DAYAK ISSUES

THE TERM 'DAYAK' MAINTAINED
To some people, the term Dayak may sound synonym to backwardness, and perhaps, Orang ulu also sounds like that too. The races under them are very proud to be grouped or united as such. The terms will not hinder some efforts to bring progresses and development to the people or putting them to the right development stream. Such terms are symbols of ethnicities that they should be proud of.

What should we call our communities then, if we discard the term Dayak, Iban, Orang Ulu, Chinese, Malays, Bumiputra etc etc? Calling them Malaysian is too general, and looks like wiping out their direct entities from the globe. It’s more interesting to have many entities/races/ethnic groups that are united in Malaysia.

By imposing one race is not an ultimate solution to unite its’ citizen. What we can do is, we must respect everyone, Malaysian citizen, support them in term of what they need. There should be no race made superior or special to the other. After all we must enjoy life together in unity of various groups under IMalaysia concept. We look back at the history, it is indeed timely appropriate to group all the native ethnics in Sarawak as Dayak. As well. There are many kind of people in the Chinese race or Indian, Arab, English, Kenyan, etc.


Can Dayaks of Sarawak united?

We have the Sarawak Dayak National Union (SDNU) and yet the dominant ones that seem to outshine are the individual associations representing each of the communities. Today, it appears that it is quite difficult for the union to get financial support and yet so easy for certain association to get financial support from the government. Why? Only the donors know their objectives and motives! The most sad thing to see is that the members of the union are represented by a single race, i.e., Iban. As such, it seems that there is lack of support from other dayaks. I don't know the real reasons but I can guess based on my personal observations. Since all the members are iban, so, it would be like the union is of iban in nature and be for the iban. Yes, there has always been an iban who head and lead the union; therefore, it is not good and can make other dayaks feel envious and that make them simply keeping themselves inactive and away from it. I love to see that all dayak associations would be under one main body,the SDNU, whereby the President be rotated and committee members be reflected by at least different races. And perhaps these members shall be hand-picked from the associations. Whatever matter concerning any of the dayak communities, the Union shall be the one on the forefront who facilitates it for them. The association will only manage up to each community level and then the committee brings the issues to the union which must speak for what it has to speak for the interest of each community. I think, the union should not be a puppet for the political people. This will only destroy the objective and interest of the union in general when the politics is trying to be dominant in the decision-making. All members in the union must not be having any political interest.


NCL can be best protected by government, say Nyallau

In the Borneo Post on Wednesday, Mac 4, 2009, Mr Nyallau said that NCL should remain as they are so that they can be best protected by the government. If these lands are delineated, surveyed and issued titles, there would be high chances that their registered owners will sell them off to the non-bumiputra later on.Personally, I agree with this statement The titled lands are precious and are very tempting for the owners to sell them to the buyers who are willing to pay for the high price demanded. Many NCL near the town had been issued titles and perhaps the records at the Land and Survey has lots to reveal about their status as Mr Nyallau had said. If many NCL are issued with titles, those located near the town will soon be swallowed up by the non-bumiputra who are willing to pay for the good price offered. We have heard some bumiputra had become an instant millionaires after making the deal. The move to lift the status of the NCL is good where in such way if they happened to meet the potential buyers, there will be millionaire instantly; therefore, there will be many millionaire bumiputra as a result of selling their titled NCL in the future.The move to protect NCL in such manner is also much welcome. Many bumiputra people love the instant benefit from selling their land. We do not want bumiputra to lose lands through selling them unscrupulously and in the end the non-bumiputra will get the bigger share of the NCL. The development of the NCL by developer should be best made known to the landowners. There should be no fishy thing happening behind their land issues. There are several instants when the people living in certain river basin were seemed to be caught by surprise that their lands had been alienated to the foreign company for large-scale oil palm plantation. Worst still, those who had made such proposal are the people who do not own the land in that particular basin. They obtained signatures of their relaitives or other people, their friends who do not own the lands and claimed them as the signatures of the real landowner who had agreed for their land to be developed for the scheme. In this manner, they are performing a daylight robbery of the lands of rightful owners. We cannot simply allow the foreign company/body to develop the lands without the consent/agreement of the rightful owners.The NCL would be better developed by the landowner who may form a coperation that comprise members who are landowner in a particular river basin. The river basin shall be perimeter surveyed and assigned under the name of the local coperation in order to be used to apply for loan for developing certain scheme/industry. Or perhaps for other agricultural schemes, the ministry of Agricultural can initiate similar schemes like the rubber scheme in the 60s or 70s where the participation of the farmers/local people is more of direct benefit. I believe the oil palm scheme can be initiated in such manner under the IADP. Those people who want to take advantage of the raw materials can venture into setting up of the facilities that produce the downstream products. It would not be so sincere/genuine intention to allow the third party to develop any scheme and then simply give a return of less than hundred Ringgit per month per person.