Sarawak must build political consensus to move forward

As one Human capitaldevelopment consultant rightly puts it every society needs minimum consensus,more so in a developing state like Sarawakwith its diverse ethnic and religious groups and other different backgrounds.Sarawak, unlike Semenanjung Malaysia,has about 30 ethnic groups, each with its own custom and tradition andreligious belief; none of them can form a majority without working together. 

This was amplydemonstrated in Sarawak’s first indirectelections or three-tier system elections in the early 60s. Although PartiBerjasa secured biggest number of councilors but the party could not producethe majority in the State legislative Assembly. In other words, the party, withthe biggest number of councilors, could not translate them into a majority inthe State Legislative Assembly and form an independent state government.  

Worse, some moreestablished parties tried to secure the majority using their own ways ofinterpreting the Constitution and situation; the state was plunged into crisisbecause of that.  

Obviously, thepolitical system then was not good enough for Sarawakto necessitate leaders in Party Berjasa and Party Negara to start talking aboutthe merger with the realization that they could never deliver the promises thatthey had made to the people on their own. The results of the elections did not give a clear voice.

Then Party Negarawas influential in First and Second divisions, now Kuching and Samarahandivisions and Sri Aman and Betong divisions respectively and Parti Berjasa inthe rest of Sarawak.   After three years of discussions, Berjasaand Parti Negara merged to become one party called Party Bumiputra.  That heralded the beginning of a new era inthe arduous task to translate the traditional goodwill and harmony of thepeople to become political consensus which later gave birth to Sarawak’s first coalition government, which was also thefirst in the country. 

Dr. R. Palan, aFellow of the British Institute of Learning and Development, says the consensusis breaking down in most countries in Europe and in the Middle East.  But it is thriving inSarawak. This is being reinforced by thephilosophy of the Chief Minister, Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib of building politicalconsensus through his politics of development. 

Dr. Phalan recentlyco-authored a book entitled People Development: A leader’s journey in theTransformation of Sarawak – Taib Mahmud, with Dr. Sabariah Putit, ChiefExecutive Officer of the Centre for Modern Management (CMM).  He believes civil servants can playapolitical advocacy roles in promoting consensus in the society. 

Newly merged PartiBumiputra also tried to merge with SNAP but the gap between them was quitewide. Sarawak’s third Chief Minister, DatoHaji Abdul Rahman Ya’kub (now Tun Datuk Patinggi Haji Abdul Rahman Ya’kub) wasappointed on July 7, 1970 following the inconclusive results of the Stateelections. His appointment came about following the agreement between PartiBumiputra to form the first Coalition government with SUPP, then viewed as theChinese - based party.  

The formation of thecoalition government between Parti Bumiputra, which represented 2/3 of theMalays and Ibans, Bidayuhs and Orang Ulu, with SUPP represented about 80% ofChinese, provided a working mechanism for the government in the services of thepeople, State and country. 

Then Sarawak was inthe backwater lane of development and facing internal threats in the form ofarmed communist insurgencies from local Communists organization and externalthreat from Sukarno’s Konfrontasi (the late President Sukarno’s crush Malaysiacampaign).  

Undoubtedly, thethreats of armed communist insurgencies also created consciousness amongpolitical leaders and the people to work together to solve the securityproblems and more importantly to bring development to the people. In otherwords, they agreed that they could still work together without necessarilyunifying the parties through the policy of unification. 

Meanwhile, DatoAbdul Rahman, as Secretary - General of Parti Bumiputra, worked tirelessly withthe late Tun Jugah ( then Tan Sri Jugah) who was the President of Parti Pesakato merge Parti Bumiputra with Parti Pesaka. The merger gave birth to PartiPesaka Bumiputra Bersatu Sarawak (PBB) after three years. Since then, it hasemerged as the strongest and most organized party that provides the backbone ofBarisan Nasional in Sarawak.  

Chief Minister,Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud, in his recent speech during a dialogue withlocal heads of departments, says the government must work with at least theminimum of consensus in order to deliver what it has promised to the people.The Bumiputras still believe in having consensus among them while leaders ofthe non Bumiputras must endeavor to promote and strengthen links with thepeople on the ground in order to build greater consensus among them.   

He says theintroduction of the politics of development was his desire to consolidate thegood nature and goodwill of the people comprising of various ethnic andreligious groups in the state.  The bestway to succeed is to build consensus in politics.  That explains why community development underhis leadership started with the words politics of development. It could beanything else like Sarawak’s strategy for development or the economic policyfor social development in Sarawak. 

But he decided toadopt the politics of development as the philosophy of socio-economic andpolitical development with the belief that the best way to succeed was todevelop consensus among the people as the basis to develop consensus inpolitics in order to succeed in the transformation from a developing to adeveloped state by the year 2020 and beyond. 

He considers himselfquite fortunate because he became a politician first as nominated member; hedid not have to fight his way up like chopping other people down.  He was asked by the consensus of the Malaycommunity, which had lost quite heavily in the indirect elections, to representthe community. He agreed to do it for five years; now he does not know why hehas been staying for quite some time. Initially, he did not want to stay beyondfive years.  

Pehin Sri Abdul Taibsays the idea of democracy was not understood by the people in the early yearsafter Merdeka. It must be linked with the idea to do things in more concertedmanner and the ability to unite the people and share sound and meaningful ideaswith them. The greatest link in all these things was to stay in touch and sharecommon aim with the people.  

He says the thingthat binds him together with the people in all his long years in politics is toknow how best to serve and help them. He must know how poor people can becomebetter or illiterate people can get good education. Obviously, the spirit of politicalprocess must be kept alive among people, young people, who are yet to be testedof their knowledge with the reality of the situation, in particular. 

He says he hasconsultations with the people in his house, after prayers. The people tell himthings happenings on the ground.  Theprocess of consultation is very important especially with young people, whobelieve they know more about the economy, finance and management than thegenerations before them. They want to be consulted on socio-economic and politicaldevelopment of the state and country. Besides, the process of consultation isalso to give opportunities for the people to come and see him. 

He is happy that thepeople remain united in spite of attempts by certain groups to createdissension among them.  The people havebeen able to reject the negative propaganda being spread by the opposition intheir attempts to discredit the leadership and the government. Obviously, thepeople are determined to preserve a more positive situation and environment forthemselves and reject the negative one that does not have proper direction butjust a political foray of the opposition.  

Pehin Sri Abdul Taibsays the new generation, who are equipped with knowledge and good education,must be motivated to develop positive attitude and outlook in the future of thestate and country. For example, they must appreciate that when the people areinter-dependent of each other, it is in their own interests to be absorbed inthe development of the growing economy towards the year 2020 and beyond. 

He says he hascovered more than 80% of more than 5,000 settlements comprising of traditionalvillages, longhouses, small towns and bazaars, some of them repeatedly,throughout the State. He covered more than 50% of them during the early yearsimmediately after Merdeka.

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 *Source:

Penerangan Photo

Peaceful, harmonious Sarawak

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.

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