The process of persuasion that is taking place in Sarawak supports the possibility that the production of primary commodities such as palm oil is similar to raw material extraction (such as mining) because it is about the production and creation of marginal or frontier areas. For centuries, the frontier has been imagined as free for the taking, and opportunities abound through resource extraction and quick profits (Tsing 2000: 121). In ‘frontier country’, the culture is dedicated to the abolition of local land and resource rights as well as local commitment to landscapes. In line with contemporary analysis of state formation, this levelling process has been viewed here as an expansion of state spaces. The fundamental error which began in the Brooke period, and extended into the colonial era, is propagated during the 21st century using persuasion and legal codes that complete the unfinished business that may have accumulated during the colonial era. This chapter has shown that the oil palm story is not just about raising the standards of living of native communities — ‘bringing them into the mainstream of development’ so to speak — but is also about power, control and the expansion of state spaces. Such expansion by persuasion has been effective in some instances, but has been contested locally in other cases.
A culture of looking towards the government for ‘development’ is well entrenched in Sarawak (as it is in other parts of Malaysia). It is a culture that involves a trade-off. From the perspective of government and some community groups who are their supporters, the trade-off is worthwhile, the result being economic growth and the raising of living standards for many. From the perspective of community groups looking for more than economic growth, this trade-off may be too costly if what emerges from the exchange are measures that lead to a loss of their autonomy and a more dependent lifestyle.
With Konsep Baru the trade-off is once again being tested. The network of uncertainties surrounding the program, and the way they are addressed, shows up the lack of an avenue in the state system for the expression of non-economic rights. In a situation where the implementation machinery of a development program has been politicised, the feedback regarding Konsep Baru that enters the state system is one-sided and self-censored by party supporters, creating an inability to deal with non-economic development needs. Options for state creativity in dealing with social and political development are therefore closed. By extension, opportunities for understanding the real reasons for Konsep Baru’s slow progress are closed as well.
Through strategies of control, state capacity to enforce the law against its citizens may enhance its ability to implement change in the economic sphere, but it is not necessarily the sign of a strong state in the social and political sphere. Reformists interested in decentralising state power are often able to notice and capitalise on this weakness by promoting change in the cultural sphere of economic development (Majid Cooke 2003b). By contrast, where the administrative machinery may be less politicised, as in the part of Sabah that Vaz (Chapter 7) worked in, feedback into the state system may come from a variety of sources and is less censored, contributing to a less rigid form of administration.