Winning Orang Asli Votes (updated)

Just before the by-election of April 2010 I received an email from the political secretary of one of the candidates asking me for suggestions on how to effectively campaign among the Orang Asli of Ulu Selangor. I was happy to provide an overview of how things stand with my indigenous kinfolk from the perspective of someone free of tribal imprints. The following is extracted from my email response...

Siama anak Penengah (died 2012)

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to delineate the key issues confronting the Orang Asli in general - and the Temuan community of Ulu Selangor in particular.

1. As with all indigenous peoples the most crucial issue is permanency of tenure on their ancestral lands. Without a sense of belonging to their tanah pesaka (customary lands), Orang Asli tend to become dispirited (and seek to numb themselves with spirits out of a bottle). An important case in point is Kampung Pertak, situated within a few kilometers of Gunung Rajah, their sacred mountain which they call Pusat Negeri. In February 1965 the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli and the Selangor state government approved for gazetting as a permanent Orang Asli Reserve close to 300 hectares of forest reserve, stretching from Gunung Rajah to Sungai Luit which flows beside the present Kampung Pertak.

However, in 2004 the Land Office issued 99-year leases on an individual basis to the residents of Kg Pertak, effectively denying their claim to their tanah pesaka, and reducing their land holdings to a tiny fraction of what was promised them 45 years ago. [Dr Colin Nicholas of the Center for Orang Asli Concerns can supply you with the documentation for this.] Other Temuan settlements in Ulu Selangor are faced with different problems: those in Kg Tun Abdul Razak and Gerachi Jaya, for example, have been living in fear of being displaced by developers working in cahoots with the JHEOA and the Land Office. Kg Orang Asli Kolam Air, KKB, still has no electricity supply even though it is located less than half a kilometer from the nearest power line.

Amran @ Kuku

2. The feudalistic and patronizing attitude of the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli (JHEOA) has effectively infantilized the Orang Asli, keeping them timid, intimidated and unsure of their rights. In Kg Pertak, for instance, the Batin doesn't have the authority to convene a majlis (village council) - only the JHEOA can call a meeting in the village. After more than half a century the JHEOA apparently has only three agendas: (i) forcing the Orang Asli to abandon their traditional ways by systematically destroying their forest habitat; (ii) cajoling them and offering them material incentives to embrace Islam; (iii) ensuring that the Orang Asli remain powerless and lacking in self-confidence so that the JHEOA can justify its continued existence.

What the Orang Asli urgently need are representatives in parliament and non-governmental agencies who can articulate their desires, bypassing the heavy-handed, short-sighted and self-serving JHEOA. Sincere and independent NGOs like COAC are underfunded and understaffed - but with regular funding and more staff they can do a far more effective job of bridging the gulf between the Orang Asli and the bureaucracy.

Koi

3. On several occasions I have helped Orang Asli widows, accident cases and the elderly to apply for financial support from the Welfare Department (Pejabat Kebajikan). In every instance I have been disgusted by the snail's pace at which the Welfare Dept staff operate. Sometimes it takes more than six months from the date of application for financial aid to be granted. Such a lackadaisical attitude cannot be tolerated as it can mean the difference between life and death for some Orang Asli.

What is urgently required is a special fund set up for the Orang Asli at the district level which can be used to provide immediate financial aid to those who cannot fend for themselves owing to unforeseen circumstances, e.g., accidents, ill health, old age, loss of family breadwinner. Red tape needs to be minimalized so the Orang Asli are not daunted by the process of requesting aid. This fund can also be utilized to help enterprising Orang Asli set up food stalls or build riverside chalets, so they can learn how to do business on a modest scale and remain their own bosses.

4. Before the construction of the Selangor Dam, a few Temuan from Kg Gerachi and Kg Pertak were earning good money working as river guides with whitewater rafting companies. Regular contact with tourists has made these Temuan conversant to a degree in English and their natural aptitude for the sport has given them a big boost in self-esteem. Unfortunately, the dam has severely impacted on the water level of the river, making whitewater rafting almost impossible. The Temuan river guides have repeatedly sought the cooperation of Splash Sdn Bhd (the dam operator) to release water every time they have rafting clients - but I'm told that Splash has simply ignored their petition. This is one instance where the JHEOA ought to take up their cause and negotiate with Splash, but the Orang Asli have long learnt not to bother asking for help from the JHEOA (whose officers tend to be malas and tidak peduli, unless there's money to be made, as in logging commissions).

Sibin Aus (died 2011)

5. After living among the Temuan since 1992, it has become obvious to me that the Orang Asli would swiftly regain their self-esteem if given the opportunity to excel in what they naturally do with ease, viz., "right-brained" activities like sports and the arts. I doubt the existing school curricula can encourage and foster such talents. What might be effective are informal programs to stimulate and inspire the youngsters on several fronts: (i) helping them access the Internet, thereby improving their language skills and exposing them to a far wider world of possibilities; (ii) providing them access to arts workshops (music, dance, acting, woodcarving, painting, and so on); and (iii) granting scholarships and sponsorships to Orang Asli kids who show promise in athletics and cultural activities.

A viable long-term project would be to fund individuals and NGOs who can set up regular learn-while-you-play programs in various villages to broaden the outlook and increase the knowledge pool among the youth (who tend to get into mischief when they are bored).

Apin

Recently I met a few Temuan in their mid-20s from Bukit Lanjan and other settlements around Selangor who impressed me with their excellent grasp of English and their facility with digital tech (they have their own websites and blogs and have been shooting and editing their own documentaries). At the same time these new generation Temuan displayed great pride in their own mythic traditions and have published books and comics in their own Temuan language.*

These are the way-showers and bridge-builders between the past and the future who will lead their people to a new era of self-respect and self-determination, free from the suffocating clutches of the JHEOA.

Antares
~^@^~

Note: Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli (JHEOA) was renamed Jabatan Kemajuan Orang Asli (JAKOA) in November 2010 - but apart from the change of logo, very little else has (except the disturbing fact that JAKOA appears to be working closely with Jakim to embed Muslim missionaries in every Orang Asli community).

*One of these Temuan youth, Shaq Koyok, has since made a dent in the art world and become a de facto cultural ambassador of the Orang Asli, receiving cultural awards and invitations to visit galleries and meet with other indigenous peoples around the world.

[First posted 29 January 2015, reposted 9 December 2019 & 18 October 2024]

Flesh of the Ancestors (revisited)

On 17 March 2010, forty busloads of Orang Asli descended on Putrajaya to air their grievances directly to the prime minister. They were prevented by police from marching to the PM's office, but their strong showing and vigorous protest made the headlines in Malaysiakini. I am heartened to note that the worm has finally turned and that our indigenous tribes are no longer politically passive. As a tribute to their semangat (fighting spirit), I'm reposting this essay originally published here on 29 January 2007 and reposted 17 March 2010...


I can relate to the French painter Gauguin who took a libidinal shine to the native girls of Tahiti. There is something irresistible about bronze, rubbery, supple, brown skin - and the edenic innocence that flashes in their shy smiles. Pagan eyes that turn prudish at puberty, because their mothers keep yelling "Malu!" ("Shame!") when they skinny-dip with ripening bosoms and pubes. Contact with "civilization" taught them to feel ashamed of their own simplicity, made them into "primitives" living below the poverty line.

And yet, seeing a bunch of Orang Asli kids play like otters in the river is nothing less than a glimpse of paradise. You can't stay cynical or depressed in such an environment. The verdant landscape itself is balm for the eyes, as much as the sparkling waters are a treat for the senses.

The Orang Asli soul is bonded with the land, the living earth, nature itself. In mythic terms they regard their wild habitats as the petrified flesh of their ancestors.

Just as Native Americans once revered the buffalo as a benevolent manifestation of Wakan Tanka (Great Spirit), a parental sacrifice to feed the children, the Temuan view each species of flora and fauna as a gift from heaven, as food, medicine, friend, or shelter.

The younger ones have all but forgotten, born as they were into homes with TV sets bombarding all and sundry with images of a Brave New World, where ancient wisdom and traditional ways are dismissed as irrelevancies or mere superstition. But the older ones know there is no separation between the land and life itself.

To destroy nature is to murder the Life Force that sustains all existence - and therefore it is viewed as the ultimate wrongdoing, akin to forgetting one's roots and turning one's back on all that is considered divine.

Well, that's a very general overview of the Temuan mythos, which applies to just about every indigenous culture you can name - at least the ones that haven't been completely assimilated and subsumed by industrial society. However, admiring their resilience of spirit, their innocence, and their wealth of hand-me-down knowledge is one thing. Living with them at close quarters is quite another. They can certainly drive an essentially middle-class, former urbanite like myself round the bend with exasperation.

There seems to be a testosterone-related problem with the males: as soon as they turn 18, a sullen surliness bordering on xenophobia grips them. The modest wages they earn cutting grass on road verges or gathering bamboo for the Chinese towkays are mostly spent getting totally pissed at the local bar; and then they fall off their motorbikes and the rest of their hard-earned pay goes into repairing them. If they happen to be married with kids, their wives quickly turn into nags - because it's not uncommon that their husbands will stagger home late at night stinking of cheap plonk, without any food for the family. Apparently, this happens wherever indigenous "dreamtime" cultures collide with industrial "machinetime" societies. Anthropologists generally agree that the trauma of "culture shock" so disorientates the tribal folk they become dispirited - and therefore attempt to regain their spirits by imbibing vast amounts of the bottled variety.


But as long as our tribal folk have the forest to return to, they have a chance of eventually regaining their psychic equilibrium. My chief contractor on the Bamboo Palace project, Yam Kokok, really enjoyed the process of gathering about 3,000 bertam leaves to weave into roofing material for Anoora's hut. First he built a cozy lean-to while his wife began lining bamboo tubes with fragrant leaves, before stuffing them with rice to boil on a woodfire. The widow Lumoh had packed some salted fish and bottles of clear spring water. They were all set for a long day's work, cutting the thorny bertam leaves and carefully weaving them into attap. Yam Kokok's grandson and nephews all came along to help and I could see that the six days they spent "camping out" in the forest reminded them of the good old days - even though every evening I'd pick them up in my van and chauffeur them back to the village and some home comforts.

The forest is the Orang Asli's briar patch; their racial memory of being sustained by Mother Nature goes back thousands of generations. Chop down the trees and replant the land with cash crops like rubber and oil palm - and the Orang Asli become rootless, disconnected from their own past, insecure about their future and therefore apathetic.

True, some of the younger generation have adapted quite well to video games and factory jobs; a handful of Semai and Semelai have even made it all the way through university, and have become academics and doctors.

A year ago or so I was contacted by three enterprising young Temuans with university degrees. They told me they had stumbled upon my website back in 2003, but waited till they were fluent in English to send me an email! One of them, Shahar Koyok, is a fine arts graduate who's beginning to make his mark in the local art scene; another, Mor Ajani, graduated in multimedia design and maintains a Temuan blog. What deeply gratified me was their passionate interest and pride in their own mythic roots.

It's easy to demonize the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli (Aboriginal Affairs Department) but it's really just a case of horribly misaligned worldviews. JHEOA officers, mostly urbanized Malays, scorn their own humble ancestry and sincerely believe they can persuade the Orang Asli to join the mainstream Malay community. Their strategy is two-pronged: first, systematically convert the jungle into plantations, so the Orang Asli can't hide in the past; and then convert these diehard animists into pious little Muslims.

I've long advocated that the JHEOA (instituted in 1954 during the Emergency years) be dismantled, as it serves little real purpose today except to breed the most loathsome varieties of bureaucratic ineptitude and corruption.

Think about it: how would you like being treated as a minor all your life and have some government agency manage your affairs as if you were severely retarded? If everybody else who enjoys Malaysian citizenship is free to live without an official guardian, why must our first peoples endure such an ignominy?

The argument that Orang Asli need a "protector" because they are still largely illiterate and can't cope with the demands of the modern world is a totally spurious one. First of all, after more than fifty years under the JHEOA's thumb, the Orang Asli have gained little ground in mastering left-brained activities like learning to manipulate alphanumeric symbols. The question is: why not capitalize on their strengths instead?

Most Orang Asli are physically agile, imaginative, fun-loving, and possess incredible stamina: in areas like sports and the arts, they would certainly be champs. Well, some descendants of African slaves in America have made their mark as athletes, musicians, actors, and dancers: would you think of Charlie Mingus, Michael Jordan, B.B. King, Eddie Murphy, Tina Turner, Ludacris, or Will and Jada Pinkett Smith as handicapped or backward?

What keeps the Orang Asli insulated from the outside world is the Jabatan Orang Asli's feudal mentality. That and the noxious effects of a patriarchal bias the Orang Asli got infected with along the way. Traditionally, the menfolk have been the hunters and womenfolk, the gatherers and nurturers.

In Kampung Pertak, there are quite a few unmarried mothers - girls of 17 who got knocked up after some smooth-talking fellow handed them a Guinness at an all-night wedding party. With so many kids bawling and crawling around the house, 12-year-old girls are often forced to look after their younger siblings while both parents are out working. By the time they reach 15 or 16, many end up as mothers themselves, which gives them little time or opportunity to grow mentally. So we have generation after generation of Orang Asli kids raised by completely ignorant mothers with little on their minds apart from neighborhood gossip and a bleak view of marital life.

All this would change if teenaged dating was accepted as something perfectly natural. When I first asked my mother-in-law if I could take Anoora down to town and buy her a meal, I was told we would have to be engaged before she would allow it. In other words, the relationship between men and women is always a sexual one; post-pubescent boys and girls simply cannot be friends and go out together. They end up getting married very young, prompted by hormonal surges, and never really have the chance to interact with a variety of friends, of different ages and genders, and therefore lack the means of acquiring communication skills and a broader perspective on things.

Most families in the past slept together in one large room with no partitions - or only very thin ones, at best. Obviously, sex was something carried out under cover of darkness, furtively, quietly (so as not to wake the kids), almost involuntarily - and never became an artform, or developed any degree of kinkiness, as it has in the cities.

I witnessed what happened when a young friend of mixed parentage from the big city started dating a village beauty from Pertak. On their very first secret rendezvous, she had asked if he was going to marry her (that's what he reported). Soon, the whole village was bristling with resentment at the urban Romeo. Even little children, no more than 8 or 9 years old, would taunt him as he drove past; the men in the village became more and more hostile, sabotaging his vehicle wherever he parked it, glaring at him with hands on their parangs. Posses of grandmothers and babes-in-arm would confront him at his rented lodgings in the village, demanding to know where he was hiding the girl. They gave him no peace until he buckled under the pressure and married the girl in a tribal ceremony.

Now the girl in question has had several lovers, and at 18 gave birth unexpectedly to a baby girl while trying to move her bowels, thinking it was one huge stomach upset she was experiencing. As to be expected, she's a lot more savvy and sophisticated than the other girls in the village. She could certainly learn to cope with life in the city, and has actually expressed a desire to someday get a job in KL.

Now, is there any correlation between an active sex life and intellectual curiosity? Remember that biblical myth about the forbidden fruit? Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll (or hip-hop or techno-rave, if you prefer) are definitely evolutionary triggers - that's why the patriarchy everywhere is so determined to outlaw them. What would happen to the Orang Asli if their youth got into sex, drugs and rock'n'roll in a big way?

Soon, they'd become pretty much the same as you and me, don't you think? And maybe that will prompt cityfolks to adopt more of the Orang Asli lifestyle - to reconnect with the earth, with Mother Nature, fresh air and sunshine. Sort of a cultural exchange: they become more experienced like us, and we become more innocent like them. Perhaps that's how things will ultimately balance out, and paradise will be regained on earth.

------
Recommended reading:

Proposed Orang Asli land policy: Planned poverty? [Aliran]

[First posted 24 May 2014]

Orang Asli turned into temporary leaseholders on their own ancestral lands!

As some of you may know I married Anoora Chapek, a Temuan lady, almost 18 years ago. Her tribe, second largest in the Malayan peninsula, once roamed the whole of Selangor, Negri Sembilan and parts of Pahang.

In 1999 the Temuan population was estimated at 18,560. I'm not aware if there is a current census, but I know there are fewer than 170 of them in Kampong Pertak, where I have resided since 2002 when a new settlement was constructed by Gamuda to relocate the villagers for the Selangor Dam project.

Note how Anoora (assigned the name Noorhayati binti Chapek by some
Jabatan Orang Asli officer, and later shortened to Noor) has been given a Muslim
identity through the insertion of "binti" instead of "anak" before her father's name.

In 2004 each household received a grant from the Land Office entitling the house owner to a 99-year lease on the 1,101 square meters where their homes stood - plus an additional 0.3 hectare for general use, also on a 99-year temporary lease. In total each householder was required to pay RM70 per year towards the lease.

During the negotiations for the resettlement of the Temuan in connection with the Selangor Dam project, the Orang Asli of Pertak were promised freehold titles to their land. Nothing was said about the 282 hectares of ancestral lands "approved for gazetting" in February 1965. They had waited nearly 40 years for their tanah pusaka to be formally gazetted as an Orang Asli permanent reserve. This did not happen. Instead, the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli (now renamed Jabatan Kemajuan Orang Asli) conspired with the Land Office to turn the Orang Asli into 99-year leaseholders on their own ancestral lands.

This entitles my wife to 0.3 hectare of agricultural land on a 99-year lease
whose exact location has never been made known to anyone in the village.

When I read the grant and realized what was happening, I had a long chat with the Tok Batin of Pertak, Bida Chik, who expressed profound anger and distress at being compelled to pay rent to occupy their own ancestral lands. He felt it was a barefaced insult for Orang Asli to be labeled "leaseholders" on lands their ancestors had inhabited for countless generations. Nobody knows exactly how long the Temuan tribe has been around - but many Orang Asli tribes can lay claim to having lived in the Malayan Peninsula for up to 40,000 years - possibly much more.

Batin Bida Chik

I asked Bida Chik if he was prepared to file a class action against the state government for trampling on their inherent right to continue inhabiting their ancestral lands ad infinitum. He balked at the idea at having to take legal action on his own. At the time he was confronted with a renegade faction of pro-BN villagers who were directly under the influence of the Jabatan Orang Asli and who made a point of ignoring or deriding Bida Chik's authority as Batin (headman).

"So far we have not been asked to pay a single cent," Bida noted. "The day they start demanding money, we will consider our legal options." That was more than 8 years ago. Householders in Kampong Pertak received bills from the Land Office about a week ago. The bills are for five years of assessment, 2008-2012. As far as I know, nobody was billed for the preceding years. Perhaps, as a small concession, the Orang asli were given a brief respite of four years.

One bill for the lease of 1,101 square meters of residential land amounts to RM462.90. The other is for RM45 towards the lease of 0.3 hectare of agricultural land - the exact location of which has never been made clear to anyone in the village. Not even the headman knows where his 0.3 hectare is supposed to be. The Orang Asli - or at least the Temuan of Pertak - have never been keen on farming and their present crop of rubber trees was planted for them in the mid-1960s by RISDA (Rubber Industry Smallholders Development Authority). Together the bills total RM507.90 (with a RM32.30 rebate offered for early payment).

Pic by Peter Walker

Some Temuan households are relatively well-off - especially immediately after a bumper harvest of durians. Many can afford a monthly subscription to Astro. A small handful even own cars and vans and almost every household has a motorcycle plus a couple of handphones. However, income levels are extremely uneven and we also have widows and elderly folk who depend on financial help from relatives - and a meager RM300 monthly welfare cheque from the Welfare Department.

My nextdoor neighbor Nuak @ Shima, for instance, is a mother of three tiny tots whose ages range from 2 to 5 years. Her Indonesian-born husband, Azman Izhak, was diagnosed with colon cancer last year and now has to commute between home and the Sungai Buloh hospital two hours away. He has been unable to work for more than a full year. He applied for welfare assistance many months ago - but the last time I asked, not a cent had been forthcoming.

In effect, some Orang Asli households will have little trouble forking out RM507.90 for five years' lease - while others will find the amount a staggering, if not impossible, burden.

As a former urbanite accustomed to paying rent, being asked to pay RM70 a year for the privilege of living in Kampong Pertak is hardly worth complaining about, as far as I'm concerned. That's the same amount I fork out for my annual road tax.

However, it's against all principles of fair play and justice for an already marginalized community to be turned by legislative sleight-of-hand into temporary leaseholders on lands they can lay claim to for literally hundreds, if not thousands of generations.

Last week I had another discussion with Batin Bida Chik about this issue. He was of the opinion that none of the villagers would wish to pay lease for what they perceive to be their own ancestral lands - even if they could afford it. They regard it as humiliating, insulting and a clear attempt to deprive them of their ancestral lands. He asked if I could bring the matter to public attention - and hopefully solicit the assistance of the Bar Council or any human rights lawyers to take the matter to court. And this is precisely what I am doing. If anybody reading this can help, kindly get in touch via email. Thank you.