Obviously, some activities of foreign NGOs, carrying out one-line campaign against, what they perceive to be issues, are coming more and more into the shores Sarawak because of the borderless nature of the world and with the penetration of the Internet into the society.
Hence, a lot of their activities, which have no relevance to Sarawak, are being exposed to the people. Some of the influences may be good but most tend to mislead them with half truth or outright falsehood in information. For example, some pursing the campaign to save the world environment somehow decide to concentrate their activities in the jungles of Ulu Baram to stay with the nomadic Penans. What has that got to do with saving the world environment?
Obviously, the group has a sinister motive to blow the local situation out to the world to portray the State as if it is neglecting a segment of the society in pursuit of progress and development. Of course, they are ignorant of efforts of the government to resettle the nomadic to lead a more settled lifestyle. They are also ignorant of the fact Penans constitute less than 5,000 people and only 500 of them are still wandering in the forests.
But they are also exposing their own ignorance and shallow nature of their campaigns. Hence, the local people are not being downhearted by their unfounded allegations being made internationally, for example, on the mismanagement of the natural resources. In other words, the campaigns do not have impact on the local people, who generally realise the success sustainable forest policies being enforced by the State government to ensure that the forests can be inherited by the future generation and continuous prosperity of the timber industry.
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| 3rd Youth Dialogue organised by Angkatan Zaman Mansang (AZAM) and Sarawak Development Institute (SDI) in collaboration with Sarawak Unity Foundation |
Understandably, the State government has been enforcing a policy whereby 50% timber should be exported through the cultivation of the quick growing species of trees in order to increase the yields. The target is to have 15 million cubic meters of tropical timber by the year 2020. The only thing is whether it will be done entirely by the local efforts or the open approach, which will allow the people at the international level to come in and participate in the development of planted forests.
Besides, some the one-line NGOs have weird views that the Penans should be preserved like human museum. Those in Human Rights group, on the other hand, would shout to the top of their voices that no segment of the society should be left in isolation in development. Obviously, the one-line campaign groups have conflicts of views, which sometimes are hard to reconcile, among them.
Therefore, there will always be a struggle in the new media, which will confuse young people. Hence, the onus is on the local friendly NGOs to find ways to sort the real picture. Obviously, the foreign NGOs carrying out the one-line campaign, believe that they do not owe us anything to tell the truth or to expose a balanced view between ours, who are affected and theirs who are campaigning against us.
Obviously, the best way forward is to build up the local participation in the spread of information in the new media. Basically, efforts must be made to make our views to dominate the local people as they are the ones who will determine success of the transformation as we move forward towards the year 2020 and beyond. They should not be detached too much from the fundamental path of contributing ideas to the society that are relevant for better development of the country.
Obviously, ways must be found how to reach out and continuously feed the people with what is going on in the country. The people must get the truth than anything else. The people should not take the stand to side with any particular people even in the government; when the government is wrong, the government is wrong that is all.
In this respect, any analytical views that reflect the best of people namely the accumulation of experience that development and the incorporation of the latest method of management and better means of evoking people’s participation must be brought into the approach to inform the people, particularly young people on development.
Basically, the communication strategy must not only give information but emphasise on interaction with the people all the way to the grass root level. It is the only way to make the people to become better recipients of information on development. Besides, it must also emphasise on upgrading the quality of leadership at the grass root level. They must be able to convince the people with the knowledge that development will become more successful with their active involvement at their lower levels.
The State is in the process of migrating from the medium to high income economy towards the year 2020 and beyond in the transformation that should benefit everybody. The process will create a lot of opportunities for people who have the capability in terms of knowledge, skills and expertise to exploit them. Obviously, the coordination between getting the solution to be worked out and the people to respond to them requires a great deal of explanation.
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| Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud receiving an old photograph of him with a group of youths from Azam’s youth representative after delivering his speech at the dinner in Kuching. |
Chief Minister, Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud in his speech during last AZAM’s dinner, says conscientious efforts must be made to convince young people, who are still governed by the perception of the old opportunities that new opportunities are growing for people with technical education and training.
Besides, the wrong perception of young people on technical education must be corrected. The prevailing views among young people are that technical education involves a lot of academic training though it is not so for those for semi-skilled and skilled workers. It does not require them to master calculus; even those with Form 3 qualification should be able to pursue it. It only requires them to be able to recognize the machine or whatever equipment that they will work with and understand the theory behind it.
Pehin Sri Abdul Taib says the economic transformation will be brought in a massive way throughout the country. Hence, communication to enforce the ideas to the people especially at the grass root level must be prepared by now. The Government, on its part, will institute changes in the machinery of local government in order to engage more people, who are oriented towards serving the community at lowest level, to be engaged in the service.
Basically, the people both young and old people must be encouraged to become more active in cultural activities, develop better habits through recreation and be acquainted with activities at their level in order to get the community to become active all the time; these are things that will come up in future.
He says interpersonal communication will be emphasized at the level of the local government, being its machinery that is closest to the people, in the service from now onward. Obviously, it must be oriented to become the machinery that can bring new forces of development in the transformation of the society. For example, it can help to organize cultural and social activities and promote interactions among schools through sports, debates or any other activities.
He believes AZAM can be the centre of the activities in terms of dissemination ideas. Hence, it may consider setting up a communication institute as a vehicle to promote interactions with the mass media, the Administration, local government and councilors. They must work together to formulate a new approach to development transformation primarily to get people to respond positively to development.
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| 2010 Dialogue with Sarawak Youth organised by AZAM and SDI |
It can be anticipated that new development will bring brought new economic changes in the environment and new opportunities for employment. These are things that will come up for the next 20 years. Obviously, AZAM must play a more active part and add more professional input into the strategies of development communication on how it can permeate into the society through the process of communication, interpersonal communication in particular.
Pehin Sri Abdul Taib, who is the Emminent Person of AZAM, recalls that AZAM was the first organization that he had to set up as soon as he became the Chief Minister on March 26, 1981 with understanding that without a communication tool all efforts on development on sustainable and continuous basis would not be successful.
He says AZAM was set up earlier than the declaration of the politics of development and later on the concept of New Reality with the belief that it could help to propagate both concepts to the people. Both concepts, for the first time, emphasise on the roles of the people as the important components of development.
Obviously, the State government, being led by him, recognizes from the very beginning that communication is very important in the development of Sarawak with its huge land surface and the population that is spreading thinly in more than 5,000 settlements over a wide area. They comprise of traditional kampong and longhouses in remote areas that risked being isolated without efforts to establish communication link with them.
benuasains
*Photos Source:
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