KOTA KINABALU: Pergerakkan Pemantau Sukarelawan Penampang (PANTAU Penampang), a community movement from Penampang, has taken to the task certain State Barisan Nasional Cabinet leaders for accusing that the organiser of Himpunan May Day (HMD) of teaching the young to hold demonstrations and showing disrespect towards the Kaamatan Festival by holding the peaceful rally.
“Harvest Festival is a very significant occasion for the KadazanDusun communities whereby they remember and honor the unselfish act on the part of Kinoringan when he sacrificed his only daughter, Huminodun to enable the communities to survive during a prolonged famine.
“So, it is only apt for the present KadazanDusun communities to emulate the unselfish act and sacrifice made by Kinoringan for the sake of their next generations,” said PANTAU Penampang president Jo Nandu.
He said these unselfish act and sacrifice have been rekindled in spirit when hundreds of KadazanDusun from the interiors and sub-urban areas decided to forgo the merriment for a while, braved the threat of arrests and joined hundreds of other ethnic groups in Sabah at the HMD to voice out their concerns to the government for the sake of their future generation.
“So the question of the organizer having no regard at all to the Harvest Festival does not rise at all because in actual fact, they (the organizer) had transmuted the spirit of Kaamatan into an action which are concrete, significant and respectable,” he contended in a statement yesterday.
Nandu also chided certain leaders who are keen to portray such peaceful assembly as wrong or ‘not the culture’ of Sabah.
“Peaceful assembly is a right guaranteed under the Constitution to every single Malaysian citizen and so, how could our BN State leaders continue to disregard the Constitution by portraying such assembly as something which is wrong?
“If they do not have any respect at all to the Constitution or opt to keep a blind eye upon the judgment issued by a superior court, then why waste time being in the government?
“Being part of the government of the day essentially means that they must respect the Constitution or the judgment made by a superior court but if they don’t like it, then they should resign and challenge it,” he argued.
Nandu pointed out an efficient, accountable and transparent governance in fact requires the participation of the people and peaceful assembly is one of the best platforms to remind the government that they are the servants for the people.
“It is also interesting to note that many BN State leaders have said that peaceful assembly is not the culture of Sabah but maybe the absence of this so-called ‘culture’ may very well is the reason why a hosts of issues such as discrimination, poor infrastructure, high cost of living, phantom voters and PTI (illegal immigrants) are prevalent in the State,” added Nandu who is also a media activist.
So perhaps, the key for a committed government that is capable to meet the aspiration of the rakyat lies in the peaceful assembly, he added.
“The suppression by the certain quarters to prevent Sabahans to gather and speak in one strong voice should be stopped and I hope that the government will allow peaceful assembly in public area to take place in the future,” he said.