Dayak need to Manage Change
Every time the newspaper reported that the government is pulling down and bulldozed Dayak’s long house or farm house it brings two instantaneous reaction; that of anger at the government and a sense of hopelessness to the Dayak community. It started with a Dayak Iban long house of Rh. Nyawin in 2007 in Bintulu and now the most recent case of the Dayak Kenyah farmhouse in Bintulu-Bakun road on 18th July 2008. In between these two dates are many more cases of Dayak dwelling being pulled down in the name of development throughout the length and depth of Sarawak.
What started these happening?
No perception on what is changed
The country is now streamlining many things, including land law to allow for its development through large commercial enterprise. The Dayak are informed but could not understand the dimension of the changes that is happening. In short, the Dayak have no perception of what the change is about and what it looks like.
Self serving political leaders
The elected representative with their personal lack of understanding of the change and their lack of capability to help the Dayak changed, compounded the problem. The focus of serving self interest of their personal family well being by the elected representative and extensive political corruption do nothing to help ordinary rural Dayak folks in making the personal change.
Holding on to old ways
The rural folk remain as they are and held on to their old age wisdom that any unoccupied land belong to them from which they draw rudimentary livelihood. Those community territorial land ( pemakai menoa and temuda) has now been extinguished by the revised land law under BN government.
Political leaders need to go to the ground frequently
Many elected representatives do not dare to tell these rural Dayak of the new changes for fear that they will loss their support in the election. But keeping these rural Dayak in the dark over the matter is not helping either. The elected representative must understand that going to the ground to explain and get feedback from the rural population on government policy and programme is crucial to government success. Many elected representatives are too busy over their business that they depended on feedback provided by their trusted lieutenant in their constituency. This has led to misleading information being fed to the elected representative for reason best known to the respective lieutenants.
Thus a conflict emerged of social dimension perpetuated from the economic objective of the government supposedly for the good of the very people that is suffering for it.
Why do we feel angry at such government Action?
Government should verify land status
There is no necessity for the government to issue “provisional lease” for plantation development or any other development to include Dayak Native Customary Rights land and their “pemaka menoa”. If it is really necessary the government through their land office and Distict office should go to the ground and explain the needs to the rural Dayak. It has been proven such approach has been very successful in meeting the government objective.
Plantation companies are not carrying out their obligation to solve land matters
In most cases, the “companies” that are given provision lease are given “two years” by the authority that is to seek out NCR land within the “provisional lease”. Instead of doing what is required of the companies, they will bring facilitator and promoter to encourage the Dayak to participate in the “development” of their land, through a 30% equity mechanism. Actually, the Dayaks were left with very little choice, the persuasive methods used by the companies includes most things and not limited to political suppression through anti –government labeling and isolation but even clear cut cheat in some cases.
Abuse of power by enforcement agencies
The other approach used is the “eviction order” which will be executed by the relevant authorities akin to dealing with “pendatang haram” and criminals. Enforcement personnel are heavily armed and instead of the soft approach of asking the rural Dayak to dismantle their “structures”, heavy earth moving machineries were used. Even crops were destroyed when it is a known fact that such crops (eg.padi) are only productive for a few months.
Dayak “adat” is not respected
More often then not, many Dayak “adat” were disregards and thus showing gross disrespect to the Dayak community as a whole. For the team that is task to ensure that “structures” are taken down, they are not free to abuse the “adat” at their own free will. If the government do not respect the Dayak “adat” then how would one expect the Dayak to respect the government requirement and notices!
Why do we feel a deep sense of hopelessness?
Limited land title are issued
This is due to the fact that the government continued to put a threat over the Dayak head that all land that is not issued with “Land Title” is deemed to be government land. This provided little security to their life and future. It makes them feel hopeless.
No solution were made available to Dayak
The lack of clear understanding and the dire need of solution on this problem that the Dayak expected from the elected representatives are not forth coming. Many elected representatives chose to ignore the Dayak plea for a clear cut solution at least an explanation.
Government administrative arm are not helpful
The Dayak turn to the government administrative arm for help. Some government servants really want to help. However, the Dayak are always being told by these administrative staffs that they can do little about it as this is BN government policies to develop unused land. Some public servant who are honest, put it to their risk of being “black mark” by their superior if thy are found to have given any form of assistance to these Dayak land owners.
Community leaders are also not helpful
The community leaders, “Penghulu, Pemancha, Temenggong” being political appointees are not helpful either. Many shared their personal concern on the NCR land issues that are not issued with title, but their inclination to keep their appointed post is more of their priorities believing that there is nothing that they can do to help their own community. After all the government has made the decision and they are task with ensuring that they community accept the decision by managing resistance through their personal relation and goodwill within the community.
What should the government do to improve the situation?
Effective process
First, the government should have a clear and effective process to engage the rural Dayak community before a “provisional lease” is released by the authority. This approach will not put the Dayak on the defensive and take away the element of surprise in the development of the land.
Small compensation and left with little option
It is not uncommon to hear a “tuai rumah” or village head to note that his community felt being “rob” off their land. The compensation is very small and they are left with no option but to accept whatever position is given to them. Some who have the will to fight the “provisional lease” are without money as the legal fees are also very expansive and the process take a very long time. The government should not take advantage of the very people that elected them and whom they vowed to help progress and protect.
Revised the land development mechanism
The government mechanism is grossly unfair to the Dayak. The government requires that the Dayak surrender their land rights to a government agency for 60 years before they can participate in the land development. That is an awful long time and is not necessary at all. The development participation is limited to “fruit” production only. The biggest profit come from “palm oil mill” operation and marketing of oil palm products. In the even that the developer sell their plantation to a second party, the land owner do not benefit from the profit gotten from proceed of sales of the plantation. The 30% share given to the Dayak is never defined in “operative” term but a general statement with unspecified or a varieties of formulae. Non of the Dayak participation in land development have yielded satisfactory return of investment while the government continue to deny such truth.
Introduce small holding with full government support
If the government is serious about uplifting the quality of life of rural people the government should increase the income stream for rural Dayak. This means giving them more opportunities through small holding farming of such cash crop as rubber, palm oil and various exportable agricultural produce. With an increase income, the Dayak would be able to meet their aspiration to send their children to school and support a life style approach of more technological investment in their farming. The current land development scheme only promise to make plantation labourers out of dayak earning $15.00 per day.
Dayak need support to achieve tertiary education
The government should continue to support Dayak children by giving them special preference and condition to enter one of the nineteen universities in Malaysia and receive appropriate financial support to complete their education. With an increase rural income, the government may reduce such assistance in due course.
Start Cooperative ventures
Malaysia needed many more Cooperatives to boost the common people participation in business. It is one of the best ways the people can help themselves. The Dayak are very shy of Cooperatives organization because earlier promoter of Cooperative movement has got away with their shareholding money. It would be a big mountain to climb to get the Dayak interested in Cooperative. But the government got to take the lead. It should be in every elected representation “key performance indicator” in the rural areas to form a certain number of Cooperative organization to improve business management and representation to the government for financial aids.
Conclusion
The elected representative must be made to work by their respective political party to serve the people. The attitude of most elected representative now is that they expect the people to serve them. These elected representatives expected the people to treat them like “god”. Some representatives behave like celebrities. The worst elected representatives are those that wasted people time by making them wait despite agreeing to come on a plan schedule. Most elected representatives also felt that announcing “grants’ from their allocation to assist the people is their ultimate duties. It must be noted that community needs and expectation has changed. If the Dayak do not change to adapt to new prevailing environment and the elected representatives are not changing their approach towards their duties, then change will come to them leaving them without a choice.
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4 Responses to “Dayak need to Manage Change”
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Inspirational word from gkm2020
Dr John,
Why are the Dayaks the way they are today? Why is it difficult for Dayak to adapt to changes in the modern world?
The Dayaks have a long history of fearsome warrior lineage and rich in their culture. Given the history, Dayaks should be perceived and seen as the more dominant individual/group in East Malaysia.
So, what has gone wrong with the Dayaks, comparing our forefathers during the Raja Brooke’s era to the modern world today?
In my opinion, the Dayaks couldn’t change because the ability to adapt is low, due to lack of cultural knowledge being passed on from one generation to another generation. For example, does the Dayak young generation has knowledge on:
- the symbolic representations in the Dayak’s culture?
- how to apply the Dayak’s culture in the modern world?
- the meaning of each symbol or rituals in the Dayak’s culture?
What have we passed on to our young generation? Have we missed a lot when we passed on our cultural knowledge?
Change to the Dayaks, seems to have come from external source. But change can’t come from within the Dayak individuals. Why?
Food for thoughts for reasons why the Dayaks demonstrated low capability to adapt and progress. Anyone?
Dear Dr John
As a non-dayak looking at Sarawak issues in the wake of the recent elections to understand more about Sarawak and Sabah, I am astonished to discover some interesting facts. All this while I am under the impression that there are no leaders in the community or that the local government has suppressed these leaders but hey, I discover that for the Dayak community that there are several layers of leaders such as Temenggong, Penghulu, and Pemancha. It looks more like that the so called leaders of the Dayak are selling their own people down the river. So what if these positions are government appointed positions. You are a Dayak and you are representing the Dayak people. In my young days when I read about the warriors from Sarawak who head hunt and what fearsome warriors they are, it is surprising, to say it in a crude way that the Dayaks have no guts and no balls and have effeminate leaders.
I was searching for Blogs about rural government grants and found this site. I am interested in your content and appreciate sites like this.
We should manage how to change the current system esp’ly the NCL-related laws.