Uncovering Syed Kechik’s Secret History
07/06/2024 @ 8:00 PM - 9:30 PM
The Sabah Society presents a historical talk on another aspect of Sabah history that has long been forgotten about and that is Syed Kechik.
The historical talk discusses who he was, and how did he become de-facto Chief Minister of Sabah in the early 1970s as well as what was his role in changing the landscape of Sabah politics and economy forever.
We refer to this period historically as a period of the growth of federalism in Sabah.
Avtar Singh presents his 2nd talk on Syed Kechik from a historical perspective and presents historical observations of the time from 1965 to 1976.
These historical observations are meant to stimulate greater discussion and further research on the period between 1967 till 1976 to better understand our own history.
WHO IS AVTAR SINGH?
Avtar Singh spent 24 years in the retail industry as a sponsorship manager and events manager for a major international sporting brand for the Borneo region. He trained as a retail and operations manager before leaving the industry to start a small enterprise to help struggling SME’s conduct business turn-arounds for SMEs in distress.
He began his work and research in history in 2015 and published his first historical book in 2017 on the history of Indian’s serving in the German Army during WW2.
He has since presented talks on the Battle of Midway, the False Narratives of the Sulu Sultanate over Sabah, Piracy, Kidnapping and Slavery of North Borneo Natives by the Sulu Sultanate as well as early Sikh history in North Borneo.
He is the great-great grandson of Bhagat Singh, the first Sikh to have arrived in North Borneo as a policeman in 1868 and is a 5th generation Sabahan.
Born in Kota Kinabalu and having lived overseas in Singapore, Australia and the United States, he is now currently a project researcher with the Goethe Institute of Germany on a project called ‘Borneo Perantis.’