Sarawak State Elections: Why 1MDB matters to Sarawakians

Some people say the 1MDB issue is not a big thing in Sarawak. Adenan Satem said it. UMNO and BN people say it. 

Something must be terribly wrong with their capacity to understand. This is the biggest financial disaster and represents what is most dishonest, corrupt, deceitful and depraved, yet some people say it does not matter? 

No country can prosper with corrupt, pernicious and inept leadership. That is what 1MDB encapsulates- a corrupt, pernicious, brutish and inept leadership. The importance or relevance of 1MDB are the lessons that it imparts- how to prevent the rise of the dishonest, the corrupt and the self serving individuals from governing. 

You countenance 1MDB means you accept the evil it represents. Sarawakians must show they care for righteous principles and they too reject the evil 1MDB represents.   

The 'values' that were operating in 1MDB are now brought to bear on Sarawak. Money, probably milked from 1MDB black operations flow freely. Money is moved in great quantities to buy votes. The habit of breaking the law, transferring money, lying, intimidation- which we saw used in 1MDB, are now applied on Sarawak. 

Hard cash is being flooded into Sarawak's villages. Voters are bribed by cash, projects, lightning quick financial approvals for schools, churches, social amenities and so on. Never have people in remote and usually ignored villages given the attention they are now given. The entire government machinery is applied to suddenly 'serve' the people. We have already seen, lorry loads of water containers being sent to villagers.

So who says 1MDB is not factored into Sarawak state elections?  It was Christopher Hitchens I think,  who said;Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. The grave will supply plenty of time for silence. The people of Sarawak must reject people who treat them as stupid. They must speak up if only to show they are alive.

Well, we have a different way of looking at it. Because, 1MDB is the source of all the bad qualities the leadership of Malaysia has. The best system of governance will collapse if you have bad people helming it. On the other hand, even if we have a bad system, able, committed and disciplined people will improve it.

The people in Najib’s cabinet is the most untalented team in Malaysian history.They are not good people, that essential ingredient so necessary for good government.

If Sarawakians think the 1MDB issue has no relevance to them, it can only mean, the majority of Sarawakians don’t concern themselves with the right conduct by which to govern a country. That would be disastrous because, once you throw righteous principles away, you have the riffraff and the scoundrels ruling the country.

What happens then? Then you have jokers like Adenan and others who intimidate the Chinese by telling they will be excluded from the government. I went around Kuching and appreciate quickly the Chinese have prospered with minimum government intervention. They can self govern and prosper. This kind of people you want to include and not exclude. Intimidation will only strengthen their resolve to be independent. 

1MDB represents the worse of unaccountability and Najib the most irresponsible. Combined, you have the perfect recipe for destruction of the country.

Contrary to the cowboyish slogan of Adenan Satem, you aint seen nothin' yet- for more than half a century the people of Sarawak have seen enough. The don't want to see more intimidation, more bullying and more lopsided development.They don't want to see naked corruption and the plunder of the state's resources. 

People are still walking on dangling bridges or bridge like contraptions to cross rivers to go to school. People have still got to traverse across roads which leave you throwing up until you are blue in the face. I certainly hope never to again hear a harrowing story recounted to me by a Sarawakian of his childhood friend crossing a river naked while holding his school uniform overhead.  The friend was snatched by a crocodile. 

It’s not a question of being unaccustomed to these things- it is strange to see the level of unbalanced development in such a rich state.Where has the annual RM20 billion allocation from the federal government gone to? This sum was mentioned by the deputy PM.

The Sarawakians must never allow the destruction of righteous principles in 1MDB to cross over to Sarawak. It is precisely because of this, that 1MDB has everything to do with Sarawak. It teaches us to avoid the calamitous leadership values of people associated with 1MDB.

Dismissing 1MDB means many things. That will mean Sarawakians eschew principles of integrity, honesty, accountability and belief in the rule of law. That means they say leaders who lie do not matter, stealing money is not important, official money laundering does not matter, abuse of law does not matter, and obstruction of justice does not matter.

Then, what kind of people are Sarawakians? Is Sarawak full of unrighteous people? I don’t believe this is so. The reality is, Sarawak is full of people deprived of basic amenities, lacking in social mobility, physical mobility, health and educational opportunities.

Do not be bullied into believing that 1MDB has nothing to do with Sarawak. If you say it has nothing to do, it means you have been infected by the Malayan disease. And by that we mean, you have desensitise yourself from the guilt of serially lying, breach of trust, abuse of the laws of the land, money laundering, embezzlement, sending money into bogus accounts, conspiracy to defraud the people of Malaysia. It will mean that Sarawakians accept these things as normal.

Can Sarawakians be that debased?

If you do, then Sarawak has no future. Because the very principles by which nations grow are thrown away. Then,  ruling the state is by way of the laws of the jungle.

Can you accept a leader who is a serial liar? Will sarawakians adopt the same black principle?

First Najib said he does not keep any donations in his private account. That is corruption, he pontificates. The people around him including a fast becoming irrelevant religious instructor told everyone, that it is a stupid person in public office who keeps public money in his private account. It later turned out- these statements and the like, became self-fulfilling actualities- the PM was indeed a stupid person. He admitted public money was in his account.

But he quickly said, he did not use the money for private purposes. Others can easily debunk that admission elsewhere, but here I will only say- we didn’t ask him that question. The question was- was any money kept in your private accounts which does not require the answer of I did not use for private purposes. We ask him question A, he answered a question not asked.

Then he says the money was to uphold Islam. Islam lies in the bosom of every peace loving Muslim and certainly does not require its defence by Najib who isn’t known to have Islamic culture in him. I don’t wish to elaborate farther than that.

Then he says, the money was to defend Islam against Islamic terrorism like ISIS. The only problem was, ISIS came after the money was there. Surely Najib doesn’t have that clairvoyance to predict that ISIS will emerge after the money was put into his account?

Then he said, the money was to fight  DAP which was working hand in hand with Israel. To do what? To conquer the country? Given the morbidity against Israel, if the DAP leaders were to collaborate with Israel, every DAP leader would have been arrested and jailed.

The fact is Najib lies to everyone continuously and as I have said borrowing the title of a book by Christopher Hitchens, there is no one left to lie.

Can Sarawak adopt the principle of lying as a good principle of leadership? And that it is alright for Sarawakians to be governed by a man and his team which sees nothing wrong in lying.

How much  donation  money went into Najib’s account? It is now clear, RM2.6 billion is part of a bigger sum. Until a complete and new investigation are undertaken, we may never now the real sum. It could be RM20 billion. If at least USD4.5 billion of IPIC’s money cannot be accounted- that we can assume that a large portion of this sum, maybe USD3 billion went into Najib’s account. That would be RM12 billion minimum.

Najib represents a man who will subvert the laws of the land to stay in power. That makes him a dictator. The essence of a dictatorship is that the dictator is unpredictable, unstable and capricious. Would Sarawakians want to import that kind of leadership quality into the state?

That is the idea represented by 1MDB. That is also why 1MDB matters to Sarawakians. It is an object lesson in bad leadership.  Sarawakians ignore 1MDB at their peril.