Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Singapore History - In and Out of Malaysia

According to experts, joining a federation is irrevocable. You can't quit from a federation. There is no way for Sabah and Sarawak to leave Malaysia. Likewise Singapore.

Then how did Singapore quit Malaysia ? Malaysia government officially acknowledged that Singapore left the federation but in actual fact Singapore was expelled because of serious dispute between Tunku Abdul Rahman and Singapore leader (at that time) Lee Kuan Yew.




The Formation of Malaysia

Formation 1

The story of Malaysia began one day in May 1961 when Tungku Abdul Rahman told a group of newsmen in Singapore...

Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak were interested in Tungku's announcement. On 16th September1963, they merged with Malaya to form the Federation of Malaysia. But Brunei did not join it.

Formation 2

Formation 3

The Federation of Malaysia was made up of 14 states, including Singapore. Each state had its own state government. The Central Government of Malaysia was in Kuala Lumpur (K.L.). It was controlled by the Alliance Party with Tungku Abdul Rahman as the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Disagreements

reason1

Malaysia did not start off well. Right from the beginning, the P.A.P. and the Alliance Party in Kuala Lumpur did not get along well with each other.

Eventually, the disagreement became so serious that riots broke out in Singapore in July and September 1964. The riots were put down but the fire was not put out.

Disagreement 2

Disagreement 3

Then the P.A.P. began to talk openly of equal treatment of all races in in Malaysia. This made the Malay Alliance leaders even angrier because they believed that Malays had certain special rights. The relationship between the P.A.P. and the Malay Alliance leaders turned from bad to worse.

Separation

Separation

On 9 August 1965 Singapore was separated from Malaysia

On Our Own

National Day is celebrated every year on 9 August. This is because Singapore left Malaysia and became an independent nation on 9 August 1965. It was free from British rule and independent of Malaysia. The people were from then on known as Singaporeans. They were no longer British subjects or Malaysians. Neither could they consider themselves citizens of China, India or Indonesia.

Singapore became a Republic with a President as Head of the Republic. The first President was Yusoff Ishak. The Legislative Assembly was renamed the Parliament. The Assembly members became known as Members of Parliament (M.P.s). The Executive Council was renamed the Cabinet. The leader of the Cabinet, the most important man in the government, was the Prime Minister. Now that Singapore was an independent and democratic country, all the decisions of the nation would be made by the government elected by the people.

Article source: http://library.thinkquest.org/10414/newgov.html


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