By Amde Sidik
Malaysians originating from Peninsula thought that Datuk Seri Awang Tenggah Ali Hassan, a Sarawak State’s Minister for Planning and Resource Management was joking when he said his state (Sarawak) doesn’t need Race Relation Law ar one time.
I was somehow elated to mention a few things in connection with Sabah, after all Sabah and Sarawak share similar background being in Borneo Island.
With that in mind obviously there is a difference in perception about race and ethnic between Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo Malaysia. To me, the difference needs to be understood after all we are living in one nation for a long time to come.
I am ashamed in saying that they are still a lot of ignorant people after 45 years of the country’s independent, perhaps because the space created by the South China Sea, that perhaps deserved us, Sabah and Sarawak to be an autonomous states or may be even an independent status. If attitude like this persists we surely is having unfinished job for another 45 years.
In Sabah and Sarawak, I can confidently say that race, ethnic, and religion aren’t an urgent agenda. If it happens it must only by importation from outside the states not before, not now, and not in the near future, which I sincerely hope it never will.
A sudden call by the Minister Datuk Syed Hamid Albar to an enacting a law of Race Relation Act shocked some people here.
Many even likened the idea to rewinding an old grand father’s o’clock.
According to the Home Minister, the proposed act is to enable action to be taken against those who disrupt harmony, by causing racial tension and conflict. It puzzles many people even more, why the study didn’t cover up to Sabah and Sarawak to determine if there is really a need of such law? In another, I felt a shame for a simple reason; we no longer trust the system that we inherited from our forefathers. To cite an example fifty years ago my grandmother never even bothered to close the door of her house day and night, no body would steal anything. Fifty years ago along Tambunan and Keniangau road, all vegetables and fruits sellers didn’t even man their gerai. What they did was, readied with an empty can or chopped bamboo container, hung them by the side of the vegetable or fruits; buyers would just drop their cash in the container and went bye bye.
I can briefly say, forty-five years down the road, Sabah and Sarawak are far better in shape on race relation or even religion if I may say. I can cite an example to illustrate my belief, I encountered many friends from Peninsular, who after experiencing living in Sabah for a few years decided to take up Sabah as their home. Of those from peninsular who live in Sabah, I think many are from Kelantan. Forget about the notion that Kelantan people are just as lefty as Sabahans thus Sabah serves the right place for them.
I am indeed not saying that Sabahans and Sarawakians don’t want to live in Peninsular, but I can say majority of them live in KL because of economic reason like taking up employment.
Briefly Sabah has about 29 registered ethnics while Sarawak has about 31, and again I couldn’t recall nor remember reading materials if there was any single occasion of infighting based on race or ethnic.
This led me into talking about little anecdote how Sabahans look at religion.
In Keningau, the interior of the Sabah one would find one peculiar Kampong called Kampong Banjar about one and a half kilometers from the town. The word Banjar derived from an ethnic whose origin were Banjarmasin in Kalimantan, also known today as Banjarese or Orang Banjar.
Banjarese are known to be pious Muslim but they’re also Banjarese who are not Muslim in Kalimantan.
The uniqueness of this earlier migrant of Banjarese, of all places in Sabah they chose to live and built their kampong in Keningau, which was surrounded by Pagan community in those days. If one to suggest logistically, they could have just conveniently made their kampongs somewhere in the East Coast of Sabah like, Tawau or Sandakan.
The moral of my saying is, Muslims in Sabah have no problem with their Pagan, Christian or any other religions as neighbours and this is true until to the very day.
The Minister in his statement stated that the very purpose of this Race Relation Act is to safeguard and strengthen relations among the different races in the country.
If for argument that Malaysia is following UK, which has race relation act, we must bear in mind our setting and cultures are far depart from UK, an almost completely coming from different scale. I would rather say, it is far better that our lawmakers spend their time and resources on things we urgently need, like educating people about the importance of information technology or what democracy is all about.
Some time ago I was with two Professors at the local university who invited me to attend to his workshop on Sabah ethnics.
One of them asked my view if I could put in percentage of how high is my confidence level of the unlikelihood of racial war breaking out in Sabah. My reply was, Sabah people would be last to emulate Madura incident. My scale is 99%. It shocked them for a while. My reason among them is; Sabah society is very mixed races and religions.
The unlikely event of tension is because as in my case, I still have plenty of cousins, uncles and aunties who have different religion than mine. Anyone tries to segregate us I would be the first one to defend my relatives, regardless their race and religion.
Here is where I see our Federal Constitution at works.
My relatives in Lawas, Sarawak for example, non-Muslim but you would find them in one fine morning wearing songkok and you surely be mistaking, thinking them Muslim or you would find because their names sound Muslim like, Yussof, Idris, and so on.
During the trouble time of May 13th, Sabah people didn’t even hear about the trouble until it was already over so also Sabah people never had problem with communist, not a single fight. The only big problem Sabah people has while other states don’t endure, as much is, the never-ending illegal problem. Perhaps this is where the Minister of Home Affair should be more concerned.
Amde Sidik is part-time lecturer in Law at local University, and an author. He also lectures for MBA students in International Institutions and Political Environment. He can be contacted at his emailamdesidik@live.com