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“No Federation Please-We Are Bruneians”: Scuttling the Northern Borneo Closer Association Proposals
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Abstract:
The reason for Brunei Darussalam’s refusal to join the Malaysia Federation in
August 1963 remains an enigma to this date. Scholarly speculations abound
pointing to Brunei’s reluctance to share her oil income and the ire of then Brunei
Sultan Sir Haji Omar Ali Saifuddin for losing priority in the hierarchy of the
Malayan kings and so on. This article sets the historical background of the Sultan’s
unyielding resistance in diluting sovereignty of the State by becoming part of any
Federation within or without Malaysia. Federalism, a cardinal British imperial
policy to unite otherwise fledgling smaller colonial territories, may have worked
elsewhere in the dominion, but the promoters in the British Colonial Office hit a
blindwall when they tried to promote the same among the three Northern Borneo
Territories namely Sarawak, North Borneo (Sabah) and the Sultanate of Brunei. No
amount of persuasion, cajoling and even indirect threats could nudge Brunei to
accept an ostensible Closer Association Proposals prior to the formation of a larger
Federation including Malaysia and Singapore. By focusing on this important but a
still-born event, this article highlights complex issues that shaped Brunei’s modern
history in which the Sultanate slithered towards neo-traditionalism as well as
monarchic absolutism as witnessed today. This article further highlights an ironic
coalescence of disparate interests represented by a nascent nationalist movement in
the Partai Rakyat Brunei (Brunei People’s party) led by Shaikh Azahari with that of
the altruism of British colonial design to achieve the same goal vis-à-vis an obstinate
Brunei Ruler who emerged victorious in the end to keep intact the age-old Brunei
monarchy while preserving the geographical integrity of a rump State that stood the
danger of being obliterated during the period under discussion.
Description:
Date:
2014
Authors:
B. A. Hussainmiya
Asbol Haji Mail
Publisher:
Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam
