My father was a member of Cobbold Commission 1962 which paved the way for the establishment of Malaysia with the entry of Sabah and Sarawak into the new federation.

He was one of the five members of the Cobbold Commission formed jointly by the British and Malayan governments in 1962 to ascertain the views of the people of Sabah and Sarawak as well as to make recommendations on the proposal to establish Malaysia, comprising Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak.

The Cobbold Commission was headed by Lord Cobbold, a former Governor of the Bank of England, and comprised Dato’ Wong Pow Nee, the Chief Minister of Penang, Mohd. Ghazali Shafie, Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sir Anthony Abell, the former Governor of Sarawak and Sir David Watherston, the former Chief Secretary of Malaya.

Between the 19th of February and 17th April 1962, the members made visits throughout Sabah and Sarawak reviewing opinions of individuals and religious, social and political organizations, and in August 1962, the Cobbold Commission announced its assessment of the degree of support for the Malaysia Plan, viz:

a) About one third of the population in each territory strongly favours early realization of Malaysia without too much concern about terms and conditions.

b)Another third, many of them favourable to the Malaysia project, ask, with varying degrees of emphasis, for conditions and safeguards varying in nature and extent.

c)The remaining third is divided between those who insist on independence before Malaysia is considered and those who would strongly prefer to see British rule continue for some years to come, including “a hard core, vocal and politically active” amounting to near 20 per cent of the population of Sarawak and somewhat less in Sabah “which will
oppose Malaysia on any terms unless it is preceded by independence and self-government”.

As against the recommendations of the two British members, Sir Anthony Abell and Sir David Watherston, recommending a transitional period of from three to seven years for the formation of Malaysia, my father and Ghazalie Shafie strongly proposed that the transitional period should not be no longer than 12 months to prevent “dangerous disruptive influences”.

In the event, Malaysia was formally brought into being on September 16, 1963.

(Brief history: The Federation of Malaya became an independent kingdom on 31st August 1957. The original federation consisted of the peninsular states of Johor, Kedah, Kelantan, Malacca, Negri Sembilan, Pahang, Pinang, Perak, Perlis, Selangor and Trengganu. A new Federation, with the name of Malaysia, came into being on 16th September 1963. It consisted of the original peninsular states, together with, Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah (British North Borneo) on the island of Kalimantan (Borneo). Singapore withdrew from the federation and became an independent republic on 9th August 1965.)

The chairman and the British members of the Cobbold Commission recommended complete religious freedom and not to make Islam the national religion for Sabah and Sarawak, but my father and Ghazalie Shafie recommended that the Malaysian Constitution be based on the 1957 Merdeka Constitution declaring that the position of Islam being the religion of the Federation “in no way jeopardizes freedom of religion in the Federation which in effect would be secular”. In other words, Malaysia is to be a secular state.

Click the link to view collections of photographs by Wong Pow Nee on The Cobbold Commission.