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Politics of anger threaten Sarawakian unity

LETTER | Pakatan Harapan’s use of voters’ anger towards BN to win votes has a detrimental effect – further disuniting the people of Sarawak.

I personally think the practice would even encourage distrust, prejudice or worse, discrimination towards Sarawakians, particularly those living in the rural areas.

The current situation is already bad with the peoples of Sarawak alienated from each other no thanks to decades of racial and religion-based approaches in economic and social policies by BN.

Now, Harapan is making it worse by dividing Sarawakians along political lines. I wish to ask Harapan leaders and politicians to take this very seriously before it becomes too late. You take this issue for granted at the expense of Sarawakian harmony.

You should see how Sarawakians and Sabahans, in general, are called names by Harapan supporters, especially on social media, because of the supposition that they were the ones who voted BN into power every time there was an election.

This despite the fact that a lot of Dayaks and Malay-Melanaus who dared to vote for Pakatan Harapan or Pakatan Rakyat before. Sure, the majority of Dayaks and Malay-Melanaus in the rural areas voted for BN, but that’s certainly no excuse to generalise all of them to be “BN-lovers”.

Such an attitude by Harapan supporters over the five years or so has obviously affected the opposition’s support especially among the Dayaks and Malay-Melanaus in Sarawak, evident by the decreased number of seats won by the opposition in the 2016 Sarawak state elections.

There’s a danger Harapan will suffer worse results in this coming general election compared to 2013 due to this.

Personally, I do think that Harapan is rather weak in their campaigning efforts in the rural areas. Based on my observation, only had a handful of members are doing campaigning in the interior seats. How could you expect them to prevail against the well-oiled and financially-powerful BN machinery?

Therefore, I’m challenging these urban-based Harapan supporters to go to the ground and support the Harapan campaigning efforts in the rural areas, and not only on Facebook or coffee-shops.

This is so that they can understand what is happening there in the interior and what the local cultures are. Certainly, this will help your party to gain a better chance to win. Calling the rural voters names won’t win Harapan much votes.You people are supposed to be “the good guys”, for god’s sake.

It is disappointing that Sarawak has seen her peoples drift further from each other over the decades due to racial and religious disconnections through government policies and now it is even deteriorating through political polarisation.

So, Harapan leaders and politicians, please manage your supporters’ sense of prejudice towards interior Sarawakians. Stop your politics of anger. Instead, call your supporters to support your campaigning endeavours in the rural areas so they not only will it help increase your chances to win elections, but also help in understanding the interior folks as well.

Please also consider the risks if you don’t manage this issue. What if Harapan wins the coming GE, albeit by a very slim majority? Will there be some sort of economical, social or personal polarisation or mass discrimination, or even worse, aggressive witch-hunts, by your overzealous supporters against the rural folks who they think had always voted for BN?


The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

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