JAMES Masing has warned the ultras in the peninsula against extending the “time-limited” social contract to the state.

The Sarawak deputy chief minister said: “That social contract has nothing to do with us”.

He was referring to the issue after it was raised at the Malay Dignity Congress held in Kuala Lumpur earlier this month.

The social contract is purportedly a trade-off to cement the position of the Malays in return to the granting of citizenship to the Chinese and Indian immigrants after gaining independence from Britain in 1957.

“We are Sarawakians. We are not Malayans,” he told The Malaysian Insight, alluding to the time the contract was drawn up.

Since the contract was confined to “Tanah Melayu” well before the formation of Malaysia, it was, therefore, not applicable to Sarawak, which only agreed to enter into a federation with Malaya, Singapore and then North Borneo (Sabah today) to form Malaysia, six years later in 1963, Masing said.

Singapore pulled out of the federation in 1965.

Masing echoed the views of many academics and historians that the contract was never written down, adding that it was an agreement that was not legally binding.

The contract, he said, was “an understanding between friends”.

“It’s a ‘I scratch your back, you scratch my back’ thing,” he said, adding that the social contract has a time limitation.

“When Malaysia was formed, that social contract has no effect on the new entity and us (in Sarawak and Sabah) as it is an MoU among the people of Malaya (that cannot be extended to Sarawak and Sabah).

“Absolutely nothing to do with us. What preceded this was history and has no relevance to Malaysia.

“So, don’t ever try to bring it here,” he said.

At the Malay dignity gathering earlier this month, the chief executive of the congress’ secretariat Dr Zainal Kling in his opening remarks kicked up a storm when he warned the minority communities, particularly ethnics Chinese and Indians, about their “social contract” with the Malays.

It is believed that Zainal’s threat included other non-Malay minorities in Sabah and Sarawak – the Ibans, Bidayuhs, Melanaus, Kadazans, Dusuns, Muruts, Bajaus, Orang Ulus.

Academic James Chin also dismissed the extension of the social contract to Sarawak and Sabah.

“Not true. No such thing as a Malaysian social contract,” the Kuching-born director of the Asia Institute at the University of Tasmania said.

“In the first place, there is no such thing as a Malaysian social contract though there was an agreement on accepting natives of Sarawak and Sabah as indigenous – not Bumiputeras – for administrative purpose,” Chin said.

He referred to a 2008 blog posting by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad on the extension of the contract to Sarawak and Sabah as the “Malaysian” social contract.

Dr Mahathir’s post stated that “when Sabah and Sarawak joined the peninsular states to form Malaysia, the social contract was extended to the two Borneo states”.

The social contract as mentioned by Zainal was never mentioned in any written document, Chin added. – October 28, 2019.