Am in Tawau together with Tunku Aziz for the Tawau DAP Branch-cum-Sri Tanjong service centre opening this morning.

Tonight, will attend a history-making event, the first thousand-people political dinner in Tawau organized by Tawau DAP and the DAP’s sole Sabah State Assemblyman Jimmy Wong at Lau Gek Poh Memorial Hall.

This is another historic first by Tawau DAP. Last year, Tawau DAP organized a very successful and capacity-crowd lunch-time ceramah and during the March 8 general election, pioneered a breakfast ceramah.

There are also other embarrassing “firsts:” in Tawau, as I found during my visit. The power breakdown is getting so regular and prolonged that Tawau’s daily newspaper, Morning Post, was forcibly turned into an evening paper when it could be distributed only at 4 pm!

Tonight, I will also launch a booklet “The Cries of Sabah”.

The following is the Introduction for the booklet:

Introduction

The thought of producing this booklet came to me when I received consecutively on Oct. 10/11 two heart-wrenching cries from two visitors to my blog. (The cries of Sabahans; Don’t neglect Sabah, please!)

I felt very ashamed as a Malaysian that after 45 years of Malaysia, there is still such an ocean of ignorance among West Malaysians about Sabah and Sarawak. Even more shameful is that the Government is guilty of allowing such wide gap of differences – economy, education, health, basic infrastructure – to exist between the people living on the two lands of the same country divided by the South China Sea. Clearly, the Barisan Nasional (BN) is not prepared to create a truly Malaysian nation where Sabahans and Sarawakians can fully feel that they are treated as equal citizens and an integral part of the nation.

This is why BN has become quite irrelevant, not only to Sabahans and Sarawakians but to all Malaysian communities, whether Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazan-Dusun-Muruts, Ibans or Orang Asli.

This booklet also chronicles the day-by-day effort made in Parliament in May this year to table a motion for the setting up of a Royal Commission of Inquiry on Illegal Immigrants in Sabah – the worst problem faced by Sabahans – and how it failed because of the lack of support by the BN Members of Parliament, including those from Sabah.

It starts with the observation on the seemingly change of attitude shown by some Sabah Members of Parliament in the first Parliament sitting after the March 8, 2008 general election where the unprecedented political tsunami swept away five state governments from the control of the BN, and for the first time in the history of Malaysia, denied the BN 2/3 majority in Parliament.

The contents of this booklet are from my blog postings, each of which provoked heated discussion and debate on the topic at hand.

In the appendix are the blogs before the “political tsunami” of March 8, 2008, starting with my parliamentary speech on “The New Underclass in Sabah” on 16th April 2007.

Blog, a modern medium where everyone can express his/her views even anonymously as visitors, has given a completely new meaning to freedom of expression to Malaysians.

This is why the BN government has invaded the cyberspace and intruded into this new space of freedom.

There has been a transformation from its initial bewildered and hostile attitude to the blogosphere, highlighted by the “goblog” chapter of the previous “Misinformation Minister” Zainuddin Maidin and the Internal Security Act (ISA) detention of Malaysia’s famous blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin to a more nuanced and engaged posture sending cybertroopers into the blogosphere to fight its cause.

A new sense of freedom provided by the Internet must be matched by an equal sense of responsibility and I do not apologise for the minimum of moderation on my blog, disallowing language which are vulgar, obscene, inflammatory or inciting hatred of race or religion.

Although the latest parliamentary effort to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry on Illegal Immigrants in Sabah was not successful, the problems and plight faced by Malaysian Sabahans and Malaysian Sarawakians continue. But let Malaysians join hands as one people despite the obstacles and baggage of BN to change this.

The struggle must go on…

Lim Kit Siang
Parliament
November 2008