https://www.dailyexpress.com.my/read/6412/not-just-equal-partners-but-protected/
For much of our post-Malaysia history, Sabahans and Sarawakians have been encouraged to accept a version of events that sits uneasily beside the documents and negotiations that shaped this federation. After 1963, we were not treated as equal partners at all; instead, Sabah and Sarawak were gradually downgraded and reclassified as if they were merely two of the states within Malaya’s existing structure. The historical reality of how Malaysia was built — and the constitutional protections promised to the Bornean territories — was pushed aside, while the public was told that our grievances were emotional rather than structural. Only in recent years, after decades of erosion, did the federal government amend the Constitution’s wording to once again acknowledge Sabah and Sarawak as “regions” and “partners,” attempting to restore in language what was long denied in practice. This new phrase, “equal partners,” has since gained political currency, becoming the rallying cry for recognition precisely because it offers dignity without confrontation. Yet its popularity reflects how far we have drifted from the truth: we cling to equality now because the original promise — protection — was taken from us.
The truth, when we finally choose to confront it fully, is fundamentally incompatible with this modern narrative. Sabah and Sarawak were never meant to be equal to Malaya’s states. They were not expected to surrender their distinct circumstances, nor were they intended to blend seamlessly into the framework of the existing Malayan federation. Malaysia, as negotiated between 1961 and 1963, was built on the recognition that Sabah and Sarawak were joining a political structure shaped by a much larger and more established partner. Equality would not have protected them. A carefully constructed imbalance was necessary. And that imbalance — entrenched in constitutional text and preserved in historical record — remains one of the most misunderstood truths of Malaysian nationhood.
How Malaysia Actually Began - A Union of Unequal Realities
When the Malaysia proposal was first raised, the Federation of Malaya was already a sovereign state with institutions, civil services, political parties, and a unified constitutional framework. Sabah and Sarawak, still under British rule, were in an entirely different position. They were diverse territories, administratively distinct, culturally rich, but politically young and vulnerable.
The British understood this. Malaya understood this. And the peoples of Sabah and Sarawak understood it most acutely, because they were being asked to join a federation whose political centre of gravity was firmly located in the Peninsula. This imbalance in size, power, and political maturity was so significant that the British insisted on the Cobbold Commission to test whether Malaysia could even be contemplated without jeopardising stability in North Borneo and Sarawak.
The Commission did not find blind enthusiasm; it found conditional acceptance. Yes, there was support — but it was support shaped by historical memory, caution, and fear of domination. Many worried openly that Malaysia might reproduce the patterns of colonial rule under a new name. The Commission acknowledged these anxieties fully. It concluded that Malaysia would only be acceptable if adequate safeguards were included to prevent Malaya from overshadowing the two territories. This was the first formal recognition that Sabah and Sarawak could not enter Malaysia on equal footing with Malaya’s states.
The IGC and the Hidden Architecture of Protection
The Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC), convened after the Cobbold Report, did not pretend that Sabah and Sarawak could be treated like Malayan states. Its members were explicit - the two Bornean territories required constitutional protections that reflected not only their cultural and religious differences, but also their political vulnerability. Malaya was a single federation with a unified political will. Sabah and Sarawak were separate territories negotiating their entry into that federation from a position of comparative weakness.
The IGC therefore designed a constitutional structure that was deliberately asymmetrical. It entrenched immigration control, protected the use of English, recognised native law and customs, vested land and resource authority in the states, provided for fiscal arrangements distinct from Malaya, and ensured a separate High Court for the Bornean territories. These were not symbolic concessions. They were safeguards carved into the federation because without them Malaysia would not have been viable.
The IGC’s work was not guided by the principle of equality. It was guided by the principle of protection.
The 20 Points - A Territory’s Attempt to Secure Its Future
Sabah’s 20-Point Agreement (and Sarawak’s 18-Point Agreement) made explicit what the IGC then translated into constitutional language. These documents were not declarations of parity with Malaya; they were statements of what the Bornean territories required in order to accept the federation. Their focus was not on status but on security — religious freedom, language rights, immigration control, education autonomy, native protections, and financial safeguards. They were written from the perspective of communities fully aware of how easily smaller territories can be submerged by larger ones.
The Points did not speak in the language of equals. They spoke in the language of survival.
The Constitutional Record - A Federation That Entrenched Asymmetry
The culmination of these negotiations was a constitutional structure that placed Sabah and Sarawak in a legally distinct category. Their autonomy was entrenched across multiple domains — land, resources, immigration, language, religion, native law, and judicial structure. Their financial arrangements differed from those in Malaya. Their court system operated under a separate High Court. Their guarantees were not intended to fade over time. They were intended to define the federation permanently.
But nowhere is this protective design clearer than in Article 161E.
Article 161E - The Constitutional Shield That Exposes the Equal Partner Myth
Article 161E places a special brake on Parliament’s power to amend the Constitution in relation to Sabah and Sarawak. For a defined list of matters – including the citizenship position of those connected to the State before Malaysia Day, the constitution and jurisdiction of the High Court in Sabah and Sarawak and the tenure of its judges, the distribution of legislative and executive powers and the financial arrangements that go with them, and the provisions on religion, language and the special treatment of natives – no amendment can take effect unless the Yang di-Pertua Negeri of the State concerned formally concurs. The amendments must still clear the usual constitutional threshold of a two-thirds majority in each House of Parliament, but they cannot proceed at all without the consent of the Head of State. Historically, even Sabah and Sarawak’s initial allocation of seats in Parliament was guarded in this way in the early years after Malaysia was formed. The result is not equality but something more demanding - a structure in which the constitutional position of Sabah and Sarawak cannot be altered by federal power acting alone.
This is the heart of the matter - the Constitution itself distinguishes Sabah and Sarawak from Malaya’s states. The framers did not entrust the future of these territories to federal goodwill. They entrenched a mechanism that recognised the risk of domination and sought to guard against it. If Malaysia had been built by equal partners, such a provision would have been unnecessary.
Its very existence makes the “equal partner” slogan crumble.
How Protection Was Lost — And How a Half-Truth Replaced It
Over the decades, political practice diverged from constitutional intention. Emergency powers, centralisation, and political compliance all contributed to the erosion of safeguards that were meant to be permanent. None of this happened because the Constitution failed. It happened because those entrusted to defend Sabah and Sarawak chose silence or convenience over principle. As federal dominance expanded, the original arrangement faded from public consciousness.
In this vacuum, the “equal partner” narrative grew. It was a polite way of asserting dignity without reopening uncomfortable historical truths. But it was also a half-truth — easier to say, less confrontational, and more acceptable to a political environment that resisted acknowledging the asymmetrical nature of Malaysia’s foundation.
Yet half-truths have consequences. They weaken the real argument. They concede too much before the debate even begins.
The Truth Malaysia Must Now Confront
If Malaysia is to honour the compact that created it, then we must speak plainly. Sabah and Sarawak were never intended to be equal to Malaya’s states. They were intended to be distinct — constitutionally, administratively, politically, and culturally. They were intended to be protected, not assimilated. Their autonomy was not a courtesy; it was a condition. Their safeguards were not ornamental; they were fundamental. Their consent was not optional; it was indispensable.
In constitutional terms, Sabah and Sarawak were never meant to be merely equal partners; they were meant to hold a position beyond equality, protected by safeguards that reflected their distinct circumstances and insulated them from the overwhelming weight of Malaya. This is the truth at the heart of the Malaysia that was negotiated, and it is a truth the country has spent sixty years avoiding.
The promise made in 1963 was not a promise of equality. It was a promise of protection — a promise written into the constitutional text, reflected in the IGC Report, demanded in the 20 Points, and justified by the realities the Cobbold Commission exposed. It is a promise Malaysia has avoided for decades, but a nation cannot outrun its own foundation forever.
Sabah and Sarawak were not equal partners. They were protected partners. And until Malaysia confronts this truth honestly and fully, the federation will continue to bear the weight of a bargain half-remembered and half-kept.
The time for half-truths is over. The record speaks for itself. The Constitution speaks for itself.
And the country must finally listen.
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