Each year in recent times, as we celebrate National Day and Malaysia Day, a somewhat discordant ritual, or what I would call self-flagellation, will take over for some.
Thankfully, it is still only a minority in Sabah and Sarawak, who still regurgitate the argument that Aug 31, the day when most of the country gained independence in 1957, is not a meaningful celebration for both the Borneo states.
This is despite Sabah, beginning this year, officially declaring Aug 31 as Sabah Day due to the fact that it attained self-government on this date in 1963, prior to formal independence for both Sabah and Sarawak through Malaysia Day on Sept 16 of the same year.
Sarawak has celebrated July 22 as Sarawak Day for some years, although it is confusingly taken by some as the actual date Sarawak attained independence, also in 1963. Historical revisionism may suit whatever the purposes of some, but it is still revisionism.
That National Day is now also officially Sabah Day tells another story: that were it not for Indonesia's and the Philippines' objections to the idea of Malaysia, Malaysia Day would have coincided with National Day as originally intended.
That Malaysia Day is now — and rightly so — celebrated nationally with a public holiday should have put an end to this fruitless debate about which part of the country celebrates which day as independence day.
The late Sarawak leader Tun Abdul Taib Mahmud once eloquently noted that all Americans in all 50 states celebrate Independence Day on July 4, even though on that day in 1776, only 13 American colonies cut ties with Britain to become the original 13 states.
That Malaysia Day was not officially acknowledged until recent years is, of course, regrettable. But now that the oversight has been rectified, it is time to move on. It is also unproductive to be forever lamenting that the creation of an expanded federation in 1963 was not universally celebrated right from the start.
It is surely more productive for all Malaysians henceforth to use the twin celebrations of National Day and Malaysia Day to look forward rather than back, and to examine how a better federation may be forged.
It is a positive that concrete steps are being taken even as we speak to recalibrate and strengthen the federation. While it is good to mull over a federation make-over that is more in line with the original aspirations of those from Sabah and Sarawak as expressed in the Malaysia Agreement of 1963, ideally, this should not just be a discussion focused on these two states.
Evolving a better Malaysia must necessarily involve all Malaysians.
Former deputy minister Liew Chin Tong rightly included in his book, Second Takeoff: Strategies for Malaysia's Economic Resurgence, a chapter on "A New Deal for Malaysian Federalism". He envisions a revitalised federation that thoughtfully devolves greater powers from the federal centre to all the states.
Getting a better deal out of federalism does not necessarily mean only Sabah and Sarawak wanting a "fairer" share of the national economic cake or greater state powers to decide their own future. Liew also pointed out that for some states, "the amount received from the federal government is disproportionately small compared with their contribution to the federal coffers".
"The state government of Johor, for example, received an estimated RM865 million from Putrajaya in 2022, a far cry from the RM13 billion the federal government collected from the southern state in tax," Liew wrote.
Devolution from an overly centralised national government has been viewed as a welcome trend in a number of countries in recent years. It is anything but a zero-sum game.
* The writer views developments in the nation, region and wider world from his vantage point in Kuching