Arguments over multiple capital cities

OUT of the blue, during the recent parliamentary debates on the ‘Speech from the Throne’, Ampang MP YB Rodziah Ismail had plucked from the arid air of the august House what she thought was a bright idea.

Malaysia, she suggested, should have another capital – this time built in East Malaysia, to complement Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya.

She pointed to South Africa as an example of a country with three capitals: Pretoria, Cape Town and Bloemfontein.

Coming from a federal legislator, the proposal should be treated seriously.

However, a number of people had reacted to the proposal.

I was informed of this by my minder while I was lying in bed with a nasty cold.

For a few days while the whole world was passing by, I was pretty helpless without the aid from the indispensable handphone or a newspaper, for verification of the authenticity of the news.

A Kuching-born political analyst at the Faculty of Asian Studies of the University of Tasmania, Australia, Prof James Chin, had labelled YB Rodziah’s proposal as a ‘very bad idea’, citing instances of reluctance of the office workers in Kuala Lumpur to move to Petra Jaya (in Sarawak) after another capital for Malaysia was ready for occupation.

The professor said that the system of three capitals had ‘actually not worked very well.

The South Africa’s Constitution Court should have been built at Bloemfontein instead of Johannesburg.

Not a good model for Malaysia to adopt, I would add.

The other reaction was a resounding ‘NO’. It’s from Dato Sri Abdul Karim Abdul Rahman Hamzah, the state Minister of Tourism, Creative Industries and Performing Arts.

I must admit that I do not know whether or not the minister’s view is the same as that of the state government itself.

Whatever it is, the minister’s opinion may well be reflective of the general consensus among the ordinary Sarawakians – me included.

On the face of it, the proposal looks like a political theory of sorts: not exactly Machiavellian, but subtly akin to it.

For lack of a better term, I would rather call it ‘Lee Kuan Yew Doctrine’.

For this, we shall have a glance at the political behaviour of the leaders in Malaya and Singapore before the formation of Malaysia.

In the course of my duty at the federal Ministry for Sarawak Affairs, I had met a number of political leaders.

Through chanced conversations with leaders like Tun Mohammed Fuad Stephens and Tan Sri Ong Kee Hui, I had the fortune to learn something about the political situation prior to the formation of Malaysia.

The notion of more than one capital for the proposed union of the two was mooted behind the scene by the Singaporeans.

They were toying with the idea that the administrative capital of the merged Malaya/Singapore should be sited at Selangor, and the financial capital at Singapore itself.

They claimed that they would be in a better position in terms of overseeing federal finances, while the Malayans would be responsible for the running of the civil service – the efficiency of the Malayan civil service was well-known.

As we all know, the merger between Singapore and Malaya did not materialise.

However, this failure to unite Malaya and Singapore as one country did not deter the Malayan Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman from trying out his luck in another venture.

This venture had the full support from his Singaporean counterpart, Lee Kuan Yew, too.

To cut the story short, this was the process that eventually led to the formation of the Federation of Malaysia that we know of.

Around the same period of time in the colonial history, on the Island of Borneo, ideas were bandied about – a Bornean Federation.

Ong Kee Hui was telling me that he was invited to Talang Talang Island by top government officials in Sarawak for a picnic and the turtle eggs, but what was being floated about was the union between North Borneo and Sarawak.

No major discussion took place publicly as a follow-up; though apparently, the idea was put on the backburner, for some reason best known to the colonial rulers.

Then in 1961, the Tunku told the Press Club in Singapore about his proposal for his Malaya to have an economic link with North Borneo and Sarawak.

Singapore would be in, of course.

That too received the ardent support of Lee Kuan Yew.

The rest of the narrative is for the column readers to complete.

Back to the capital city.

What’s all this got to do with what our parliamentarian from Ampang was talking about?

The siting of the capital city matters because it is the brain of a nation, federal or unitary.

In our context, the problem has always been that the advocates have visions of the federation – highly centralised, or independent, or pseudo federation.

For instance, with reference to the proposed Federation of Malaysia, Lee Kuan Yew was reported by the media as declaring: ‘Calculate any way you like, a peaceful and prosperous Malaysia is only possible if we keep Singapore the centre of Malaysia” (Straits Budget: July 3, 1963).

When Malaysia was finally formed on Sept 16, 1963, there arose the problem of toeing the federal line in terms of policies relating to the development of the economy, culture and even religion.

It would be easier to manage the federation if it were to be a unitary state.

The tagline ‘Satu Bangsa, Satu Negara, Satu Bahasa’ (One Race, One Nation, One Language) – to which sometimes was added ‘Satu Agama’ (One Religion) – at appropriate occasions was later modified in the form of the ‘Rukun Negara’ (National Principles).

Singapore had wanted a multi-racial country all right, but a unique model called ‘Malaysian Malaysia’ – a country free from religious and political domination by any racial group.

Politicians in Malaya did not go along with that concept.

The participation of PAP in the by-election of MP at Bangsar was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Divorce was inevitable!

Did our MP Rodziah pick up some elements of this idea from the ‘Lee Kuan Yew Doctrine’, I wonder?

By the way, the doctrine is my own version of ‘bright’ idea.

Another lesson that the advocates for more than one capital city for a country comes from the experience of the former Federation of the West Indies consisting of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The civil service was being dominated by the Jamaicans, while the rest of the West Indians were sidelined for promotions and allocations of development funds.

The yuppies in the capital, Kingston Town, were aloof and overbearing, regarding the others as knowing nothing about public administration.

The federation lasted from 1958 till 1962.

Does YB Rodziah’s proposal make sense?