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longhouses in that area. He was also the headmaster of the local
school.
We sat on his ‘veranda’ - outside his house - and talked about this and
that. The radio was on. Suddenly there was an announcement that the
Federation of Malaysia was in crisis because Singapore was about to
break away to leave Malaysia.
This was news to me, as it was to my host. Malaysia had not been in
being for very long. It had initially consisted of the nine Malay States,
the four Straits Settlements of Penang, Labuan, Malacca, and Singa-
pore, plus the two Borneo territories of Sarawak and North Borneo
(later call Sabah). The Sultan of Brunei had declined to join.
It was because of this newly constructed Malaysia that Indonesia had
started the ‘Confrontation’, and thus why we were there in the Sara-
wak border area.
The headman asked me what all this meant. Why was Singapore
breaking away? I didn’t know; nor did I know how this was being
handled politically. A lot of questions and thoughts went through my
mind. After a while in silent thought, the headman came up with a
proposal that I had certainly not thought of.
“If Singapore can do this, why can’t we? We could create a separate
state of Muruts here in 5
th
Division of Sarawak. I could be the Prime
Minister and you could be the Rajah.”
A mind-blowing thought! Where we were, it took about six days to
walk down to the coast. There were no roads or vehicle tracks. We
were only in touch with the outside world because of radios (no satel-
lites at that time) and by helicopter. If it hadn’t been for these last two
technological advances - or perhaps hindrances - we could perhaps
have got away with it! A small state covering the Long Semado and Ba
Kelalan Lundaya Murut communities would have been a marvellous
little country. They were rich in agricultural produce and thus self suf-
ficient. Ah well…. another missed opportunity in my life!
~~~~~~~~~~~
