Party solidarity vital in recovering lost ground

On 17 November 2010, The Borneo Post’s front page news was headline ‘Left-wing retirees worrisome’. Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) Youth chief Mong Dagang claimed that there are government retirees who have turned into political left-wingers.When my father retired, he and a group of retirees bought subdivided pieces of NCR land from a farmer (who owned acres and acres of inherited NCR land) in Pasai based on a gentleman’s agreement and mutually accepted letters of acquisition signed between the landowner and the retirees with witnesses to boot. A Land and Survey pensioner who also bought a few subdivided pieces of land there, applied for land titles on behalf of the group, complete with the names of the new owners as well as the location and subdivision plan of the land. Curiously, the applications for the land titles were very slow in coming. Today they are still sitting somewhere in the Sibu Land and Survey office.After a few years or so, my father had grew pineapples, longan and bananas as well as planted durian plants and a few types of local fruits for his children and grandchildren to harvest in the future.It was my father’s almost daily routine to go to the land to farm in the afternoon after helping out in church and at home in the morning. Just living a peaceful and God-centred life. I spent one whole wonderful day once with him planting fruit seedlings and demarcating land boundaries.One day, out of the blue, while my dad was blissfully tending to his land together with a few other pensioners on their own pieces of land nearby, two men appeared and came out of the bush together with a few documents that turned out to be land maps. The retirees inquired on their presence and they said that the land had been acquired by the government and allocated to their company for oil palm plantation. A new waste dumping site was also in the pipeline not far from the land that they were standing on, they said.It took quite a while for that piece of news to sink in for the pensioners. Some started talking about how much the compensation for the land would be, and contemplating on selling out. Most however begun to think thus, “What about our children and grandchildren? If we sell all our land, what else can we pass on to them that is of significant value? If our children do not have land of their own, it is tantamount to selling out on their independence. They will be subjected to the whims and fancies of the rich and the big corporations that are protected by the people in power who argue that there can be no thriving economy without successful businessmen and entrepreneurs”. The pensioners concerned had set up a committee, in anticipation of the battle ahead, to fight for their rights and the future of their children and grandchildren. Do not blame the pensioners if they had become left-wingers. Bad politics, corrupted politicians with vested interest and greedy companies had pushed them to that side. All they want is a share of the economic pie and live in peace, but if their meagre shares and the little that they have are taken too from them to enrich the already damned rich, even my late grandfather would be turning in his grave.

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Taib and Jabu are still thinking that without Taib Sarawak is gone. Why can’t they think that Sarawak had been before them, and will be here well after they are gone. Even if they are really concerned about seeing their programmes for development like the SCORE etc continue to flourish and Taib will reap their benefits, the hard truth is that Taib like all man/woman will die. He will leave this world and will never return. So will Jabu and everyone of us. The only reason is greed has taken a hold on Taib and all these BN goons. Like they keep telling the rural poor folks that without BN they would be no development. The truth is with BN there is also no development for the poor masses. Development and advancement is for Taib and his “people”. Unfortunately Taib having denied development to the rural people thereby rural people are so poor that during elections times a mere RM5. 00 a piece they vote BN. A pathetic cycle!This “nobody can replace me” syndrome has apparently caught on Peter Nansen, the incumbent assemblyman of Tasek Biru. He has been telling people of Bau that nobody can replace him unless they want no development to take place in Bau. As appeared in “Borneo Post”: recently he signed a MOU with a Chinese of Mainland China Group to develop a “Bamboo Park” in a 40-hactares of NCR land belonged to the people of Singai without first having obtained the consent of the people. He said his grandfather was a Hakka from China and he now only needed 3000 votes from Hakkas, his countrymen, to win next election. He is guarranteed 3000 votes from the poor Dayaks. How condescending, just because he knows the Dayaks are poor lot and must vote for him/BN. He has a self-belief that to the Dayaks he, as president of REDEEMs, a NGO set-up by Wilfred Nissom a number of years ago he is indispensible to Tasik Biru Constituency. He has often claimed that he as a Dayak a YB, Assistant Minister and a Datuk, he would look after the Dayaks. Now he has courted local Chinese for votes by signing MOU with interests from mainland China to develop Dayak ancestral lands – a traditional site for certain olden times rituals that of appeasing the souls of dead warriors fallen in the days of the war of headhuntings which practice ceased by 1965. He is prepared to sell Dayak ancestral lands hoping to please the chinese voters of Tasik Biru Constituency. Just so that he will be elected again. He has shown up his true colour: a true Peter Lee Nan Sen, and one very greedy “Hakka” indeed. Just like his boss Taib. He has committed sacriledges against the sacred site. He will be cursed by the souls of the dead for indeed the site was cursed by our forefathers, believers/practioners of the old rites/traditions, that it should remain untouched/undisturbed: Damned be unto whoever disturbing it.