BN's grumble of Chinese being "ungrateful" again

In aftermath of the Sarawak state election, the state Barisan Nasional (BN) managed to retain its government seat, but thanks to PBB president Taib Mahmud, his major coalition partner SUPP was defeated so badly. SUPP president George Chan lost his stronghold while most of his anointed candidates did not make it to the state legislative assembly. SUPP is current left with only 6 seats.

And because of the SUPP's massive defeat which saw the party's strength being reduced to a minor one, questions arise among top leaders of PBB, the Chinese community are being so "ungrateful" and voted for the opposition. "What else do they want?", asked one PBB leader. "We had in fact given them everything", the PBB leader added.

We would like to ask the state BN leaders not to blame the voters but instead blame themselves, blame SUPP for the defeat and lost of confidence by the Chinese community. But if these BN leaders really do not know or unaware of what the Chinese community "really want", then let us enlighten them on their current situation.

Basically, the state BN mode is still like their counterparts in peninsular, giving whatsoever they got to the Chinese community, their culture, their symbol, their identity, their language, their names, development, education and so on. And this is what they claimed that they had fulfilled the needs of all the multiracial communities.

Let us summarize all these problems into just one sentence. There were more of a Chinese symbolism and tokenism than to real and actual political and economic returns for the community. Do the BN leaders understand this?

Like their counterparts in peninsular, MCA and Gerakan, SUPP too have a great number of its leaders "representing" the Chinese community in the state government, but are they really effective in their claimed representation? According to some local Chinese community leaders, most of these SUPP government ministers in the state are merely "yes" men and they do not really go down to the ground to fully understand the concerns and problems of the community at large.

The Chinese community also viewed that these SUPP representatives in the state government do not have real powers to sit alongside and speak up equally with its partner PBB which is considered the most dominant component party in the state BN coalition. The picture here is, whatsoever PBB dictates in the coalitions, the other component parties SUPP, PRS, SPDP are to adhere to without further questions or queries.

Therefore, to them, because of such situation, SUPP is powerless in defending the political and economical will of the Chinese community, just like the Chinese community in the peninsular viewing how did MCA and Gerakan stand in the BN coalition: powerless and toothless, merely following whatever Umno dictates.

Apart from the ethnic's political and economic issues, the Sarawak Chinese community is also watching other factors which are closely connected to their daily lives, the extensive and long winded bureaucratic procedures, an arrogant civil service which they felt difficult to deal with, power abuse, corruptions, human rights and the most recent one which is seem to be widely threatening the religion they profess, Christianity.

Their Holy Bibles were confiscated by the home affairs ministry, detained for months in the port warehouses of Port Klang and Kuching for some no good reasons and finally being released only after those holy books were being defaced by the authorities. They viewed that the government had insulted their religion and they could not fight back at all and worst still, their representative in the state government, SUPP are too timid to speak up for them on this issue. And so they fought back using their ballot papers.

And this is how SUPP lost. The Chinese community, like their counterparts in peninsular, did not mind if they voted for the opposition DAP and PKR, because eventhough they knew that if they were to vote out SUPP (and MCA, Gerakan in peninsular) their community's representation in the government would be lost as they already knew that these Chinese leaders in the BN coalition would not have much say and will not fight for their fundamental rights anyway.

Like one local Chinese leader said, "Whether they are in the government or not, all these BN Chinese leader are powerless and they do not effectively fight for us at all."

"In this case, it's better to vote for the oppositions DAP or PKR who could better speak up and fight for us effectively than the BN leaders who did nothing for us", he added.

In this case, the BN's term of the Chinese community being "ungrateful" is merely a lust of frustration vented out because of their defeatism and it also shows that they are still in a denial mode. They refused to accept defeat that they are having so many weaknesses. They are insisting that there is nothing wrong with BN at all and it is the Chinese community who refused to understand the coalition.

So, what we could do is to wish the BN leaders all their best. Keep on avenging their angers and frustrations until the 13th general elections to come. Then we will all show you how our ballot papers work on you.