Dignity in losing

Sabah again. The issue is not whether the claim is valid, at least as far as possession goes, but whether it has any standing.

There is far less doubt about Tibet’s, made even less by China sticking it out lest the separatist movement in the Muslim Xinjiang “autonomous region” prosper. The Basques would get Spain, and then what about Catalonia? The popes got the tiny Vatican, but that was for sovereignty. The Holy Roman Empire, which was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, lost the few vestiges of its sovereignty under Napoleon.

The United States government pledged that as long as “the grass shall grow green and the rivers still flow,” the territory of Oklahoma would be an Indian redoubt. That is, until George Washington changed his mind, while imperialist sentiments were spreading like a virus among Western powers.

As for Sabah, legal minds have been airing the issues, including a former chief justice. It seems like authorities on Sabah have agreed on the difference between the issues of “possession” and “sovereignty.” The issue was settled in 1963 when the British created the Federation of Malaya, later to become Malaysia.

Alas, that didn’t prevent Ferdinand Marcos from attempting to perpetuate a deceit, starting with the training of saboteurs on Corregidor. True, that was a new age of “imperialism,” as Sukarno of Indonesia was meddling in everybody’s affairs in Southeast Asia, most notably Malaya’s.

Although it is often noted that lying is at the heart of diplomacy, one never, never actually commits a lie.  In 1968, while playing golf with Tunku Abdul Rahman, Marcos committed the ultimate sin.  He flatly lied about Corregidor.  He didn’t fudge, he didn’t hedge—like Abraham Lincoln, as portrayed in the film “Lincoln” when he denied any knowledge of commissioners from the south, saying he had “no knowledge,” thus committing what Churchill would call in polite Parliament, a “terminological inexactitude.”  The Tunku, informed by British intelligence, knew Marcos’ reply was untrue.  Marcos could have at least just said he’d investigate the charge.

But the result is a continuing joke in informed Malaysian circles.  It makes them a bit less willing to fudge a paper-thin fig leaf of a cover for sultans who just can’t give up.

When China routed America in the Korean War, George Kennan wrote the US president that how we bore our defeats was more important than how we celebrate our victories.  With dignity, you move on. Filipinos, justly outraged that Malaysian planes strafed the sultan’s redoubt, have to make a distinction between pain and reality.  If sent to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the issue will just stretch Filipino credibility worldwide, and the ICJ will reject the claim.  Otherwise, the whole international order becomes a house of cards.

President Aquino, like former President Fidel V. Ramos, sees the issue clearly.  The latter simply promised Dr. Mahathir Mohammad, in a fateful meeting, to put the issue on the “back burner.”  The result was that Malaysia became the largest investor in the Philippines. The Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines-East Asean Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) was set up precisely to provide an alternative for hopeless claimants.  Share economies, but sovereignty sticks.

Note that Malaysia makes no claims to Brunei Darussalam.  How absurd that the British created that sovereign state, the tradeoff being the sultan’s wise decision to place lots of its wealth to buttress the pound sterling!  Brunei is surrounded by Malaysia, but Kuala Lumpur knows when a deal is a deal.  The sultan’s control is protected simply by Ghurkas (again a British part of the deal), not by the military. They shoot first and then ask questions. (I once entertained the head of the armed forces, all 5,000 of them. “What’s your primary mission,” I asked. “Keeping out of the way of the Ghurkas, and mounting parades at the airport,” he replied, smiling.)

Move on, further, President Aquino, to get this out of the way for good.  If only for the sake of the ownership of Manhattan, where the United Nations is located, or the sovereignty of India over fringe areas, or the “artificial borders” across Africa, where cities of the same ethnic group are split down the middle by a sovereign border.

W. Scott Thompson, PhD, is professor emeritus of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He wrote this with the assistance of Oliver Geronilla, language instructor at Han Maum Academy, Parañaque City.