After 47 years, a national holiday to celebrate the birthday of a country on September 16

Masidi Manjun, Sabah’s minister of culture, tourism and environment who is a lawyer, was 13 when Malaysia was proclaimed simultaneously in Kota Kinabalu (then known as Jesselton), Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Kuching at half past seven on a sunny Monday morning of September 16 in 1963. He was one of many schoolboys at the town padang (field) carrying a banner that screamed “merdeka!” (freedom!). Yet the meaning of that historic day that created a Malaysian nation through merging peninsular Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah (then North Borneo) is lost on most Malaysians. Prime minister Najib Razak wants to correct that. For the first time in 47 years, Malaysia Day is now a national holiday. This September 16 marks the coming of age of a nation as a grand national celebration in Kota Kinabalu will revisit the formation of Malaysia that freed Sabah and Sarawak from British colonial rule.

Joseph Salang Gandum, federal deputy minister of information, communications, arts and culture, was in Kota Kinabalu on June 4 to tell Mr Masidi that Sabah gets to host the first Malaysia Day celebration. Next year’s celebration will be in Kuching, capital of neighbouring Sarawak.

Nationally, 31 August is celebrated as Malaysia’s independence day. It was on this day in 1957 that the 11-state peninsular Malaya gained independence from Britain. Malaysia was to have been proclaimed on 31 August but its announcement was delayed till September 16 by opposition to the union from Indonesia and the Philippines and uncertainty of support from the people of Sabah and Sarawak. The Cobbold commission and a UN team found that most Borneo people were keen on merger but they needed some constitutional safeguards.

Sabah celebrates September 16 as its governor’s birthday with a public holiday. Mr Gandum says he has been urging the Malaysian parliament for the last 10 years to celebrate September 16 as Malaysia Day.

Mr Masidi says Mr Najib is expected at the celebration which will not be just a month-long carnival that is expected to start on August 15. Historical records will be displayed at the state archive and museum to inform and educate the public on the how and why Malaysia was formed.

Themed “Menjana Transformasi” (bringing transformation), the celebration is expected to help Mr Najib’s 1Malaysia unity campaign as he transforms his government for higher performance to better serve his 28m Malays, ethnic Chinese, Indians and indigenous people.

Political pundits and historians say a better understanding of the history of Malaysia will foster better state and federal ties. They say much unhappiness has resulted from a lack of the people’s understanding of why and how Malaysia was formed. (See Weathering the storms)

Sarawakian James Wong Kim Min, 88, one of Malaysia’s founders, says Sarawakians in their 40s and even 50s seem ignorant of or do not have the chance to know how Malaysia was formed. “They were still too young to understand the change that had taken place,” he says.

The facts of Malaysia’s formation, however, would seem much stranger than fiction. Ironically, it was Singapore which pressed for merger with Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak  in order for it to be independent of Britain only to be expelled from the then 14-state Malaysian federation in slightly less than two years later.

The late Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaya’s first prime minister, had rejected Singapore’s overtures because he feared the 1.3m Singaporean Chinese would upset the racial composition of Malaya which was dominated by Malays. Britain was speeding up decolonisation and saw it opportune to bring Sabah and Sarawak into the union to make it acceptable to the Tunku. The Borneo natives would be a counterweight to Singapore’s ethnic Chinese.

The British did not think that Sabah and Sarawak, lacking a skilled workforce and resources (except timber and rubber), could survive as independent states. Oil was not discovered offshore of Sabah until 1970 while the onshore oil fields in Sarawak’s Miri were depleting. Offshore oil exploration was just beginning. Oil production from offshore Miri only started in the 1970s. Sarawak’s yearly revenue was about 75m ringgit ($23m), according to Mr Wong. It was also threatened by the clandestine communist organisation.

Nobody knows why September 16 was chosen. In his memoirs, “The Singapore Story”, Lee Kuan Yew, who fought hard for Malaysia, says Duncan Sandys, Britain’s secretary of state for commonwealth relations, got the Tunku to agree to proclaim Malaysia on September 16 because it was the Tunku’s lucky number. “Double eight equals sixteen, another lucky number of his,” says Mr Lee, who was Singapore's longest serving prime minister for 31 years untill he retired in 1990.

September 16 is also Mr Lee’s birthday. “The Tunku was not aware that it was my 40th birthday,” he says. “If he had been, he might well have changed the date – my birthday could not be his lucky day.”

As Mr Lee celebrates his 87th birthday and Malaysia the anniversary of its founding, he will muse on how September 16 has changed the destiny and the course of history of two neighbourly nations. – Insight Sabah

-- With reporting by Jenney Juanis; Pictures by Henry Matakim

Note: Malaysia’s ties with Singapore have warmed under Mr Najib who recently announced that the two countries would form a partnership to develop 271 hectares of land in Singapore belonging to Malaysia’s railway company when it moves its Tanjung Pagar station to Woodlands next year.

Related story:

Weathering the storms