KUCHING, Sept 15: Sarawakians must work harder to put people of sincerity in Parliament and the State Legislative Assembly (DUN) to look after its interests to build Malaysia as a stable and prosperous Federation.
Parti Sedar Rakyat Sarawak (Sedar) president Dato Othman Abdillah cautioned that the same parties in seats of power in Putrajaya and Sarawak in the last 58 years must be aware that inequality of progress as endured by Sarawakians till this Malaysia Day is a source of dissatisfaction and should not be left unaddressed.
“Even the commemoration of Malaysia Day by Malaysia itself did not receive an official endorsement for 47 years, a disrespectful act against the birth of the Federation and its contributing founding partners.
“No one can deny that the true spirit of being Malaysian in multi-racial Malaysia is most prominent in Sarawak.
“However, for whatever sacrifices Sarawakians have made with their lives in defence of the Federation and the immense contribution of exploitable resources from Sarawak to the national treasury, it cannot escape us that we have shared a Malaysia that is unfavourable to us,” he said in his message for the Malaysia Day celebration today.
Despite that, Othman pointed out that Sedar welcomes the faint sign of improvements to come if the understanding for political cooperation at the Federation level today lives up to one of its promises to reinstate the rights and status of Sarawak as a founding partner of Malaysia.
While this cooperation is the right way forward for a country facing its worst political, health and economic crisis, he however observed that it is a short-term political reprieve from instability.
“Real progress towards building a stable and equitable Malaysia cannot be left entirely to the parties with the mandate to do so for the last six decades.
“The party believes that accelerated improvement of the wellbeing of Sarawakians will come with the will of the people to look for more effective leadership,” he added.
Othman stressed that after 58 years, the token increased in allocations for projects and the slogans of “Malaysia Boleh”, “1Malaysia”, “Ubah”, “Malaysia Baru”, “Keluarga Malaysia”, “Sarawak First” will no longer do if it continued to be accompanied by broken promises.
As Malaysia marks the nation’s 58th anniversary tomorrow (Sept 16), he congratulated all Sarawakians for being exemplary Malaysians by living harmoniously with the highest respect for the cultures and religions of each ethnic community in Sarawak and accepted those from elsewhere as brothers and sisters.
“We have also travelled a long way towards integrating as a nation, with thousands of us willing to serve, study and even build families in other parts of the Federation.
“For the sake of Malaysia, we urge all and especially Sarawakians to reflect and be more proactive in the political sense and call out the leaderships for any dereliction of duty to the people they serve,” he said. — DayakDaily
