COMMENT Last weekend in Kuching, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, there to launch the month-long celebrations for Malaysia Day (Sept 16) centred around the Jalur Gemilang, strove hard to endear himself to a sizeable crowd gathered at the Central Padang in the state capital.

But the terms Najib used, ‘empowerment’ and ‘devolution’, to win the hearts of his listeners left the people gathered to witness the event unmoved.

Four days later in Putrajaya, James Masing, president of Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS), underscored the depth of the mutual incomprehension between the Bornean state and the peninsula by allowing himself to be spokesperson for 13 BN component parties which he said pledged full support for the embattled Najib to continue as PM of Malaysia.

The tableau, both in Kuching and Putrajaya, must have jointly conjured up an image of the blind attempting to communicate with the deaf.

To Sarawakians, Najib, in talking about empowerment and devolution, had missed the essence of what they really want about as much as relatives of passengers on MH370 miss accurate information on the fate of their kin.

To important sections of the populace on the peninsula, a pledge of solidity to BN component-party-support for the PM’s continuance in office, untethered to any conclusion on his moral legitimacy to govern after the ravages inflicted by the 1MDB imbroglio, is like an assurance on the solidity of the nuclear deal between Washington and Teheran with nary a mention of centrifuge-generation and uranium enrichment.

Autonomy, not devolution or empowerment, is what Sarawakians demand as their right under the provisions of the 1963 Malaysia Agreement which Kuala Lumpur is accused of brazenly neglecting by the burgeoning ‘Sarawak for Sarawakians’ movement that organised a well-attended rally in Kuching recently.

To a large swathe of the politically consciousness on the peninsula, the moral legitimacy to govern is even more important than a computation of the number of parties in favor of continuation of the PM’s tenancy.

Najib talking about empowerment and devolution in Kuching when it should have been about restoration of autonomy, and Masing speaking about Najib’s continuance in office without reference to the moral legitimacy to do so, were like a pantomime of the blind communicating with the deaf.

How off-centre both politicians were could be gauged by the circumstances that obtained.

Not taking the cue from Adenan

Najib was preceded at the lectern by Sarawak Chief Minister Adenan Satem who pointedly referred to Sarawak’s right of autonomy in his speech.

But Najib did not take the cue from Adenan and proceeded to use the misnomers ‘devolution’ and ‘empowerment’, to the apparent dismay of his listeners.

They could hardly help noting that devolution and empowerment can only be construed as concessions by a neocolonialist overlord whereas autonomy is the right of an equal partner in the formation of Malaysia, which is how Sarawakians and Sabahans see themselves vis-a-vis Malaya.

James Masing’s miscues in Purtajaya were not of the magnitude of Najib’s in Kuching, but they were in a way tragi-comic in that, with only six MPs representing PRS in Parliament, he was the one that was either chosen or had volunteered to vouch to the press about the solidity of BN support for the PM after a meeting of its chiefs in Putrajaya today.

Parti Bumiputra Bersatu (PBB), also from Sarawak, has 14 MPs and are confident of getting five of a projected 11 new seats in the coming state polls, but in the logic of BN representation, especially in the coalition’s times of intense stresses like the one now, minnows either volunteer for or are delegated dubious roles that their bigger partners are chary of.

In Kuching, Najib was aiming to please the crowd and its leaders but wound up shoring up the arguments of the very people (behind the ‘Sarawak for Sarawakians’ walk) whom Putrajaya views as secessionists.

In Putrajaya today, Masing was also out to reassure and please but only succeeded in underscoring the power relations between overlords and minnows in the BN.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for more than four decades. A sobering discovery has been that those who protest the loudest tend to replicate the faults they revile in others.