The Malaysian Federation, Indonesia and the Philippines
A Study in Political Geography
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4619945 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Charles A Fisher (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1963 |
| Volume | 129 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 311 |
| Publication date | 1963-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Geographical Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0016-7398 • E-ISSN: 1475-4959 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1794830 |
| OpenAlex | W2313434733 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 10 |
IN view of the prevailing Afro-Asian sentiment in favour of the speedy liquidation of the remaining vestiges of Western coloniali m, the strong criticisms voic d during 1962-3 by Malaya's two neighbours, Indonesia and the Philippines, of Tunku Abdul Rahman's plans for creating a Malaysian Federation, to link Singapore and the three British Borneo territories with the existing Federation of Malaya, has at first sight been surprising. For it must surely be clear that none of these lesser territories, with popu? lations (1960) respectively of 1,634,000 in Singapore, 745,000 in Sarawak, 454,000 in North Borneo and 84,000 in Brunei, forms by itself a viable unit in the world of today, and further, that their most obvious means of obtaining complete political indepen? dence from Britain lies in joining with the Federation of Malaya, the one part of the erstwhile British Malaysian sphere which has already achieved full independence, and whose population of 6,909,000 enjoys the highest standard of living of any indepen? dent State in South-east Asia. It was therefore a cause for satisfaction that, following a meeting of the foreign ministers of Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines at Manila, the Philippines and Indonesia agreed in June 1963 to end their opposition to the forma? tion, and also to set up with Malaya a joint consultative body which it is hoped may lead to a new confederation of all three countries, to be known as Maphilindo. It is the purpose of this article * to examine the significance both of the recent tensions and of the new proposals, in the setting of the distinctive geographical circumstances in which they have arisen. In contrast to mainland South-east Asia, where each of the main contemporary States corresponds basically, if not in every detail, to the sphere of political infiuence already mapped out, long before the nineteenth century colonial activities of Britain and France, by one major indigenous group, and as such possesses a considerable measure of historical continuity, the present political divisions of the Malaysian world have no comparable continuity with pre-colonial patterns.2 In part this difference results from the much longer history of Western colonial rule in the archipelago, but it also reflects basic contrasts in both geography and ethnography. For while within the past 2000 years the mainland has been subjected to a series of overland migrations, notably of Burmans, Thais and Vietnamese, who subsequently built up their kingdoms within historic times in the relatively large core areas provided by the great river basins there, the basic cultural unity shared in the archipelago in late prehistoric times by both the Protoand Deutero-Malay peoples (who together form the ancestors of at least 95 per cent of the indigenous population of the entire archipelago today) has not since been obliterated by any corresponding mass migrations of newcomers. And in the absence of such sharp human differentiation, and also of a series of major core areas analogous to the mainland river basins, the pre-colonial political geography remains much more fiuid than that of the areas further north. However, although the ease of movement across the usually placid seas of the archi? pelago facilitated the wide dissemination of common cultural traits, the Malaysian world has never been one of cultural uniformity. Inevitably, considerable regional differences developed, both from island to island and between the coastal areas and
Economic geography · Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Human geography · Political geography · Political science · Politics · Asian Studies and History · Maritime Security and History · Philippine History and Culture
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,02 |
| Citation span | 1971 - 1971 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |