Many natives of Sabah and Sarawak have long complained, in increasingly shrill if not exasperated voices over the years, that the federal government relegates them to the dubious category of 'lain-lain' (others) in official forms.

They are categorised alongside three other officially-recognised groups - Melayu, Cina and India (for Indian sub-continentals except for Sri Lankans who are also 'lain-lain').

sabah “Actually, this is a sore point with the people of Sabah (and Sarawak) who long for fairness and impartiality in the country’s administration,” goes a typical complaint in Malaysian Borneo voiced by Sabah deputy speaker Johnny Mositun in the wake of the Najib line-up.

“Hopefully, with the change in the country’s leadership, the situation will be corrected.”

The “lain-lain” misnomer for natives in Malaysian Borneo was in fact noted almost immediately after formation of Malaysia in 1963 and nearly a half century later, many Sabahans and Sarawakians are still futilely pleading their cause with the ever slowly grinding wheels of bureaucracy in Putrajaya.

Now, they want this “humiliation” halted immediately by the officials of 'babudom' (the government bureaucracy) and they be moved out from the “lain-lain” category, expeditiously and in many cases posthumously, “in accordance with the Federal Constitution and the state constitutions of Sabah and Sarawak”.

In the “lain-lain” category, besides the Ceylonese or Jaffna Tamil/Sinhalese of Sri Lanka, they have the Orang Siam, Baba Nonya, Melaka Chitty, Portuguese, Eurasian/Serani, Dutch Burgher or Indos, and Anglo-Indian, among others – a microcosm of the British Empire - for company.

However, the idea of graduating out from the “lain-lain” category appears hopelessly fraught with difficulties of their own making just as the re-current and on-going polemics in Sabah, for example, on who is a native and what is the right umbrella term for natives.

More than 30 ethnic groups in Sabah

PBS (Parti Bersatu Sabah) which took an official stand on the “lain-lain” matter on Thursday this week, and promptly stirred a hornet’s nest, henceforth wants the ethnic races of Sabah to be recognised as “Sabah Bumiputera” - a fifth category of sorts, in re-designed federal government forms alongside the Melayu, Cina, India and “lain-lain” .

However, the party does not want the “Sabah Bumiputera” to be fifth in the order of mention, certainly at least second, or placed alongside the Melayu as Melayu/Sabah Bumiputera/Sarawak Bumiputera.

“It is high time that Bumiputeras in Sabah and Sarawak are recognised as clusters of major races in Malaysia,” said Mositun, who is also PBS chief information officer, taking up the cudgels on behalf of the Other Malaysia outside the Malay, Chinese, Indian, Others mindset of the Federal Government since Merdeka.

“There are more than 30 ethnic groups in Sabah alone. This includes the Kadazandusun (disputed as an ethnic umbrella term), Murut, Rungus, Bajau and others but it would suffice if the cluster is known as Sabah Bumiputera and not as Others.”

Mositun was stating his party’s official stand on the matter when asked for his views by the local media on the One Malaysia concept being promoted by newly-promoted Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak who assumed his new post in a slow-motion game of musical chairs last week.

“No! No! No!,” screams Kadazan Sabah Society (KSS or Sinompuuvan Kadazan Sabah) deputy president, Sylvester J Disimon, who appears dead-set against the indigenous people of Malaysian Borneo being classified “merely” as Bumiputera in official forms.

His main objections are that the term native is stronger and legally binding “unlike the term Bumiputera which has no standing (legal) and is not even mentioned in the Federal and Sabah/Sarawak constitutions”.

Bumiputera is an economic designation

Disimon skipped the “sensitive” aspects of the term Bumiputera but privately many KSS members pointed out that it “logically embraces Malaysians of Indian, Chinese and other non-indigenous origin, the forgotten sons of the soil”.

“I am appalled by the proposal to categorise the ethnic races of Sabah to be known as such (Sabah Bumiputera) when the term Bumiputera is not a racial (ethnic) definition at all,” said Disimon.

“Let’s first get this point right. The term Bumiputera is an economic designation/description for those given special affirmative action under the New Economic Policy.

"It was never intended to be a description for race but rather to differentiate from those not accorded any affirmative action rights.”

Disimon added that his body’s objection also extends to the recent reference to the natives of Sabah as Bumiputera Minority (as against the Bumiputera Majority) by Upko (United Pasok Momogun Kadazandusun Murut Organisation) president Bernard Giluk Dompok or the non-Muslim Bumiputera/Muslim Bumiputera classification used by some government departments in Sabah.

“We are all natives of Sabah and equal under the Bumiputera category,” said Disimon. “This (non-Muslim/Muslim) is a creation of unscrupulous politicians to gain from such divisions and categorisation.”

Disimon queries why the natives of Sabah, or the natives for Sarawak for that matter, must describe themselves as Bumiputera in official forms when the Malays themselves, another Bumiputera group, avoids this label like the plague in official documentation.

In putting forward the suggestion that the indigenous races of Sabah and Sarawak just confine themselves to the “Native of Sabah” and “Native of Sarawak” description in official forms, Disimon points out that in the case of Sabah, this practice would be covered by the Interpretation (Definition of Native) Ordinance Cap 64 in the state constitution.

Also, Article 160 (20)(b) of the Federal Constitution on the definition of “Malay” and “aborigine” and Article 161A (6)(b) on definition of the term “Native” refers.

The term Kadazandusun should not be used at all

“We will only isolate and demonise ourselves should the term Sabah Bumiputera be considered as the description in federal government affairs and forms,” warns Disimon.

”If the forms have enough space, I would love to see people being allowed to indicate whether they are Kadazan, Dusun, etc. The term Kadazandusun should not be used at all since it’s not recognised as an ethnic term and is not in the Native Act.”

Critics of Disimon’s reference to the Native Act point out that a 1975 amendment by then Chief Minister Mustapha Datu Harun opened the floodgates and gave a wider, and therefore unacceptable, definition for Sabah native to include the natives of the southern Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaya, besides Sarawak and Brunei, accommodating those “whose stay in Sabah is not limited under any of the provisions of the Immigration Act 1959/63”.

Chief Minister Harris Salleh of the Berjaya, who replaced Mustapha, coined the term Peribumi to include the “new Natives” recognised by the 1975 amendment and was removed from power by PBS in 1985 under Joseph Pairin Kitingan.

If the use of the term native is a problem, Disimon suggests that the federal government forms be re-designed to allow for only the following four categories i.e. Bumiputera, Cina, India and Lain-Lain.

This means dropping the term Melayu, something which may be unacceptable to the community which has embraced the idea of Malay nationalism since the late 1800s after the British colonialists used Malay as an umbrella term to include migrants from the Indonesian islands.

Again, the term Bumiputera raises the “sensitive” matter of Malaysians of Indian, Chinese and other origins who consider themselves as “sons of the soil”, point out KSS insiders.

Former Berjaya minister and presently executive chairman of the New Sabah Times , Ayub Aman, still thinks that within the context of Sabah, the term Pasok (original son of the soil) would cover the natives of Sabah while the others can categorise themselves as Momogun (outsiders living in the land of the Pasok).