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led on to take control of the great tracts
of territory.
With Penang island in mind, Europeans
(and the British), “long content with
the mystery of the sea, embroiled in
continental affairs only when these
threatened their commercial interest,
they assumed — sometimes eagerly,
sometimes with reluctance — the new
role of administrators and rulers”.
The Economist admitted that “Malayan
independence brings the wheel full
circle”. On Aug 31, it editorialised that
“Britain is nevertheless handling over
in Kuala Lumpur today. Nor is the
ruling power yielding now to a belated
upsurge of nationalist violence or
accepting the de facto destruction of its
authority”.
If in September 1963, The Economist
asserted that Malaysia was a gamble,
in an earlier issue in February the same
year, the periodical described the
Malaysian idea as admirable. Among
The birth of the
sovereign federation
of Malaya ends
European rule on the
Asian mainland. And
that age began when
the venturers, who
had acquired trading
posts, “factories” and
strongholds on Asia’s
coasts and offshore
islands, were led on to
take control of the great
tracts of territory.
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PERDANA MAGAZINE 2017
other reasons, it pointed out that “(in)
British eyes — the plan had the virtue
of preserving the Singapore base while
allowing Whitehall to ease itself out
of its colonial remnant in Borneo”.
Against the backdrop of constitutional
arrangements for the two Borneo
territories of Sarawak and North
Borneo (as Sabah was known then), the
story ends with this note: “…whatever
reservations the peoples of British
Borneo may have about the Malayan
connection, it is clear that they have no
taste for Indonesian rule”.
DATUK DR A MURAD MERICAN is professor
at the Centre for Policy Research and
International Studies (CenPRIS), Universiti
Sains Malaysia and the first recipient of the
Honorary President Resident Fellowship at
the Perdana Leadership Foundation. His book
under PLF’s Fellowship, “Revisiting Atas Angin
- A Review of Rum, Ferringhi and the West in
the Malay Imagination”, will be published in
2018. E-mail him at [email protected]. This
article was first published in The New Straits
Times on 18 September 2016.