Sabah, Sarawak may finally forgive LKY

One theory says that Singapore was the reason the two Borneo states agreed to be federated with the peninsula.

COMMENT

Much has been written about Lee Kuan Yew, 91, who needs no introduction, and much will continue to be written.

Lee’s one wish, as he wrestled with life as a widower, was to meet his wife Kwa Geok Choo (1920-2010) in the hereafter. He saw no luck here since he believed that she had “ceased to exist”. Kwa had no illusions about Singapore’s merger with Malaya and believed that it would fail.

Given Lee’s fatalistic approach to birth, life and death, what indeed inspired and drove him? It could only have been the here and now.

He had this to say in Hard Truth, one of his many books, about the past:

“I’m no longer in active politics. It’s irrelevant to me what young Singaporeans think of me. What they think of me after I’m dead and gone in one generation will be determined by researchers who do PhDs on me.

“I did what I thought was right, given the circumstances, given my knowledge at the time, given the pressures on me at the time. That’s finished, done. I move forward. You keep on harking back, it’s just wasting time.

“I have no regrets. I have spent my life, so much of it, building up this country. There’s nothing more that I can do. At the end of the day, what have I got? A successful Singapore. What have I given up? My life.”

Nobody will disagree with him on the past. No one can move forward unless he or she is willing to let go of the past, to forgive if not forget, above all to forgive oneself. That’s the issue in Sabah and Sarawak, bogged down so much by the past since Lee persuaded Donald Stephens that Malaysia was the way forward for them as it was for Singapore.

It’s interesting that Lee should say that he has no regrets.

He believed all his life, until the very end, that Singapore and the peninsula were inseparable. One of his regrets, in one of life’s little ironies, was that in hindsight he thought he should have gone slower with Kuala Lumpur. “They were not ready,” he explained once. “If we had been still with them, they might not be what they are today, just as we would not be what we are today. We would not be that successful, but at least they would not be such a failure.” That’s the gist of what he said more than once.

It’s ironic that Lee saw Singapore as successful. That’s Malaysia’s tragedy as well, to measure success by materialism, if not hedonism as well.

He indeed acknowledged that Singaporeans had lost their enterprising and risk-taking habits as a result of over-regimentation by the PAP Government in the island republic. Lee had been too much of a control freak. The regimentation led to a loss of innovation, inventiveness and creativity among Singaporeans. In the end, the Singapore Government had to give up on its own citizens and turn to immigrants to keep the talent pool in Singapore going.

At the time of Singapore’s exit from Malaysia in 1965 – “if Kuala Lumpur thinks that it can squat on us and get away with it, it’s sadly mistaken” – Lee wanted Sabah and Sarawak to exit as well and follow it. Malayan Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, by then Malaysian Prime Minister, would have none of it. That set the stage for Sabah and Sarawak to be reduced in status from Equal Partners in the Federation to be the dubious one of 12th and 13th states in Malaya, renamed Malaysia amidst charges of colonisation.

Singapore was the reason Sabah and Sarawak found themselves in federation with the peninsula after the island merged with it.

Lee was the reason Donald Stephens dropped his objections to Malaysia and Sabah agreed to be federated. Sarawak followed suit while Brunei, apparently advised by the British, stayed out at the 11th hour.

The poorest states

Nearly 52 years later, Sabah and Sarawak are the poorest states in Malaysia because the Federation itself has been a failure for all the reasons why Singapore has “succeeded”. Singapore’s economy is almost as large as Malaysia’s GDP (nominal) measured in USD.

Sabahans and Sarawakians feel betrayed, first by Tunku, and later by Lee and Stephens.

It may not entirely be the fault of Lee and Stephens. It’s known that Tunku prevailed on Lee to persuade Stephens. The story in Borneo is that Tunku misled Lee by giving him the impression that he (Lee) would be Prime Minister after him. Lee, buoyed by the assurance, persuaded Stephens that he would be Deputy Prime Minister.

The MCA, alarmed at Lee’s growing clout and the PAP’s determination, prevailed on Tunku to usher Singapore out of the Federation. Singapore went along as well since it was denied access anyway to the Malaysian common market.

It was the common market that Singapore needed, not politics. No matter what Singapore was, whether it was independent, or part of something else, it would continue to do what’s it’s doing now. It’s the only thing that it can do.