KUCHING, March 11 – Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud(Pic) today said it was important for state Barisan Nasional (BN) political leaders to recognise the challenges brought about by changes, particularly the mentality of the younger people due to greater exposure to outside influences.
He said political changes must, therefore, be gradual to enable the current leaders to pass on their ideas to the younger members of the state BN component parties through a good organisation and good leadership and better participation of the younger people as well as an equally stable and progressive government, “It is timely for us to realise that the younger generation needs to be informed of what they inherited from the previous generation so that a series of progress can continue rather a series of protests without any concrete programmes of action
“We have (in BN) being able to prevent some of these to such an extent…it varies from one party to another,” he said when delivering an inaugural public lecture “Sarawak Beyond Today : Challenges and Opportunities’ here, which was jointly organised by the Sarawak Information Department and Sarawak Media Foundation.
He said with the people getting more prosperous, the mentality of the younger people would change as they became more receptive to outside influences, including the exchanging of public opinions on the internet, whether they were truths, half-truths or lies.
Referring to the Arab Spring, he said, political changes could not be achieved in the form of a complete break and must incorporate new and old ideas to harness the country’s strength and ability to produce new programmes for change to bring it into the next stage of development.
Taib, who said he could claim to know the various ethnic races in Sarawak intimately as a result of his extensive travels throughout the state, especially during his 32 years as the chief minister, also noted that he had felt disappointed when he had high expectations, which the people found quite difficult to respond.
“There is no secret in my life because my life is quite public. My thoughts will be a secret but they become reality through the policies that are being implemented,” he said during the question-and-answer session later when Asajaya state assemblyman Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah queried about his secret to achieving a long political tenure, including his 32 years as the state’s chief executive and 50 years involvement in politics.
Everytime he tried to analyse his disapppointment, Taib said, the problem started when he ensured that native customary rights (NCR) land must be commerically developed but the response from NCR land owners was not encouraging because they did not understand the concept and were influenced by a lot of propaganda that the government was out to grab their land.
He said it was the government’s policy to develop NCR land totalling about 1.5 million ha into estates based on a 30:70 joint venture according to the prevailing land prices with oil palm companies and related state statutory bodies.
BERNAMA
