Wednesday February 27, 2008

Ethnic openness a boon and a bane

Ceritalah: By KARIM RASLAN

The racial and religious openness of Sabahans has caused political turbulence and economic mismanagement resulting in shocking levels of poverty but the very same traits were also the essence of their societal strength, which we in the peninsula could learn from.

MOST West Malaysians get totally confused when they try to figure out Sabah politics.

The combination of seemingly indecipherable Kadazan Dusun, Bajau and Suluk names along with the steadfast refusal of the Sabahans to arrange their politics like ours – “I’m Malay, you’re Chinese and he’s Indian: don’t cross the line!” – is just plain confusing.

Because in Sabah, politics is not just about race. Political life across the South China Sea has evolved differently and instead of sneering we should be learning from our brothers and sisters in North Borneo.

Still, in Menggatal, a small nondescript working class town some 22.5km north of Kota Kinabalu, the fascinating roots of the state’s more expansive and relaxed approach to multi-racial living are clear for all to see.

I should add that the town’s name (at least in Malay) also means flirtatious or cheeky.

Menggatal has two rows of pre-War wooden shop houses. Behind the cute architectural gems, there are another 10 or so fairly unruly 1970s vintage concrete three-storey blocks many of which have been half derelict for the past 20 or so years.

However, the booming Sabah west coast economy driven by government-led projects has boosted the town’s fortunes.

The list is impressive: a new port in Sipanggar, the university, developments around the Yayasan Sabah building (there’s even a Tune Hotel in the vast One Borneo commercial development) not to mention the warehouses and factories of nearby Inanam, Sabah’s pre-eminent industrial area.

With a funky buzz all of its own (must be the Kadazan pop music), Menggatal has three billiard parlours crammed with young men watching the green baize, countless coffeeshops and a lively open-air market or tamu though there is not a bank branch as yet.

In this respect, Menggatal’s geographical location has also been very important.

Located 5km to inland – across what would have been in the past an expanse of mangrove swamp, nipah palm groves and small streams and at the foot of the Crocker Range, Menggatal is actually an age-old trading spot or tamu where the animist (and later Christian) Dusuns from the hilly interior exchanged and bartered with Bajau, Indian Muslim and Chinese traders from the coasts.

In the past, the Dusun people would have brought fruits, vegetables, honey and rice to sell, buying in turn fish (from the Bajau fishermen), salt, metal products and even ceramics.

In the predominantly Bajau town of Kota Belud, a still-thriving buffalo-trading market has been taking place under one particularly resplendent banyan tree for many decades.

So with business – however small and humble bringing people together on a daily basis to buy and sell the key essentials of life – rice, vegetables, fish and fruit, the different peoples of the West coast of Sabah have been in constant communication with one another for centuries.

Indeed, it would have been impossible for the different communities – the Bajau fishermen and Dusun farmers – to have survived without these trading networks: sugar from the mountains and salt from the seas.

Interestingly the Dusun ladies, some of whom still chew tobacco whilst sitting alongside their produce – nowadays they sell pak choi and kailan – have a tradition of being fairly independent and strong-willed.

Moreover, they’ve also tended to marry non-Dusun men thereby deepening the intermingling of peoples here in Sabah.

Indeed many prominent Sabahan leaders from the late Tun Fuad Stephens down to the present Chief Minister, Datuk Musa Aman, have or have had Dusun mothers or grandmothers.

In essence these ladies anchored their men – their husbands, sons and grandsons to the land and to the broader Sabahan family regardless of race or religion.

Most Sabahans have family members or relatives from different communities. Sitting down to a family lunch or dinner can be a dizzy multi-cultural journey.

For us in the peninsula, this level of interaction can be intoxicating, entrancing and also baffling.

Still, the things that we can and should learn about and from Sabah go far beyond the sumazau dance and the strong stench of the Rafflesia flower.

The racial and religious openness of the state is a constant rebuke to our narrow-mindedness. We seek to force them – the Sabahans – to be like us not realising the gem they represent in themselves.

Still there is no denying that Sabah has endured political turbulence and economic mismanagement on a heroically incompetent scale resulting in shocking levels of poverty, environmental degradation and backwardness.

However, we have got to remember that money is not everything.

So before we write off Sabahans as country cousins, inelegant and crass in their political gamesmanship, just remember the tamus and the way they’ve infused the different communities with a sense of mutual inter-dependence.

Moreover, as Umno tightens its grip over the ‘Land Below the Wind’ I do hope the party’s Kuala Lumpur-based grandees remember that we can all learn from Sabah.

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