Why race card is not Sarawak's game
Keruah UsitPublished: Jun 30, 2009 10:09 PM | Updated: Jul 1, 2009 3:32 AM
“One afternoon I was stopped by ‘road bullies’ on a busy street,” Chong, a Chinese Sarawakian friend, told me. “A car bumped into mine from behind. When I got out to inspect the damage, two other cars pulled up. Four young Chinese men jumped out, carrying clubs. I suppose they wanted money.
“The street was crowded with shoppers, and many stopped to stare. While the thugs were waving their sticks, I tried to reason with them – I pointed at the witnesses all around.
“At first, no onlookers stepped in to help. But after a few seconds, I noticed two young Malay men had come to my side from a Ramly Burger stand on the pavement nearby. One of the Ramly boys shouted, ‘What’s going on here?’
“One afternoon I was stopped by ‘road bullies’ on a busy street,” Chong, a Chinese Sarawakian friend, told me. “A car bumped into mine from behind. When I got out to inspect the damage, two other cars pulled up. Four young Chinese men jumped out, carrying clubs. I suppose they wanted money.
“The street was crowded with shoppers, and many stopped to stare. While the thugs were waving their sticks, I tried to reason with them – I pointed at the witnesses all around.
“At first, no onlookers stepped in to help. But after a few seconds, I noticed two young Malay men had come to my side from a Ramly Burger stand on the pavement nearby. One of the Ramly boys shouted, ‘What’s going on here?’
“The four thugs backed off and returned to their cars. I turned to talk to my rescuers, but they’d returned to their stall. They acknowledged my thanks with a smile, and went back to flipping burgers. I then drove away from the traffic jam which was forming behind me,” Chong related.
“I assume the young Malays objected to the odds of four against one and came to the rescue out of a sense of natural justice."
An un-Malaysian race relations
Race relations in Sarawak – and Sabah too – are less tortured than in Peninsular Malaysia. Malays and Chinese are both minority groups in these eastern states. In Sarawak, they form only two among 27 groups recognised by the government.
The largest ethnic group, the Iban, are barely a third of all Sarawakians. The next largest Dayak or indigenous group, the Bidayuh, make up only about five percent of the population.
Sarawakians of Indian origin number less than one percent of Sarawak’s 2.4 million people.
Dayaks, Malays and Chinese mix freely in coffee shops, businesses and workplaces. Sarawakians live in mixed-race estates, as Peninsular communities used to, once upon a time.
Each time when the Hari Raya Puasa and Chinese New Year seasons coincide, neighbourhoods in small towns, from Sematan to Sipitang, teem with festive joy. Alternating Malay and Chinese houses sparkle with oil lamps and red lanterns.
Most Sarawakians display a real muhibbah spirit, but not the official version that appears contrived and comically artificial on national television.
Mixed marriages are common. Nearly every Sarawakian speaks at least two languages. A quarter of the enrolment in rural Chinese vernacular schools is Malay and Dayak: without these students, the schools would fold.
A friend, Jon, agrees race relations remain healthy – even in prison. Jon knows this, having done time for armed crime. He is now respected by his community for having gone straight.
“There’s no segregation in the ‘university’ (prison),” he said. “In the four and a half years I spent there, I never saw a fight caused by racial hatred – though there were plenty of fights for other reasons!
“We ate together and were put in cells together. The guards never let us stay in separate, racial gangs,” he added.
Nurul, a Malay nurse and devout Muslim, treats her Sarawakian patients like her own family, giving no thought to her patients’ ethnic origins. She speaks Iban and Chinese fluently. Her patients worship her.
She told of being invited to the Taoist funeral of a Chinese girl she had cared for. The girl had died, after a long illness, at the age of 19.
“I wasn’t sure what to bring to the funeral,” Nurul said. “I asked around in Chinese shops. They suggested paper handphones or cars to give to the family to burn as a sacrifice. In the end, I bought some ‘cash’ with silver paper on it to give the girl’s mother.
“After the girl’s mother prayed at her daughter’s grave, I paid my respects. I whispered to the girl that I didn’t know what to get her... I hoped her mother would be able to get the ‘cash’ to her so that the girl could ‘buy’ something she wanted. Then I prayed for her in my own way. I’ve never done that at a funeral, not even at my own mother’s grave."
Unease among Malay Sarawakians
Many Malay Sarawakians resent the polarised ethnic relations foisted on them by national politicians’ obsession with race.
Indeed, Malays in Sarawak feel they are treated with greater contempt by Malays from the peninsula than by other races in Sarawak. Malays from the peninsula have dominated, in recent years, most of the top federal department positions. These posts were held previously by Sarawakians.
They too have expressed dissatisfaction that Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud’s “politics of development” have not benefited the many poor members of the community.
This anger boiled over last August when 44 graves were exhumed from a Muslim cemetery in Kuching to be moved to a new burial site. The religious board, Lembaga Kebajikan Masjid Negeri Sarawak (Lakmns), had relocated the remains without full discussions with relatives of the deceased.
Enraged relatives set an excavator on fire and rained punches on a state religious official.
State officials denied reports that the cemetery was being dug up for a development project linked to the ruling elite. However, Lakmns admitted the state government had approved the exhumation.
Wan Zainal Wan Sanusi, a member of PKR’s state leadership council, labelled the exhumation “heinous and shameful”. He added his party would lodge a report with the Anti-Corruption Agency (now the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission), alleging “certain elements of corruption and abuse of power”. However, there have been no reports of any subsequent probe.
Taib later dismissed the conflagration as a “miscommunication”. Taib, a Muslim Melanau, had apparently been compelled to react to the continuing erosion to his support among Sarawak’s Malays.
Key issues in upcoming state polls
In the upcoming Sarawak state elections, expected to take place next year, PKR is hoping to end infighting and improve on its two state assembly seats. PKR is keen to benefit from the disaffection among Sarawak Malays, while trying to appeal to voters as a multiracial party.
Most other political parties are expected to play the race card as usual. However, the most pressing issues in the state election will remain not race, but widespread poverty, lack of security of land tenure and the need for development with less corruption.
Parties hoping to exploit racial sentiment are not guaranteed votes in Sarawak.
Sarawak’s economy is poorly diversified, with control of resources concentrated in CM Taib’s hands. Sarawakians will suffer more acutely from the current economic slump than most other Malaysians.
Sarawakians are watching too, the performance of the multiracial Pakatan Rakyat state governments and the turmoil in the Perak government. Indeed, the upcoming state election results will be harder to predict than at any time in the past 18 years.
Chong, Jon and Nurul's names have been changed.
KERUAH USIT is a human rights activist - anak Sarawak, bangsa Malaysia. His 'The Antidote' column, which appears in Malaysiakini every Wednesday, is an attempt to allow the voices of marginalised people to be heard all over Malaysia. The writer can be contacted at keruah_usit@yahoo.com
Previous columns
Flogging a white elephant
So near, yet so far
In defence of the emerald forests
Logging: Carrots, sticks and lies
The death of a Penan mother
The Malay Dilemma in Sarawak
Juni: Daughter, sister, unwilling mother
A tale of two Malaysias
A crime against Tania's humanity
Apik's love of learning
Alice in Cancerland
“The street was crowded with shoppers, and many stopped to stare. While the thugs were waving their sticks, I tried to reason with them – I pointed at the witnesses all around.
“At first, no onlookers stepped in to help. But after a few seconds, I noticed two young Malay men had come to my side from a Ramly Burger stand on the pavement nearby. One of the Ramly boys shouted, ‘What’s going on here?’
“The four thugs backed off and returned to their cars. I turned to talk to my rescuers, but they’d returned to their stall. They acknowledged my thanks with a smile, and went back to flipping burgers. I then drove away from the traffic jam which was forming behind me,” Chong related.
“I assume the young Malays objected to the odds of four against one and came to the rescue out of a sense of natural justice."
An un-Malaysian race relations
Race relations in Sarawak – and Sabah too – are less tortured than in Peninsular Malaysia. Malays and Chinese are both minority groups in these eastern states. In Sarawak, they form only two among 27 groups recognised by the government.
The largest ethnic group, the Iban, are barely a third of all Sarawakians. The next largest Dayak or indigenous group, the Bidayuh, make up only about five percent of the population.Sarawakians of Indian origin number less than one percent of Sarawak’s 2.4 million people.
Dayaks, Malays and Chinese mix freely in coffee shops, businesses and workplaces. Sarawakians live in mixed-race estates, as Peninsular communities used to, once upon a time.
Each time when the Hari Raya Puasa and Chinese New Year seasons coincide, neighbourhoods in small towns, from Sematan to Sipitang, teem with festive joy. Alternating Malay and Chinese houses sparkle with oil lamps and red lanterns.
Most Sarawakians display a real muhibbah spirit, but not the official version that appears contrived and comically artificial on national television.Mixed marriages are common. Nearly every Sarawakian speaks at least two languages. A quarter of the enrolment in rural Chinese vernacular schools is Malay and Dayak: without these students, the schools would fold.
A friend, Jon, agrees race relations remain healthy – even in prison. Jon knows this, having done time for armed crime. He is now respected by his community for having gone straight.
“There’s no segregation in the ‘university’ (prison),” he said. “In the four and a half years I spent there, I never saw a fight caused by racial hatred – though there were plenty of fights for other reasons!
“We ate together and were put in cells together. The guards never let us stay in separate, racial gangs,” he added.
Nurul, a Malay nurse and devout Muslim, treats her Sarawakian patients like her own family, giving no thought to her patients’ ethnic origins. She speaks Iban and Chinese fluently. Her patients worship her.
She told of being invited to the Taoist funeral of a Chinese girl she had cared for. The girl had died, after a long illness, at the age of 19.
“I wasn’t sure what to bring to the funeral,” Nurul said. “I asked around in Chinese shops. They suggested paper handphones or cars to give to the family to burn as a sacrifice. In the end, I bought some ‘cash’ with silver paper on it to give the girl’s mother.
“After the girl’s mother prayed at her daughter’s grave, I paid my respects. I whispered to the girl that I didn’t know what to get her... I hoped her mother would be able to get the ‘cash’ to her so that the girl could ‘buy’ something she wanted. Then I prayed for her in my own way. I’ve never done that at a funeral, not even at my own mother’s grave."
Unease among Malay Sarawakians
Many Malay Sarawakians resent the polarised ethnic relations foisted on them by national politicians’ obsession with race.
Indeed, Malays in Sarawak feel they are treated with greater contempt by Malays from the peninsula than by other races in Sarawak. Malays from the peninsula have dominated, in recent years, most of the top federal department positions. These posts were held previously by Sarawakians. They too have expressed dissatisfaction that Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud’s “politics of development” have not benefited the many poor members of the community.
This anger boiled over last August when 44 graves were exhumed from a Muslim cemetery in Kuching to be moved to a new burial site. The religious board, Lembaga Kebajikan Masjid Negeri Sarawak (Lakmns), had relocated the remains without full discussions with relatives of the deceased.
Enraged relatives set an excavator on fire and rained punches on a state religious official.
State officials denied reports that the cemetery was being dug up for a development project linked to the ruling elite. However, Lakmns admitted the state government had approved the exhumation.
Wan Zainal Wan Sanusi, a member of PKR’s state leadership council, labelled the exhumation “heinous and shameful”. He added his party would lodge a report with the Anti-Corruption Agency (now the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission), alleging “certain elements of corruption and abuse of power”. However, there have been no reports of any subsequent probe.
Taib later dismissed the conflagration as a “miscommunication”. Taib, a Muslim Melanau, had apparently been compelled to react to the continuing erosion to his support among Sarawak’s Malays.
Key issues in upcoming state polls
In the upcoming Sarawak state elections, expected to take place next year, PKR is hoping to end infighting and improve on its two state assembly seats. PKR is keen to benefit from the disaffection among Sarawak Malays, while trying to appeal to voters as a multiracial party.
Most other political parties are expected to play the race card as usual. However, the most pressing issues in the state election will remain not race, but widespread poverty, lack of security of land tenure and the need for development with less corruption.Parties hoping to exploit racial sentiment are not guaranteed votes in Sarawak.
Sarawak’s economy is poorly diversified, with control of resources concentrated in CM Taib’s hands. Sarawakians will suffer more acutely from the current economic slump than most other Malaysians.
Sarawakians are watching too, the performance of the multiracial Pakatan Rakyat state governments and the turmoil in the Perak government. Indeed, the upcoming state election results will be harder to predict than at any time in the past 18 years.
Chong, Jon and Nurul's names have been changed.
KERUAH USIT is a human rights activist - anak Sarawak, bangsa Malaysia. His 'The Antidote' column, which appears in Malaysiakini every Wednesday, is an attempt to allow the voices of marginalised people to be heard all over Malaysia. The writer can be contacted at keruah_usit@yahoo.com
Previous columns
Flogging a white elephant
So near, yet so far
In defence of the emerald forests
Logging: Carrots, sticks and lies
The death of a Penan mother
The Malay Dilemma in Sarawak
Juni: Daughter, sister, unwilling mother
A tale of two Malaysias
A crime against Tania's humanity
Apik's love of learning
Alice in Cancerland
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