by G Lim
Aliran Monthly Vol 25 (2005): Issue 4

	If Sabah is to be asked to relinquish its immigration controls, a first step must be to undo the economic neglect that the province has suffered. G Lim

Of late, the local media in Sabah have been aflurry with debate over the latest public musings of ex-PM Mahathir. In an address to the Sabah Society annual dinner at the end of March, Mahathir raised the question of the immigration controls that Sabah and Sarawak retain over the entry and residence of West Malaysians, stating that it �doesn�t really look good if we [West Malaysians] have to carry passports in order to visit Sabah or Sarawak�. In response to a question from the floor, he further suggested that it may be time to review the hallowed �20 Points�, which many Sabahans believe form the basis of Federal-State relations.

Mahathir has a point, although his logic is a bit peculiar: restrictions on West Malaysian professionals working in Sabah were apparently acceptable when there was an under-supply of professionals in the state, but now the state has a university and is able to produce its own professionals, these restrictions are no longer necessary!

Nonetheless, it is virtually unheard of for any other modern state to allow restrictions to be placed on the normal movement of its citizens within the country. Threats to national security are the exception here: until the tsunami, Indonesia limited the movement of Indonesians into and out of Aceh; in the United Kingdom, members of the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party were banned from travel to the British mainland for much of the 1980s.

But within normal peacetime, similar limitations on the internal mobility of a country�s citizens in today�s contemporary nation-states are hard to find. Historically, one might look to the restrictions on the movement of Chinese citizens with the Dutch East Indies, or the more contemporary restrictions on the non-White population under Apartheid in South Africa. In this context, Sabah and Sarawak�s controls over the migration of West Malaysians into the state stand out as something of an international anachronism.

Two issues

In time-honoured BN fashion, a potentially divisive issue has been subtly side-stepped by re-focusing the debate on a related but relatively innocuous issue, that of passports and immigration cards. The proposal that the Sabah state government has now agreed to on a trial basis � and which has long been planned in Sarawak in any case � is that, with the introduction of the spangly new MyKad, the need for West Malaysians to produce a passport or else fill in an immigration form could be replaced with an electronic system based solely on the MyKad.

But - and here�s the catch - this is only really a bureaucratic change, doing away with the minor administrative niggles for West Malaysians seeking to enter Sabah but not addressing the underlying issue of immigration control. Semenanjungies entering Sabah will still be limited in the duration of their stay, and will still need a permit to work in the state.

What about the more sensitive issue � that maybe it is time for Sabah and Sarawak to do away with their domestic immigration controls altogether?

Nation-building

There are strong arguments on both sides of the debate. Mahathir�s point is a valid one: how can Malaysia achieve a full sense of national identity, where all its citizens feel a sense of belonging to the same community, when citizens enjoy different rights vis-�-vis one another in different parts of the federation?

This difficulty is made all the worse by the vast geographical distance between the two �halves� of Malaysia. Maintaining a sense of unity across such divisions is immensely difficult � Pakistan failed when Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) seceded in 1971; many commentators express similar doubts about the long-term viability of a future Palestinian state split between the West Bank and Gaza. Malaysia�s experience so far has been relatively successful, but achieving full national integration surely requires a greater effort to ensure that West and East develop a mutual sense of �Malaysianness�.

Constitutional bargain

One of the main justifications for the continuation of immigration controls for the East Malaysian states is that these extra powers were agreed to as part of the formation of Malaysia and that changing them now would be akin to reneging on the guarantees afforded Sabah and Sarawak at independence. That old protagonist of Sabahan autonomy, the PBS president Joseph Pairin Kitingan, compares it to marital vows: just because a marriage is going well, doesn�t mean you should give up the promises made at the wedding. Indeed, one might suggest, doing so might undermine the success of the marriage.

This is also a strong argument. Indeed, there is perhaps a comparison to be made here with certain other �special� provisions of the constitution. Is there not some justification for Sabahans to feel aggrieved that while questioning of these other special rights is an imprisonable offence, their limited but nonetheless constitutionally-enshrined autonomy appears to be a political football for all who care to kick around?

Beyond 20-point politics

It is necessary to dispel a couple of myths � common even in Sabah � about the 20 Points. Firstly, they have no legal or constitutional standing; they are, rather, the submissions made by the Sabahan representatives to the Inter-Governmental Committee charged with devising the terms of the Malaysia Agreement. This is not to say that the 20 Points aren�t important in Sabah, but their importance is political rather than constitutional.

Secondly, the 20 Points are in essence mostly rather dull. Point 19 declares �the name of the state shall be Sabah�, something that no-one was really about to contest anyway, then or now. Indeed, from the standpoint of securing autonomy, some of the points are remarkably self-limiting from a Sabah perspective: Point 4 states that the Sabah head of state should not be eligible for election as the Yang di-Pertua Agong.

Harking back to the 20 Points is not a viable way of mapping a political path for the integration of East and West Malaysia. We should rather ask, what is it Sabahans fear in the loosening of their migration controls, and how can they be persuaded to overcome this?

What do Sabahans fear?

At the heart of the Sabah reaction is a fear that the loosening of migration controls would result in an influx of West Malaysians taking job opportunities away from locals. Already, many Sabahans feel that their state has been neglected in the development drive pursued by the Federal government; an opening of the borders may result in what little development opportunities there are being captured by individuals and companies close to the powers-that-be in Kuala Lumpur.

Between 1970 and 2000, the population of Malaysia increased slightly over two-fold, from 10.7 million inhabitants to 23.3 million. During the same period, however, the population of Sabah increased four-fold, from 654,000 to 2,656,000. Much of this increase came from migration, both from West Malaysia and from other countries, notably the Philippines and Indonesia.

Accompanying this population growth has been a period of economic stagnation. In 1970, Sabah ranked as one of the richest states in the federation, with a per capita GDP second only to Selangor (which then included KL). Average incomes are now among the lowest in Malaysia, and with a considerably higher cost of living than in West Malaysia. In 2000, Sabah had an unemployment rate of 5.6 per cent � the highest of any state and almost twice the national average of 3.1 per cent. The state has the highest poverty rate in the country at 16 per cent, more than three times the national average.

For many Sabahans, these two problems � high immigration rates and economic stagnation � are inimically linked. The PBS, which dominated Sabah politics from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, successfully campaigned on a slogan of �Sabah for Sabahans�. Even today, after it has returned to the BN fold, the PBS continues to make noise about the issue of �illegals�.

The way forward for Sabah and Sarawak

It is clear that any decision to loosen the immigration controls enjoyed by East Malaysia must come from those states themselves, and not be imposed top-down from Kuala Lumpur. Any such move would not only usurp the constitutionally enshrined autonomy enjoyed by these states, but would also risk a popular backlash against any government that attempted it.

The political parochialism of these states, where West Malaysian parties � whether BN or opposition � have historically rarely gained a foothold has been one of the best defences of their autonomy. With the Sabah state assembly now dominated by UMNO politicians whose direct political masters lie not in Kota Kinabalu but KL (see AM 2004:3), there is a risk that such federal pressure might indeed be brought to bear.

If Sabah is to be asked to relinquish its immigration controls, a first step must be to undo the economic neglect that the province has suffered. A popular willingness to relax these controls will only come when Sabahans feels certain that the federal government is really looking after their interests and that the state�s social and economic development is robust enough to allow sufficient opportunities alike for Sabahans, West Malaysians and any other residents.

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G. Lim, a keen observer of Malaysian politics, was researching in Sabah when he filed this article for Aliran Monthly.

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