We, the Stupid

By 2:30 am, it was confirmed that the urban constituencies of Api-api, Luyang, Sandakan and Tawau were won by BN candidates. Those few of us who were still in my house at that hour were foaming at our mouths in disbelief, frustration, shock and anger even though we were surprised and happy with the results of the West Malaysian states. The question that everyone has been asking since then is: Why are Sabahans so stupid?? How can we still give 95% support (correction: BN won 59 out of 60 state seats so it is 98.3%. 95% is the figure for parlimentary seats won by BN in Sabah) to the BN party while other states have broken free of their grip?? How can we be blind to state issues such as these:

1. Sabah went from being the richest to the poorest state in Malaysia in the last thirty years.

2. Sabah only gets a pittance of 5% from its oil and gas revenues, the 95% taken by the Federal Government to develop other states.

3. The island of Labuan was given away free to the Federal Govt. Thousands of acres of land on the mainland are now owned by West Malaysian oil palm companies and politicians.

4. Our Chief Ministers and politicians have one by one become multi millionaires/billionaires. The poor in the interiors have no schools, no hospitals, no electricity and no food.

5. Illegals are all over the state, bursting our hospitals and jacking up the crime rate. Some reports state that over 500,000 people in Sabah are illegals, but the figure could be underestimated.

6. Our oil revenues are being robbed by the Feds, the timber from our jungles gone, the corals and fish bombed by Filipino fishermen. No viable industries or projects have been set up, forcing our young people to work in West Malaysia and Singapore.

7.We have always had the highest cost of living and probably lowest salaries, with university graduates getting RM600 to RM1000 per month now (if they do get a job), lower than my pay of RM1,350 per month when I first started working over 20 years ago.

In my opinion, Sabahans only look at the small picture. Our roads have been widened. The drains are cleared, the streetlights fixed, the (empty) malls are mushrooming everywhere. I can accept that that's why they voted in the same party at the state level. But at the national or parlimentary level, it is incomprehensible why our protest was hardly a whimper, giving the opposition only 1 seat out of 25. While our more educated and informed West Malaysians countrymen are infuriated with issues that threaten the country's future, we in Sabah are continuing the Bornean complacency of "Enough to eat, enough to wear, who cares about democracy. Never mind if the state ministers are multi billionaires, after all if one is replaced, the new one will be corrupted anyway." I think it was the PBS government that disillusioned the people of Sabah to this extent of cynicism and fatalism because when we voted them in twenty years ago (because we had enough of the Harris government), the PBS leaders betrayed us and jumped to BN when the going got tough.

The people of Sarawak are even more stupid/backward than those in Sabah. At least we have had several changes of Chief Ministers while Sarawak faithfully uphold their CM who has been around for over 25 years like he owned the state. And despite my utter dislike of Dr M, I must thank him for setting the ball rolling by incarcerating Anwar. If not for that, Anwar would still be arrogant like the other BN leaders, and BN would still be running the show. One up on Singapore, Malaysia. At least we can vote against our leadership.

On the bright side, I am proud that Malaysians have matured and risen up to smack the leaders in their faces and shown them that the govenment should be for and by the people. I would be happy if the opposition parties can force the ruling party into a more tranparent and clean governance. I would be happy to see younger righteous leaders who mean it when they talk of racial harmony and religious freedom. I dream of the day when we can have a Prime Minister who is fair to all the races, and of the day when all Malaysians, whether minorities or majority races, are truly treated like Malaysians. The weakening of the rule-and-divide BN Party was something most of us never expected to see in our lifetime and now it has happened. Not only that, there has been no violence. Let us celebrate and pray that this is the beginning of a better Malaysia, a Malaysia we have all been praying for.