Weekly columnists like me are constantly tormented by the lack of subjects to write about. When the deadline approaches, I sometimes freeze into an angst-filled blank in what is often termed as a writer's block.

The pending Batang Ai by-election is very much welcome because it is a windfall of issues on which a rush of endless ideas is ready at hand for the political observer. Then again, as the sole Sarawakian on the Malaysiakini team of columnists, I feel duty-bound to tell readers what I know and feel about Sarawak to the outside world from my perspective.

Development in recent days has suddenly reminded me of the term "territorial imperative". I learned about this scientific term in my anthropology 101 course while in college more than three decades ago.

batang ai state seat past results 110309 Notice how dogs would urinate on trees and poles here and there? They are just marking out their territory which they will defend vehemently if it is infringed upon by other dogs. The singing of birds may sound pleasant to you, but it is a warning to other birds not to invade into their territory.

Animals, birds, and even some species of fish demonstrate this powerful instinct for territorial imperative, because they need this territory to survive, to feed, and to mate.

So Snap wants to contest too

It would appear that politicians are no much different. Without their territory, they too will diminish in influence, and perish eventually in the political arena.

It has been reported in the Borneo Post recently that the Sarawak Nasional Party (Snap) leader William Sirai Atom had announced the short-listing of three candidates to participate in the Batang Ai by-election.

He denied that Snap is a member of the Pakatan Rakyat coalition. He claimed that Snap is a multi-racial party with strong rural roots, and would do much better than a non-local party (meaning "West-Malaysian based PKR").

This is bad news for opposition supporters. The setting-foot of Snap into the muddied river water of Batang Ai will only confuse the issues during the campaign, divert votes away from the PKR, and help ensure a Barisan Nasional victory.

His implied description of PKR as a "non-local" party reminds me of the Sarawak BN tirade against who they perceive as "outsiders".

The similar tone of this negative labelling between Snap and BN may be entirely innocent, but informed Sarawakians are generally very cynical people. Such an exclusivist labelling reminds me of the image of a dog pissing on a tree.

pkr batang ai sarawak state election campaign 100309 07 Sarawak politics is never as it seems on the newspapers. There are always very complex under-currents jostling for positions - especially in the tense period before a general election or a by-election.

Unseen hands are everywhere. Independents can always be planted to usurp the chance of winning the election by an ally in appearance, but a competitor in reality.

If and when indeed Snap does come into the electoral picture in Batang Ai, then perhaps we may witness independents jumping into the Batang as well. ("Batang" in Iban also means "the main body of river with tributaries downstream.)

Unlike in West Malaysia, well-wheeled and well known independent candidates had indeed won seats in past elections. Really independent independent candidates are rare. But there is another dimension to it.

On nomination day during one state election, a Malay friend came to visit me before he proceeded to the nomination centre to contest against a state minister. He just wanted some advice on the procedure, but I knew his real intent.

He came back from the nomination centre grinning from ear to ear. He had withdrawn - as I expected - from the nomination process at the last minute, and he was tens of thousands of ringgits richer! That is an independent candidate for you.

The minister happened to have a lot of cash at hand in the nomination centre. How convenient! (Naturally, I have to clarify that not all independent candidates who withdraw at the last minute are opportunists.)

nicholas bawin pkr candidate for batang ai state seat 270209 04 But we have to get back to Snap. Nicholas Bawin did stand on a Snap ticket and lost to Dublin Unting in Batang Ai in the 2006 state election.

After that, Nicholas Bawin tried to help form a new party, the Malaysian Dayak Congress (MDC). The application for the formation of the MDC had been rejected, so Nicholas Bawin joined PKR instead.

As outsiders, we can only surmise how some Snap leaders would come to regard Nicholas Bawin as a kind of ungrateful traitor.

When Nicholas Bawin becomes a possible PKR candidate, a faction within Snap would want to claim that Batang Ai is still a Snap seat, and that Bawin's success in 2006 was due to Snap grassroots support for the party.

On the other hand, when PKR has arrived in Sarawak in such a sensational way, attracting a lot of Dayak politicians and opinion makers, the other Dayak opposition parties must feel threatened.

This also has something to do with the running feud between the Sarawak PKR and Sarawak DAP. It is all about territorial imperative, like dogs pissing on trees. In the end, the Barisan Nasional top leaders will win and laugh all the way to their banks!

We all know that Snap was the most powerful party in Sarawak once, in the 1960s and 1970s. Since then, internal strife had given birth to splinter groups like the PBDS, SPDP and PRS.

No longer in government, Snap's future in rural Sarawak looks grim and dim. They face the prospect of declining into complete irrelevance.

Old ways must be discarded

Meanwhile, the president and secretary-general of Snap have publicly announced that they will give way now to PKR in the Batang Ai by-election.

This confusing clash of public statements from Snap has only entrenched prejudice among Sarawakians that indeed Dayak politics in Sarawak is condemned to be eternally divisive, and the Dayak people will continue to suffer from poverty and marginalisation forever.

I understand that Snap CEC is meeting at the end of this week to thrash out this issue. We will wait and see.

taib mahmud If Batang Ai is indeed going to be the beginning of a new dawn towards a new and free Sarawak, old ways of talking and doing politics must be discarded.

The self-serving prejudices of territorial imperative must give way to a coordinated effort at toppling the common foes. Again, Mao Tze Tung's tenet must be repeated here: the enemy of my enemy is my friend, for now at least. We must build a common front to confront Abdul Taib Mahmud and company.

The common enemy is just too powerful for a divided opposition. This will apply to politicians in the opposition camp as well as like-minded bloggers.

It is sad for me to watch possible allies in Sarawak fighting to the death on the same side of the divide. This is the same sad story in Sarawak since our independence in 1963. Often, personal ambition, ego, self-interest, and mere stubbornness blind the actors.

If this persists in the Batang Ai by-election, sending the seat to the undeserving ruling coalition on a silver platter, then the liberation of the Sarawak people from feudalistic dictatorship in the disguise of an elected government will continue to be an empty dream long after I die.

sejinjang sarawak pasir pandak plight 190106 children playing What we need badly in Sarawak is a new spirit of statesmanship with strategic thinking and a grand vision on the part of all social actors and politicians. Sarawakians must liberate themselves from the prison bars of their part of their river, their lineage, their race, their party, their faction of the party, and even their state.

The sky in Sarawak is very big, and can accommodate Sarawakians of all colours, hues, and shapes.

We have to learn to build bridges, and not burn them. We look for friends, and not make enemies. We have to learn to inspire hope, not sow the seeds of suspicion, hatred, and perpetuate the negative cynicism that breeds only helplessness, despair, and self-enslavement.

We must prove to ourselves that we have evolved completely from mere beasts to human beings imbued with consciousness of the Divine. We have to discard petty squabble and seek freedom of the self from the territorial imperative.

Again, the words of Barrack Obama reverberate through our mind. Yes, change we can. We are the change that we seek. We must change before change can come to Sarawak.

Is it too much to ask ourselves to stop pissing on trees?

sim kwang yang SIM KWANG YANG was MP for Bandar Kuching in Sarawak from 1982 from 1995. He now resides in Kuala Lumpur and can be reached at kenyalang578@hotmail.com.