New Born Dayak Leader

I should not be writing such article as it may have negative effect on Dayak. But let truth be told that come election the Dayak will be made to split politically. Let as examined today scenario – where PRS is being challenged by SWP, a political party that do not get any rebuke by the State leadership and rather given a silent approval. Dr. James has to shout at the top of his voice to remind BN component party of BN constitution that for any party to be admitted into BN it must be agreed by ALL parties. Even with one descending voice that would be a NO. Dr. James per-empt such scenario but might have thought of other strategies to take should he finds himself boxed into a corner. The key element of PRS strategy is “sediakan payong sebelum hujan” and also PRS must be fast enough to avoid a situation for “nasi sudah jadi bubur” then what can you do. The worst situation that PRS face is “di telan mati apai di luak mati indai” in their fight for survival. 

We also witnessed the splitting of SPDP, first with the G5 and later plus one with Wong Judat leaving to join SWP. The G5 were given a wide range of freedom including holding on to their government post despite having left SPDP through a never before organization that is now known as “BN Independent”. Why did this happened? Simply because some one wanted to see SPDP weaken and could not be a political force if they wanted to consolidate their Dayak support. At the end of the day, the power of the day must ensure that Dayak cannot helm the government of the state of Sarawak. The unseen hand wanted to see status -quo maintained. 

SNAP declared it will go it alone this coming election. In the last election its financial resources was provided by outside interested party to ensure that Pakatan votes would be reduced. SNAP is in a good position to fight for the slogan of “Sarawak for Sarawakian” but the leadership is not capable of doing that. It may have its own agenda and when the party do not have the money the party would be open to manipulation by a third party. What we need now is to embark on the journey of creating new Dayak leadership to represent us.

Building new Dayak Leadership 

Even among the educated Dayak there are large amount of “personal character ” assassination politics. Many educated Dayak like to feel that they are better then the rest. Sadly the same people may not have a clear goal to achieve despite being involved in politics and it is a shame that their harsh words for potential leaders is destructive whilst they do not have ideas of their own on who should be the leaders. The “personal agenda” is all important to them. We need to learn to be circumspect in criticizing our upcoming leaders so to avoid eroding their creditability and integrity which may lead to their defeat. The consequence would be a lost to our own Dayak community. Let us be more focus and objective in dealing with leadership selection and not interfere with their effort once a decision has been made for them to contest the election. In this way, we will have a smoother environment to focus on the job of getting vote rather then trying to response to the various scheming and accusation. This is a sure to split the Dayak even before the election. This problem is contributed and created by our own self. 

 Let us learn to be constructive in our approach to build new leaders if we want to replace the current ones in BN. We know it is a long process to build good leadership and that is why it is more important for us to be aware of our own action so as not to interfere with the process. 

With this article I would like to draw your attention to the challenge of preparing a new group of Dayak leaders and what we all can do to ensure that they will be able to lead us into the next 10 years. We must find new behaviors and approaches to avoid diluting our political strength and purpose of politics. We are already short of many commodities in politics and one of it is MONEY. We can overcome this problem if we can all put our effort together. It has been done during the PBDS era. The other commodity which we do not have a choice on is TIME. Our time is running out or its now or never as the work of grabbing our NCR land, flood our natural heritage, suppress our culture and religion, curtailing our job and business opportunity is going on earnestly by our detractors. This we cannot allow them to have more time to master us as we stand to lose and it is difficult to get back our losses. Some losses like BAKUN and the to be BARAM dam we will never recover at all unless we act now in a wise manner. 

Conclusion 

The road ahead of us is already difficult. We do not have to add to those difficulties if we are together in words and thoughts. Let us give strength to one another through our support and effort. Our community need us to work as a strong energize team and cohesive in our plan and action. For lack of words I can say LET US GO UBAH and itd not a new term for the sake of our future...