Why is M'sia accord, IGCC not taught in schools?

Kota Kinabalu: A Sabahan is disappointed that two important documents that are crucial to the nation's founding 52 years ago are not even in the school syllabus."The Malaysia Agreement and Inter-Governmental Committee Report (IGCC) are the basis why Sabah and Sarawak agreed to team up with Malaya and Singapore to form Malaysia in 1963.

"Yet the Agreement and IGCC are missing from the Malaysian historical narrative. It is not taught in our schools and universities," said Zainnal Ajamain, who authored a book about the significance of both documents.

He said even civil servants were not taught about both documents before starting work.

So how could an officer from the peninsula understand the special privileges accorded to Sabah and Sarawak when he or she is posted to both states? Zainnal asked.

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Hence, he said it was not surprising that resentment was building up among Sabahans and Sarawakians, adding that it has been 50 years in the making.

In the 423-page book titled The Queen's Obligation, Zainnal argues the British colonialists secured caveats and safeguards for Sabah and Sarawak that were secured in the Constitution.

The Constitution of Malaya was amended by as much as 50pc to incorporate the Malaysia Agreement that included the safeguards that the British wanted for the two Bornean states, he explained.

Among these safeguards was that Sabah and Sarawak were entitled to 10pc royalties of any petroleum products exported from either state.

In addition, the Malaysia Agreement also provides for Sabah being entitled to 40pc of any nett revenue collected by the Federal Government in the State.

He said the title of the book was derived from a reply of the Queen of England to a petition sent to her by the people of Baram in Sarawak in 1959.

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The Queen responded to the petition in 1960, giving her assurance that the Government would abide with the Sarawak Constitution and the Nine Cardinal Principles of the White Rajah, said Zainnal who spent more than 15 years to research the book.

In his foreword in the book, Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman said Zainnal's research efforts and the publication could be a starting point for more studies about the nation's founding.

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