Ashes of last Rajah Muda of Sarawak interred at Brooke Memorial

THE ashes of Anthony Walter Dayrell Brooke, the last Rajah Muda of Sarawak, has been brought back to the state.

A memorial was held at St Thomas’ Cathedral in Kuching yesterday, in the presence of family and friends of the former Sarawakian, who died in New Zealand on March 2, 2011.

Those who attended included local dignitaries, British Deputy High Commissioner Ray Kyles and New Zealand High Commissioner His Excellency David Pine.

Anthony, who studied Malay and Mohammedan Law (Islamic Law) at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Magdalene Cambridge, was the last member of the Brooke family to have administered Sarawak.

His wife, Gita, spoke at the memorial.

“Sarawak was truly the country in which Anthony felt at home,” she told the audience of several hundred.

“Towards the last years of his life, Anthony did from time to time wonder whether his ashes would be welcomed back to Sarawak, and if possible, asked that I bring them to you.”

Anthony’s ashes was yesterday evening interred at the Brooke Memorial in front of Fort Margherita near Petra Jaya.

His urn by a New Zealand artist is inscribed with the words: “By the act of your ancestors and mine, and by the accident of birth, I was born to be your servant”.

Gita described the location along Sarawak River as “peaceful and beautiful”.

The last of the ruling Brookes will be remembered for his opposition to the cession and annexation of Sarawak as a British colony in 1946.

He led a five-year campaign, withdrawing only when the risk of a spread in communism appeared a greater threat to peace and stability in Sarawak.

Since Sarawak joined Malaya, Sabah and Singapore to form Malaysia in 1963, Anthony was welcomed back in 1964 and in 1983.

Anthony spent the last 30 years of his life in New Zealand’s countryside, christening the house he shared with Gita as “Rumah Brooke”.

Since 1975, the couple have been involved with the charity “Peace Through Unity”, which seeks to bring peace to the global community via instruments like the United Nations.

Gita said despite Anthony’s frail health in the last years, he would still be fixated on his foremost aim.

“The very last message, which he struggled to write down reads: Never before have the problems in the world presented individuals with a greater challenge to participate in helping to find a solution,” Gita said.

Grandson Jason Brooke described his grandfather as a “very public servant of Sarawak”.

“My grandfather’s life in Sarawak spanned final days of the Rajah, through boom, recession and two world wars, through the occupation, liberation, colonisation, independence, via confrontation and modernisation,” Jason said.

“Today, we mark his final commemoration. This day would have meant a great deal to him. It is the end of a very remarkable journey. The fate of my grandfather and Sarawak are irrevocably intertwined, each moulding and shaping the other.”

Jason said Sarawak might have changed on the surface but the “spirit” of the state has stayed the same.

“Anthony in his later years spoke of an enduring spiritual connection he believed to exist between the Brooke family and Sarawakians.

“Everywhere, on my own and my family’s visits, we are met with warmth.

“We see in the faces of Sarawakians a vision of harmony between people of different backgrounds.”

Jason, who visited Sarawak on several occasions since 2008, earlier this year initiated a gradual transfer of letters, documents and artefacts from the family’s archives and Rhodes House Library in Oxford to the state.

For the past three weeks, the Brooke descendents have been in Sarawak as guest of the 50th Malaysia Day celebrations, where they have stayed at Grand Margherita Hotel, named after the wife of Charles Brooke, the second White Rajah.