LABUAN: Some Sabahans appear easily swayed by Malay ultras in the peninsula who brazenly claim Sabah and Sarawak belong to them, ignoring the historical fact that the peninsula would have remained mere Malaya had the Borneo territories not agreed to form Malaysia.
“Strangely, the ones who agree are only in Sabah. Nobody in Sarawak subscribes to this view,” said activist George Elias. “Just because the entire South East Asian region is geographically part of the Malay archipelago does not make Sabah, Sarawak Tanah Melayu.
“One must be able to distinguish between what is political and what is geographical,” he said.
George was referring to former Chief Minister Tan Sri Harris Salleh disagreeing with former Federal Attorney General Tan Sri Tommy Thomas, who in his talk in Sabah, recently, said “Sabah and Sarawak were not part of Tanah Melayu”.