The Insanity of Supporting the Malayan Political Parties

Many of our younger generations today are unaware but we were a former British colony before we became an independent nation on 31 August, 1963.  Two weeks after our independence, on 16 September 1963, we were persuaded to join with three other former British colonies that of Malaya, Sarawak and Singapore, plus Brunei to form a federation with the purported interest of fostering a strong economic and security leverage against outside threats; mainly that of Indonesia and the Philippines.  The Malaysia that we know of today is based on this federation.

This federation drew up an agreement, where each member of the federation expressly declared its constitutional integrity within this framework.  A contract was signed where all parties agreed to abide by the various wishes of each member of the federation.  Malaysia's integrity today, rest upon the promises signed by our leaders in 1963.

However, Brunei did not agree to this federation thus opted out from it.  In retrospect, Brunei made a good decision not to join the Malaysian federation because today Brunei is enjoying a higher per capita income for its citizens compared to the current members of the Malaysian federation.

Two years later after the Malaysian federation was formed, Singapore hastily terminated its contract with the federation.  Some said Malaya expelled Singapore (Who gave Malaya the right to expel Singapore?)..  No matter the reason, Singapore was no longer part of the Malaysian federation. In retrospect today it was a good outcome for Singapore.  Just like Brunei, Singapore, despite being a small island nation, has a higher GDP surpassing Malaysia's GDP by 5 Billion in 2010.

Knowing what had transpired over the years, obviously, the concept of the federation have not pan out well.  The British were somewhat naive to think that the federation was a good idea to guarantee development and prosperity for its former colonies.  Looking back on the wisdom of the federation, the British clearly had not anticipated the level of racism and religious fanaticism that spawned out of Malaya.

Tengku Abdul Rahman who was subsequently replaced by his predecessors had started a policy of propagating domination over all other countries in the federation.  However, his effort was seen as mild compared to the policies implemented by his successors.

This was clearly evident when Malaya could not accept Singapore's vision of "equality for all" and its insistence for an inclusive national ideology of "Malaysian Malaysia."  Due to UMNO's obsessions with "Racial Supremacy" tenets; Malaya apparently expelled Singapore out of the federation simply because UMNO was fearful that the large Chinese population could threaten the paramount status of the Malays.

Soon after Singapore was removed from the federation, Malaya started a campaign to control and dominate Sabah and Sarawak.  Empowering Syed Kechik as its main architect and representative, Malaya started to manipulate the political events in both Sabah and Sarawak.

Malaya did not want another Singapore scenario thus it became clear that colonizing Sabah and Sarawak was critical for Malaya to take the upper hand of government.  To colonize Sabah and Sarawak, Malaya wanted to Islamize all the natives of Borneo.

Thus a government policy of designating anyone who becomes Muslim as Malay became a national standard.  Whoever becomes a Muslim is therefore automatically conferred a bumiputra status and designated as Malay even though such person may be of Pakistani origin.

In Sabah, there were numerous occasion of mass conversion taking place all over Sabah.  On the same token there were numerous cases of bribery and promises of ministerial position to non-Muslim leaders if they embrace Islam.  Such were the practices in the Harris Salleh administration during the Berjaya government.

Numerous Islamic religious gurus from Malaya were sent to government schools all over Sabah in the guise as educators when actually their main purpose was to inculcate the teachings of Islam to the natives.  Islamization was the main priority of the Malayan UMNO government in the effort to colonized Sabah and Sarawak.

Such racist policies peak with Mahathir Mohammed when he engineered the "Affirmative Action" in the form of NEP to favour heavily toward Malays or Muslims while disenfranchising the other non-Muslim groups.

Mahathir, made it a point to control Sabah at all cost by engineering a "divide and rule" strategy against the natives of Sabah.  Not satisfied with this he then engineered what is commonly known today as "Project IC" or "Project M," which essentially issued citizenship status to immigrants from Indonesia, Philippines and other countries like Pakistan as long as they were Muslim or a person who embraced Islam.  His goal was to make Sabah a fixed deposit for UMNO in subsequent elections into the future.  The believe was that a Muslim will vote for UMNO forever.

Such acts defied Sabah's constitution, but Mahathir was a dictator who had no respect for the natives of Sabah.  To him, Sabahan natives were uneducated and basically ignorant of the laws of the country.  His assessment of Sabahans was that we are a naive pacifist non-violent lot compared to the Pakistanis or the Arabs; therefore, we were an easy lot to manipulate.

Mahathir failed to see the goodness of a peace loving people and took advantage of our kind disposition.  So instead of harnessing the beauty and talents of the various races and religions of Sabah he planned for the destruction and marginalization of the native people of Sabah.

He was not settling for anything less accept "Malay supremacy" and "Islamization of the natives of Sabah."  These policies continued today as it is engrained in the doctrine of the UMNO (United Malay National Organization) party.

Mahathir's UMNO also took the liberty to change the political landscape of Sabah by gerrymandering and redistricting whole state constituencies to cut down the number of seats favourable to the non-Muslim natives in Sabah.  Such gerrymandering also occurs in urban areas in a deceitful attempt to marginalize the political clout of the Chinese.

It was all done secretly and unassumingly without consultation of the affected residents or the opposition party's for that matter.  All this while our leaders in PBS made no attempt to challenge such despicable acts by Mahathir.  Mahathir made sure to control any discontent by using the strong arm of the ISA to suppress any challenge to his edict.  As if by magic, one day you see Langkon and on the next day it was gone!

At the same time he increases the number of states and parliamentary seats to guarantee the Muslim always gain the upper hand of politics in Sabah.  By the way, many of these newly added constituencies are stuffed with citizens who were once illegal immigrants.

For UMNO, it was all an effort to marginalized all non-Muslim communities so as to guarantee the absolute domination of Muslims in Sabah.  Mahathir and his gangs of tyrants, think that doing so would guarantee his UMNO's reign of power stays on until perpetuity.

As we all know today, such racist and prejudiced policies did nothing good to our society other than create hatred and disillusionment to another fellow human being.  Despite his retirement, Mahathir's policies still exist today and it is actively being pursued even as I write this article.  Our people continue to be marginalized to this day.  Perhaps, even at a faster rate.

Malaya UMNO government was bent on "Ketuanan Melayu" (Malay Supremacy) and "religious "propagation of Islam" in all of Malaysia.  With these two main ideological doctrines, UMNO discarded good human common sense to realize those selfish dreams.

All the things that were ever thought by the British system of administration were abandoned to pursue these two narrow fanatical and selfish concepts of "race and religion."  Because of Malaya's obsessions to "race and religion," Malaysia started to fall behind in economic prosperity and political maturity.

This is clearly evident when in 1970 South Korea was clearly far behind Malaysia in economic and technological advancement, but yet today South Korea has surpassed Malaysia by leaps and bounds.  Very surprisingly, today our neighbouring countries such as Indonesia and Thailand have already surpassed Malaysia in economic prosperity and political maturity.  Evidently, it was not for them to gain but rather it was more for us to lose.

Today, race relation is at a simmering point and may possibly explode into a "Middle East" type conflict if UMNO continues on its ideological path of "race and religion" obsession.  Obviously, UMNO's racist ideology was not helpful for Malaysia's attempt to become a developed nation.  The future of Malaysia today remains bleak if UMNO is allowed to continue in its prejudicial concept of racism and religion in government.

It is clear as to why Malaysia is falling behind.  A country such as Malaysia with numerous colours of racial makeup and religious affiliations could have been a thing of wonder for the world to envy.  Malaysia could have been a better alternative model than United States of America.  We could easily double and triple our economic superiority in the world because we have all the talents in the world emanating from the various racial groups and religions.

Statistical figures show that over two million Malaysians have left this country for a brighter future elsewhere; simply because our government is running a nation based on narrow bigoted ideas.  Imagine two million brains drained from Malaysia.  Good decent professional human beings taking away their talents elsewhere simply because we have an incompetent government racist to the bone.  The question now is do we follow in the footsteps of Malaya when clearly their heart was never with us?

We have an abundant supply of natural resources in the world.  We have all the capabilities found in a multiracial civilization.  But when a small group of ignorant racist and religious fanatics makes government policies then obviously nothing good will come out of it.

Unless Malaysia overhauls completely its ideology towards mankind, we will never be able to catch up with South Korea.  Unless Malaysia removes such racist ideologies and embrace "equality for all," we can never expect Malaysia to become a developed nation.

Unless Malaysia separates religion from government like the United States of America version of separation of church and state, Malaysia will never be peaceful, united and progressive.  These are simple facts supported by evidences of past histories of nations with similar ideologies and racial makeup.

We, in Sabah are blessed with numerous racial groups and religious affiliation.  We have all the colours and the promise of ingenuity emanating from all these various races and religions.  We are filled with talented people.  The key now is to empower every one of these races and let them contribute their talents for the benefit of all.  If we follow in the footsteps of Malaya, we will never be able to unlock the talents emanating from the people.

We have only to look at Indonesia to learn that such policy of inclusion and the separation of religion and politics to realize the wisdom of such values.

We cannot follow in the narrow vision of the Malayan values of "race and religion."  We must go beyond these narrow concepts if we want to join the modern world.

If we want to enjoy what life has to offer, we must embrace "equality for all" and "keep religion separate from the affairs of government."  These are critical prerequisites for a great nation to grow and prosper.  Let us be wise and change our society to become a better world for Sabahans.  Our future is in our hand.  We can make it if only we promise unity.  Malayan political parties are not the answer.  Far from it, look closer at home.  Do not let fear cloud your mind.  All we need is trust and confidence.

Sabah does not have to learn the bad culture practiced in Malaya.  Sabah is well developed when it comes to racial harmony.  If anything, Malaya should learn from us.

Ini kali lah!  Just say no to Malaya parties (that includes PKR, DAP, PAS, UMNO, MCA and others)!  Why learn a bad habit when Sabah has a better culture of racial tolerance and inclusivity.  Sabah must regain its autonomy as proclaimed in the agreements of 1963.  It is our birthright; we must keep what is lawfully and legitimately our constitution.  Such was the intention of our fore-fathers who drafted and participated in the formation of the Malaysian federation.  We have the responsibility to honour the hopes and dreams of our fore-fathers.

After 49 years as Malaysia, Sabah has turned out to be a land of the impoverished.  We all now live in a place where our future is uncertain.  Everyday, our livelihood is threatened by the ever increasing numbers of illegal immigrants that shows no sign of abating.

All over Sabah we heard of complaints in cases of land grab.  Native land laws are today being challenged.  The attorney general's office has put out a statement that NCR land laws are no longer relevant.

We have a huge reserve of oil and gas, but we only get less than 5% of the profit from these natural resources.  How do we know how much exactly should we get?  Who knows the true figures of Petronas revenues?

We had millions upon millions of cubic feet of prime timber upon our vast land, but today almost all our prime timbers are gone.  Almost all the profits from these timbers gone to individuals and special interest groups while very little end up in the states coffers.  We have been cheated over and over and over during the past 49 years.

Everyone else, other than Sabahans have benefitted from our great country.  Today, we the people of this land has nothing to show for, rather, we have become the impoverished, deprived of our rich heritage.

We are the poorest as compared to the other states within the Malaya federation; yet we are one of the founding members of the Malaysian federation.  Our people are so wroth in poverty that even a salary of RM800 per month can only guarantee a meal of boiled rice and chili Padi sauce.

More than 50% of our momogun people live in abject poverty.  Our people still live in low grade stilt wooden houses with zinc roofs just like they used to live 30 years ago.  How can this be when we are supposed to be a rich country filled with God given natural endowments?   We are rich in oil and gas, yet our people are suffering mentally and physically due to poverty.  How can we allow this to happen? And what are we going to do about it?

With all these overwhelming acts of treason against our people and our country, many among us still foolishly support these Malayan based political parties.  Wrongly or rightly we ought to give our local political party a chance to show the world what it can do especially after so many years of disenfranchisement.

Many of these same people think that Malayan based parties are big national organization, therefore they are better capable to exact change in government.  This is a lamb excuse, a poor attempt to justify such dastardly and cowardly decision.

Have these people forgotten that we are a Nation with full autonomy as promised in our Malaysian federation contract?  By cavorting with Malaya based political parties, such act basically amounts to a betrayal of trust or better known yet as treason.  When a Sabah based party win the election and forms the government, there is always a possibility that legal action may be taken against those who had participated in acts considered treasonous.  So legally if anyone displays evidence of cavorting with a foreign entity to bring the downfall of a genuine Sabah based party, they can be held liable for treason.

Remember, Sabah is an autonomous nation within the framework of the Malaysian federation (a fact that the United Nations group of countries can attest to its validity.)  So the question remains:  Is it wise to throw our autonomy in favour of enslavement?

We are guaranteed in our constitution as autonomous masters of our destiny, so why choose to be slave to a colonial master?  How insane could it be?  We were once a colony of the British empire; are we so in love with colonialism that we now wish for Malaya to colonize us?  How can we stop this insanity?  No matter how difficult we must be loyal to our own home.  We can make it work among us; all we need is unity.

It is time we put our hearts together and unite to guarantee that our own local based political party SAPP forms the next government of Sabah.  As Victor Hugo once wrote, "Nothing can change an idea whose time has come."  SAPP is a well organized and well disciplined political party who has put forward some of the best ideas on how to rejuvenate our economy and solve our perennial problems with undesirable illegal immigrations.

SAPP came up with a simple yet brilliant idea with Sabah IC.  Once SAPP forms the government it will implement Sabah IC immediately as the first step to rejuvenate our national pride and dignity.  This one act alone will immediately empower the genuine Sabahans.

This is an opportunity every genuine Sabahans cannot afford to miss.  Only fools would not support such a brilliant idea.  We cannot be so utterly lacking in self-esteem that we would rather lose our nations rights and integrity in favor of a foreign entity whose interest and priority lies with Malaya.

SAPP has so many brilliant programs to build our nation and take us out of poverty.  Let us be wise and give our trust where it’s most deserved.  Do not be gullible to believe on unsubstantiated rumours.  Lies are commonly employed by self serving parties.  If you love Sabah, our home, than make an effort to learn the truth.

I love our country.  I believe Sabah is a beautiful place with beautiful people.  I want a good government that sincerely cares for the well being of its people.  It took me many years to study the nature of our politics and to find the truth. How and what are the solutions to best build our country.  Today, I find SAPP to be the only party in Sabah that truly has the heart and the solution for our nation.  My research also brings me to my conclusion that Yong Teck Lee is an honest man with the wisdom and integrity of a true leader.  He is a leader we can trust.  I repeat, none of the allegations and accusations hurled against him are true.  If anything, he is one man who has fought for issues that are so dear to our hearts.  He is a true patriot for Sabahans, which is something I cannot say about Joseph Pairin Kitingan.

Sufficed it for me to say we must give trust and respect where it is due.  We must have that inner humanitarian feeling of pride and integrity to at least give SAPP a chance to prove itself.  There is nothing to fear as we live in a society that practices democracy, and every five years we go to the polling booth to choose the party of our choice.  The critical question is whether SAPP have the solutions for Sabah; and yes, SAPP has the solution.

All the while, UMNO is causing fear in the hearts of the people. Statements such as "voting for the opposition will ruin our country are all rubbish."  After 49 years under Malaya's rule, what can we account for today.  If they cannot accomplish a sense of satisfaction in the hearts of all Malaysian as a meaningful act of government for our people in 49 years, what makes anyone think that in the next five years they will miraculously change everything.  How can they change if their doctrine is in their belief system?

Corruption is one of the biggest incentive to the disintegration of a society.  If people would just read the report by a Washington-based financial watchdog Global Financial Integrity (GFI), in its latest report which tracks capital flight, it documented the level of illicit flows from Malaysia in 2010 was the highest in 10 years.

In 2010 over RM200 Billion flows out of Malaysia.  Isn't this another form of insanity?  Are we going to continue the status quo so more of the peoples' money flows out of our country?  We have hard core poor to take care in our country, and yet corrupt leaders are siphoning out our people's money.  I say we must stop allowing foreigners to rule over us.  We must stop this insanity.

I think it is time to put a stop to this insanity trend.  It is time we all grow up and take full responsibility of our future.  It is time to be matured and not let minor differences split us.  Let's be wise and focus on the big picture.  Let's do the right thing for our Sabah, our nation that we love so much.  This is our home.  We owe it to our homeland to put it back in order.  Listen to your heart.  Your children's heart is beating in your heart.  We must give trust where trust is due.

As a director of PIPPA - Progressive Institute of Public Policy Analysis (A Sabah based Think-Tank group), I make this plea to all Sabahans who love this country to stand united with SAPP for in this time of our history SAPP is the leader that will bring new hope and vision for our country.  I see a great future for Sabah and Sabahans in the SAPP government.  I challenge you to make our dreams come true.  Let us not miss this opportunity of a life time.  Give unity where unity is due!  God bless us all!

By Wilfred Gaban
Director at PIPPA - Progressive Institute of Public Policy Analysis (A Sabah based Think-Tank group)
President of Kadu Foundation - An NGO dedicated to the health and welfare of the Momogun community