SANTUBONG: Championing a cause is a democratic right but it must not become a one-sided crusade that benefits only a few, said Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud.
He said he understood that the youths of today were eager to voice their opinions and fight for a cause they believe in and that the state supported this spirit.
However, it must be done in a responsible manner which produced beneficial results at the end of the battle, he said.
In today’s complicated world, I know you (youth) are eager to support a movement which you believe in, be it human rights, environment and more. This is all fine but (in championing this), it should be done with a sense of good timing, and the cause must be well understood.
You need to know how to make people understand why this cause is relevant and the benefits that come from it and most importantly, it must produce results, he said when closing the first International Youth Cultural Conference (IYCC) here yesterday.
He cautioned that it was no easy task given his years of experience when trying to bring about change in Sarawak.
He said the transition of getting others to understand the reason of needing to change was important and it should be tackled earlier on.
If you go through violence and force by pushing through, surely people would not understand and therefore there’s no voluntary acceptance of the system and people would not know why we make the next move and the move after that.
After all, reform is a process of one success upon another success. It cannot be one success built upon previous failures. That’s the reality of life, he pointed out.
Taib, who is the chairman of Yayasan Perpaduan Sarawak (YPS) Board of Trustees, said understanding and going by culture had always been a strong impetus in Sarawak governments initiatives.
With the numerous ethnic groups present in Sarawak, he said it was crucial to build a bridge between each one of them in order to get the people to understand one another and the need to change for stable development.
He said Sarawak had all along subscribed to understanding and giving great importance to the cultures of its people and it had borne good results.
As such he believed that every ambition must take into account the cultural setting otherwise there would be friction. He stressed that culture would govern people for a long time to come. He also advised the younger generation to always be pragmatic for it was always tempting to support new ideas but whether these ideas benefited the people was a different thing altogether.
As such, he commended the organisers of the cultural conference who reached out to the youths.
The three-day IYCC held at Sarawak Cultural Village saw the gathering of 180 youths from 13 countries and is jointly organised by YPS, Sarawak Development Institute, Faradale Media-M Sdn Bhd under the umbrella of the March on for Unity 2012 Calendar of Activities.
The youths came from China, Turkey, Eritrea, Nepal, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Vietnam, Brunei, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia.
The event was sponsored by Sarawak Energy Berhad and supported by Sarawak Economic Development Corporation.
Link: http://archives.thestar.com.my/services/printerfriendly.asp?file=/2012/12/1/sarawak/12397605.asp&sec=
