It’s not the first time that questions about Sabah’s place in Malaysia have surfaced.

KOTA KINABALU: If not Malaysia, then what? It’s a question that’s coming more into focus in Sabah and Sarawak as religious tensions escalate in the peninsula sending shudders through the

two states.

It’s not the first time that questions about Sabah’s place in Malaysia have surfaced. In 1965, former chief minister Tun Fuad Stephens wanted a review of Sabah’s participation in Malaysia after Singapore’s exit.

Stephen’s reasoning was that it was because of Singapore that Sabah joined Malaysia since the island was out of the federation, there was no longer any reason for the Borneo state to continue to be in the federation.

Forty-eight years later the question has returned but this time with more vigour, riding a wave of poverty and hardship, racial supremacy and religious zingers that are ricocheting around  and threatening to cause major damage to the peace and harmony in the state.

Kitingan

State assembly representative for Bingkor, Jeffrey Kitingan, claims the federal government is standing idly by watching the country lurch from crisis to crisis.

This has left many wondering if the idea of a federation was a mistake as the peace, harmony and unity that existed before the formation of Malaysia in 1963 has disappeared.

“Already many are clamouring for Sabah Sarawak to leave Malaysia,” he claimed when commenting on the rising racial tensions, attacks on religious freedom and growing fanaticism among  members and supporters of Umno, the main party in the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition.

The disaffection among the masses, he maintains, comes from a growing awareness that both states which are rich in natural resources have no control over their wealth to improve their living standards even though both lag far behind the peninsula in terms of development.

In the ‘70s, Sabah was ranked just behind Selangor including the capital Kuala Lumpur as the richest state in Malaysia. As of 2010, Sabah has been declared the poorest state in Malaysia. It’s GDP growth was just 2.4%.

Slums, the hallmark of an impoverished and decaying society, have become widespread in the state and it is not uncommon to find squatter settlements housing up to 40,000 residents.

All these are considered nuisances and borne with an air of resignation if not tolerated.

However, as push has now come to shove since recently snubbed politicians and their supporters are hellbent on articulating racial supremacy and curtailing the religious rights of minorities, Malaysians in the Borneo states are starting to pose awkward questions about their purpose and place in the nation.

They are paying careful attention to statements on the on-going controversy emanating out of the peninsula. On Wednesday, news portal Malaysiakini reported that Syariah Lawyers Association (PGSM) president Musa Awang noted that the raid and seizure of the Bibles was pertinent because the bulk of them were in a language largely used by Malays who are Muslims.

But Musa ignores the fact that Malaysia does not comprise only Malaya. The national language was imposed on Sabahans by the Usno government in the early 1970s. They still resent it but they knuckled down and learned the language for the sake of unity. Sabahans now have every right to turn around and tell Musa to mind his language and stop being chauvinistic.

Another fact that is forgotten is that the Sabah Constitution was amended in 1973 to make Islam the religion of state. It was secular in nature prior to this. The change was imposed in a bid to limit the role of the mainly Christian indigenous community in state politics.

Subsequently Muslim immigrants from the Philippines, Indonesia and even south Asia were allowed into the state and granted citizenship in the early 1990s to help topple the duly elected Christian state government. The clandestine scheme that is now being investigated has significantly altered the demography of Sabah in just 50 years.

The people of Sabah and Sarawak are losing patience.

Credits: Borneo Insider