Sabah stand-off shakes up Malaysian politics

ARCHIVES 2013

By admin-s On Mar 14, 2013

“These claims from the sultanate of Sulu have been there for a very long time and the timing does seem either suspicious or odd at least and raise questions especially because his poll showings are quite bad and the opposition has worked very hard since already shaking up the establishment in 2008”

(The Voice of Russia) – Dr. Gerhard Hoffstaedter of the University of Queensland, Australia, shares his take on the armed conflict in the Malaysian state of Sabah, where a ragtag band of fighters from the so-called Royal Army of the Sultan of Sulu clashed with Malaysian troops.

Sabah, what is today the state of Sabah in Malaysia used to be a dominion of the Sultanate of Brunei until the British came and essentially split up that Sultanate, which remains till this day but the territory it controls is very small. At one stage it controlled vast parts of Borneo and parts of what is now the Philippines. A subsequent sultanate, the sultanate of Sulu, which still lays claim to Sabah, over which we’ve read a lot in news lately, because they sent a detachment of over 200 armed guards or militants to state that claim, currently claimed to have a power over this territory or parts of this territory and that claim has never really been resolved, so until this day the Malaysian state actually pays what some people call session money, what other people call rental money to the heirs of the sultan of Sulu, which was agreed a long time ago between the British and the sultan of Sulu. And so there is this ongoing discrepancy of histories if you like, the discrepancy of the heirs or decedents of the sultan of Sulu, the state of Sabah is still part of their inheritance if you like, although long time ago they’ve given up sovereignty to the Philippines state, so they are not a sovereign sultanate or sovereign state in any way, they can’t make claims, only the Philippines can make claims over Sabah, and they have tried to take it to the international court of justice but Malaysia would not entertain that for obvious reasons, Sabah is home to large oil reserves, forestry, palm oil and has been an integral part of the Malaysian state since 1960s and indeed it’s been instrumental in maintaining the current ruling coalition in Malaysian government since 1957 since the authorities of Sabah joined the federation in 60s because they’ve managed to get substantially more votes in east Malaysia than in west Malaysia and had east Malaysia voted similar to west Malaysia in the last election, we wouldn’t have seen a change in government already in Malaysia. So, the current government is quite dependant on both Sarawak and Sabah as a voting block.

Do ethnic differences play a serious role in the domestic policies?

It is a very difficult and complex issue and there is actually a big difference in terms of the ethnic question in west Malaysia and east Malaysia. In west Malaysia it is really about Indian, Chinese and Malay identity politics around that, whereas in east Malaysia it is quite different because there is a vast or much larger proportion of indigenous people and a lot of them are not Muslims so the issue of Islam does not arise as it does in west Malaysia and so especially Sabah has much more of a cosmopolitan history and ethic than, say, west Malaysia where identity politics that has been imbued with religious politics or the identity politics around religion is much more pronounced. So, in fact one of the biggest minorities in Sabah is Philippines and in a way the makeup of Sabah is much more diverse than the makeup of west Malaysia, that has a very different ethnic politics that happens over there.