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.

Padan Muka !

Serve You Right !

By Awang Buntak

When I got up Sunday after staying up whole night watching the election results, the Malay expression "Padan Muka"(Serve You Right) kept playing in my head.

You use this expression to show your disappointment with someone. It's like telling someone don't climb the tree, despite the good advice, the person still refuses to listen and if he falls from the tree later, you say "padan muka".

With the changed political landscape, who do you think I am going to say "padan muka" to? UMNO led Barisan? You think I should?

I don't think so; everybody is saying that throughout the country. So, why repeat myself?

I will shoot straight now; I’ll say "padan muka" to Sabah opposition parties. They had the chance to win some good seats in the just concluded elections; they ended up winning only one state seat and one parliament seat.

Our opposition politicians are really greedy, immature and a bunch of selfish nitwits. If they had sacrificed their egos for the sake of the people, can you imagine the political scenario of the country now?

Look at some of the urban seats; if you add up the opposition votes, they definitely whacked the BN winners. It does not take a genius to figure out that if the opposition votes get split, BN will win.

Even in some seats the BN winners just scrapped by. People in Sabah wanted change like other parts of the country, they wanted to wake up the arrogant government who never listened to them, they wanted to get rid of the illegal, they wanted better security, the people wanted corruption curbed, and they wanted their fair share of economic pie instead of it going to the well connected only.

They screamed loud and clear , we are all Malaysians, please help deserving cases regardless of their racial background, prices are going up, we are suffering they moaned. They wanted all these and more and what did the opposition do? They blew the chance away by being selfish and plain stupid.

From now in Sabah we need to stop complaining about illegal, corruption, nepotism, and cronyism, arrogance of power, the poor delivery system and all that. We'd better switch off and watch the new season of Akademi Fantasia.

I personally don't want to know about all the political stuff anymore.

Padan muka.

Ya la aku pun…I don’t know what are these people up to? They said they wanted to change the government. If it’s the case, then they should look at himself first in the mirror. No mantras require. But he may say this aloud.

By myself can I do it?

Someone can do it? Or

By combining the efforts we can make it… which is which?

No la these people are gila kuasa

ASJournal

About blogger heh! Talks about this subject many people still feel uneasy if not fearful. Because it sounds technical, because its mind blogging no wonder ‘they’ called it blogger-unless you have the latest edition of English dictionary, otherwise you wouldn’t find definition of blog.

My miserable story began when I was student doing Masters Degree in Strategic Planning in Birmingham University way in 1983 , and this subject was made compulsory, I've never thought it develops that fast.

I hated the subject on computer so much I used to sleep at the back of Lecture Theater whenever there were computer lectures. In those days computer lecture was combined with Statistics-I meant in that university. I didn’t see it then as I see it now, that the two subjects are actually closely related, having the same foundation that is called logic.

It also meant not very long time ago I was one of those people who were tormented by what I heard and saw.

Not until I was indoctrinated for several weeks at the ANU, Australia, where I did my bar training. There each student was given one set of computer to mock around with.

But blogging to me only came very recently, and since its computer related activity without having basic knowledge of it there is no way I can do blogging

Computer has changed my perception and even life style to a point. The ugly beast turns beauty, very often the urge creeps on like a cave spider whenever I have nothing better to do.

I created this AS Journal June last year (2007), after messing up with a few. A lady friend helped me to put up the clock to see a rough idea of my visitors last January and up to February 2^nd.

On the 2^nd February I posted an articles title We are Sabahans before Malaysians followed by two more articles related to it. In less than two weeks the numbers jumped from 200 to four 4,000, even Sabah Development Corridor was by passed within days. I was astounded- a friend said we’d better slow it down. Meaning (we) now found a way to get visited, next in mind perhaps is to prepare for any upsurge.