Yours Truly,
BN loyalist

There was a tsunami in Peninsular Malaysia; this is what everyone called, referring to the result of our country’s 12th General Election last week.

But that tsunami didn’t reach the shore of Borneo Malaysia-Sabah and Sarawak.

Many have asked me why?

Surely question like this needs answer, and what I do here is just to highlight the obvious as I see it.

Before I dwell into it, let me first say this, there are disparities between the two lands.

The obvious one is physical geography; second, there was a kind of information black out in Sabah. There people not knowing what happening in Peninsula, and third, the opposition leaders in Sabah are inward looking or even crazy.

That physical distance between Borneo Island and Malay Peninsula is something no one can change it, a distance of more than a thousand miles apart. It can only be made closer with the application of new communication technology in which so far Sabah and Sarawak are still lag behind partly because of their sheer sizes.

Longer distance makes contact slower, massages distorted and becoming less reliable by the time it’s finally reaches its final destination; it also involves cost, which only a few can afford.

Compare with country’s scenario in the past 40 years ago though, today we are better off but likewise, the phase of development (referring to communication technology) is slower by any standard of developed countries. The question is if we could do faster why do we have to wait?

My friend who is an experts in information technology said to me, the stake holders in Malaysia Telekom wouldn’t jump for any new idea, for example, changing the current circuit switch system to packet switch technology, and in as far as Telekom Malaysia is concerned they would say it damned expensive to change to new system. In actual fact is not the real reason, but rather they fear of loosing grip with the present vendor locking system, For example Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung and named it wouldn’t be playing a major role again in Malaysia Telekom should the packet switch system is used. Likewise the present stake holders may not have a chance to make money any more in a selfish way I called.

According to experts the packet switch system is far greater capacity than Malaysia present system, and in a long run it cost far less because other neighbouring countries can also hire from us should we now start with it.

This where Sabah and Sarawak are at a disadvantage, take for example in Sabah, say in Long Pa Sia - somewhere southern most of Sipitang District near to the border between Sabah in Kalimantan none of the present networking system works, whilst if we pick any kampong in Peninsula most likely it would be covered by at least one system.

Television for example like Astro, in Sabah only covered small portion of the state, the urban areas, whilst RTM1, 2, and TV3 are only slightly bigger coverage than Astro.

I would imagine if facilities are available to the people in Sabah, i.e., rural people are as informed as those people in Penang, Kedah, Perak and Selangor, rest assured that the result of this recent general election could be different.

In Sabah, most kampong folks didn’t know much what’s going on in the country. Their only source of information is RTM. Their ability to evaluate left, right and centre is therefore limited.

The only political party they hear every now and then is the BN, unfortunately BN party workers didn't realize their shock wave campaign style in many places (threatening and browbeating) rural people, do as told kind, old people living on receiving old age allowance were threatened , if they do not vote BN their old allowance would be withdrawn. The poor souls have little idea. But I reckon if they do this next time around, they will become opposition in Parliament.

Rural Sabahans are caught up between the devil and the deep blue sea, There isn’t choice.

To me, by looking at the result of the general election, there is no more denial now, that the internet media plays a major role in providing information- an alternative to printed media and TV.

This is because some Malaysians considered some of the program shown in our RTM was and is so revolting especially during the political campaign period. There isn't any fairness was shown to any other parties other than BN. The tone and the presentation was something like the world was coming to an end without BN.

My early thought about internet was rather misleading take the Ijok by-election as an example, as an internet addict, reading from thousands and thousands of material posted in the web page was clearly indicated that PKR candidate could win at that time. The result was upsetting, all prediction by major blogs was wrong.

This time around, general public refuse to budge and reinforce the belief, and ignore the Ijok debacle.

Here I say internet it also meant to cover, blogs, tubes, video, SMS, ipods, Yahoogroup and all sort of web pages.

Bloggers effortlessly continued their blogging, still, the most popular websites were Malaysiakini, Raja Petra-Malaysia Today and Harakah gave countdown, updated every hour and on the hour of what people want to hear as well as see.

It doesn’t mean UMNO and other BN component parties have no websites, except that their websites are duplicate to what is already found in main stream media, and people ignored them completely as they want to see and hear the opposite of the Government propaganda. Worst was when RTM the mouthpiece of the government non stop telling the obvious and grossly lying, making up exaggerating stories. The most pathetic ritual was about members from such and such political parties now joined BN, so on and so forth.

In Kelantan, because UMNO wanted so badly, there was a picture portraying the grand reception of welcoming members in a five star hotel spearheaded by Datuk Dr Awang Adek Menteri Besar designate. In another, just below was a small picture of Tok Guru praying in a mosque alone with background of shining white and light green tiles, it meant to say we are all small nothing is grandiose, that was melancholically enough to make one thinks which is morally right and morally wrong.

In Sabah there is this discrimination if not prejudices against younger generation. One can also called there is a generation gap between the older and younger generation, those whose age around 21 and below 30, were very much neglected, sidelined by older generation who claimed they have followers, which in actual fact not so, for them money matter most.

The young become thoughtless, they didn’t know what the fuss about in politics, so in Sabah BN was considered lucky so to speak, since opposition has not managed yet to convert them as in the five states won by the opposition.

The biggest hindrance for opposition of not winning more seats a part from one ADUN and one MP was that they lack of mutual aspiration. That means the PKR and DAP in Sabah unlike their counter part in Peninsula was not synchronized. When I asked Karpal Singh the DAP Chairman recently, he admitted that leaders in Sabah have not managed to iron out things in a cordial way.

Mind boggling, (Sabah’s opposition leaders) are these people really struggling for the people or purely for self interest?

From now if opposition leaders are truly patriotic and want to make Malaysia truly practices democratic government, I would think leaders at the top level must be prepared to give way and take stock comes a defining moment.

It is quite clear now in Sabah; independent candidates are people’s last choice, some would rather go to tabasan-mending their sawah padi than voting a bunch of idiots. This was seen as performed by Sabah local based political parties like PASOK and SETIA none of them pulled thousand votes. I could sum up; Sabahans themselves have no faith on them.