Some Sabahans with secession on their minds

MM Online - DPM: Any calls for secession punishable by law (extracts):

Parties trying push for the secession of Sabah and Sarawak from Malaysia can be punished “severely” for promoting anarchy, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said today.

The acting Umno deputy president warned any parties promoting slogans like “Sabah for Sabah” and “Sarawak for Sarawakians” as it runs counter to the Federal Constitution and is punishable by law.

“The action of some who seditiously incite the people with the slogans ‘Sabah for Sabah’ and ‘Sarawak for Sarawak’ is against the spirit of the Federal Constitution.

“It is this playing with fire that may lead to anarchy and national instability. Let us not reach the point where we suffer due to the intervention of foreign ploys and incitement,” Zahid said during his speech addressing Umno delegates tonight.

My several Uncles and their mateys would be very sad to learn that some Sabahans want to secede from Malaysia when many Peninsular Malaysians had sacrificed so much to protect them from an aggressive hungry Indonesia and a rapacious Philippines in the early 60's. Some Peninsular Malaysians even made the ultimate sacrifice.

Many younger Malaysians whether from Sabah or Peninsular do not know the pain and sacrifices of their nation's historical formation when we had to face an ugly Sukarno and his Konfrontasi, and Macapagal and his claim on North Borneo, thus we shouldn't be surprised by their (younger Malaysians') lack of allegiance to Malaysia.

I have a choice Penang Hokkien word to describe them but more importantly, can Sabah secede?

In the 20-point Agreement which Sabah (then as North Borneo) proposed for its incorporation into the then-new Constitution of Malaysia, some of those points were included to varying degrees while others others were merely accepted orally, thus not having any legal status.

In other words, not all 20 points were legally legislated or incorporated into the Constitution.

However, Point 7 of the 20-point Agreement states there should be no right to secede from the Federation.

Because fo Point 7, Dr Jeniri Amir from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) stated that Sarawak and Sabah has no right to secede from the federation.

However, a separatist group led by Doris Jones (of Sabah) argued that the meaning of the word "should" as in "There should be no right to secede from the Federation" is only a recommendation as opposed to "shall" which implies a command.

Thus Sabah has a right to ignore a recommendation, wakakaka.

Borneo rights activist Doris Jones, 48, heads the Sabah Sarawak Union UK, and was of course UK-based. Like Waythamoorthy, when one was UK-based, one could be more daring and politically assertive, like suing the UK government for trillions of sterling pounds, wakakaka again.

Doris posed a rather silly question to BBC News Radio Northampton, to wit, that she didn't understand why Malaysia doesn’t want to allow Sabah and Sarawak to go from the list of states in the Federation, so that they can stand on their own two feet.

Anyway, her question was of course rhetorical only as she already had an answer. Penangites would say Doris 'gau ch'an' (pandai berkeluh-kesah, good at moaning), wakakaka.

Jones said she was about ten years old when she realised that something was not right about Sabah and Sarawak being in a Federation with the peninsula. “We were not allowed to say anything,” she said. “Racism, discrimination. There’s no democracy.”

Naturally being ten years old when she obtained that impression, she might not have been aware of Peninsular soldiers, sailors and airmen defending the sovereignty of Sabah and Sarawak from very aggressive avaricious neighbours.

Yes, how the f**k would she know, and now why the f**k would she care, that without Peninsular and Commonwealth forces spilling their blood and some giving up their lives, she would probably be speaking Tagalog today, hailing President Rodigro Duterte and singing Dahil Sa'yo with him.

Incidentally, rather than ponder over the legal meaning of the verb 'should', she may wish to know that Article 2 of the Constitution of Malaysia states:

Article 2: Admission of new territories into the Federation 

2. Parliament may by law— 

(a) admit other States to the Federation; 

(b) alter the boundaries of any State, 

but a law altering the boundaries of a State shall not be passed without the consent of that State (expressed by a law made by the Legislature of that State) and of the Conference of Rulers.

In other words, as per explained by our DAP man Dr Abdul Aziz Bari sometime ago, Article 2 of the Constitution implies that the Malaysian Parliament has the final say on the secession of a state from the federation, as it did to Singapore in 1965(which BTW did not secede as Singaporeans like to believe, but was kicked out by Tunku, wakakaka).

 PKR does not like him 

Then secessionists-wannabe would also have to contend with agreement and approval by the Conference of Rulers.

And according to good old Prof Bari, any suggestions about secession of Sabah and Sarawak from Malaysia would be punishable under the Sedition Act.

It seems that the DPM has been right despite his notoriety of frequently putting his foot in his mouth, wakakaka.