We have no time Chasing each other without purpose, goal or strategy!

Chasing each other without purpose, goal or strategy

Political leaders in Sabah are at the crossroads. So busy are they in mudslinging, intriguing and back-stabbing, that they have lost the sense of direction. So engrossed are they in digging up each other’s misdeeds, they’ve forgotten to cover themselves with a fig leaf. So fragmented are they from within, they are struggling for survival. So cut off are they from ground realities, they remain blind to problems and expectations of the citizens.

Take the ruling UMNO. Stung by a series of land scams, it is behaving like a bull in a china shop. Instead of setting things right and concentrating on clean governance, it is spending all its time and energy on unearthing scams involving its rivals. And instead of supporting an upright who is already inquiring into the land deals, it has gone ahead and announced another inquiry, creating confusion. Chief minister has his hands full. Not with administrative matters. But trying desperately to hold on to his gaddi. Fighting detractors from within, preventing more skeletons from tumbling out of his cupboard, keeping his kith and kin at an arm’s length. And making the party bosses believe that if he goes, Result: The party’s credibility has plummeted.

The P.K.R seems caught in a bit of bind. It is beginning to look like the punter who lost a flutter on the football match and then a fortune on the action replay. Its original mistake was a misconception; its contemporary error is a misperception.

The historic flaw is its belief, at some gut level, that Sabah is a secular State because the minorities want secularism. Muslims do have a vested interest in secularism, since it ensures equality and democratic power, but that is less than half the story. driving them into a separate UMNO State; marginalized minorities and turned the state into . The obverse does not work in , however much MAHATHIR-style zealots might salivate at the prospect. The reason is quite simple.sabah is a secular state because muslims christaind and budhdist, who constitute the majority, and therefore have a proportional impact upon the political ethos, have created and defended a Constitution that is a remarkable triumph of reason over the temptations of sectarian passion. sabah is secular not because Muslims need it, but because christains want it. There is nothing new about it. Logic suggests, therefore, that if the P.K.R wants to define itself as a secular party, it should tread the middle road of coexistence rather than the extreme path of discord. Harmony requires more courage, commitment and moral consistency than conflict.

The misperception arises out of a peculiar inability to comprehend the dimensions of an extraordinary Indian cultural revolution that has seeped across divisions of RELIGION and community, with its epicenter located in MUSLIM society.

One is not suggesting that this is true of everyone; but this is the role model that is influencing attitudes of decisive numbers. You cannot chase this generation out of a pub without sending a nationwide signal advertising your gender bias. The girls in the pub did not go to drink senselessly; they went there to exercise the right to go there. Those who attacked the pub, incidentally, had the full support of conservative reactionaries from all religions. While reactionary politics might persist among some ethnic groups, it is becoming malodorous to the young. Religion remains an important aspect of MALAYSIAN life; thes. But their faith, regrettable exceptions apart, is socially inclusive, not aggressively exclusive.

MALAYSIA becomes an increasingly younger country, it is this culture that will tip power towards one party or another. If the P.KR cannot get the vote of the young, modern CITIZEN, it has no future

Ansari said

“I have been campaigning with broken ribs since Friday but I thank God for this because there must be a reason why God did this.

“I am a 56-year-old lawyer, a public figure… if they can treat me like this, with this degree of incompetency, I fear to see what manner of treatment the government hospitals have been giving to the people of Sandakan all these years,” he said.READMORE We have no time Chasing each other without purpose, goal or strategy!