You still know nothing, West Malaysians

Erna Mayuni

APRIL 20 — I am profoundly unapologetic to the people I annoyed with my column “You know nothing, West Malaysians”.

In fact, I return to annoy you once again. Because, see, many of you upset me with your rants about Barisan Nasional retaining Sarawak in the last state election.

“Sarawak gets the government it deserves!”

With all due respect, some of you have very little insight into how Sarawak works. Many of you will refuse to see the Sarawak election as nothing but proof Sarawakians are stupid and deserve to continue to live in backward conditions.

To those who think that way: I must find a rubber chicken. So I can slap you repeatedly with it in the vain hopes you will see sense.

First off, Internet penetration in Sarawak is a measly 17 per cent. So all those tweets exhorting Sarawakians to overthrow the existing government and create a tsunami — you’re mainly preaching to the already converted or the very small urban elite, many of whom quite like things the way they are.

Sarawak, dear West Malaysians, is the biggest state in Malaysia. It is not like Selangor, blessed with highways and working tar roads. Most people in Selangor and the entire West Malaysian middle class have access to electricity and running water. A lot of rural folks are not that fortunate.

It is costly and challenging to build working roads in the state. Part of that is due to geographical conditions. You cannot just blast a hole through a hill or build a highway over a river.

Seeing as Sarawak is rich in timber and other natural resources, you would think the state could fund its own development.

This is where I explain how the government works. All those resources and money from oil and rainforests?

They do not go to the Sarawak state coffer. They go to the Federal government. All your pretty roads, tall buildings, infrastructure and 1 Malaysia email accounts — guess who’s footing the bill? I’ll tell you it’s not the sand miners.

Precious little of Sarawak’s resources go to the state itself. Who is to blame for that? Who knows, really.

The simple gist of it is that a long time ago, Sarawak’s leaders signed away its rights to its own resources to the Federal government. You will understand then why I get the occasional urge to run amok in Putrajaya with a chainsaw and kerosene.

You blame the rural natives for taking 1 Tupperware and 1 Votebuying. It is easy for you to criticise them, O champagne nationalists. You tweet angrily from that cushy chair in Starbucks while the poor farmer gratefully takes the RM200 handout that will feed his family for a month.

It is hard to contemplate the future on an empty stomach.

Baru Bian lost elections twice before he finally won his seat. If a native took eight years of hard work to make inroads, why do Pakatan Rakyat supporters delude themselves into believing that one month of campaigning is enough to win them Sarawak?

You whine, you curse, you call the natives stupid but what have you done for them? It took a Swiss activist, Bruno Manser, to unite the Penans and educate them about their legal rights. Manser leaves behind a legacy and, sadly, a likely dead body. It is widely believed his corpse lies in some ditch somewhere, victim to one of the timber gangs he angered.

I remember in school I asked my (West Malaysian) teacher why the government couldn’t just leave the Penans in peace and let them keep their land and traditions.

“Oh, the Penans are ignorant. They do not understand that development is important.”

I understand now that the Penans were never regarded as anything but impediments to the thing we worship most above God — development. Our rainforests are dwindling? They must make way to development. The rare earth mine could be a potential health hazard? Public safety must be set aside for development.

We sacrifice the things we cannot replace — people, traditions, nature — for the sake of wealth. Must I point out how little of that wealth trickles down to the people who suffer most from our grand efforts?

And I put this to you — you complain only now about the government and its excesses because you can no longer take for granted your comfortable lives.

You never cared about Sarawak but for your own selfish concerns and your fears. It took rising prices and economic insecurity to make you spare any thought for Sarawak, which is frankly quite pathetic.

The many people on Twitter claiming to be praying for Sarawak: Will you stop praying for them now when they need it more than ever? Or perhaps you should instead pray for the courage to get out of your armchairs and do more than whine