Has the ghost of May 13 been laid to rest?

Kaypo Anak Sarawak is a Columnist  of  Hermit Hornbill at The Borneo Post Online , His article is  published  in The Borneo Post every Sunday. (Used by permission of the Author )

WHEN the date May 13 approached at this time every year, I was overwhelmed by a gamut of complicated emotions. Yes, four days’ ago, we witnessed the 40th anniversary of that tragic incident in our nation’s half century history.

According to official record, the race riot broke out immediately after the 1969 general election, in which opposition parties made great gain at the poll, especially in Selangor and in the Parliament.

Again, according to official sources, the mostly Chinese opposition victory rallies in KL had provoked fear and anger among the Malays, and havoc and violence ruled the capital city,

WHAT‘S IN A NAME?

… Just how on earth did Joseph Entulu decipher negative connotations like being uncivilized, uncouth and “low class” from the word “Dayak”? By Iba-nez  @ hueditor@gmail.com

It is a social norm or rather, a social necessity that when we are born into this world we are bestowed names. It is a social necessity in order that we be identified as the individuals we are and to set us apart from others.

Names are generally gender specific to celebrate the differences between the sexes; a “Siti’ would most definitely be female, whilst a “John” is most certainly a male.

Najib and Taib: An Arresting Couple

By Pak Bui

Recalling 1987

Operation Lalang on October 27, 1987 was the last time the ISA was used on a “megaproject” scale – the biggest crackdown siunce May 13, 1969. Mahathir Mohamad used the ISA against his opponents, when his position as Umno president was challenged by Tengku Razaleigh.

Mahathir had just won the Umno election amid furious allegations of cheating. Umno was turned into a new party – or was it? Um, no it wasn’t, it stayed the same old racist party it always was.

Faced with a divided party, Mahathir adopted a traditional Umno solution: stir up racial hatred, declare a threat to national security, and jail political opponents. Then relax, lean back and watch an uplifting American family TV programme like Eight is Enough.

Mahathir’s critics were seized in a bully’s binge: 106 politicians, environmentalists (including Harrison Ngau Laing in Sarawak), religious converts, social workers and teachers were sent out of sight, out of mind, and certainly well out of earshot, to the ISA detention camp, “Universiti Kedua”, in Kamunting, Perak.

KK tan under ISA

I met one ISA “graduate” shortly after he was released from Kamunting. Tan KK was Vice President of the Environmental Protection Society of Malaysia. He had the unwelcome privilege of being the first ISA detainee to be arrested.

Tan was an academic from Taiping,

Reading between the lines and newspaper spinning on Batang Ai

By Apang

The Borneo Post, the largest broadsheet paper of Sarawak has to report for the BN. Its owner, KTS, survives on the patronage churned out of the BN system of governing in Sarawak. Sarawakians know that KTS is one of the few big loggers in the state and it is known that you don’t get to be the big few without the approval of the White Rajah.

So, you are expected to show your devotion to the Rajah by doing anything and everything for the Rajah, irrespective of whether you were asked or not. So, it is up to your non-imagination to come up with what you think is desirable to please the Rajah.

As a newspaper, then you are to do anything and everything to be seen to please the old white Rajah, irrespective of whether it is appropriate or not. With the federal laws among others, requiring all publishers to renew permits yearly, surely no capitalists will want to lose their multi-million if not multi-billion investment on publishing newspapers on some principles of democracy, good governance and the likes. No, no capitalist will do that because their self interest is just way too much.

Then, your reporters and editors must know how to spin and spin the issue, in order to show in public at least that the paper is an obedient lot. Never mind that the reporters, editors and the owners do not agree with the oppression, the suppression, and other evils. After all, who is going to feed their families if they are in jail, or out of work? Some Sarawak reporters already have gone through the fate of being sacrificial lambss.

So don’t expect them, who are merely “earning a living”

Shifting Blame – Afraid Jabu’s Fear

By John Riwang <johnriwang@hotmail.com>

There was a time late last year when The Borneo Post Online decided to be on hiatus. The message “Our website is currently being upgraded. We apologize for the inconvenience” became its standard headline for over a month.

Because of their downgraded professionalism that desperately needed to be upgraded, a penniless boy like me had to spend my precious RM1 to buy the ‘hard copy’ version of the Borneo Post. What a pity. ‘A pity’ not because I was not able to gain valuable information from the local paper – that’s because it doesn’t have any. Rather I was deprived of my daily doses of laughter from reading the foolish statements made by our politicians.

But worry no longer,