Yes, this is what happened in Batang Ai. Believe it or not, that is up to you. If this is not what happened, then it should have. This is not a complete analysis of the Batang Ai by-election and ignores personal issues which may or may not have influenced the voters of Batang Ai.

In my opinion, the Iban voters of Batang Ai deliberately went about to kill Dayakism and bury it with all the pomp and ceremony of a seemingly well-fought election campaign that will cost the BN RM80 million or more and help it to lose the next state elections.

They did us all a favour, for it is only with the death of Dayakism that a new Sarawak will soon be born for all Sarawakians and not just for the Dayaks.

With the rest of Malaysia rapidly abandoning ‘Ketuanan Melayu’ in favour of ‘Ketuanan Rakyat’, is Sarawak going to accept ‘Ketuanan Dayak’? Is Dayakism the only solution to Dayak unity? And is Dayak unity the only answer to change the BN regime? Will it be enough?

The Ibans of Batang Ai understood this well and chopped off the head of that useless fighting cock called ‘Dayakism’, a fighting cock which had fought and lost so many wars (not just battles) and disappointed so many Dayaks and which was summarily deserted by its own proponents and leaders such as James Masing who defected to the ‘safe’ pirate harbour of the BN.

They were helped along in this intent - but unintentionally of course - by the BN's normal chicanery, corruption and cheating. I am not discounting the effect of vote-buying and ballot-box tampering, but I am saying that this would not have made much difference, whether in Batang Ai or elsewhere in Sarawak.

There is a factor that both BN and PKR underestimate, and that is the collective intelligence of the voters.

The voters of Batang Ai are not stupid. They understood full well the dilemma that this by-election put them in - a vote for PKR which had only ‘Dayakism’ on its agenda would have made them a target for discrimination by the BN until at least the next state elections’

A vote for the BN would mean that they had to swallow their Dayak pride yet again and accept the ‘goodies’ offered to them by the BN, tempting enough as these were.

Do you think that the Ibans of Batang Ai still don't know what Taib Mahmud has done throughout Sarawak under the guise of the ‘politics of development’ and how they and other Sarawakians have been abused, made use of and discriminated against by Taib's regime? All this is no longer news in Sarawak and has gone beyond the blogs.

The Dayak voters are already awake and have been for some time. But when will the Dayak politicians wake up from the nightmare of Dayakism? When will the latter understand that there are larger issues at stake here? Stop harping on Dayakism - it will be in their own interests and that of the Dayaks to do so. Start thinking like Sarawakians.

PKR Sarawak is stupid if they still think that the Batang Ai voters have been fooled yet again by the BN and BN Sarawak is stupid if they think they have managed to fool the voters yet again as well.

The BN is self-delusional if they regard the results of the Batang Ai by-election as an endorsement of Taib, Alfred Jabu or James Masing and BN so-called ‘policies’. Even less is it an endorsement of Najib Abdual Razak and neither is Batang Ai theirs to give to him.

The voters of Batang Ai do not need to be convinced by PKR to be united whether through Dayakism or any other agenda against an evil BN regime. They already are. They voted for BN out of convenience and because PKR could not as yet offer a convincing alternative - one that could make a positive difference to both their present as well as future circumstances.

Other than putting down the Taib and the BN for their crimes (which everyone already knows) and harping on Dayakism and Dayak ‘unity’, where was PKR's agenda for ‘change’? What is PKR's agenda for change? Now that is what the Batang Ai voters wanted to hear, but PKR did not or could not tell them.

Maybe the time was not right yet and a win for PKR in Batang Ai would have been disastrous for the longer term goal of overthrowing the BN, since it would have given credence to Dayakism and put a scare into the other non-Dayak Sarawakians.

Dayakism makes for good ‘entertainment’ but poor politics. If PKR Sarawak sees Dayakism as the alternative, that is even worse. How does it expect critical support from the crucial Malay/ Melanau voters who may see Taib Mahmud and his evil regime as their only refuge against a full-scale Dayak uprising?

Dayakism has not worked for the last 20 years. Don't expect it to work in the next two years. PKR Sarawak needs a fresh new approach.

Even Dayak voters themselves have rejected Dayakism. If PKR still continues to put this fighting cock into the ring, it can expect to lose the next state elections as well. Sarawak does not need a Dayak (or Malay, Melanau, Orang Ulu or Chinese) Chief Minister. It needs a Sarawakian Chief Minister who has the support of all races of Sarawak.

The fact that the Dayaks can join a multi-racial party like PKR, even if that is not the ideal solution for Sarawak yet, speaks for itself. But they must resist the temptation to try and turn PKR Sarawak into another Snap or PBDS.

If the Ibans and Melanaus can accept a Malayan party like Umno/BN, there is no reason why the Dayaks can't accept PKR. PKR just has to repackage itself and make itself acceptable.

PKR (Malaya) must make greater effort to understand Sarawakians better and PKR Sarawak must really open up to all Sarawakians instead of being held hostage by cliques intent on politicking and each holding on to their pitiful little turf at the expense of the bigger goal.

All Sarawakians, not just the other Dayaks as well, will be able to accept a more open PKR Sarawak which concentrates on its vision for a new Sarawak free from the petty yet vicious tyranny of Taib and his gang.

Those who are too shortsighted to see why Dayakism shouldn't be buried deserve to be subservient to Taib and his gang.

Umno, MCA and MIC are barely surviving and will probably be swept away in the next general elections. Will Sarawakians want to be left behind again? PBDS is dead. There is nothing left to mend. The ghost of PBDS needs to be laid to rest, not resurrected.

If we allow ourselves to dwell too much on the past, this will drag us down and prevent us from advancing. Sarawakians deserve more hope than this. A New Sarawak awaits to be born.

Or are we going to put this baby in the hands of the likes of Sulaiman Abdul Rahman Taib to be abused? Sarawakians for Sarawak!