Dayak - Let us pursue unity and not fight

Pursuing merger among Dayak based party

I am sorry to say but I am not 100% favor UMNO, PKR, etc. to further divide the Dayaks. I would be more in favor of pursuing unity and merger among the Dayak base parties such as PRS and SPDP. I wish to see that all Dayaks should group into one party like similar to UMNO, MCA and MIC. This may not happen in Taib’s era but time will change and perhap one day it happens.

There is still hope that we can be in one party

The current Dayak leaders who are constantly bickering, scheming, competing with each other will eventually be phased out although some more funny characters will surface. But like people say, politic is so liquid, anything can happen, therefore for me there is still hope to eventually get something like MDC.

At this moment we are still not able to overcome the “divide and rule” modus of operandi which has been systematically administered to our society since the fall of Kalong Ningkan.

It is painful to be in Opposition

History from PBDS has taught us that it is painful to be an opposition in Sarawak and beside the ever so powerful “divide and rule” had resulted in Dayaks/Ibans unwilling to make sacrifices in order to support Dayakism. Thus we see our leaders like Dr James, Dato Salang , etc. are with BN not only for own political sakes but for the rakyat as well. Ibans/Dayaks cannot afford to be left out completely from Gov’t as our bottom line is bread on the table.

Money politic is about holding to power

The determination to win election or money politics are simply part of the efforts to hold on to power and keep on with the present regime. It is tough to fight this without strong support like what PBDS had once upon a time. PKR will not be able to garner similar support from the Dayaks. Dayakbaru will remain frustrated. Ex-PBDS die hard fighters like Datuk Tajem, Baru Bian, Telajan, Adit, Augustine, etc. will soldier on. In the midst of it all will create some sort of organised challenges such that BN need to be on their toes - or like what happen in BA.

Fighting among Best of Friends

However, in such midst, if we are not careful, we will forget to look at the bigger picture. We will continue to end up fighting one another within friends and families. We have seen Salang fought Jawah in Batang Ai, yet they are actually the best of friends. It is easy to fall into the pit without realising how you end up there in the first place.

We cannot get rid of each other

I have heard before that in order to unit the Dayaks, we have to get rid of BN Dayaks. While it is theoritically correct, like Shakespeare said “Long live the king, kill the king!”, our Dayak population is simply too small to be able to have enough credible Dayak leaders in the stature of Leo Moggie, Linggi or even Salang. Therefore when you kill them, you will end up with no many left. Surely you would say, pls don’t under estimate the many educated and capable younger generation, sure, but to garner the grassroot support, bloggers like you and I won’t be so effective. We need the already establised personalities whether you like it or not.

I believe we should pursue unity, lets don’t fight, lets enquire and discover instead of critising. We should use all available avenues to promote unity such as SDNU, SDGA, etc. We should free these kind of organisations from politic.

Conclusion

We should continue to harbour hope to have a party like MDC and that all that Dayaks will group into this with proper concensus from the Gov’t coalition.