A national history founded on lies? - Haris Ibrahim

We were all taught in school that on 16th September, 1963, the Federation of Malaysia, comprising fourteen states, eleven in Peninsula Malaysia or what was previously the Federation of Malaya, two from Borneo, being Sabah and Sarawak, and the island state of Singapore, was formed.

Two years later, in 1965, the island of Singapore was expelled from the federation.

Leaving thirteen states to make up that new federation.

So we were taught in school.

I found out differently this last weekend during the Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia forums in Kota Kinabalu and Kuching.

I found out that the agreement attained leading up to the formation of the Federation of Malaysia envisaged that the Federation of Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore were to be equal partners in this newly founded federation.

And not that Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore were to become the 12th, 13th and 14th states in the existing Federation of Malaya, now to be callled Malaysia, being equal to the 1st to the 11th states comprised therein.

And yet, this is what we were taught in school.

I got the quote below from the “Memorandum on the Fate of Sabah in the Malaysian Federation”, delivered at the House of Commons, London, on 9th March, 2010.

“The granting of self-government too would enable Sabah to stand on its own feet as equal with Malaya, Sarawak and Singapore“ – Tunku Abdul Rahman, quoted in the Sabah Times, Jesselton, on 30th August, 1963.

Our history books in school gave a completely different picture.

Still quoting from that Memorandum :

“Today, more than forty six years after independence, the people of Sabah are asking what happened to these rosy pronouncements and assurances. In fact the Sabahans have always been seriously clarification as to why Sabah is now functioning as if it is only a colony of Kuala Lumpur…the reality today is that Sabah has become the 12th state of Malaya. Federal government leaders, dominated by Malayans, today can arbitrarily change, at their whims and fancies, whatever they wish to suit their needs and convenience. They even ignored the Twenty Points and the Malaysia Agreement and made it sensitive to even talk about them”.

Yet we were taught otherwise in school.

Have we been lied to all these years?

Is the history of this nation taught to us thus far, like the present PM’s 1Malaysia, a sham?

Have our brothers and sisters in Sabah and Sarawak been long cheated and denied that which is due them?