WISHING ALL SABAHANS A MEMORABLE INDEPENDENCE DAY ON 31 AUGUST (NOT THE OTHER MERDEKA DAY!)

By Anonymous

If there is anything to commemorate it is the short 16 bitter sweet days of real freedom.

Sabah since 1761 (when Dalrymple got it as trading post from the Brunei Sultanate) has basically been traded like a piece of real estate by Brunei, the Dutch, Spanish, USA, Austrians, Britain and then Malaya. (The latest trade off were the 2 blocks of offshore oilfields for Brunei dropping its claim on Limbang).

If we were to take 1865 (leased by the USA) as the starting point of the foreign colonization of North Borneo/Sabah, the poor country is still a colony after nearly 150 years!

24 years prior to 1865, in 1841 Sarawak came into being and existed as an independent state till 1941. It was recognised as a sovereign state by the USA in 1859 and Britain in 1863. It has also remained a colony since the Japanese invasion in 1941, colonization together with Sabah by Britain in 1945 and then by Malaya in 1963 to 2012. 70 years.

Sabah and Sarawak are siblings of Brunei and shared the same fate of being kidnapped (annexed) and taken over by Malaya in 1963.

To remind all of us of our real colonial status the rulers of Malaya (and many of its people) insists that we in Sabah and Sarawak celebrate their national day! So under the British we celebrated the Queen's birthday and now under Malaya we celebrate "Merdeka Day".

Nothing changed just the skin colour of the colonial master! Worse still, they looted the 2 colonies more intensively than the British were able to as they had only some 18 years of colonising Sabah and Sarawak. They ended up subsidising Malaya's economic development as Malaya did subsidised Britain's economy as one of its richest colonies before 1957.

"...the Malayan controlled Federal Government is now telling Sabahans and Sarawakians (intentionally or not) that Malaysia was nothing more than a “takeover” project for Malaya and that Sabah and Sarawak are now Malayan states/territories so they (Sabah and Sarawak) must now adopt Malayan historical independence" (Jeffery Kitingan)

The word "takeover" must hit many of us like a sledgehammer . Did they actually use this word? What arrogance! Yes but for once they are telling the truth.

Let us commemorate "Malayan Takover Day or Malayanization Day" 16 September!