malaysian federation. The fact is, the federation of Malaysia was proclaimed on 16th September 1963, and the federation of Malaysia is 50 years old, not 56. This simple fact is often ignored by Putrajaya much to the annoyance of East Malaysians.

When Najib Tun Razak became Malaysia’s prime minister in 2009, he declared that 16thSeptember is be called “Malaysia Day” and added it as a public holiday in the country. Prime Minister Najib’s concession was no doubt linked to the 2008 general elections when voters from East Malaysia helped Barisan Nasional to retain power when voters in the peninsula abandoned the BN.

While recognition of 16th September is welcomed in East Malaysia, the bigger issues for most East Malaysians are the ‘20 Points’ and political recognition that East Malaysia should treated as an equal partner, not merely two of the 13 states in the federation.

Prior to the formation of the federation in 1963, Sabah (or North Borneo as it then called) and Sarawak wanted a set of guarantees before they would agree to form the proposed Malaysia Federation with Malaya, Singapore and Brunei (Brunei was to withdraw at the last minute). Four meeting were held under the Malaysian Solidarity Consultative Committee (MSCC), leading to the Commission of Enquiry, North Borneo and Sarawak (better known as the Cobbold Commission) and a joint British-Malayan committee, the Inter-Governmental Committee (better known as the IGC Report), was established to ensure these concerns were reflected properly in the new Malaysia Constitution. These set of guarantees, commonly referred to as the 20 Points, gave Sabah and Sarawak a large degree of autonomy in areas like immigration, language, religion, Bornenisation of the civil service and representation in the Federal Parliament.

The autonomy was needed to allay fears of a takeover by Malayans and Singaporeans who were deemed more developed than East Malaysia. In terms of history, culture and demography, there was nothing in common between the peoples of the peninsula and Borneo, other than all were ruled by the British.

Since then, many East Malaysians, especially Sabahans think Putrajaya has not adhered to the 20 points and infact, has purposely breached the guarantees in order to forcelly impose politically on East Malaysia a political framework, essentially an UMNO-led Malay-first political system.

This is clear from the testimonies given at the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) in illegal immigration into Sabah for the past four decades. The RCI has been told numerous times that the highest levels in the federal government, during the Mahathir era, gave thousands of Muslim Filipinos and Indonesians Malaysian citizenship to ensure that Sabah became a Muslim-majority state in less than a decade. From 1970 to 2010, Sabah’s population increased by 390 percent! This was to guarantee Muslim political hegemony and ensured that the native Kadazandusun, previously the majority in Sabah, will never be able to politically challenge a Muslim-led leadership, both in Kota Kinabalu and Putrajaya. One witness, a civil servant who issued the Malaysian identity cards illegally, openly told the RCI he saw it as his duty to ensure Muslim dominance.

The same pattern is repeated in the civil service. Despite a promise that, when British expatriate left their positions in the public service after 1963 they would be filled by Sabahans and Sarawakians, it did not happened. Most of the current senior civil servant positions are filled by Malays from the peninsula.

The other big issue that annoys East Malaysians is Putrajaya’s refusal to acknowledge the special status of Sabah and Sarawak. East Malaysia saw themselves as one of three different political entities (Borneo, Singapore, Malaya) that came together to form the Federation back in 1963. This means they were not equal to the states in Malaya, and this was acknowledged in the original first article of the federal constitution that was promulgated on 16th September 1963. Later amendments were made which lump Sabah and Sarawak as the same category as other states.

The big fear among East Malaysians is that after 50 years of the federation, their entire socio-political environment is mirroring what is happening in Malaya. Prior to independence, Sabah and Sarawak had one of the most plural population with little or no racial and religious tensions.

Today, there is intense political competition and constant tensions between the Muslim and non-Muslim population in both states, and racial tensions so prevalent in Malaya is starting to manifest in East Malaysia. The younger Muslims from East Malaysia are starting to distance themselves from their non-Muslim neighbours and becoming super sensitive to all issues pertaining to Islam, mirroring the breakdown of racial relations in the peninsula.

A lot of this can be attributed to the current education system where large number of Malay teachers and civil servants are sent to serve in East Malaysia, bringing with them their ethnic and religious prejudices. Students are also not taught the true history of Sabah and Sarawak in the national curriculum.

Blame must also go to the non-Muslim state leadership in Sabah and Sarawak who are afraid to speak up. The indigenous leadership in both states, representing the non-Muslim bumiputera, are broadly more interested in keeping their positions than fighting for their communities, since 1963. In the past decade this has changed somewhat, especially among the younger educated Ibans and Kadazandusuns, who are now more vocal about the failed leadership in their communities and the need to protect their status as the majority indigenous peoples.

In reality, however, the boat has sailed and it is too late for the non-Muslim indigenous leadership to do anything substantial to slow down Muslim hegemony in both states. The rise and rise of right-wing Islamic politics in the peninsula means that will use federal power to impose their will on East Malaysia. The tragedy is that the good ethnic relations experienced in East Malaysia for the past fifty years will be nothing more than a distant dream.