In response to Mr. Lim Yin Kuin letter,
According to wikipedia, The Ibans comprise the largest percentage (almost 34%) of Sarawak’s population, while The Chinese make another 26%. I assumed that you are not from Sarawak based on your initial paragraph stating that Chinese are the majority group in Sarawak and was not fairly given opportunity to contest more seats during the recently concluded Sarawak Election. Nevertheless, I am also more incline to agree with your opinion, but with cautious still. To allow more seats for DAP might not be that relevant, as Chinese population mostly concentrated in urban & suburban areas. DAP main attention is to go to the Chinese and say ‘look, you have an option, SUPP or DAP’. They are fighting for the unheard Chinese voices. Will you find thousands of Chinese voters in most part of Sarawak’s rural area? Very very unlikely. If you have Chinese population in this rural areas who want to vote for change, by all mean you can put DAP candidates to contest in it.
I am, like your good self very well aware that our community is under represented in the system. Even worse, with so many assemblymen, they have become yes men to one person. While your community representation (MCA, GERAKAN, SUPP –Sarawak), are merely there to mingles only with the elites, you have DAP on the other hand, never stop their cause to fight the imbalance system. My community political party is here merely to fulfill the requirement of the system because we comprise the biggest populations in Sarawak, nothing more than that. Worse still, amongst ourselves, we fight for no particular reasons, easily influence by promise of wealth and always self proclaimed fighter of the cause. FYI, by default, one of the terms accepted by peninsular when we formed Federation of Malaysia is that our Chief Minister should be an Iban. Unfortunately this is not the case. Despite having vast land of ourselves, we gave the responsibility to other to manage the state. Who would have thought the trust turned to GREED? It began when Datuk Kalong Ningkan were ousted by Abdul Rahman Yaakub, who then succeeded by his nephew, Our much beloved Pehin Seri. Even those two were involved in the Ming Court Affair, which lead to the overstaying on the position until now. The deputy? The deputy is as old as the Chief Minister. As soon as the CM steps down, so will his deputy. So you see, your concern regarding the DAP should have more seats during the election is still ok compare to my community bleak future. That is why at the end of the upper paragraph I mentioned “with cautious still”. We have been CONNED, and then deprived from our own right. You can blame it on us though, largely.
My communities are mainly still, formed the lower group of the economy (older generation after approximately during/after the Japanese occupation), only lately the younger generation (I could say 2nd generation) start to move to the middle working class (mostly in Government sectors) whose, their children (my generation) received better education level and perhaps move to professional level. Looking at the trend nowadays, it’s getting more and more difficult to join public work forces, there are very distinctive preferences are being given to particular ethnic group. Independently, your community long has contributed to the economy of this country. And which is why your struggles are different from us. While yours are mainly fight for fair share of wealth, we are struggling to determine our sources of incomes. Our grandparents were farmers/fishermen/nomads, our parent mostly civil servants, my generation? We are confused. A good result in public examination does not guarantee entrance to public university. Even if we could get an outstanding CGPA, does not guarantee our admission to government sectors. It’s now even harder to get scholarship based on bumiputera’s privilege. Somebody used to mention to me that we are second class bumis. Fortunately, our community has started to notice that now.
Independently, due to your community nature as very good traders, you can go and decide what you want, particularly in education. For us, one of the main obstacles is how to pay for a worthy tertiary level of education that will give us a leap in understanding the whole system. We know now that KNOWLEDGE is POWER. Without knowledge we are being deprived from everything which is supposed to be owned by us. And the most basic element – FREEDOM.
And I agreed with you that we are bound to the racial political parties. Previously our community has the strong PBDS, only to be divided to SNAP, PRS & SPDP at the end. I envy your communities awareness and the will to change things. Nevertheless, As voters, we are now more acceptable to the fact that domestically formed party do not necessarily relevant to address all issues. You can see that although PR did not manage to gain 1/3 of the seats, the overall votes are more now to them.
Changes are inevitable, but it will take times. Perhaps more than you would expect. Again, I am very lucky to witness this historic election, which gives me hope that we can move forward. DAP initial move to contest only in Chinese majority seats are mainly based on their previous campaigns in Sarawak. But now we know that we can accept other political parties to fight for our rights. People know that. I know that now.
If DAP continue to fight without fears and favours, I can guarantee you no matter where they contest and, they will win. This goes to other PR component as well. Rest assured, it will not be easy.
My opinion only,
Trang Trang bula.