As we now enter what is supposed to be a ‘New Malaysia’ era with a new government in place, has anything changed to make me feel more Malaysian? I wish so, but I doubt it.
– Francis Siah, columnist
Last week, Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba made a boo-boo when at the ground-breaking ceremony for the Miri Hospital building extension project he addressed Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg as the ‘chief minister of Sabah’.
He realised the slipup and quickly made amends, but not before giving the excuse that he had been in Sabah earlier, helping in the state election campaign.
This is not the first time we have had Malayans making embarrassing goofs or displaying blatant ignorance about Sarawak or Sabah, and their leaders. In fact peninsular politicians before Dr Adham too had made numerous slipups at functions in Sabah or Sarawak, often mixing up the two states and their ministers.
At times I wonder if Malayans are serious about national integration. Worse still, it appears they do not have a sound knowledge about East Malaysia. How on earth in the first place did these fellas get to become our assistant ministers or ministers?
Are they really that ignorant about Sabah and Sarawak? Some even look nonchalant!
I suggest that Putrajaya conduct crash courses for potential deputy ministers and ministers before they are appointed to their posts. Better still, ask them to sit for general knowledge questions on the geography, history and demography of the East Malaysian states. A pass should be made mandatory for them to be ministers.
It’s embarrassing to have ministers who do not know much about Malaysia — 57 years after the formation of this country.
It’s not only politicians who are the guilty ones. We have some learned academics, TV stations and even media personnel
from Malaya who are equally guilty.
A year ago, a TV station in Malaya did the unthinkable — it wrongly labelled Sabah and Sarawak on the national map. The producers of the programme erroneously switched the places of the two states.
I am not sure if it was due to their carelessness or ignorance. Maybe, these chaps when they were in school didn’t take their geography lessons about the two states across the sea seriously.
Well, some Malayans might pass it off as something trivial but shouldn’t they be sensitive towards the people of the two states that they mislabelled? I for one was furious by the blunder.
I am surprised at the poor geography knowledge of the programme producers.
Rightly, the TV station apologised for the blunder. Hopefully this would serve as a lesson to our Malayan counterparts. But we still come across some silly boo-boos from time to time.
People in Malaya frequently seem to be mixing up Sabah and Sarawak. While most Sarawakians — and I would like to think Sabahans too — know all the 11 Malayan states like the back of our hands, why can’t our counterparts in the peninsula differentiate the two East Malaysian states?
Face it lah. Many Malayans know very little about us and our states. Not even the capitals of the two states.
Some time back, another TV station made a blunder by labelling Kuching as the capital of Sabah, and Kota Kinabalu, Sarawak’s capital!
Can we excuse them for yet another blunder?
Then there was also a case of a TV host mentioning that Mount Kinabalu was in Sarawak!
The South China Sea separating us should not be an excuse for not having better opportunities to know us. After all we have AirAsia with its reasonable fares and better internet connectivity to learn about Sabah and Sarawak.
Not long ago, a national paper conducted a random survey of Malayans’ knowledge about Sabah and Sarawak.
Sadly, many of those interviewed couldn’t differentiate between the Dayak and Kadazan-Dusun communities which form the largest ethnic groups in Sarawak and Sabah respectively. The interviewees got both these ethnic groups mixed up.
The paper also discovered most were not aware of Kaamatan, a harvest festival similar to Gawai in Sarawak. Again they mixed up these two harvest festivals.
It is frustrating that Malayans remain ignorant about us and our states.
I might be wrong here but I believe our education system is to blame. Malayans’ ignorance about us could be partly due to inadequate information being disseminated in schools about Sabah and Sarawak.
Another factor is the insufficient interaction between the Malayan and East Malaysian communities.
Of course I blame Putrajaya under the previous Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Harapan governments for the lack of attention given to Sabah and Sarawak.
And it also boils down to attitude; Malayans are simply not that keen to learn more about their fellow countrymen in East Malaysia.
I pray that people in Peninsular Malaysia will make genuine efforts to get connected with Sabahans and Sarawakians emotionally.
Politicians (I am referring to those across the sea) the ball is in your court. You start first and your people will follow suit.
