by Sakmongkol AK47 The Malaysian Insider Apr 15, 2011
APRIL 15 — For once, the people of Sarawak must do themselves a favour. Give yourselves a chance. Not give others a chance. They have had 30 years. You only need this one chance. This is your hour. Let your progeny say in future, this was your finest hour.
This is your chance to regain your dignity and pride as a decent human being. Give yourselves the chance to determine your own destiny. Or, at the very least, show to those in power that you matter. There is nothing to fear except fear itself.
Show those in power they can’t scare you with the presence of coercive instruments of power. The police and the army guarding your longhouses are there protecting you. Those Rela people out there are only there for a brief time. What’s left is how you determined your life.
Throw out corruption. Throw out incompetence. Throw out a lifetime of neglect. Reject the bullies.
Give your children and grandchildren the chance. Say it’s enough. You gave Taib Mahmud 30 years of chance. He has taken everything. He has taken the most precious thing from you — your sense of self-worth. Will the Dayaks continue to be complicit in the charade of showing they are only good at performing the ngajat dance and, in that process, be regarded as nothing more than objects of cultural curiosity?
Will that treatment give you decent housing, clean water, electricity? Has it given you that? Remember the misery of walking miles down the road to get a can of kerosene. Don’t forget the humiliation of being given portable computers where electricity is non-existent. Remember forests and the trees that are gone forever.
Can the heads with the same set thinking usher in a better future? The answer must be an emphatic NO. How can the SAME thinking coming out from the SAME heads, accustomed to keeping entire peoples in callous disregard, unchallenged incompetence and open arrogance, be capable of turning over a new leaf? Agreeing to this proposition is self-deceit of the highest order. It’s a crime against humanity itself.
In a previous lifetime of glory and pride, the only solution that Sarawakians are renowned for is to cut off their enemy’s head. Those in power are no longer your benefactors. They stand on the side of the enemy of the people.
If you give Taib and his government another chance, it means you are willing to allow him to perpetuate years of neglect, corruption incompetence and arrogance. It’s not going to be enough. It will be 30 years of the SAME neglect, incompetence and arrogance and corruption.
For 30 years, the chance to give yourself a decent living and the chance to give yourself dignity has been forcibly taken away. It has been taken away by 30 years of neglect, negligence and arrogance. The neglect exemplified most horribly by the waste laid bare on your land which forms the very spring and essence of your life.
What has the majority of the Sarawak people achieved? The fruits of development enjoyed by the elite while the majority languished in a world that time seem to forget? After 30 years, 6,000 longhouses are still without electricity and water in a state which boasts the biggest hydro dam?
This Sunday, dubbed Super Sunday will be judgment day for Taib Mahmud and his ruling PBB and his partner parties. These past weeks are the trial that leads to that judgment day. What is the purpose of the judgment day?
The purpose of that judgment day is for the court of the people to call up those who manage the state to account for what they have done.
That in essence is what accountability means. You are called up to account for the things you have done.
What has Taib and his party done to Sarawak for the last 30 years? Taib and his cabal of leaders have brought much development to Sarawak. To free Sarawakians from a primitive state of affairs — underdevelopment, stunted growth, primitive lifestyles, civilising the natives, bringing them into the 20th century and beyond.
All that, said the wise people, is spectacular development. Sterling! Screamed some people with lard-laden brains.
The people of Sarawak have only one response to give to Taib and his cabal of leaders — continue giving us the lies, we shall not stop uncovering the truths.
Right now, you have only one historic mission. Get Taib to step down as chief minister. Showing him the exit is the single most potent weapon and burning issue against the Barisan Nasional in the state election. Whoever sides with Taib stands for corruption and against the people.
Getting him out has united Sarawakians . This shared thinking is possible because 30 years of his kleptocratic rule as chief minister has bred and entrenched the habits of non-accountability, lack of transparency and absence decency of good governance. Remember kleptocracy is associated with the meaning of thief and theft.
That is none better illustrated by the mountain of allegations on abuses of power and rampant corruption under his rule which he has not been able to rebut. Datuk Seri Najib Razak is not unaware of what is happening to Sarawak with Taib at the helm, but Najib appears to have been immobilised by the phalanx of bomohs and witches surrounding Taib.
It is obvious Najib is even powerless to have Taib committed to an early date to step down . The PM has repeatedly been rebuffed by the chief minister and there is nothing the prime minister can do about it.
Taib is not an Umno member and his reaction to the PM’s announcement that Taib will leave office is like telling the PM to “**** off” from his turf. Taib is saying: who are you to tell me what to do with my office, in my state? Sarawak is Taib’s country. The PM can’t do anything, but the people of Sarawak can.
Give yourselves that chance. Don’t turn to others for succour.
* Sakmongkol AK47 is the nom de plume of Datuk Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz. He was Pulau Manis assemblyman (2004-2008).