Written by Dr. John Brian Anthony
This is a superficial writing but enough to trigger your thinking about why are we in this situation today. Malaya was not honest with us and the most important thing we have current leaders who are willing to sell out Sarawak to UMNO Malay agenda. We are suffering today because our own kind is going against our interest and they got financial reward for doing so. What do you call this kind of people? There are sitting in leadership position and they make the rule to suit themselves – not the well being of Sarawak.
18/20 points is to safe guard Sabah Sarawak from being “taken advantage” of by Malaya/Singapore.
I am writing this article for the benefits of those who need to understand the mind of our founding fathers and how there would like to see Sarawak grow within Malaysia. The 18/20 points agreement is to ensure that the more advance Malaya and Singapore will not take advantage of Sabah Sarawak politically, socio-economic development, natural wealth and heritage and in a way to avoid the “symptom” of colonization by Malaya. After 47 years of the formation of Malaysia, we are in the position to make our judgment on whether Malaya has indeed taken advantage of Sabah and Sarawak.
By most account as written in this blog, many of us felt “marginalized” and are NOT treated as equal by UMNO/Malaya in more ways that we care to write in this blog. There is no need for me to go and list the instances as it is now common knowledge.
Confrontation – and Communist Terrorist in Sarawak.
Sukarno of Indonesia has that fear – that Malaya will eventually colonize Sabah Sarawak. We fought a war of confrontation. I am not sure how many soldiers from Malaya died in that war in Sabah Sarawak soil. It is a fact that Dayak died defending Malaya from the communist. I am also not sure how many soldiers from Malaya died fight communist terrorist in Sarawak. Maybe those in the know can enlighten us in this blog.
The Communist terrorist are those Sarawakian who refused to allow Sarawak to form Malaysia. They took armed struggle against the young government in Sarawak. “New Villages” were created in 1st Division – Siburan, Beratok, Tapah etc to protect certain population from being harm by the communist or giving underground support for the communist. The “New Villages” were built on Land Dayak land – i do not know know whether they were ever compensated for the land used. Subsequently this land is now issued with title and money were poured in to develop the area. The Land Dayak who lived just next door to these “new villages” never know the same progress that those in the new villages experienced till this day.
What did we lost?
The BN government wanted to impose Malaya will. Taib and Yakob were politically trained in Malaya. UMNO assisted today’s government to overthrow the Dayak (SNAP) led government to ensure that the Malay / Muslim agenda is being pushed into Sabah Sarawak. In this way, we lose substantial amount of autonomy and rights as a country. Eg. natural wealth is shared, education policy is made in KL – so KL changed many historical facts, Bahasa Malaysia is force into us to replace English, we have a government that is Malay / Muslim led and many more. Today, even our land are given to people from Malaya.
What do we get in return?
Our elected leaders are made “useless” by UMNO proxy in Sarawak – Taib. He makes sure that Sarawak do not complain and make much noise. To give the State government some creditability, UMNO bought over Jabu. To this day, the whole Jabu family will act not on the side of the Dayak but to ensure that Dayak effort to strengthen its position in Sarawak must be neutralized. This is all about “HOW MUCH” money is diverted for Jabu self economic enrichment and also to build a political following that will always be loyal to UMNO Malay agenda.
Those Dayaks leaders who made some efforts to put forward Dayak interest are all side line – I need not mention names here. Even part of their economic potential earning are properly controlled. Therefore, UMNO proxy has a complete control over Sarawak politicians. The politicians who speaks so loud before eg: “Masing etc” are puppies today to the will of UMNO through Taib. There is no need for UMNO to enter Sarawak – it is well represented and its agenda is working.
Why is corruption so rampant in Sarawak?
No action is taken against our corrupted Ministers, politicians and business men. Sarawak is a land that is “free for all” to take but then you must be close and supporting BN to do that. The “corruption” is the design and ownership of BN politician. If you are not involved in corruption and if you do not make yourself rich while representing BN as a YB – you are considered STUPID! even by the voters.
You can see that those who did not believed in such practices are label as “BN discard”. That is also the reason why “frog” exist because political frog depend on political give out to survive and even to acquire their wealth. BN strongmen do not understand why we oppose them when there is so much money to make by being a strong BN supporter. They think that we are stupid – because we do not like corruption.
In this “corruption” practices, we lost our forest to logging anr reforestation. Then come plantation – even our local community leaders get involved in corruption to sell our NCR land away to rich business organization. Politician make easy money from getting Provisonal lease and then see their lease to third party – our NCR land included.
The 18 points were ignored and the government try to make us forget the agreement so that they can rob us of our land.
Education System
Language is a major issue in Malaysia. Countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam etc standard of English is picking up higher at a very fast rate. These countries recognize that English is a Universal language of business. In Sarawak many local graduates are struggling trying to read simple English and much less are they able to write in concise English. This is no fault of theirs – as the Malay agenda is pushing for “expert” usage in Bahasa Malaysia and without English our competitiveness is much lesser then our potential. 18 point agreement ensure that English will always be the one of the official language in Sarawak.
Conclusion
Please continue on with your thought on the impacts of being without the 18 points. The most important impact is our country Sarawak is treated as a State in Malaysia. We are not made equal partner to Malaya but the same level as Perlis, Kedah etc.
Our dream for sarawak has turn into our worst nightmare. The people who sell Sarawak tell us that is not so. We are well develop like oher parts of Malaysia. Unfortunately, many of us are working in Malaya and we know the difference. Those told to us in TVs, RTM, newspapers are a pack of lies manipulated to control our thinking.
This coming election – we must be true to “Change We Must”. Make that change to allow us to bring back our 18 points – meaning greater autonomy within Malaysia.
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