'Gayu Guru, Gerai Nyamai!' – The forgotten voiceThe "west" is at is again. We've just traded one colonial power for another. But let's face it, the Brooke's and British weren't perfect. Charles Vyner Brooke spent more time in London than Kuching, living off the wealth of Sarawak. But at least they left behind:
Sim Kwang Yang
SIM KWANG YANG was DAP MP for Bandar Kuching in Sarawak 1982-1995. Since retiring in 1995, he has become a freelance writer in the
Chinese-language press.
As I write, here in Kuala Lumpur, on the eve of the harvest festival in
Sarawak and Sabah, I am flooded by a consuming sense of painful
nostalgia.
I close my eyes and imagine the frenzies that ferment well-hidden
beneath the national narrative as told in our so-called national media.
Hoards of young men and women would be boarding MAS and AirAsia flights on their homeward bound journey back to their kampongs in the Land of the Hornbill and the Land Below the Wind. Like the legendary salmons, they will unerringly find their way home, no matter how far they have scattered.
For the rest of the long year, they have toiled in the factories of Johore Bahru, Klang Valley and Penang, contributing their coarse labour to the bludgeoning industries in harsh jobs often shunned by other, more pampered and more complacent, Malaysian youths.
Here, they are treated by their employers and the local communities
with roughly the same level of regard reserved for Myanmar, Indonesian and Bangladeshi workers. They are useful and affordable, not always
satisfactory, and always alien.
The sense of alienation is probably mutual.
For these legal economic refugees from East Malaysia, the low level of
industrial development and lack of jobs back home have driven them
westward, to the land they refer to as "Malaya". For many first time arrivals, the cluttered geography, the furious pace of life, the strange and
intimidating faces make them feel like entering a different country.
Biggest day in the year
Back home in Sabah and Sarawak, the term "Orang Malaya" is often
uttered with an undertone of contempt and distrust. Here, in the peninsular side of the nation, they have to live and work for and with Orang Malaya. They are strangers in their own country.
Except for the few who have joined the middle class here, most of these
young men and women who have toiled all years in low paying jobs would
want to go back to their homeland for the harvest festival. It is simply the
biggest day in the year for them.
That the harvest tops their annual calendar events is itself symbolic
of the unique identity of the natives of Sabah and Sarawak.
All of the 70 ethnic communities in Sabah and Sarawak - defined by the
outside world as "indigenous people" - live by their land. The Penans
who still roam through the jungle by hunting and gathering are the only
exception.
They have survived in the jungle for centuries on their own through
different governments by what economists and state planners would
classify as "subsistence farming". By the standards of modern economic theories, the term "subsistence agriculture" carries with it a certain derogatory sneer.
In truth however, the "tribal people" of Sabah and Sarawak engage in
"self-sufficient farming." As long as they have their land, they will never perish. Their precious and bountiful land will always yield rice, their
staple diet, and all else is furnished by the jungle, through hunting,
gathering, and fishing.
With their forest and their land, they have not needed the outside
world much in past countless generations.
In their worldview, farming is never the kind of economic activity
envisaged by Adam Smith, Menard Keynes, and Milton Friedman. Farming is a whole way of life, from which you do not retire.
An old Iban man in his 70s once told me: "We Iban must grow rice." He
still grows and harvests his rice, and every now and then, presents me with a few kilo of his surplus as a gift. I have yet to meet a fat person in those traditional farming communities!
The farmers of Sarawak and Sabah are natural bio-geneticists. Like all
farmers throughout Asia, they have learned to mix numerous strains of
rice through the centuries, to give the best quality and yield. I dare
declare that the reddish Iban rice is a far superior stock to your expensive
Thai fragrant rice. (The economists would probably want to advise them about intellectual property rights.)
Long before the laws of the new nation-state was born, the indigenous
communities in Sarawak and Sabah already had their own complex systems of communal customary rules called adat, dealing with all aspects of their socio-economic activities. Land matters feature prominently in these customary laws.
Fascinating Iban myths
In the case of the Ibans, land rights as defined by their adat are
based on the custody and usage of the land, rather than the proprietary
ownership of land. There is an assumption that nobody can really own the mountains.
Anybody can lay claim to a piece of land after he has cleared away the
primary jungle for planting purposes. This whole system of claiming
native customary land rights was terminated in 1957.
A whole legion of folk lore and myths were born from their natural
universe. I have found Iban myths particularly fascinating. They have a myth of creation, and legends of heroes and titans which bear some resemblance to the ancient Greek myths.
Since the Ibans have no written language, their myths and legends are
handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. The telling and retelling of stories, sometimes through the lyrical form of the Sampi
recitals that go on for hours at a time, make the Ibans great orators.
Just like the ancient Greeks who worshipped the gods of Homeric epics,
the Ibans also worship the gods of their myths. To call them animists
merely is a little unfair. They certainly have a sort of pantheistic idea, in
which the jungle and the land are alive with spirits.
The performance of religious rites is particularly crucial on the
occasion of the harvest festival, especially the thanks-giving ritual of miring, in which offerings are made to the earth god Pulang Gana.
Dramatic changes
The harvest festival that falls on the first day of June every year is
called the Hari Gawai.
Actually the people of Sarawak - and probably Sabah also - celebrate
harvests on different days. Right after independence through the
formation of Malaysia in 1963, the new governments of these two states fixed June 1 as the Harvest Festival Day, in recognition of the prominence of those unique indigenous people found nowhere else in Malaysia.
Independence has brought dramatic changes to the indigenous people of
Sabah and Sarawak. By and large, the physical development that has been undertaken by the federal and state governments has improved their lot. Many have joined the rank of the urban middle and professional class.
Nevertheless, 41 years after independence, these real Sons of the Soil
in Sabah and Sarawak are finding themselves increasingly trapped in a
living contradiction.
People discussing national politics tend to forget that the brand of
Malay ethnic nationalism practised by Umno is only applicable to the
peninsular states of Malaysia. In Sabah and Sarawak, the Malays form a small minority of the population there.
Failure of political parties
By the logic of ethnic nationalism, political power in Sabah and
Sarawak should be in the hands of the non-Muslim natives. In the last four decades, through successive prime ministers, the effort of the federal government has been such as to ensure that this logic is subverted by various machinations.
In the last twenty years or so, there have been sporadic attempts to
re-assert the logic of dominance by the majority race. PBS in Sabah
represented the rise of ethnic nationalism among the Kadazandusun
people.
The PBDS in Sarawak was the vehicle of what they called "Dayakism",
seeking to reassert the prominence of political power for the Dayak people. Obviously, both movements have failed in their original objectives, despite their early success stories. Today, they have succumbed to prevailing political realities, and have rejoined the BN stable. Both have since been plagued by internal party strife.
Sadly, their failure is very much reflected on the ground. Many
educated Dayak people I know refer to themselves as second class natives. Some see themselves as third class citizens, after the Malays and the Chinese. Although they form the majority of the racial numbers in Sabah and Sarawak, they have been relegated to the fringes of political power.
Their customary land rights have been eroded and steamrolled by new
legislatures. The supply of good farm land is getting scarce. In many
places, the encroachment of logging, plantation schemes and public
development projects has sparked off prolonged and acrimonious
conflicts. Land remains as the most volatile political issue in Sabah and Sarawak.
Modernisation has also brought to bear much pressure on the native
traditional way of life. Farming in the traditional sense, is no longer
seen as a viable alternative for those young people educated in Bahasa
Malaysia, often in boarding schools away from the bosom of their villages.
A quiet but massive exodus has taken place in the last few decades in
Sabah and Sarawak. Numerous young men and women have been swarming to the cities and towns, first in Sabah and Sarawak, and now in the peninsular growth centres in search of better paying jobs.
In many Iban longhouses that I have visited, I found only old people
and young children. I got this eerie feeling that the whole community had
been reduced to an exhausted past, and an uncertain future.
Naturally, without the younger generations to inherit their rich
cultural legacies, traditions are dying. The ancient crafts of making boats,
building longhouses, weaving, dancing, tattooing, and native art are now dying fast. Even the whole oral tradition of telling tales and myths is
disappearing.
Welcome home, children
But some traditions do persist.
As I write, in numerous villages scattered throughout the vast
landscape of Sabah and Sarawak, the joyous sound of rice wine brewing accompanies the sense of happy anticipation. The thought of loved ones coming home for the harvest celebration - from the distant land called "Malaya" - is cause for killing the fattened pig and pouring out the best brew.
That is partly why the pull of the land is so strong for those young men and women who have scattered to far-flung corners in search of the mighty Ringgit. When they go home to the sumptuous spread awaiting heir arrival, they would once again be treated like princes and princesses of the soil.
Then the Ibans will happily greet each other, "Gayu Guru, Gerai Nyamai!" It does not matter that the Malaysian nation and the rest of the world ave forgotten their voice, as long as they still have it.
"Agi idup, agi ngelaban!" (While you still live, you fight on.)'Gayu Guru, Gerai Nyamai!' – The forgotten voice
Sim Kwang Yang
SIM KWANG YANG was DAP MP for Bandar Kuching in Sarawak 1982-1995. Since retiring in 1995, he has become a freelance writer in the
Chinese-language press.
a)mission schools
b)christianity
c)sensible road names
d)reservior park
Then the "west" came in and:
a)destoryed the original structure of mission under the flimsy excuse of "national intergration"
b)Everything is Islam-Islam
c)You thought that Kereta Api Road and Penrissen road was good enough. But no! Its now Jalan Tun-something-very long and Jalan Something-awi-sli-what-makes-you-think-I-can-remember.
d)kereta potongs and Ah Longs everywhere. not to mention the triads controlling Travillion.
And by the way, what happened to the state level Gawai open house?
No comments:
Post a Comment