Sabah people must fully embrace new Internet technology of blogs, facebook and twitter in the “Save Sabah, Save Malaysia” battle to restore justice, freedom and prosperity for all Malaysians regardless of race, religion or region
This is my first visit to Tuaran and it is historic in more senses than one.
Firstly, the coming together of Bajaus, Dusuns and Chinese in Tuaran tonight illustrates the living 1Malaysia in Sabah and not just at the sloganeering level of 1Malaysia since Datuk Seri Najib Razak became the sixth Prime Minister in April last year.
When I visited Kota Belud earlier today, I was told that Sabah – like the Bajau, Dusun, Iranun and Chinese in Kota Belud – had been practising 1Malaysia for decades, with the various ethnic groups in Sabah long having a very easy, friendly and cosy relationships with each other, and their response to Najib’s 1Malaysia is whether the Prime Minister had been sleeping all these decades.
Secondly, this DAP Chinese New Year Open House going on now in Tuaran is being followed not in other parts of Sabah and Malaysia but throughout the world. This has been made possible by the new Internet technology of blogs, facebook and twitter enabling people not only in Sabah and Malaysia but worldwide to share events, ideas and aspirations on-time and instantaneously, regardless of time and geography.
For instance, when the other leaders like the three DAP MPs, Hiew King Cheu (Kota Kinabalu), Teo Nie Ching (Serdang) and Lim Lip Eng (Segambut), the DAP’s sole State Assemblyman Jimmy Wong Sze Phing (Sri Tanjong) and Sabah DAP officials like Edward Muji (Vice Chairman) and Jeffrey Kumin (Organising Secretary) were speaking, I had sent out four tweets about Tuaran which is accessible worldwide instantaneously.
My four tweets on Tuaran a short while ago are:
I had said in my first tweet on Tuaran about “Sabah tale of horrors” because I had during my visit to Kota Belud earlier today sent out seven tweets about the deplorable infrastructure and socio-economic problem in the area, viz:
The people of Sabah must fully embrace new Internet technology of blogs, facebook and twitter in the “Save Sabah, Save Malaysia” battle to restore justice, freedom and prosperity for all Malaysians regardless of race, religion or region.
As I had tweeted on Feb. 23, there has been an exponential growth of twitter with 50 million tweets created per day in the world from 5,000 tweets per day in 2007, 300,000 tweets per day in 2008, 2.5 million tweets per day in early 2009 and 35 million tweets per day at the end of 2009.
Our visits to Kota Belud and Tuaran has confirmed the shocking neglect, discrimination and marginalization of the ordinary Sabahans regardless of race, religion or region by a handful of political opportunists who have waxed rich from the wealth of the state of Sabah while the people of Sabah had been reduced to the poorest in Malaysia.
The campaign “Save Sabah, Save Malaysia” must be launched without any delay so that the ordinary people of Sabah and Malaysia can fully enjoy the fruits of development and the wealth of the state and country. [Speech at the DAP Tuaran Chinese New Year Open House in Tuaran, Sabah on Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 9 pm]