Although Taib Mahmud invited Najib to officiate the Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) congress assembly recently, he didn’t waste any time in giving Najib a few lessons in mature politics.
Taib used the PBB Congress to turn the tables on Najib and instead of East Malaysians being looked down, Taib conveyed that west Malaysians were stupid.
Taib has the mental disposition to disassociate himself and PBB from Umno’s machinations.
In regarding the issue as being simple and localised, Taib adds salt to injury by instructing Najib on living a life of tolerance.
Taib in his speech said: “To us (people in Sarawak) there is no issue. We have lived with people of different races and different religions for many decades, even before Malaysia.”
Once Malaysia was formed, the aggressors in peninsula wanted to invade the east Malaysian states and wanted to superimpose their stupidity in East Malaysia.
They brought in the Malayan disease- intolerance and racism.
When Sarawak and Sabah joined Malaysia, they entered into agreement as sovereign states with the Federation of Malaya as a single entity.
That put both Sabah and Sarawak on the same level as Malaya as a whole, not placed Sabah and Sarawak as component states in the federation.
The inclusion of Sabah and Sarawak isn’t like the inclusion of Hawaii as an additional state into USA.
The chief Ministers of Sabah and Sarawak should be styled Prime Ministers of Sabah and Sarawak respectively.
Najib’s lesson on ‘tolerance’
So ‘PM’ Taib declared the Allah ruling was not binding on Sabah and Sarawak.
PM Najib, the PM of Malaya must take note of the hidden messages in Taib’s comment: “We cannot alter the status quo in Sarawak”.
He then went on to instruct Najib on how to live a life of “tolerance”.
The use of the word was not a problem in the state as the “spirit of tolerance” among Sarawakians is high, one of the features of multi-racial Sarawak which made it a bedrock of stability and harmony.
“When I travel to the longhouses, I’d just look for a Muslim cook from the city and they (the longhouse folks) would buy the food and even buy praying mats for me to pray in one of their rooms.
“This is quite natural with us in dealing with people of different religions.”
In other words, the way peninsula Malaysians deal with the problem is unnatural.
Taib said it “did not bother him when other people made the sign of the cross because it’s their religion, expressing their respect for the Almighty. I can understand it.”
Taib said he would bow and offer his own prayers the Muslim way when his Christian friends made the sign of the cross in their prayers.
“The Chinese would probably do it their way. The intention is the same. It’s all praying to the superior being which we believe is the Creator of this world,” he said.
Najib and the Umno right wingers don’t understand it.
Comment by Mohd Ariff Sabri Aziz
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