Who says Sarawakians are stupid?

COMMENT In scribbling this, I am attempting to lend some support to Abel Cheah, whose article can be found here.

As Abel Cheah has implied, many Malayans have been charging that Sarawakians (or East Malaysians, for that matter) were stupid - for having voted for the BN all these years despite all kinds of hardship that they had suffered.

It seems that those Malayans have not realised that the BN has been ruling in Malaya all these years, and that the few states like Penang were lost to the Front but fairly recently.

Are Sarawakians stupid?

When you say Sarawakians are stupid, you are saying that all Sarawakians are so. While I would concede that there must be a few Sarawakians who are indeed stupid, for every nation on this earth has their fair share of the mentally dim, it is impossible for all Sarawakians to be so.

That Dr Sim Kui Hian, the president of the SUPP, is certainly not stupid. He was the consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at the Sarawak General Hospital Heart Centre before he went into politics. If it is hard to qualify to become a physician, it is harder still to be a medical specialist.

Baru Bian, the head of Sarawak PKR, has won numerous court cases, particularly those involving land-grab cases. He cannot be stupid.

If you have lived and worked long enough in Sarawak as I have, you would know that there are very many Sarawakians other than the two mentioned who have excelled in their chosen fields. Many others are, at the very least, sufficiently intelligent to earn a decent living.

Don't believe Cheah and me still? Ask Clare Rewcastle-Brown. She, too, has lived in Sarawak for some years. And revisited recently.

Ignorance is not stupidity

If you do not know something because you have not been told it, you are ignorant but not stupid. If you still do not know something although you have been told it many times, then you are stupid.

Many Sarawakians are ignorant of issues that bother you. Ignorance is not stupidity.

You are aware of such scandalous affairs as the 1MDB and the attendant nitty-gritty because you are wired.

So, then, let us look at the Internet coverage in Sarawak.

First, do be aware that at 124,450 sq km., Sarawak is almost as big as Malaya (130,897 sq km.).

Now, please go to http://opensignal.com/.

You will find that only around 10 or 12 percent of Sarawak has Internet coverage, whereas Malaya has about 80 percent.

You will find that practically all the areas covered in Sarawak are near the coast, whereas most of the Sarawakians that vote for the BN live upcountry, or, in the interior.

Among those people outside the areas covered and who can afford it, their only source of information is the mainstream media - the newspaper and, perhaps, the TV. And you know what the mainstream media publishes and broadcasts, don't you?

Are you seeing things better now? Wait. You’ll be more shocked.

When we are connected to the Internet, our system continually uploads (transmits) and downloads (receives). In those areas that have Internet coverage in Sarawak, you can get decent reception and transmission if you are connected by fixed line.

But you do not have fixed line everywhere even in there. And if you do not have it, you have to subscribe to wireless broadband.

If you are connected by means of wireless broadband, you depend on telecommunication towers. The signal strength depends on the distance of those towers to you.

To cut the long story short, you don’t always get even 3G and never mind 4G LTE, which is very limited, but at times 2G.

And when you are on 2G, you either cannot get a page loaded or it takes ages.

When you are trying to catch up with the news after your dinner and you are on 2G, you might as well go to bed, because you don’t want to wait for hours just to view a page, and you have to get up early the next morning to go to work.

For more bad news, consider that some of those living within the covered areas, and especially in the fringes, cannot afford a computer or the subscription to Internet service.

Keep them ignorant

The Dayaks (comprising the sub-ethnic groups Bidayuh, Iban, Orang Ulu and one or two other very small groups) form the majority of the population. Most of these people live in the interior.

If already they have no access to the right sort of information or can’t afford the medium to gain access to the information, they are kept ignorant or oppressed even by their own kind.

Here are but three examples.

When the controversy surrounding the Baram Dam erupted, one Lihan Jok tried to persuade his constituents to allow the construction of the dam by claiming that it was a gift from God.

Jok is an Orang Ulu, and formerly a primary school headmaster before he became a BN assemblyperson for Telang Usan. It has also been said that he was an elder in his church.

With such credentials of his, his word would be readily accepted by the lowly-educated, the illiterate, and the ignorant people in his area.

In the March 18, 2012 edition of The Borneo Post, one William Mawan was reported to have said, “If election is held during this time [then tentatively on June 3], those young, educated professionals who work in the cities might bring everything that is new that, in turn, could change the mentality of the people in their kampungs and longhouses.”

The Gawai Dayak is celebrated on June 1 and 2 every year, and many of those working and living in the towns and cities would take a week off work and return to their villages and longhouses for the celebration.

It is clear that Mawan was afraid that the ignorant rural dwellers would be apprised of the latest scandalous affairs on both sides of the South China Sea by the informed Dayaks.

Mawan is Iban. He was then the president of the Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party and a senior minister in the state BN.

In the March 19, 2012 edition of The Borneo Post, following a complaint made by an Iban, one James Masing was reported to have said that only during the polling day were the voters the towkays (bosses).

“Once they have elected their YBs or the administrators, the role changes,” he went on. “The elected representatives become the administrators/ bosses of the rakyat, while the rakyat plays a subservient role seeking assistance from the YBs from time to time.”

And “If their YBs, for instance, pass a law which tells the rakyat to walk backwards, the rakyat must walk backwards.”

Such arrogance!

In Sarawak, this charge of Masing’s was known as ‘Jangan melawan towkay’ and he, ‘the towkay’.

Masing is Iban. He was then the president of Parti Rakyat Sarawak and a senior minister in the state BN. I believe he still is both.

You must have noticed that none of these produced even a tiny squeak after PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang had said that Sarawak’s chief minister must be a Muslim.

Nor have they after that certain doctor who abused Malaysiakini’s reporter had said Muslims must continue to rule in Sarawak.

That tells us a lot about the three. And about other Dayak politicians in the State BN.

I said three examples. But here is one that is also interesting to note.

The writer is 26 or 27 years old. It seems that his father is a very wealthy man and the publicity chief of the party of which Adenan Satem is the president.

Here you have someone who has studied in England and earned a degree from a university there.

Doubtless, the people in his village and in those other villages around it would be impressed. After all, most of them have not completed their secondary school education and thus have not been even to a Malaysian university and never mind to a foreign one.

Surely, they would be convinced by what the writer might tell them of Adenan. Whether he is right or wrong is not the point.

What is little is relative

For us, RM50 is to be sneezed at.

When you fill up your Lamborghini Aventador (fuel capacity 23.8 gallons) or BMW i8 (fuel capacity 11.1 gallons) - with RON97, of course - every other day, you cough up RM185 or RM86 each time. (At the time of scribbling, the price of RON97 in most Malaysia's urban areas is said to be RM2.05 a litre.) I am sadly not in your category, but even the food that my two Rotties eat in a day costs some 1.8 times RM50.

But for those in the interior, RM50 is probably what they earn for a week’s, if not two weeks’, hard work. Some of them even seldom see a RM50 note. To them, it is a lot of money. And if they can earn it by simply making a cross next to the sign of the balance because an educated Yang Berhormat - and one of their own kind, to boot! - says to do so, why would they argue?

For us, the cost of a 30-metre roll of polyurethane (PU) pipe or of a 100-gallon PU water tank won’t make even a small, shallow dent to our wallet.

But for those in the interior, these items practically cost a fortune.

Those people are not stupid. They know and can do many things we are totally clueless about. They are ignorant of the things that the wired folks are familiar with.

Conclusion

As Abel Cheah as suggested, it is a good idea for the uninformed Malayans to visit Sarawak (and Sabah) and spend some time there to get to know about the people as well as the conditions and the situations prevalent there.

Their visit must include a few-days’ stay in the interior. They will then understand why things have been happening as they have. Surely, they will emphatise with the locals.

At least, it is hoped they will not be so quick to insult Sarawakians - if they even will, that is. In fact, they will, in all likelihood, make new, lasting friends.

It is so much better to gain friends by being nice and understanding rather than to gain enemies by hurling baseless insults. You can never tell that one not so fine day you may need help badly. Who knows, the chap who can help you might just be a Sarawakian. Remember, it is a small world.

Caution: Be prepared for an arduous, very long ride in an open longboat, a bone-jarring ride on laterite roads, and/or a few days of jungle trekking.

Oh, and don’t forget important survival stuff such as mosquito repellant and portable water-purifying kit.

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ODIN TAJUE is a regular Malaysiakini commenter. -Mkini