I have been able to see over a long period of time since my early days in secondary school in the 60s that Sarawak has been able to develop and progress to what it is today due to the ability of the people, regardless of our different racial origins, religious beliefs and other differences to work together and live in peace and harmony with each other. To me, this is the greatness of our society that all of us must endeavor to preserve as we move forward to become a developed nation by the year 2020.
It is incumbent upon the younger generations to ensure that the greatness of our society must remain cohesive and fight against those with individual political agenda based more on debates and less on performances. They must endeavor to upgrade themselves to become more innovative and knowledge oriented to achieve the desired goal.
Our common goal must necessary be to ensure that Sarawak remains multi-racial and multi-cultural with people being reconciled to the fact that no single community can represent the majority in Sarawak. No single races whether they are Chinese, Malays, Ibans, Bidayuhs, Orang Ulu can claim to be in the majority or form the majority. Our majority can only be produced by our readiness to learn to agree on basic issues that affect our livelihood. Hence, we must continue to agree to work together to ensure that the hopes and expectations of our younger generations must be implemented. Otherwise, our policy will become the debating points, which will be a sad day for Sarawak.
We must be very focused on the encouragement of a multi-racial and multi-cultural society among the people. It can be achieved by encouraging excellence rather than by having the consideration for the color of skins, ethnic origins, religious beliefs or any other peculiarities in our services for the people, state and country.
The demand of working for a cohesive society has become more urgent now as it begins to suffer the effects of social disintegration. Quite obviously, there is the breakup of the extended family into nucleus family due to inclination of the second generation of families to move into the housing schemes. As a consequence, most of the traditional kampongs along jalan Dato Ajibah Abol, for example, are only being occupied by old people. This has the impact of losing the tightly knitted Kampong life, which used to provide a good environment for the training of young people to become leaders.
Besides, the process of socialization, which has helped to create a lot of cohesiveness in the society, has also become weakened. We have to work for an alternative environment to keep our people revolving around our Adat and the old process of interaction and establishing close link and friendship among them. This needs time, perhaps one generation, but we must to do it in order to uphold the greatness of our society. Arguably, prosperity is not the best helper in the task to create a cohesive society as the people are getting more mobile and have less time for interaction among them. The younger people are getting individualistic; it is very difficult to make them good comrades or partners in life. The increase in the rates of divorces speaks volume of this.
That aside, all of us also needs to think consciously of how to transform the economy of Sarawak from the medium income economy into high income economy as outlined in the New Economic Model. The transformation requires at least one third of the population of Sarawak that constitutes the work force to have tertiary education; the State has about 20 to 25% today. Fortunately, the State has been able to catch up quite nicely because of the government’s initiative to hasten the pace of setting up Unimas and university campuses like UiTM, Swinburne and Curtin and a number of branches of renown colleges.
Sarawak may no longer be considered a poor and backward State as it used to be until the middle of the 80s. However, there are still a lot more work to be done by all of us to ensure that we will remain in the mainstream of development and become a state in the developed nation by the year 2020 and beyond.
Therefore, it is incumbent upon all of us to ensure continuity in leadership as we move forward. Our primary concern must necessary be to determine the quality of leaders that that will come up for the next one generation. In this respect, the people, the new generation must work together to set up an alternative environment for the people to interact and establish close links among them. Obviously, this is getting more difficult now as we begin to suffer the effects of social disintegration and sometimes dramatic changes in our life.
Quite obviously, many initiatives have been taken to develop the heavy and small industries with the development of SCORE in particular and modernize the agricultural sector with the view to climb up the values change by processing food in the most advanced way at Tanjung Manis Halal hub. The development of the Halal hub will emphasise on producing organic food using bio-tech to ensure that they will be health friendly and be devoid of chemical for export. The hub is projected to earn an annual income of RM5 billion within the next five to seven years.
Clearly, the work to transform Sarawak to become a high income economy is magnanimous. Obviously, the bulk of the work will be done by younger generation, who must be performance oriented; they must endeavor to upgrade themselves to become knowledge oriented and be more innovative and productive in whatever they do in the services of the people, state and country. More importantly, they must be willing to shoulder a heavier responsibility in upholding our beloved state Sarawak as a peaceful and harmonious state in spite of the fact that it comprises about 30 ethnic groups, each with their own religious beliefs, customs and traditions. The people must remain reconciled to the fact that they do not represent the majority unless they remain united on issues that affect their livelihood.
Undoubtedly, we have laid a strong foundation for our beloved Sarawak to remain a multi-racial and multi-cultural State but the task ahead will be heavier with continued and sometimes very robust attempts by outsiders to dissuade us with strong political persuasions, as amply demonstrated in the run up to Sibu parliamentary by-election, away from the desired goals. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to remain focused on preserving a multi-racial and multi-cultural society so that we can continue to work and live harmoniously together towards 2020 and beyond. It is up to you to decide our own future.
benuasains
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