By Remy Majangkim (Majangkim Office)
KOTA KINABALU: It was the Chartist poet Charles Mackay who famously wrote:
“He who has mingled in the fray of duty that the brave endure must have made foes. If you have none, small is the work that you have done.”
On its face, former Chief Minister Tan Sri Harris Salleh’s new proposal on Sabah’s 40 per cent revenue entitlement sounds almost disarmingly pragmatic.
In a recent interview with Daily Express Malaysia, he openly advised the state government to abandon the constitutional claim for cash settlements in exchange for federal spending on roads, schools and hospitals. His message to younger Sabahans: stop bubut – stop chasing – the entitlement they are owed under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).
The public uproar has been immediate and fierce. But before we reflexively dismiss him, Mackay’s logic commands us to pause. After all, Harris has certainly made foes. By the poet’s measure, that ought to be proof of real work done, of a man unafraid to take the hard road.
The problem, however, is that Harris has mistaken betrayal for bravery.
The 40 per cent is non-negotiable.
Let us be absolutely clear. Sabah’s 40 per cent net revenue entitlement is not a request — it is a constitutional right, entrenched in Article 112 of the Federal Constitution and the bedrock commitment of the Malaysia Agreement 1963. It is not a bargaining chip to be swapped for roads and school desks, which are already federal obligations under the Constitution.
As Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Ewon Benedick rightly reminded the public, without Sabah, there would be no Malaysia. To conflate the two is not pragmatism; it is surrender dressed in a hardhat and a school tie.
But the real reason Sabahans are furious runs deeper than legal semantics. It is because they remember.
The Twin Betrayals
Harris Salleh asks for trust. Yet his political legacy is a catalogue of handovers dressed as development — first of our resources, then of our soil.
.That is not the advice of a brave man who has made foes. It is the counsel of a man who has made peace with surrender.
So Sabahans: do not listen to the dinosaurs. That’s the reason it goes extinct. Keep chasing what is yours and never let it go. The 40 per cent is yours — not a token to be traded for tired roads.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Jesselton Times.
