Chinese People and Politics

Bruce Lee may have died, but, his legend lives on. I find his films interesting and recently, I got hold of a film devoted to Bruce Lee, “Legend of Bruce Lee”. It was about Chinese people and politics. Chinese people were always depicted as weak and feared trouble with outside world. This was true and if we ask any Chinese of older generation, they used to advise young people not to seek trouble and to keep away from bad people. This also happened to China and the early Chinese settlers who came to this region. China never conquered any country. History showed that China was attacked by foreign powers, but, China never attacked others. Admiral Cheng Ho came to Malacca, but, he never conquered Malacca. Even some years ago, when their military plane was shot down in the Japan Sea and their premier’s plane was under aerial surveillance by a foreign power, China never retaliated.

Bruce Lee’s films also showed that the Chinese people were only good at fighting at each other, but, not against other races or foreign powers. This is what happened to Chinese in Malaysia today where many clans, instead of working towards a common goal and for a common good of the clan only knew how to get rid of each other. They even went to court and fought things out. This also applies to Chinese in politics where although in the same political parties they also fought against each other. Chinese politicians and parties going after each other, but, not against other people!

The films also showed Chinese traitors working as “running dogs” for rivals and foreign powers. This was also true in chinese politics where some comrades in political parties were running dogs for others, marginalizing and stabbing the back of each other, but, not against other people or races. In Malaysian politics, chinese people never went against the dayaks and the malays, but, only against chinese themselves. Bruce Lee's films were exactly like what the present chinese attitude now is, where any policy affecting chinese rights, most chinese more often than not, watched from the fence, just kept and let others do the shouting. In the films, Bruce Lee was always alone fighting against those who discriminated the chinese and the weak. Those around Bruce Lee could only watch what Bruce Lee was doing.

Bruce Lee’s films also were about heroism and underworld, corruption, chinese arrogance, pride and culture. Whatever it is, the chinese won other people not by war and fist fights, but, by culture. This was exactly what Bruce Lee’s films were projecting about chinese people. Bruce Lee as a hero in the films, who defended the weak, found himself running foul with the authorities, chased by his opponents and the underworld and conquered the world by his martial arts - "Kung Fu" and now Kung Fu is spread all over the world. Bruce Lee spread the chinese culture, and this was how Bruce Lee culture conquered the world, but, Bruce Lee died a young man. His son also died during filming.

May Bruce Lee's legend lives on!

Fire at Taman Penrissen, Kuching.

Donated rice and other necessities to the fire victims. I was accompanied by a few comrades from Batu Lintang and Pending.

Nineteen families were affected by the fire and most of them were natives. Some of them had been living at that place for twenty years. During the fire, one died.

Talking with some fire victims at the place. The one in red shirt showed me his identity card and his real name to my surprise was "ROCKET". I am not joking, please.

Inspecting some documents of the fire victims.



A car completely burnt during the fire.


Sharing some moments with the fire victims

Want to be A Hero, DUN not the place!

In war, when the enemy is strong, take a back step and attack when the enemy is not ready.

In war, hero dies first and with victory, enemy will rejoice!

Dewan sitting has just ended and it was the last sitting in the present building as the next sitting will be in the new building. Only eight days were allocated for the sitting. Presently, Sarawak Legislative Assembly has 62 YBs from BN and we in the Opposition are very much out numbered. The BN was still too powerful for us and with their numbers, only a guerilla warfare tactic could be effective against their strength. When they wanted you evicted or suspended out of the Dewan, standing orders and reasons were inapplicable in such a place. Justice could not be achieved with legal arguments as with numbers, their show of hands will just get you booted out of the Dewan. Justice is by show of hands!

YB Johnical Rayong of Engkilili, although an Opposition member, spoke like a YB from BN and never supported the Opposition in the Dewan which prompted me to tell the Speaker in the recent sitting to remove him from the Opposition bench. My request was turned down.

As usual, the first three days was for question time, motions and introduction of government bills. Question time was only allocated for one hour each day. Debate on supplementary budget started after question time on the third day and when too many wanted to participate in this debate, the Speaker, ruled that a member could only speak for 30 minutes, but, given such a short time, members who got the opportunity to speak first, managed to get some “injury time”. The “injury time” had taken much time of those who waited to speak. The Speaker then curtailed the speaking time of each member further to twenty minutes and later to ten minutes only!

This time, BN was smarter. Wherever possible during question time, some ministers gave lengthy answers to a question and the some answers included a lot of irrelevancies. In one question during question time, YB Sylvester Entri, the Assistant Minister for Public Utilities, took about twenty minutes to answer an issue, thus, leaving many questions allocated for the day unanswered. They just wanted to avoid sensitive questions! Clever tactic!

Another smart thing BN played well this time was to move motion against our State Party Chairman, Sdr. Wong Ho Leng, for word, “camouflage” spoken by him, which was not pleasing to their ears. The word was not seditious, not defamatory, not uttered with any ulterior motive and also was not to incite hatred among the people of Sarawak. They were simply not happy when our State Chairman refused to withdraw the word, “camouflage” in the speech. With their numbers, they voted to refer him to the Privilege Committee. The argument on the word, “camouflage” also took much of our Dewan and this tactic worked well for the BN. Again, we were deprived of our precious time in the Dewan debate.

Then came Dominique Ng, the Honourable Member from Padungan, who did not tuck in his shirt as a sign of protest of the recent expulsion of YB Chong Chieng Jen of Kota Sentosa from the Legislative Assembly was himself expelled for one day. Sdr. Wong Ho Leng was expelled together with Dominique Ng, after Sdr. Wong Ho Leng spoke on the issue of Dominique Ng’s dressing got heated up. The just wanted to provoke us with the hope that we would utter some unpleasant words to their ears and to take action against us from there. The debate on this alone took us nearly one day. It was a stupid one day for all of us! What a sheer wasted time for such an act of heroism! In protest, we all had to walk out.

People elected us to the Legislative Assembly with the hope that their voices and problems could be heard, but, this time, this was not the case. Talking too much sometimes, not good, and at times we had to be economical and careful with words and action so that our own words and action will not lay a trap against us and so that we would not waste the little precious time allocated for us to speak. In the Legislative Assembly, my observation was that BN was not afraid of heroes from the Opposition, but, was afraid of Opposition members who were able to stand up and speak their minds and debate on the issues at hand eloquently and clear. That was the reason why, this time, they were better planned to disrupt us from speaking as they knew our capability.

The antics of some of our members, unfortunately, then gave the rest of us very little time to debate on the supplementary budget. As a result I only managed to speak for twenty minutes. The text of my speech was about thirty pages and I had to stop after the Speaker rose up from his Chair and got out of the Dewan and within the twenty minutes, there were also a lot of interruptions from the BN backbenchers when I touched on NEP as a failed policy and dayaks and some malays as marginalized people.

We came to the Dewan well prepared and it took me about a month to prepare for the recent sitting. I had to do research, prepare speech and frame all questions properly, hoping that I could lay traps to get the mouse out, but, I regret that my effort was wasted. Only one question out of ten of mine was answered. It was answered because it was a simple question. The question was on the possibility of having a government clinic in Batu Lintang Constituency. Even that, the Assistant Minister who answered the question did not know his stuff well. He could only say, “I think….” This showed the minister was not prepared with the answer. We should despise the attitude of such ministers and should vote them out of office in this coming election. Jabu, George Chan and Soon Koh were never forgetting politicians and in each sitting used to recycle their attack on the opposition on alleged past events with too many unkind words. They all spoke too much on attacking the opposition rather than addressing the issues faced by the people, thus, defeated the ultimate purpose of us attending to their speeches. We again, walked out half way speeches of Jabu and Soon Koh. For George Chan, we still gave him a bit of respect because he was the leader of his Party.

Ministers like Masing, Abang Joe and Mawan, although they at times attacked the Opposition, but, they limited their words on us and went on to address the relevant issues affecting the people.

In between our speeches, the BN backbenches also never stopped interrupted and shouted abuses at us. This was to make sure that we could not deliver our speech and by the time we continued with our speech, time allocated by the Speaker to us was already taken up and the Speaker has to tell us to sit down.

So, people of Sarawak, in your hands the destiny of this land will be and if we as people of Sarawak continue to make mistakes, we will for a long time to come, never achieve our dream of an equal and just society.