Malaysia-A New Federation in Southeast Asia
1963; University of British Columbia; Volume: 36; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2754186
ISSN1715-3379
Autores Tópico(s)Socioeconomic Development in Asia
ResumoIN MAY i96i, the Prime Minister of Malaya, Tunku Abdul Rahman set into motion political forces that will transform the map of Southern Asia and greatly affect the political environment in this area of the world. In a speech before the Foreign Correspondents Association of Southeast Asia he said that Malaya have an understanding with Britain and the peoples of the territories of Singapore, North Borneo, Brunei and Sarawak. It is premature for me to say now how this closer understanding can be brought about but it is inevitable that we should look ahead to this objective....I What made this statement so sensational was not that the idea of a Greater Malaysia was so new. Indeed, the idea (in different form) has captured the imagination of many Malay and Indonesian nationalists for years, and during the war this sentiment was encouraged by the Japanese who hoped to channel the force of nationalism in Southeast Asia against Japan's enemies. But, in the period after the war very few persons in authority mentioned the idea of a larger political union because such proposals were either politically dangerous or impractical in that period of political change and ferment. Even the proposals for union between Singapore and the Federation of Malaya were spurned by the Malayan Government because of the unstable political situation in Singapore and the fear that Singapore's Chinese population would upset the racial balance in the Federation.2 Under these circumstances, the possibility of a wider union seemed remote. In Malaya such thoughts were expressed in public by only a few of the more radical Malay politicians who occasionally referred to the idea of Melayu Raya-generally defined as a Malaysian Empire embracing all the peoples of Malay ethnic stock and modeled after the Indonesian Republic, which would presumably become its center. What, then, were some of the circumstances in i96i which prompted the Malayan Government to reverse its apparent long-standing opposition to political union with other nearby territories? A major factor in the decision
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