English Speaking:- “Peter J. Mojuntin: THE GOLDEN SON OF THE KADAZAN”
Written by “Bernard Sta Maria”
It was the morning of August 9th 1965; the Separation of Singapore had become a reality. Members of Parliament were summoned to a special session not to debate the merits or demerits of the proposal but to listen to the Government leaders justify their actions.
Seated at the VIP gallery at the Parliament Chambers, was Peter Mojuntin. He had come to listen to the “Whys and Wherefore’s of Separation.” Facing him across the government bench, looking equally annoyed and exasperated, was the Federal Minister of Sabah Affairs, Tun Fuad. There was pain in their hearts because no one in Sabah was consulted before Singapore was evicted from Malaysia, no even the Minister in charge of Sabah Affairs! There was no justification for the belittling Sabah and Sarawak. It appeared that the states in Malaysia were unequal in status a reminiscence of Geogre Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, where all the animals were supposed to be equal but some animals were “more equal than others.”
Peter, like the other’s that packed the Parliament Chambers that morning listened attentively as the lone Singapore Representative C.V. Devan Nair ( Devan Nair A/L Chengara Veetil ), presented the Singapore case. In his speech Devan Nair said:
( Extract )
“ It is difficult to speak without a wrench in the heart. Sorrow there definitely will be on this day of tragedy, but, in all conscience, it is tragic that two years after the birth of Malaysia we would be listening to funeral orations on Malaysia.”
“What has happened today will be quite clear- that Singapore had been ejected from Malaysia. I say ‘ejected’ because I know that Singapore has been put in a situation where it has no choice but to accept an ultimatum presented to it by the Central Government. I know that Singapore does not want to leave Malaysia, because the leaders of Singapore, of the present Government in Singapore, believe in the unity of Malaysia, of Singapore and Malaya. This has been the basic ideological belief of the leaders of Singapore, right from the time the Party was founded; and I can assure this House that it will continue to be the basic fundamental belief of the leaders of the People’s Action Party. But their belief was founded on the concept of a Malaysian Malaysia, which phrase these days is treated as a dirty word. Singapore is being forced out of Malaysia, not because she was a source of weakness to Malaysia, not because she was inefficient and corrupt, not because she was an advocate of any particular form of communalism – we saved Singapore from communal chauvinism – but because certain Alliance politicians believe Singapore to be the bulwark and chief source of inspiration for a Malaysian Malaysia. That was the chief, simple, basic reason. In this the Alliance extremists, the opponents of a Malaysian Malaysia, are grievously wrong, and they will discover soon enough that a Malaysian Malaysia is not just a Singapore concept, though admittedly Singapore was one of the chief inspirers and a pillar of strength for the movement. But Alliance extremist should realize, and they will realize, that the movement for a non-communal, tolerant, Malaysian Malaysia has got roots not in the hearts of P.A.P. or of Lee Kuan Yew and company but in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Malaysians in Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak. It has vigor and momentum. This concept can be sustained and will be sustained even if, technically, Singapore is booted out of Malaysia. And why? Because whatever politicians on the Government bench may think, what is left of Malaysia after the excision of Singapore is still a multi-racial society, and the logic of that situation must ultimately lead to the fulfillment of the concept which my colleagues and I in the P.A.P. had advanced, and the fact that Singapore has been ejected, will not mean that the spirit of those of us who believe in a Malaysian Malaysia has been crushed. The very existence of a multi-racial Singapore still progressing, and still bound to progress, in the spirit not of any narrow communal chauvinism, but of a Malaysian Malaysia, is bound to act as a stimulus to the movement for a Malaysian Malaysia.”
“By ejecting Singapore and granting it independence, the ultras of Malaysia have no longer the power, perhaps, to directly intervene to suppress the fulfillment in practice of an ideology based upon a non-communal mutli-racial society – the ideal of a non-communal, tolerant, multi-racial, democratic society. Today by the ejection of Singapore, I am the only Representative of the P.A.P. left in this House. Time will show, the future will show, that it is a much greater pity than is realized now. But I am not the only one. I firmly believe and know that there are hundreds of thousands of people in this country, who will subscribe to the ideals and principles which we had sought to advance here. There are others also on the Opposition benches, who are no less passionately concerned than I am, than the hundreds of thousands of the other citizens of this country, about a Malaysian Malaysia. And more important, there is an International opinion, and international opinion is definitely coming to a philosophy where what is encouraged, what is accepted, are larger and larger integrations of peoples, communities and territories, and what has happened today is a reversal of the tide of history, an attempt to reverse the tide of history: and as King Canute discovered in the legend, is it bound to fail.”
“The extremists, the ultras in the Alliance, know the extent of the support which the ideal and the concept of Malaysian Malaysia has: they know that, despite their massive distorted propaganda against the concept of a Malaysian Malaysia. This concept has already fired the imagination of people throughout this country and, I repeat, fired the imagination of people of all races and communities. If the Alliance extremists were not so frightened of the power of the Malaysian Malaysia concept to rally the people of Malaysia, they would not have resorted to this desperate strategic measure of ejecting Singapore.”
As C.V. Devan Nair spoke, Tun Fuad was evaluating his wisdom of Sabah’s entry into Malaysia. He could still recall the time when he had reservations about joining Malaysia, the time when he wrote his objections to the Malayan Prime Minister and the meeting with Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew who convinced him to accept the Malaysian concept. Now with Separation, he and his colleagues would be back at square one and at the mercy of the Kuala Lumpur government. There would be no buffer state. Sarawak with Chief Minister Datuk Stephen Kalong Ningkan at the helm could not be of much help, as he too was facing personal problems.
The Parliamentary meeting was over. Both Peter and Tun Fuad were dissatisfied with the explanation of the Federal Ministers. Like the majority in Sabah, they could not accept the rationale that Sabah should have been left out of any prior knowledge preceeding the Separation. They contended that, if in the formation of Malaysia, Sabah was consulted, there was no justification why Sabah should not be consulted when an important component of Malaysia was to be evicted. On returning to Sabah, Peter and Tun Fuad toured the entire state, calling for a review of Sabah’s entry status as embodied in the Twenty Points. Many in Sabah favored the formation of a new Federation, merging territories of Sabah, Singapore and Sarawak – The Triple S.
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CV Devan Nair passed away on the 6th of December 2005 and was also among the founding fatherd of the
Democratic Action Party ( DAP ) after the separation of Singapore.
And true to the 'Malaysian Malaysia' spirit of a multi-cultural country which Singapore went on to embody, CV Devan Nair was elected the 3rd President of Singapore by Parliament on October 23rd, 1981.
Unfortunately till today, the book "THE GOLDEN SON OF THE KADAZAN" an autobiography of Sabah's hero the late Datuk Peter Mojuntin whom with the late Tun Fuad Stephen's helped in the formation of 'Malaysia' as we know it today, which encompasses an important part of Malaysian History especially for Sabahan's is still being BANNED by the Malaysian Federal Government till today, I was among the fortunate to get a copy of this book made from the original print.
True enough to his final words spoken in Malaysian Parliament during the expulsion of Singapore from Malaysia...
"But Alliance extremist should realize, and they will realize, that the movement for a non-communal, tolerant, Malaysian Malaysia has got roots not in the hearts of P.A.P. or of Lee Kuan Yew and company but in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Malaysians in Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak. It has vigor and momentum. This concept can be sustained and will be sustained even if, technically, Singapore is booted out of Malaysia."
Sadly the Alliance Extremist of UMNO only realized 45 years too late, with it's hypocritical empty chimes and screams of a so called '1 Malaysia' which it's leaders deem to be original, despite the warning echoes which have been stated by the late CV Devan Nair in Malaysia's Parliament 45 years earlier, at the expense of the separation of Singapore from Malaysia.
Singapore today is the most highly developed countries in South East Asia, with the most transparent form of government, with a higher per-capita income compared to it's former counter part Malaysia and is also the no.1 destination for Investors all across SE Asia.
The likeliness of Malaysia under the Najib Tun Razak's current administration screaming and shouting '1 Malaysia' to the early leaders of PAP who helped formed Malaysia in the beginning like the late CV Devan Nair and Lee Kuan Yew, would be akin to the old Malay saying: "Menjilat balik ludah sendiri" or "Licking back what you spit out!"...
So everytime you SEE the '1 Malaysia' slogan...just remember the late CV Devan Nair's final words in Malaysian Parliament and WHY Singapore was booted OUT of Malaysia in the very 1ts place!
