Idris Jala must not defend the 10-point formula

http://www.mysinchew.com/node/96077

2014-02-25 11:55

By BOB TEOH

Idris Jala's defence of the Cabinet's position over the'Allah-Alkitab' crisis and 10-point issue is untenable because it is fundamentally flawed. Although he made it clear that this is his personal opinion, Idris is basically defending the Cabinet over an indefensible policy.

The Cabinet's 10-point solution in 2011 is flawed because it is essentially a one-country-two-laws policy.

This is both wrong and unacceptable.


The 10-point was imposed unilaterally by the Cabinet although discussions with some church leaders were held behind closed-door. The Christian Federation of Malaysia, the umbrella body, immediate response was to reject the 10-point. Other church organisations, denominations and pastors' fellowship adopted a similar posture with the exception of the Bible Society of Malaysia, which is not a spokesman of the church in any case but a Bible bookshop.

The use of the word 'Allah' predates Islam. It is not exclusive to Islam. The 10-point fails to understand this.

A senior pastor pointed out just last week that on the Day of Pentecost as described in the Book of Acts in the New Testament, Arabs as well as people of other ethnicities were present on that occasion, 600 years before the Qur'an was compiled. The Bible also pointed out each people group was declaring "the wonders of God in their own tongues" (Acts 2:11). The Arabs would have no doubt used the word 'Allah' to refer to God.

In the Malay speaking world, portions of the Bible was first translated (in Indonesia) in 1612 in which the word God was translated as 'Allah.' This was not only the first non-European translation of the Bible but it was done well ahead of any translation of the Qur'an into Malay. Even the legendary Munshi Abdullah translated the Bible into Malay preferring the word 'Allah' for God. The Christians were, therefore, first to use the word 'Allah' in the Malay language Bible. This puts to rest the argument that the word 'Allah' is exclusive to Muslims. The principle is that the first to use the term is entitled to claim priority over those who used it later. Again, the 10-point has missed this moot point.

Even as Islam is the religion of the Federation, freedom of religion for each and every citizen remains a most fundamental human right of every citizen recognised and protected by the Federal Constitution. This, the Cabinet has failed to accept or understand.

So fundamental is this right that even when a state of emergency rule is proclaimed under Article 150 of the Constitution, among other things, our right to freedom of religion cannot be tampered with or removed. We have lived through several emergencies or marshal law periods in our short history. Yet not once has our fundamental right to freedom of religion been curtailed or set aside.

Sub-clause 6A of Article 150 is clear: "… nor shall Clause (6) validate any provision inconsistent with the provisions of this Constitution relating to any such matter or relating to religion…"

This plainly means freedom of religion remains protected and guaranteed by our Constitution even under emergency rule.

The supremacy of the Constitutional guarantee and protection of our freedom of religion becomes clear at once, when read together with Articles 3 and 11. The safeguard of freedom of religion, as rightly pointed out by Idris Jala, is further amplified in what is known as the 18 and 20-point agreements submitted by the Sarawak and Sabah governments for inclusion into the new Constitution for Malaysia in 1963.

We are also acutely aware that freedom of religion is also a cornerstone of United Nations conventions on fundamental human rights and that the state should not intervene in matters of religion.

This was the position rightly taken by the High Court in the Herald case when it decided on 31 Dec 2009 that the Home Minister was wrong in imposing a condition that the weekly Catholic Herald's annual publishing permit would only be renewed if it did not use the word 'Allah' to refer to God in its Bahasa edition.

Sadly, last year the Court of Appeal reversed the High Court judgment by ruling that the usage of the word 'Allah' is not integral to Christianity. In doing so the Court of Appeal went beyond its jurisdiction and has usurped the ecclesiastical jurisdiction that belonged solely to the Church in Malaysia. It is up to the Federal Court now to restore the status quo. The remedy can be by a consent judgment.

Idris Jala's contention is that Article 11 (4) allows for the various so-called State Islamic Enactments to "control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among persons professing the religion of Islam". That may be so, but the operative words are "control" and "restrict". But the various State Islamic authorities started gazetting fatwas "prohibiting" non-Muslims from using a slew of words like 'Allah'. This "prohibition" is clearly in violation of the Constitutional provision. This strikes at the heart of the supremacy of the Constitution.

Many have called for Idris Jala to resign from the Cabinet over the 10-point. Many are also aware of Idris Jala's Christian heritage from the Kelabit Highlands, the Bible Belt of Malaysia. He preached his first sermon while in Form Three way back in October 1973. Some believed him while some others doubted. The rest is history.

But history repeats itself. Today, when Idris Jala to tries to preach religious tolerance, there are many who believe in him just as there are doubters. I may disagree with Idris Jala, but as a fellow believer I would still listen to his sermon.

Back to Borneo, and an Eden at Risk

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/travel/back-to-borneo-and-an-eden-at-risk.html?_r=0

By KAREN J. COATES 

FEB. 21, 2014

Pa Lungan in the Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak, Malaysia. Credit Jerry Redfern for The New York Time

 There are no roads to the village of Pa Lungan, just a mucky water buffalo trail beneath a tight-knit canopy — among the last standing highland jungles on the island of Borneo. In spots, the trail is more swamp than path. But that does not mean all is quiet: The rain forest is a cacophonous place. Cicadas squeal and monkeys hoot as they romp through the trees. Bamboo creaks in the breeze as its stalks grind and rub in a primitive dance.

Our journey through Borneo began seven years ago, when, on a whim, my husband and I visited the Kelabit Highlands, situated in Sarawak, one of two Malaysian states on the island. I’d been invited to a conference in the capital city of Kuching; with some time on our hands, we headed to this remote region, most easily accessible by turboprop plane, which flew a few times each week from Miri, on the coast, to the small town of Bario. (The alternatives were many hours, even days, on precarious logging roads, or several weeks on foot through the forest.) 

Thanks to a reporting fellowship, we found ourselves back in the Highlands last year. Things had changed somewhat — that flight now leaves twice daily, and a newly graded dirt road eases travel in and out of Bario. 

The town had grown slightly — more houses, a few concrete-slab roads — but the tempo had not. Bario Asal, the town’s original longhouse, remains, albeit a bit quieter than in years past. But local families still gather by unvented fires in a common area filled with smoke and chitchat. Tourists come to see this. “More tourists, every day,” a Kelabit elder named Jenette Ulun said — one or two a day, sometimes a dozen. “There are more tourists than us locals,” she joked.

Photo

The Parill family at the Bario Asal longhouse. Credit Jerry Redfern for The New York Times

For centuries, the Kelabit people lived isolated lives, best known to the outside world as champion headhunters. But that began to change under the reign of the so-called White Rajahs, a British family by the name of Brooke, who reigned in Sarawak from 1841 to 1946 and tried to rid the region of headhunting. 

Meanwhile, Christian missionaries converted the Kelabits in the 1940s and clamped down on alcohol consumption. Ever since, the Kelabits, who now number about 6,000, have gladly practiced evangelical Christianity with ceremonies far less laborious than their old animist rituals, they say. And the Kelabits have modernized in other ways: Gone are skulls hanging from the rafters, replaced by fireside cellphones and laptops.

Until a few years ago, travelers came for the “Bario Loop,” and other multiday treks organized by local Kelabit guides that hugged the Indonesian border through jungles now logged. These days, most visitors take shorter hikes and experience Kelabit culture in local homes.

Photo

Typical Kelabit fare (pounded rice cake, chicken soup, mushroom soup and fried wild vegetables) at Henry Lagang’s guesthouse in Pa Dalih. Credit Jerry Redfern for The New York Times

On our first trip to Bario, my husband and I lodged at De Plateau, a homestay near the forest leading to Pa Lungan. I remember the cold-water showers and the outdoor sink, which faced a panorama of blue-green hills bathed in flowery air. Dinners consisted of fried wild boar, fiddlehead ferns and sautéed, burgundy-red ginger flowers.

We hired a guide who led us up and down a sodden trail, a foot-long blade called a parang hanging from a scabbard at his hip. Five hours on, we found Pa Lungan, set like a mountain oasis amid verdant, dewy grasses and sparkling ponds. That’s where we met Walter Paran, our village host. He took us to his wooden house set on stilts, where we met his wife, Moriaty, and his then-toddler daughter, Mujan. Walter’s mother squatted by a blackened hearth, tending a pot of simmering cucumber. “Very simple food,” Walter said.

Photo

Kids take a sunset joyride around the Pa Dalih longhouse in Sarawak, Malaysia. Credit Jerry Redfern for The New York Times

We also met Walter’s brother, Pasen Mado Inan, who praised the forests around him. “Most of the things we need for every day come from the jungle,” he said. He feared it would disappear — the trucks were getting closer. “We hate the logging.”

Walter asked us to return so he could take us deeper into the forest, “before logging disturbs that side.” As my husband and I flew out of Bario a few days later, we saw early evidence of what he feared. Below, thick jungle turned to naked hills laced with ruddy roads. “No one can stop them,” our pilot said. “It’s disgusting.”

Photo

One of the guest rooms at the Jungle Blues Guesthouse in Bario, Sarawak, Malaysia. Credit Jerry Redfern for The New York Times

For years, I wondered what became of Walter, his family and their forests. I read of jungles all over Borneo, chopped and cleared, replanted with palms. To raze a rain forest is to bulldoze one of the earth’s biggest carbon stores. To erase this forest would also be to annihilate an age-old way of life. 

Seven years later, we returned, again flying a turboprop into Bario. This time, we stayed with Stephen Baya, a Kelabit artist, and his Danish wife, Tine Hjetting, in their homestay-gallery called Jungle Blues Dream, in a longhouse overlooking the wild yonder of rice paddies, homes and wooded hills that disappeared each morning in a shroud of fog. Stephen, a self-taught artist, fills his wooden walls with vivid trees of life, a motif that symbolizes, for him, a “journey never-ending.” Stephen was born in the Highlands but spent years working for Hilton, Holiday Inn and a Printemps department store elsewhere in Malaysia. He prefers Bario. Living the city life, he said, means “always having to think about tomorrow, think about next week.”

Photo

Walter Paran, a local guide. Credit Jerry Redfern for The New York Times

When I told Stephen of my search for Walter, he relayed the message. Spotty cellphone coverage now permeates parts of the jungle. (We later learned that if Walter wedges his phone into one particular window and stands back, he can sometimes maintain a conversation.) Walter successfully received Stephen’s message and said he awaited our arrival.

Stephen drove us to the road’s end, and from there, we hoofed it, packs on backs, sticks in hand. Along the way, elements of our first trip came back: the tests of balance provided by bridges the width of two logs that spanned streams and broad swaths of mud; an avenue of palms beneath higher, old-growth trees. We stopped at the palms, sat on a log and ate canned chicken curry. In the distance, we heard what sounded like faint, high-pitched voices. There were no trails, no villages, no one around. Perhaps it was wind, making the treetops squeak. Elders later spoke of talking spirits that occasionally spook villagers on foot in the forest.

Pa Lungan was idyllic as ever. We found Walter’s home, but he was out somewhere. Moriaty and Mujan, who was 9 by the time of our return visit, offered us instant coffee, fried shrimp crackers and a seat at their long wooden table. After a cold bucket shower and a short rest, we joined a party next door: Village hunters had caught a boar that morning, and its head crackled on the fire. They offered strips of hot, juicy fat and grilled petai beans, known for their sulfuric stench but delicious flavor.

The sky that evening was a spectacle of tropical-fruit colors: tangerine, passionfruit, papaya. Then darkness fell, and Walter’s generator rumbled on. The power allowed for a few efficiency lights, and a TV — the latter an addition since our previous visit. Mujan lay under a blanket, watching Bruce Lee chop his way through “Fist of Fury.” 

In the morning, we were greeted by Walter, who remembered us and had many things to share. He wanted to show us why tourists still come to Pa Lungan. “They love the place because it’s still green,” he said. 

Nearby Pulong Tau National Park was expanded in 2008, creating a buffer between his village and the logging threat, he told us. He said Pa Lungan remains a “nice, quiet place” — for now.

Together, we hiked a nearby mountain, across the soft earthen floor beneath palms that Walter’s ancestors had planted generations ago. The forest was dense. “This one you can call primary jungle,” he said. From there, we scrambled a near-vertical climb to the hilltop, where a giant metal cross, placed by someone from Pa Lungan (its exact origins are murky), was dedicated to “God’s saving grace”; a sign commemorates the need to avoid bringing “anything detestable” into the land. Below, Pa Lungan seemed to float in an undulating sea of trees. 

That’s Indonesia, Walter said, pointing to the horizon. He added: “Other side of the mountain, they already logged.” He eyed the area behind the cross, toward another area that had already been logged. From this vantage, we could also see Pulong Tau. Walter hoped the park would last, that its boundaries would hold; not all government decisions do, he had told us earlier. 

Walter knew he was living in an Eden at risk, but has always said he will fight for it. “I’m the one who’s always fighting against this logging,” he told me in 2006. 

Today, he has more hope for this view, still intact. We peered across thick stands of trees where Walter had taken us foraging for edible palms and rattans, and bamboos with liquid inside. He said he could live in that forest on the food and drink it provided. It had, after all, sustained centuries of people before him. “That’s why we need to keep our jungle,” he said.

Bario, and most Kelabit villages, offer homestay lodging with meals included.

Jungle Blues Dream (junglebluesdream.weebly.com) charges 70 ringgit per person per day, about $21 at 3.25 ringgit to the dollar. The owners can help arrange guides (typically 80 to 100 ringgit a day) and lodging elsewhere. Prices for homestay lodgings generally range from 50 to 90 ringgit a day.

Several Pa Lungan villagers welcome guests, at similar rates, including Walter Paran; arrange in advance from Bario or simply show up.

A version of this article appears in print on February 23, 2014, on page TR8 of the New York edition with the headline: Back to Borneo, and an Eden at Risk. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe

The Landscape of Memory Archaeology, oral history, and culture deep in the Malaysian jungle

http://www.archaeology.org/issues/127-1403/letter-from/1793-borneo-jungle-megalithic-mounds-stone-jars

By KAREN COATES

Monday, February 10, 2014

(Jerry Redfern) Henry Lagang is one of only 6,000 members of highland
Borneo’s Kelabit tribe. Each day, Henry Lagang heads into the forest to hunt
and forage with a machete slung over one shoulder, a gun over the other, and
dogs at his heels. His mother grows rice, and so do his neighbors. For generations,
people have lived and worked like this to claim the land—and survive—in the
inland jungles of Malaysian Borneo.

For centuries, the Kelabits, a small tribe of hunter-farmer-foragers, lived in near isolation in the Bornean forests that straddle Malaysia and Indonesia. The tribe practiced animism and headhunting until missionaries converted them to Christianity in the 1940s. In contrast to the wealth of archaeological and anthropological research on the inhabitants of the island’s coasts, very little is known about the early history of the peoples who dwelled in these highlands. With approximately 6,000 tribe members among a total population of roughly 20 million Borneans, the Kelabits are a tiny minority, and little has been published on their history. But archaeologists working there now may offer new insights into the missing pieces of Kelabit history, as well as that of their predecessors.

Until recently, this region of the island was accessible only by plane or a month-long hike through the jungle. A new dirt logging road now connects the interior and the coast, but the locals who choose to stay still hike far and wide for food. Their lives revolve around the jungle. Kelabits measure their treks in cigarette time, 47-year-old Lagang explains. For example, it’s a “two-cigarette” hike from his mother’s rice field to a recently abandoned longhouse known as Batu Patong, through bucolic fields flanked by thick rain forest resonating with the sounds of insects.

(Richard Bleiweiss)

As he heads toward the jungle, Lagang passes a stone mound where local stories say heirless ancestors buried their belongings. Just a few yards away, beside a neighbor’s pineapple garden, sits a broken ceramic jar in what remains of a cemetery. Beyond, the rain forest shelters thousands of years of the archaeological record stacked atop itself, layer upon layer, site upon site: century-old longhouses with fruit trees planted by previous inhabitants, 300- to 600-year-old stone burial jars covered in moss and caked in dirt, now-overgrown rice and sago plots that fed the highlanders up to 2,300 years ago, and even evidence of widespread forest burning, a potential sign of arboriculture, dating back 6,000 years or more. Archaeologists have no way yet to precisely identify many of the jungle’s past inhabitants or the creators of these sites. And the more scientists find, the more questions emerge about the histories that lie hidden.

Though the island of Borneo has 50,000 years of known human occupation, until recently very little excavation, or even survey, has taken place in the inland mountains. Now, research in the Kelabit jungles offers new possibilities for assembling the puzzle of human history across interior Borneo. Since 2007, Lindsay Lloyd-Smith of Sogang University’s Institute for East Asian Studies in Seoul, South Korea, has coordinated archaeological fieldwork for a multiyear, multidisciplinary research team called the Cultured Rainforest Project (CRF). Led by Cambridge archaeologist Graeme Barker, CRF includes scientists from universities and institutes across the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Malaysia, and combines work in the disciplines of archaeology, anthropology, and paleoecology. The project’s aim is to investigate past and present relationships between people and rain forest in interior highland Borneo. “We really didn’t know what to expect,” Lloyd-Smith says of the project’s beginnings. “We now have a pretty good chronological framework for human occupation and subsistence in the heart of Borneo, and it has revealed just how rich and varied the prehistory of central Borneo is. It’s exciting.” Yet the local knowledge of the past on which much of the CRF’s work also depends is slipping away quickly, and documentation of the archaeology might be one of the only ways to save it.

(Courtesy Lindsay Lloyd-Smith) Members of the Cultured Rainforest Project (CRF) 
are documenting the archaeological landscape of the Kelabit highlands, including this 
large stone mound known as a perupun. 

CRF’s work has also given Lagang and his neighbors their first formal chance to learn about Kelabit history, which is not taught in Malaysian schools. And the timing is critical. The last decade has brought rapid change as interior Borneo faces the rise of commercial logging and the cultural changes that come with it. Since 1990, according to a recent scientific report, logging has altered nearly 80 percent of Malaysian Borneo’s land surface. When trees go, so do traditional lifestyles that rely on them. Amid the effects of newly built logging roads, climate change, and a desire among young people for education and city jobs, Kelabit life seesaws between tradition and transition. Fading cultural knowledge compounds the threats to potential archaeological sites from the harsh climate and farmland development, explains Borbála Nyíri, who is Lloyd-Smith’s partner in both life and work, and a doctoral student at the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester. “Many sites are now only known to a handful of old people, and are quickly dropping out of the sphere of cultural memory,” Nyíri says.

Through the years, Lagang and his mother, Mariar Aran, have opened the doors of their longhouse to researchers—“many people, many times,” Lagang says—offering beds and mosquito nets, meals of homegrown rice, wild boar and deer he has hunted, and vegetables plucked from the jungle. Lagang serves as both host and guide through the tangled terrain.

The Kelabit highlands are dotted with signs of the past. Throughout the forest, there are hundreds of markers called etuu. The Kelabits believe that in order to establish rights over a landscape, it is essential to mark it. These markers can include megaliths, carved stones, stone jars, stone mounds, and even rice fields. One prominent type of mark is the large stone mound known as a perupun. Kelabits today say such mounds, which are found all across the central highlands and can reach 100 feet wide and 10 feet high, were spiritually significant. “These findings seem to indicate a widespread cultural tradition that flourished around 2,000 years ago, during the Early Metal Age,” Lloyd-Smith says. And they indicate use of the landscape going back generations.

(Jerry Redfern) Kelabit tribesman Walter Paran stands in front of a megalithic burial site—
one of the many types of man-made marks on the landscape—called Batu Ritong.

Kelabits also see etuu as evidence of a person’s ability to channel lalud, the manifest power believed to govern all nature, from rivers to rain to life itself. Lalud is deeply intertwined with the spirit world, and etuu are indicators of a person’s ties to those spirits and ancestors. According to CRF anthropologist Monica Janowski, “A successful human, of high status, should demonstrate the ability to manage and manipulate lalud effectively, and this should be visible through the etuu marks he or she makes on the landscape.”

Etuu aren’t the only signs of human occupation in the forest. There are also hundreds of old settlements in varying stages of decay. Some are standing wooden structures, such as Batu Patong, while others are recognizable only by fruits and palms planted by previous inhabitants. Some sites date to the 1800s, and locals can remember their names and histories. Others show evidence of occupation dating back 400 years, but nothing is known of the people who lived there. Researchers have also identified what appear to be large, open-air settlements with stone walls and iron artifacts dating to the Early Metal Age, some 1,000 to 2,300 years ago. “As far as I am aware, these represent the earliest Metal Age settlements yet discovered on Borneo,” Lloyd-Smith says. Cave burial sites on the island have been studied before, but much less is known about occupation sites. For the first time, Lloyd-Smith says, he and his colleagues can begin to see these early societies from a domestic perspective, rather than from their mortuary practices alone. But at this point, the researchers don’t know a lot about these sites, such as whether they were long-term villages or gathering points for multiple communities, or how iron tools were introduced, or who brought them.

(Courtesy Lindsay Lloyd-Smith, Jerry Redfern) CRF archaeologists excavate at 
Long Diit (above left), which was used as a settlement as far back as 2,400 years 
ago, then as a burial site, likely 300-600 years ago. One of the 14 stone jars (above 
right) found at the site is heavily overgrown but still stands. 

The evidence uncovered thus far provokes questions about who the jungle’s early inhabitants were, how they lived and worked, what they ate, and how they interacted with their regional neighbors at a time of thriving trade between Borneo, China, India, and Southeast Asia. Were the early inhabitants of interior Borneo indigenous to the highlands, or outsiders who came with iron tools? Were they among the first Neolithic farmers who arrived in Southeast Asia from Taiwan and the Philippines 1,000 years earlier? Or was this interior culture a mix of local development and regional migration?

These queries have led Lloyd-Smith on a new investigation, called the Early Borneo Project. He hopes to focus on the early relationships between Borneo’s highlands and coast, and on the question of whether regional trade could have sparked the construction of megaliths and monuments such as the perupuns in the heart of Borneo in the Early Metal Age. “The effect of such early ‘globalization’ on such distant interior locations has never been considered,” says Lloyd-Smith.

For outsiders, traveling through the Bornean jungle is a constant challenge of balance, strength, and determination. But Lagang knows this place, how it behaves, and how he must respond. Even fording rivers is routine for him. He braces his body against the forceful flow of cold water rushing over rocks. Once across the water, he bushwhacks through vines and leaves, clearing a path to Long Diit, a site that was a settlement 1,000 to 2,400 years ago, and was later used as a cemetery, or menatoh, likely beginning 300 to 600 years ago. Menatoh are found throughout the highlands. These were essentially “villages of the dead,” according to Janowski. There, the deceased continue to live in the parallel spirit world or dimension, growing rice, keeping chickens, and practicing other everyday activities.

(Jerry Redfern) A broken dragon jar at the edge of Lagang’s village of Pa Dalih is the only surviving vessel in what was once a cemetery filled with dragon jars.

 

At Long Diit, beneath the towering canopy of old-growth forest, are seven slab structures and 14 moss-covered stone burial jars, some standing, some fallen, some broken. The intact jars are the size of a small, slim person. The area was used as a burial ground before the Christian conversion, Lagang says. Pointing to a giant tree with gnarled roots, he recalls the skulls—“a lot of them”—that used to sit at its base when he was a child. Wherever you see this type of tree, he says, ancestral remains may lie beneath.

Stories like Lagang’s are critical to understanding the region. Sometimes, local legends are the very foundation from which researchers work.

Another type of historical evidence, large glazed stoneware storage jars, were likely first produced in China in the seventh through tenth centuries, and became highly prized trade items in Borneo, according to Nyíri. In the Kelabit highlands, these jars—known as dragon jars for the designs that typically adorn their sides—were keepsakes, or were used for rice or wine. Others were used for storing the bones of the dead in pre-Christian cemeteries. “Dragon jars became treasured heirloom pieces passed down for generations,” Nyíri says. Only the wealthy upper classes owned them, and some Kelabit elders still keep these jars in their homes. “They put rice inside,” says a 43-year-old villager named Walter Paran, describing the jar his family bought, long before he was born, from traders across the border in Kalimantan for the price of two buffalo.

Today Paran takes care of several jars that his uncle, now deceased, kept in his house. His living relatives don’t know much about them, their origins, or their value. “We forgot to ask,” he says. “That’s a big mistake for us. That is why we are losing our history …that’s why our children, they don’t know.” He’s happy the CRF team is taking notes and recording data. Paran, like many elders, says Kelabit history is fading from memory. His nine-year-old daughter, Mujan, and her peers trek five hours to the town of Bario, where they attend boarding school. In class, they learn nothing about the Kelabit culture. “They teach history,” Paran says, “but not this type of history.”

When Lagang was a child, several dragon jars sat at the edge of his village, right above a river. Only the pieces of only one remain today. He recalls that when he was a young boy, he approached that place with caution because the jars held spirits that sometimes spoke—a story repeated by Kelabit elders across the highlands. “Ting, ting, ting … whoo whoo,” he mimics the voices. When he heard that, he ran away fast, he says. It’s been a long time since the spirits have spoken to Lagang.

(Jerry Redfern) Paran is the caretaker for an imported Chinese dragon jar that has been in his 
family for generations. 

Both Kelabit villagers and CRF researchers hope their collaboration can help fill the knowledge gap. “We have always been warmly welcomed, looked after, and supported, even adopted,” says Nyíri. She feels a responsibility in return, and a duty to inform. “We hear complaints that researchers collect data, publish it, and make a career out of a few months’ work,” without sharing their findings with local communities, she says. To remedy that, the archaeologists have exhibited their findings, tools, and future research plans for local audiences. The CRF has published annual reports in the Sarawak Museum Journal and distributed project pamphlets throughout the highlands. “It’s only ethical and fair to share even preliminary results with the local community,” Nyíri says.

(Jerry Redfern)

Brochures about CRF’s work have a place of honor in the guesthouse run by Henry Lagang.

 
It’s also what locals crave. “I’ve been interviewed many, many times, but I haven’t seen the results before,” says an elder named Jenette Ulun, who is active in Kelabit festivals and whose name often appears on travel blogs as an authority on Kelabit cultural traditions. “It’s good to finally know the results,” says Ulun. “It’s not only for us to see. Now our children can see this is what’s done for the Kelabits, for our people, and understand our culture and know what their parents, their grandparents, their great-grandparents did. Otherwise there is no written record.”

That record is critical in the fight to preserve local heritage. “‘Rural development’ is the buzz phrase in Sarawak these days,” says Lloyd-Smith. The term encompasses everything from palm oil and rubber plantations that replace rain forests after logging, to agricultural projects and homestay tourism. “Within such an environment,” he says, “only by the community realizing the cultural value of their archaeology, and being proud of how important it is for Borneo and the whole of Southeast Asia, can the protection of the cultural heritage of the Kelabit highlands be safeguarded. Archaeology can play a large role in this.”

One day, Lagang stands atop a perupun just a few hundred yards from his longhouse. From this vantage point, he looks to the past. “Before, when I was small, this was all jungle,” he says, gazing at his neighbors’ homes and vegetable gardens. Lagang used to hunt birds with his blowpipe right around here. Life was a bit different then. More people lived in the longhouse, gathering in the evenings and early mornings around smoky open fires in the communal hallway that traditionally connected one Kelabit family to dozens of others. It was a close, collective existence. But these days, many permanent village residents opt for individual family homes. Modern houses with metal roofs have sprung up around the perupun where Lagang used to hunt. Rice paddies and gardens sit where trees once stood. Though jungle still surrounds the village, times have changed, and so has Kelabit culture.

(Jerry Redfern) One of Lagang’s hunting dogs sits by several toppled stone jars at Long Diit.

At sunset, Lagang works in the longhouse kitchen, preparing a dinner of paddy rice, fried pork fat, bamboo shoots, and mouse deer soup—all harvested from the forests that feed him every day, the same forests that fed millennia of highlanders. That evening, he shows snapshots of the researchers who have stayed with him through the years. When dinner is finished and the dishes are cleaned, Lagang sits alone beside the open-hearth fire, staring into the night. It’s Sunday, the last evening of a weeklong holiday. Almost all the young adults have returned to school and work in the city. Just a few elders sit and chat on the wobbly wooden floor planks, 300 feet away from Lagang, at the end of the longhouse. The lights are out, and the lengthy common corridor ends in blackness. How long will this longhouse last? How long will the Kelabit forest and the archaeological sites within it endure? Will the Kelabits have a chance to learn their own history before it disappears? Ties to the ancestral past, imprinted in stone and carved into the land, still bind the Kelabits today. The perupun Lagang remembers as a child remains intact, undisturbed. He’s happy the archaeologists are studying it. “They write the story about the Kelabit people. They can protect the megaliths, the culture,” he says. “Good.”

Karen Coates is a Social Justice Reporting Fellow at the International Center for Journalists and a senior fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism.

Tribute to a Kelabit paramount chief

http://www.theborneopost.com/2013/07/20/tribute-to-a-kelabit-paramount-chief/

by Lucy Bulan. Posted on July 20, 2013, Saturday

DEEPLY ROOTED: A family portrait.

Ngimat Ayu

A PIONEER, innovator and paramount chief of the Kelabits, Ngimat Ayu passed away on July 18, 2013 at the age of 92, leaving a legacy of immense love and kindness, outstanding leadership and tremendous wisdom.

Surrounded by his wife, children and grandchildren as he breathed his last, Ngimat Ayu was one Kelabit who had lived a full life and stood tall and strong amongst all odds.

As news of his passing began to reach people, especially Kelabits in Malaysia and those living in other parts of the world, condolence messages began pouring in to his immediate family members and relatives.

Many recalled fond memories of Ngimat Ayu and how much he will be missed.

Indeed, this man whom his grandchildren call a legend had left a lasting impression on everyone – young and old – who were fortunate to have met him.


Family history


Born on July 15, 1921 in Pa’ Main, Bario in the Kelabit highlands, Ngimat Ayu, whose given name was Gerawat Aran, was one of four children of Tagung Aran @ Ngemung Sakai and Sineh Tagung Aran.

His siblings were Lu’ui, Muda and Dayang (Tepuh Luyuq dedtur). Because he was quite sickly as a child, and according to Kelabit custom of meman anak, Gerawat was adopted and brought up by his uncle (his father’s youngest brother) Tekapen Raja and Edteh Kedieh Aran.

In 1955, he married Martha Padan from Long Pupung, Kerayan. In those days, he was one of the rare ones to get a bride from Kerayan, Kalimantan, a marriage arranged by their relatives. And as is the Kerayan custom, he had to pay a huge dowry for this beautiful, hardworking maiden of noble ancestry.

They were blessed with seven children – Abel, Anne, Felicity Ruran, Linda, Evelyn, Nancy Daun, and Scott Apoi. They became adoptive parents to three children of Gerawat’s sister and brother-in-law Tepuh Luyuq, both of whom had died early from sickness – Datin Sri Mariam Balan, Maria Peter Lu’ui and the late Tony Ngimat Ayu.

Following the birth of his eldest child, Abel Ngimat, Gerawat changed his name to Ngimat Ayu according to Kelabit tradition. Then on the birth of his first grandchild, Stephen Baya Peter (the son of Maria Peter Lu’ui), Ngimat Ayu changed his name to Belaan Tauh.

Meantime, Ngimat Ayu had adopted five other children. Today, he has 31 grandchildren and 18 great grandchildren.

Before going to school, young Ngimat Ayu (known then by his given name Gerawat) worked with the Allied Forces in the Japanese Resistance Army.

He remembered being in Ba’Kelalan and Belawit when the Japanese surrendered, and helped the Allied Forces to escort the Japanese out of Belawit.

He also fearlessly assisted Major Tom Harrison to fish out the Penan and the Iban from Indonesia who were believed to have murdered Hardin, the Resident of Marudi at the end of 1945.

Gerawat attended the first school set up by Major Tom Harrison in Pa’ Main Longhouse at the age of 24.

“Many parents were reluctant to allow their children to go to school,” he said.

“They insisted that they themselves had done very well without schooling —why waste time in school?”

But young Gerawat’s father was one of the chiefs responsible for the introduction of the first school in the community, so Gerawat became one of the first of 19 students to attend school when the school first opened in 1946.

The school Tom Harrison started had one teacher, Paul Kohuan from East Timor.

He taught Gerawat until Primary Four in Pa’ Main School, after which Tom Harrison brought Gerawat to Kuching to work in the Sarawak Museum.

His job was to collect and record artifacts for the Museum.

While working, he continued his Primary Five and Six education in Merpati Jepang through night studies.

Young Gerawat and his peers went to school with one vision in mind: to return to the Kelabit Highlands and serve the community (nuuh bawang), and to uplift their living condition.

So on completion of his primary school education, Tom Harrison told Gerawat he was to go into the medical line as there were enough Kelabit teachers already.

He acquiesced without question.


The medical assistant-dresser


Gerawat started his training as a medical assistant (then called dresser) in Kuching in 1951, and was the first Orang Ulu to be trained as a dresser.

“When I began my practical training in Kuching, I still had my Orang Ulu haircut and elongated earlobes, and the patients always asked to see the medical assistant, not knowing I was the one.

“I always told them ‘he is inside his room’ but treated them myself and only referred complicated cases to the senior medical officer,” he said.

Gerawat’s training was so comprehensive that he knew how to stitch wounds, conduct simple surgery like cutting off elongated earlobes, treat leprosy, pull out teeth, order and disburse medication and even deliver babies.

On his initial return to the Kelabit Highlands, Gerawat was accompanied and introduced as a dresser by SAO Kusil Tingang and Tom Harrison.

He was based in Pa’ Main, but made regular monthly trips to each outstation village in the highlands — from Long Banga in the south to all the villages in the Kelapang and Debpur basin, and to Kuba’an, Long Lellang and Seridan villages.

Even after being joined by other dressers later, he continued to be the travelling ‘medicine man’ for years, organising groups of porters from each village in making monthly trips to Lio Mattu to collect and carry medicine sent from Marudi for him to disburse.

He came up with the idea of using used cooking oil tins as storage containers for his medicine.

He stored them at each village so that he could reduce the number of porters to go around with him.

“I worked alone as the only dresser in the highlands for years. I never ran out of medicine. I made sure there was regular supply all the time even though transportation was very difficult.

“Everything had to be transported by boat from Marudi to Lio Mattu, and by land from thence to Bario. Today, you people have aeroplanes and helicopters to carry medicine to Bario, and you still have not enough stock of medicine! I cannot understand this,” he lamented.

Gerawat @ Ngimat Ayu served as ulu dresser altogether for 15 years (1951-65).

The effectiveness of his service, assisted afterwards by other health assistants, can be seen from the rapid disappearance of leprosy, skin diseases, malaria and fatal epidemics (kedta in Kelabit) that had plagued the Kelabits for generations and almost wiped out the tribe at one point.

One of his achievements had been to inculcate clean habits among the people.

“I got people to drink only boiled water and remove their livestock from under their longhouses and to disallow dogs from living together in the longhouses. I faced a great deal of opposition especially in this but with support from Tom Harrison and the missionaries, we succeeded in changing peoples’ lifestyles,” he said.


The paramount chief


In 1965, Tom Harrison arranged for an election of a new Penghulu to replace the then Penghulu Lawai Besara.

Four contestants stood for the post (Inan Mulun, Ulit Mattu, Galih Balang, and Ngimat Ayu) and Ngimat Ayu was elected.

He had to quit his post as medical assistant and thence began his long history as the paramount chief of the Kelabit.

Ngimat Ayu served as the only Kelabit Penghulu from 1966-1997.

And then in 1998, the government decided to appoint a Pemanca as the new paramount chief of the Kelabit.

Penghulu Ngimat Ayu was appointed and he served as Pemanca until 2005 with three new Penghulus as his assistants: Henry Jalla of Bario, Tulu Ayu of Long Seridan, and Gan Tuloi of Long Peluan. Ngimat Ayu was a visionary and an innovator.

During his tenure as the paramount chief, he witnessed the opening up of Bario Lem Baaq to rapid development, including the Codification of the Kelabit Customary Laws (the Adet Kelabit 2008), the building of an all-weather-airport, the introduction of ICT through e-Bario, the building of the inter village road within Bario and the road connecting Bario to the outside world, to name a few.

He strongly supported the idea of Bario Ceria and the provision of power supply through the solar farm in Bario, especially after the failed hydro-hybrid project.

His magnificent art of negotiation, extraordinary hospitality to guests and locals alike and his tremendous leadership skills have enabled him to gain much favour from people in authority on behalf of the Kelabit community.

His special ability to identify with young and old, educated and uneducated, strangers and family alike has endeared him to a multitude of people, making him easily approachable and loveable.

As far as he was able and available, he visited every sick person he knew, went to every funeral, attended every wedding he was invited to and was able to laugh and cry with people he knew.

In a nutshell, Ngimat Ayu made time for everyone.


Straddling two worlds


Ngimat Ayu has straddled many eras and was a pioneer in many fields.

He served as the first Orang Ulu medical assistant (ulu dresser) from 1951-65 and left his job to become the first elected Penghulu of the Kelabit from 1966-97.

He was then promoted to become the first Kelabit Pemanca from 1998-2005.

Ngimat Ayu was born (in 1921) before the Japanese Occupation and before the impact of the rule of the White Rajah had been fully felt by the Kelabit.

He had personally experienced the hardship under the old way of life but understood the value systems, the customs and traditions that gave the Kelabit their identity.

He lived through and fought during the Japanese Occupation and helped bridge the gap between our Indonesian neighbours and our people after the Indonesian-Malaysian Confrontation in the 1960’s.

He embraced Christianity as a first generation Christian in the highlands and witnessed the extraordinary impact their faith had on the Kelabit community.

He participated in the resettlement exercise whereby the neighbouring villages were relocated to Bario Lem Baaq during the Confrontation.

Thus, he experienced the hard work and excitement of opening up new horizons and fresh boundaries as well as the pain and loss of leaving the familiar.

As Penghulu, he was instrumental in settling many legal issues related to this relocation exercise in a peaceful manner.

Ngimat Ayu was a student pioneer of the first school in the Kelabit Highlands, and lived to see even his grandchildren finish university education.

He saw the schools in the Kelabit Highlands grow from the first primary school to lower secondary school level.

Before he died, he said: “My dream and vision is to see the secondary school in Bario reaching Form 5 level so that more students can reach Form 5 level instead of dropping out of school. Please don’t give up on the vision.”

Ngimat Ayu is one Kelabit man who has lived a full life, faced countless challenges and still stood tall and strong against all odds.

Clothed with God’s full armour, he was able, having done everything, to stand (Eph 6:13).

He leaves behind a legacy of immense love and kindness, outstanding leadership, and tremendous wisdom.

He is greatly missed by family, friends, the whole Kelabit community and all who knew him.

Farewell our father, cousin, uncle, grandfather. Rest in Peace. Until we meet again.

SIB’s Kelabit, Saban and Berawan Ministry to hold two-day annual rally in Miri

http://www.theborneopost.com/2011/10/22/sib%E2%80%99s-kelabit-saban-and-berawan-ministry-to-hold-two-day-annual-rally-in/

Posted on October 22, 2011, Saturday

MIRI: The Kelabit, Saban and Berawan Ministry (PKSB) of the Borneo Evangelical Church (SIB) will hold its annual rally on Oct 28 and 29.

The two-day event themed ‘Empowered By The Holy Spirit’ will be held in Miri SIB’s main building at the Canada Hill commencing 7.30pm nightly.

Organising chairman Stewart Paran said all are welcome to the event which will be conducted in Bahasa Malaysia and English.

Dr Philip Lyn is the guest speaker on the first night and Rev. Solomon Bulan of Sarawak SIB will speak on the following night.

Dr Lyn, an international speaker, is the senior pastor of SIB Skyline, Kota Kinabalu in Sabah. He is a medical doctor trained at Oxford and took biblical studies in Canada.

The Skyline SIB Church is missional in culture and coaches marketplace leaders to live out Christian principles for community transformation.

Married to Nancy, the couple has three wonderful children, one of whom is Sarah Lyn – a miracle child who was raised from the dead.

Rev. Solomon, meanwhile, is the senior pastor of SIB Krokop (KEC) and was a trained high school teacher and a Teacher Training College lecturer before he left to be a full-time pastor.

He pursued his theological training in New Zealand Bible College from 1993 to 1996 and at Seminary Teologi Malaysia in Seremban in 2003.

Rev. Solomon was the teacher-in-charge of the Christian fellowship at Bario Secondary School in 1973 when revival broke out and impacted and transformed the spiritual landscape of the SIB Church in Sabah and Sarawak.

He co-authored the book, ‘The Bario Revival’. Since then, he has been actively involved in evangelistic works in the villages, schools and universities in Sarawak.

The Reverend has wide ministry experience and involvement in mission work and church planting.

“His experience as a teacher and trainer at seminars, as speaker and preacher at church conferences brought him to Indonesia, the Philippines, Korea and Nigeria,” Stewart said.

Rev. Solomon is also a member of the Central Council (MMU) of Sarawak SIB and was its former deputy president.

Highlanders invest in new beginning

http://elections.thestar.com.my/sarawak/news/story.asp?file=/2011/4/17/sarawakpolls/8499957&sec=sarawakpolls

Sunday April 17, 2011

LAWAS: The people of the northern Sarawak highlands voted in a lawyer who has been championing their native land rights.

Baru Bian, the Sarawak PKR chairman, secured a majority of 473 votes against newcomer Willie Liau of Barisan Nasional to take the Ba’Kelalan seat in the Lun Bawang and Kelabit highlands.

He secured a total of 2,505 votes compared to Liau of SPDP who obtained 2,032 ballots.

Returning officer Ladin Atok announced the results at the Lawas District Council office at 7.35pm.


From lawyer to YB: Baru being surrounded by PKR leaders and members on nomination day.

A total of 4,585 or 65.09% of Ba’Kelalan’s 6,958 registered voters cast their ballots at 22 polling centres in the mountainous constituency, which is about 22 times the size of Penang.

Baru is widely respected among the highland’s Orang Ulu ethnic community for his legal work in representing them in their native customary rights issues mainly involving land matters.

“This is a victory for the people. They have spoken and they want change. This is the beginning of that change.

“This is a new beginning for Sarawak. The people want good governance, they want corruption to be wiped out and the state’s resources given back to them,” Baru said after the results were announced.

Asked whether his victory could be seen as a revolt of sorts among the Orang Ulu – comprising the Lun Bawang, Kelabit, Kenyah, Kayan and Penan who make up more than 88% of Ba’Kelalan voters – Baru said: “You can say that.”

He also described his victory as remarkable due to limited resources available, including funds, while campaigning in far-flung villages in the 6,398sq km constituency.

Baru, a Sidang Injil Borneo (SIB) church elder, was also thankful for the prayers offered for him by his constituents as well as many others from Sarawak and around the world.

Meanwhile, Liau said his defeat stemmed from the Opposition’s effective use of various issues, including the native customary rights land and the seizing and stamping of Bibles.

Christians of Sarawak, be catalysts for change!

http://aliran.com/5281.html

By admin, on 15 April 2011

On the eve of the Sarawak state elections, Martin Jalleh urges Christians to make it their Christian duty to stand up for the state’s marginalised indigenous communities who have been deceived, discriminated against, dispossessed, and disempowered.


Christians of Sarawak, your hour has come! May you have the courage to respond to the clarion call of leading the charge of change in your State and country.

May your vote convince the PM that the religious freedom of Christians and other faiths cannot rest merely on his sudden goodwill conveyed at cordial, congenial and courteous close-door meetings.

May your choice reflect the earnest prayer of Christians that the government will honour and respect our basic constitutional rights and not subject them to changes according to the political expediency of the moment.

May your courage bring to the fore the problems related to religious harmony which the BN government has created or is complicit to and its conceited responses and ad-hoc solutions which contradict its very own policies!

The challenge before you goes far beyond that of the recent Bible controversy. It is to express distinctly to the PM the deep disappointment and discontent of Christians being discriminated against over the years.

May you convey very clearly to the PM the concern and consternation of Christians at being made victims of the frequent contravention (with impunity) of the constitutional guarantees of religious freedom.

May you echo the growing anguish and anger of Christians who refuse to be cowed by the constant taunts, threats and tirades of “Little Mullah Napoleons” in Umno, Perkasa, Pembela, and the Home Ministry.

May yours be a conscious stand against those who are a cog in Umno’s machine, a party which has politicised religion for its survival by creating unfounded insecurities and fear amongst Muslims and a distrust of other religions.

The PM was right. Change brings with it uncertainty. But God will see you through. A vote for BN will bring you the ‘certainty’ of continued racial and religious polarisation and compound the culture of corruption, cronyism and crippling fear.

May your concerns be not confined to the well-being of Christians alone but may they envelope, and embrace the struggles encountered by the peoples of all races and religions, yes, even the Muslims too.

May you champion the common good and be an answer to the longing and prayer of deliverance of the long-suffering people living in long-houses and languishing in abject poverty.

May you make it your Christian duty to stand up for the marginalised indigenous peoples of Sarawak who have been deceived, discriminated against, displaced, dislodged, dispossessed, deprived and disempowered.

May your Christian compassion move you to act justly for those who have become disillusioned, demoralised and dysfunctional by the divisive and diabolical designs of the powers-that-be.

May God free you from the ‘contamination’ of Semenanjung. May your Christian conscience prompt you to chose the side which Jesus would — those who have no cash, credit, clout, cables or connection!

By the grace of God, may your response to the Christian call to the conversion of heart (especially as we come close to the climax of Lent) be a personal transformation from one of compromise to courage and from convenience and comfort to commitment to justice and peace.

May God be with you as you exercise your Christian duty of casting your vote in this crucial moment of Sarawak’s history! May God bless Sarawak!

Martin Jalleh, a well known political commentator, is a regular contributor to Aliran

Idris: Stop harping on Bible issue

http://www.theborneopost.com/?p=120971

by Norni Mahadi.

Posted on April 15, 2011, Friday

BARIO: Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Senator Datuk Seri Idris Jala has sent a clear message that the Bible is not an issue in Sarawak.

In view of that, he urged the people to stop discussing the sensitive subject which could jeopardise the religious and racial harmony in the state.

“None of these bibles is in the hand of government. It is because the government had already released the 30,000 copies of the Bibles in Bahasa Malaysia imported from Indonesia at Port Klang and Kuching Port,” he said in his address at Bario Community Hall in conjunction with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s official working visit to Bario Hybrid Health Clinic at the Kelabit highland yesterday.

Idris was sad to note that a group of irresponsible people had manipulated the Bible issue for their political ends.

The government recently announced a 10-point solution to solve the bible issue in the country.

One of the 10 points stated that bibles in all languages including Bahasa Malaysia can be imported into the country and there is no requirement for any stamp or serial number for Sabah and Sarawak.

On the 10th Sarawak Election, he called the Kelabit community in Bario to give their total support to Barisan Nasional (BN).

CFM:10-point proposal just a short-term solution

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2011/04/14/10-point-proposal-just-a-short-term-solution-3/

K Pragalath | April 14, 2011

A Christian group says the proposal does not address the problems faced by the Christian community.


PETALING JAYA: The 10-point proposal to solve the long-running dispute between Christian groups and the government over the import of the Al-Kitab (Malay language bible) is merely a short-term solution, the Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM) said.

CFM chairman Bishop Ng Moon Hing said in a statement that the Christian community has the right to use any language to read the bible.

“The bible is our holy scripture and it is our right to read, study and pray with it in the language of our choice as freedom of religion is enshrined under our Federal Constitution,” he said.

The Home Ministry caused a furore in the Christian community when it seized 35,000 copies of the A-Kitab in Port Klang (in 2009) and Kuching Port (on Jan 12, this year).

The Al- Kitab caters largely to native Christians in Sabah and Sarawak.

Ng said the 10-point solution did not resolve the Christian community’s problems that be traced to three laws that are still in force

The three laws are:

•The 1982 prohibition of the Al-Kitab under Internal Security Act 1960 (ISA) on the grounds that the bible is prejudicial to national interest and security of Malaysia.

•The 1986 administrative order prohibiting the use of the term “Allah” in Christian publications on the grounds of public order and prevention of misunderstanding between Muslims and Christians.

•The guidelines of the Home Ministry’s Quranic publication text control division prohibiting the use of the word “Allah”.

‘Confusing and unacceptable’

Ng also described the 10-point solution that the government came up just days before the Sarawak election as a “one-policy, two-countries” approach that is “confusing and unacceptable”.

He, however, expressed his intention to resolve the matter as stated in point nine of the solution, where the government expressed its “commitment to work with the Christian groups and all the different religious groups in order to address inter-religious issues…”

Another Christian group, Council of Churches Malaysia Youth, had also rejected the 10-point solution last week.

After much public pressure, the government agreed to release the bibles but not before stamping the Home Ministry’s official seal on them, along with a “For Christians Only” label.

This angered the importers who refused to collect the bibles, with numerous Christian groups accusing the government of desecrating the holy books.

The Al-Kitab controversy has also become an election issue in the Sarawak where almost half of the population are Christians.

An open letter to Sarawak Christians

http://aliran.com/5256.html

by admin, on 13 April 2011

A group calling itself ‘Sidang Injil Baru (Renewal Evangelical Mission of Sarawak)’ has issued an open letter to Christians in the state urging them to vote wisely in the 16 April polls.


Graphic courtesy of themalaysianinsider.com

Surat Jemaat

Freedom of Religion

Saudara-saudara jemaat di tanah air tercinta Sarawak, yang menjadi umat Allah Bapa dan Tuhan Yesus Kristus. Kami mengharap semoga Allah memberi berkat dan sejahtera kepada kalian.

We praise God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ that Sarawak is the only Christian majority state in Malaysia where half the population are Christians.

It is with our goodwill and blessings that we have allowed a Malay Muslim to be the Chief Minister of Sarawak since 1963 except for a brief period when a Christian held the position until he was unconstitutionally sacked in 1966 by the Federal government.

We also praise God that one in ten people in Malaysia are Christians.

In fact, two thirds of the Christians are Malay-speaking bumiputras in Sarawak and Sabah as well as Orang Asli in Malaya. We have been using the Malay Alkitab or the Iban Bup Kudus as our Holy Bible for generations.

Sarawak, together with Sabah, Singapore and Malaya formed Malaysia in 1963 under the Malaysia Agreement. Singapore left the federation two years later. Like the Malays, our special position as pribumis or natives is protected under Article 153 of the Federal Constitution.

Sarawak has made its position abundantly clear in what is known as the 18-points (20-points in for Sabah) in drafting the Malaysia Agreement. Point #1 was on freedom of religion:

“While there was no objection to Islam being the national religion of Malaysia, there should be no state religion In Borneo (Sarawak and Sabah), and the provisions relating to Islam in the present Constitution of Malaya should not apply to Borneo.”

That was the spirit of the Malaysia Agreement even though this point was amended in the final draft.

East Malaysians were more than magnanimous in making this compromise to Umno. But recent events have forced us to come to the conclusion that there is a sinister anti-Christian agenda by Barisan Nasional especially by UMNO and its proxies in Sarawak.

This is unconstitutional.

Bishop Ng Moon Hing, chairman of the Christian Federation of Malaysia pointed out in a statement on 10 March 2011 over the illegal confiscation of 35,000 copies of the Alkitab:

“It would appear as if the authorities are waging a continuous, surreptitious and systematic programme against Christians in Malaysia to deny them access to the Bible in Bahasa Malaysia.”

We have shown great tolerance despite provocative actions against our faith by the ruling coalition. But when the government desecrated 35,000 copies of our Alkitab which were illegally confiscated, it is our wake up-call to defend our constitutional right to profess, practise and propagate our faith. We have been betrayed by Barisan Nasional.

The incumbent Chief Minster and his cabinet, who have remained in office by our grace for 30 years, have proven to be incapable of defending freedom of religion in Sarawak. They, therefore, cannot expect to enjoy our trust in the coming state elections.

Even Pas, the Islamic Party, is against the position taken by the ruling coalition against the Alkitab and to prohibit bumiputra Christians from using the word Allah to refer to God.

We wish to make it clear that we are not against Islam but only against Barisan Nasional ’anti-Christian’ agenda, particularly the recent desecration of 35,000 copies of our Alkitab. They were unconstitutionally impounded by the Home Ministry.

Barisan’s anti-Christian agenda began when Dr Mahathir Mohamad became prime Minister in July1981 when he banned the Alkitab under a Gazette Order made under the Internal Security Act in 1982.

When Christians objected, he amended it to a “restricted ban” for use only in churches.

Despite this, various consignments of the Alkitab and Bahasa Christian publications were illegally confiscated by the Home Ministry by using the Publications and Printing Presses Act.

The Bup Kudus or Iban Bible was banned in 2003 by Abdullah Ahmad Badawi when he was acting Prime Minister and Internal Security Minister. He relented when faced with Iban anger.

Now under Prime Minister Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia, this harassment against the church and Christians continues unabated leading to the desecration of the 35,000 copies of the Alkitab by stamping it with serial numbers and the words “For Christianity Only.”

We can never agree to this because the Bible is meant for anyone interested. Only criminals are identified by serial numbers.

It is not that we have not compromised for the sake of peace.

We have even gone to the extent to imprint a large crucifix on the cover of Alkitab with the words “Penerbitan Kristian” or “Publication Christian” so that Muslims do not buy or receive the Alkitab by mistake.

The Alkitab and Bahasa Christian publications are now placed under the jurisdiction of the Quranic Text Division of the Home Ministry. The desecration of the Alkitab is done by this division.

The shortage of Alkitab in Sarawak, due to the ongoing illegal confiscation of our Holy Scriptures, has now reached a crisis.

Our children and grandchildren have no access to them since birth.

The evidence before us is that Barisan Nasional is persisting in completely wiping out our Christian Heritage in Sarawak and Sabah by pursuing its unconstitutional and illegal anti-Christian agenda.

Sidang Injil Baru Sarawak, therefore, advises Christians to vote wisely in the coming state elections on 16 April 2011. You do not necessarily have to vote for the Opposition. Vote only for candidates, including those from Barisan Nasional, whom you feel can act with a clear conscience and integrity and a proven record of defending the freedom of religion.

Our Christian heritage is at stake. Act now. Vote wisely. Pray for divine intervention.… time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. (Romans 13:11 NLT).

Kasih karunia dan damai sejahtera menyertai kamu.

Sidang Injil Baru, Sarawak
Sri Aman
30 Mar 2011

We apologise for the error in the introduction that initially attributed this piece to ‘Sidang Injil Borneo’. The letter is actually written by ‘Sidang Injil Baru’, as noted at the end of the piece.

Nationwide prayer rallies for Sarawak begin

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2011/04/06/nationwide-prayer-rallies-for-sarawak-begin/

Stephanie Sta Maria | April 6, 2011

Christians across Malaysia are praying for the freedom to practise their faith as the Sarawak state election kicks off.

KUCHING: Four church networks across East and West Malaysia began a 12-day prayer rally for religious freedom in Sarawak on the eve of nomination day in the state’s 10th election.

The rallies will continue at different churches each night until Sarawakians go to the polls on April 16.

Last night, some 1,000-odd Christians filled the halls of three churches here as the rallies were carried out in English, Bahasa Melayu (BM) and Mandarin respectively.

Dayaks and a smattering of Indians packed the Good News Fellowship (GNF) where the rally was held in BM, while foreigners joined the predominantly Chinese crowd at the English language rally in Calvary Church. The Blessed Church also drew in a big crowd with the prayers conducted in Mandarin.

“The Sarawak network alone has 100 churches,” Pastor Jeff Wei of GNF told FMT.

“We’re not sure how many churches the other three networks have but the numbers are big. And we’re all praying together for a singular purpose.”

Just last month nearly 3,000 Christians came together in Sarawak’s biggest and first prayer rally to focus on religious freedom.

The massive turnout was sparked by the home ministry’s previous insistence that the Al-Kitab (Malay language bibles) be stamped with the words “For Christians Only” and marked with a serial number.

Over the weekend, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Idris Jala, announced a new 10-point formula that dropped all conditions on the use and distribution of the Al-Kitab in Sabah and Sarawak.

Not over yet

The next day, however, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein stated that the 10 points were still open to debate.

“The battle isn’t over yet,” Wei said.

“But many Christians in Sarawak are rejoicing because they are not aware of Hishammuddin’s statement. So we will be updating them during the rallies.”

The chairman of the Kuching Ministers Fellowship (KMF), Daron Tan, agreed: “The Sarawakians Christians see the matter as already resolved without realising that certain key problems were not addressed.”

“One of those is the word ‘Allah’ which is the crux of this matter. So until today we have yet to see a united front from the government where this matter is concerned.”

Despite their impassioned stand both pastors led the rallies in prayer rather than political propaganda.

They focused the sessions on five prayer points – Sarawak, the state election, the incoming government, the people of Sarawak and religious freedom in Sarawak and Malaysia.

“There has been a great awakening among Sarawakians in the past few years and the Christians are no longer concerned only with the after-life,” said Tan.

“They now understand how the state has an impact on religion.”

Taib never ‘heavy-handed’

Pastor Matthew Ling further explained that there has been such a rumbling among the Christians that the church risked becoming irrelevant if it chose to remain silent.

“Christians have begun to ask if the role of the church is to be concerned solely with spiritual issues,” he said.

“Sarawakians in general are a very tolerent society but circumstances have pushed us to speak up now.”

Tan attributed this tolerance to the fact that Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud had always upheld religious freedom in the state.

“Despite whatever that is said of Taib, he has never once been heavy-handed with the Christians,” he said.

“We have always appreciated the state government for that. Our disappointment in Taib is that he bowed to the federal government on this issue.”