If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Of late, there has been a slew of negative commentaries with accusations and criticisms levelled against Sarawak and its leaders.
They share one thing in common, that is a degree of anonymity. These articles are either written using pseudonyms or ghost-written, meaning we don’t know who wrote them.
What’s certain is that these authors have been very liberal in their definition of facts and figures. What transpired in their articles is mostly fiction, devoid of any integrity and ethics.
Let’s be journalistic and analyse this. Let’s ask what, who, where, when, why and how.
What is this about? It is a political attack, veiled as journalism from unscrupulous parties and interest groups. Let’s not even call it journalism, it is a crude hatchet job.
Who is involved? It is not too farfetched to believe that the target of these political attacks is the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) government.
As to who is attacking, it could be our political foes from Malaya, as the articles depict the writer as someone not at all familiar with Sarawak, but it could also be the special interest groups.
Where are these articles posted? One of them was published on a blog site while another was published on a content aggregator platform, in some kind of an organised operation.
To the question of when, undeniably the timing is suspect. Usually, these types of attacks would surface sometime closer to elections and we are now in the mid-term for both the Sarawak and the federal governments. Elections are years away.
But then again, something must have triggered the attacks by these hidden hands, meaning whatever Sarawak did has made some people nervous.
Why is this? I guess now Sarawak is viewed as being very powerful and influential under Premier Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg. The Sarawak government is completing a takeover trifecta of Bintulu Port, MASwings and Affin Bank.
These three entities will allow Sarawak to take control of its port resources, improve air connectivity as well as bolster the growth of its local entrepreneurs. All of these are crucial to uplift Sarawak’s economic ecosystem.
This shifts the power balance in the scheme of things whereby more authority has been given to Sarawak to catalyse its development.
This created a dissonance between Sarawak and the federal governments whereby there is no longer a sense of dependency on Putrajaya and Malayan leaders to get things done in Sarawak.
Politically, this is untenable for those in the federal government and its party leaders as Sarawak’s role is usually relegated to being a subservient and fixed-deposit partner.
The thinking in Malaya is that concessions are part and parcel of appeasing Sarawak leaders, but not too many and not too fast. There has always been a hardline approach in not allowing Sarawak to get everything it wanted.
Today, the fate of the federal government and those in power rests on whether Sarawak is content with the leadership in Putrajaya.
Because of this, many concessions have been given to Sarawak, whether the federal government likes it or not.
These concessions sometimes mean financial losses to special interest groups as they have to do away with losing their ‘golden goose’.
This is where we arrive at the question of how – how do they retaliate against Sarawak? This is by creating suspicion and sowing division among Sarawakians against their leaders.
The so-called write-ups are one of the ways they are trying to achieve this. This is psychological warfare.
“If you repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, is a law of propaganda often attributed to the German Nazi politician Joseph Goebbels.
We are seeing forces at play now to destabilise Sarawak and we must be careful.
Lately, there have been social media exchanges whereby blatant ignorance of Sarawak rights is becoming a trend, particularly from Malayan netizens.
It seemed like these people are very keen to undermine Sarawak and what has been done by our leaders to chart Sarawak’s future and safeguard our rights and interests.
“Amid chaos, there is also opportunity,” is a quote from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.
Chaos is exactly what our foes are trying to create and the opportunity that comes from it is for Sarawak to be kept on a tight leash – not too powerful and not too influential.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.
