I was in Sabah last week and I was surprised that the former Suhakam Vice Chairman and former Sabah State Secretary Tan Sri Simon Sipaun had been the target of attacks by Sabah for his recent statement that “life in Sabah before in Malaysia was very pleasant and good”.

This is what Sipaun had said recently:

“Life in Sabah, in those days called North Borneo, as I remember it, before Malaysia, was very pleasant and good, to say the least. Admittedly there was no development that we see today, but even Malaya at that time was no better. There was no racial problem, mixed marriages were very common, and that is why we have so many peranakan in Sabah. If Sabahans are now conscious of racial and religious divide, it has been imported from semananjung. There was no illegal immigrant, there were no cases of Sabahans losing citizenship status while foreigners get it without much difficulty. There were no repressive and draconian laws, such as Official Secrets Act; … the Printing Presses and Publications Act, the Seditious Act, the Police Act, and the four Proclamations of Emergency; we are still under emergency as of today even though the conditions for having emergency proclamation is no longer there. There was no quarrelling over dead bodies, the composition, and I spent three years of my career in the civil service before Malaysia, the composition in those days of the civil service was reflective of the racial makeup of society. It was multi-racial, meritocracy was practised. Corruption and ketuanan Melyau, we never heard of it. And the thing continues. How not to miss Sabah before Malaysia.”

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