There is a severe and real gap between rhetoric and reality, in all of life, but most so among our politicians! This gap between intentions and actions I call the integrity gap.

Everywhere I look around me, almost without exception, there is this noticeable gap between their espoused theory and theory-in-use.

This is true of most systems and so-called leaders at all levels in our society. But, there seems to be one significant exception though, in Taghyeer Square in Yemen – the Square of Change. Why?

In that public square of, and for change, the street walkers, as I call them, conduct themselves with more integrity than their leadership.

They have decided to march without fear and favour and with peaceful change as their agenda. To quote one such street walker, \”after all they can only kill only 40 or 50 of us by sniper fire, but there are hundreds of thousands of us.\”

When the plainclothes snipers were caught by the protestors, they turned out to be the Republican Guards of the regime, but the protesters did not harm them but instead hid them until another day of trial.

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Where did the Square of Change street walkers find their courage and such civic decency?

I like to always go back to Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white person, and helped spark the American civil rights movement. Martin Luther King Jr ( left ) walked on with the idea, thereby started a transformation which enabled Barack Obama to run for president of the country and I believe, planting the seeds of Change Square, using internetworked media to drive and orchestrate such change processes.

You see, it is the ideal-type leadership model of old; based on power and authority, used by despots of all kinds, that has to change, not the people and their aspirations.

The protestors can now see, hear, and observe changes all around them and need only to be inspired by them. Then change begins to happen; without any so-called leaders of the past era, who stand up and shout orders, like Gaddafi and his media orchestrated lies-spreading machines. Instead, the people flow like water which will find its own level!

There is also a more serious and real issue at hand. In this day and age of serious and ferocious change in our entire world and environment, how can a leader in Sarawak after 30 years on the job, still claim that he is still needed by his electorate?

Any ruler holding on so-called authority and power for 30 years is no more relevant as he does not understand the world around him!

That is true almost by definition of internetworked process for change! The people of Sarawak\’s Change Square must speak their message at this election.

Between the rhetoric and reality

Now let me also make the case of why PM\’s 1Malaysia promise may sound empty between the rhetoric and reality of a 53-year old governance system.

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1Malaysia is a very high calling, and therefore I am not yet convinced that PM Najib ( right ) has what it takes to deliver it; even though I believe he has good intentions. He lacks followers and supporters in his Government. Let me explain.

If you read the editorial comment of Wong Chun Wai of the very mainstream Star daily dated March 20th 2011, and I quote:

\” The Star has been issued a reprimand letter from the Home Ministry for reporting on the 5000 impounded Bahasa Malaysia Bibles in a March 9th article…………. While the reprimand letter is certain to lead to some cautiousness on the part of the print media, it is not going to stop the issue being brought up in the Internet. This is the Digital Age and the old-fashioned analogue methods will not work as more mediums of the information of information are available.\”

To me, this is Wong Chun Wai\’s way of saying and warning that the internetworked world is here and very much here to stay! I cannot agree more.

The core issue that Wong was talking about was the Allah and Al Kitab issue. The federal government has shown its hand to seek to now put even more conditions upon the Church in Malaysia.

The Chairman of the Federation of Churches in Malaysia (inclusive of all three church bodies in Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak) has already said that they cannot accept the so-called conditions by the federal government. Wong further writes:

 Deadlocked for too long

The deadlock over the Bahasa Malaysia Bible has dragged on for too long and it has led to some urgency this time because of the impending Sarawak elections. Christians make up estimated 40 percent of the voters in Sarawak.

Among them are Ibans and other indigenous groups, many of whom have consistently voted for the ruling party. They have used Bahasa Malaysia in their worship, sermons, and prayers.

They are comfortable reading the Malay language Bible and many of their churches use Bahasa Malaysia names. These include the highly respected Sidang Injil Borneo (SIB).

What Wong did not say is that the SIB, other than the Catholic Archbishop of Peninsular Malaya, has an outstanding case in High Court of Sarawak on a related issue.

Bishop Paul Tan ( left ), the President of Catholic Bishops Conference, has also spoken on the same issue.

What Wong did not say is that the leader of three decades in Sarawak is therefore now check-mated by the federal government and unless the conditions are completely removed (I believe the Bibles have already been defaced), and the Bibles replaced with new ones, the SIB in Sarawak can easily choose to make this a critical election issue.

If it does, let me remind the authorities what happened in the Sibu by-election could now be repeated in the whole of Sarawak, but this time in the order and magnitude that Cardinal Sin of the Philippines had. He was a key figure in the People Power revolution which brought down the regime of Fernando Marcos.

  Just say no

The Church of Jesus Christ in Malaysia can say no too, on very principled issues!

If the Bishop Chair of all CFM Churches requests all congregations of Malaysians in Sarawak to become 1M and vote in solidarity to say ‘No to the federal government\’ and their allies in Sarawak on the outstanding and unresolved issue of ‘Allah\’ and Alkitab, we can and will see Change Square arrive in Sarawak.

Please bear in mind and heart that ‘Allah\’ to the Sarawakians is how the God of the Bible is referred to in their mother tongue.

What our two ‘idiocratic\’ federal ministers, in home affairs and parliamentary matters, do not know is that they are using subsidiary legislation (the rules of the nine peninsular states) to overrule a fundament and constitutional right of the freedom of faith and practice of every Malaysian!

More so, in the case of the Sarawakians and Sabahans, as it is their Malaysia Agreement right!

Therefore, my very rhetorical but serious question to the PM and the blogging communities of the connected that follow him; is the PM serious about his 1Malaysia?

Should the Bishop of the Church in Malaysia call on all 1Malaysians to vote with a conscience on this issue of the ‘Allah\’ word (please read the book by Bob Teoh on the topic if you truly want to be educated about the word) at the Sarawak State Elections?

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Come on Mr Chief Minister of Sarawak; the new age and era cannot sustain leadership which lacks integrity between words and deeds, or between rhetoric and reality. 

Please recognise the phenomenon in Egypt and Lybia and learn from it; if you go now, you might get a Mubarak treatment, but if you are in still in denial, then you might need a Gaddaffi ( right ) treatment.

May Allah lead you the right way!