Were the Dayak community, who constitute about 50 percent of Sarawak’s population, forcibly handed over by the British colonial government to another master through the formation of Malaysia?

“This is the question often asked by the Dayak, as to whether they have been transferred from one colonial master to another.

“This is natural given the predicament they are today, in after 51 years in the federation of Malaysia,” the Dayak National Congress (DNC) said in a statement yesterday.

The DNC is an influential non-governmental organisation, with its membership made up of retired army and police officers, retired civil servants, businessmen, activists and other like-minded people from the community.

“But it is not an urging for secession. Rather, it is an urging for all of us, the Dayak and non-Dayak, and in particular the Sarawak government, to take the Dayak seriously as equal partners.

“Malaysia, after all would not have come into being had the Dayak said no to the proposal,” the DNC said in a statement signed by its vice-president Dominic R Giah.

The statement was issued as DNC’s reflection in the wake of the 51st anniversary of the formation of Malaysia.

Another often-asked question, DNC said, was whether the Dayak were tricked by the British colonial ruler to join the Sabahans, Malayans and Singaporeans to form the federation of Malaysia with the promise of independence, peace, stability, religious freedom (a secular state), and economic prosperity.

It said: “When the Malaysia proposal was first introduced to the Dayak in 1962, they opposed it. First, the proposal brought to them memories of their bitter experiences under the dominion of the Brunei sultanate and they feared that Malaysia would usher them into a similar situation, with Malay domination.  

“Second, they feared that Malaysia would bring about the Islamisation of Sarawak. Third, they feared that under Malaysia they would be economically exploited by their more advanced counterparts, especially from Malaya and Singapore, and be rendered even more economically disadvantaged.

“In the end, however, they decided to join Sabahans, Singaporeans and Malayans to form the Federation of Malaysia, after they were assured by the British and the Malayan governments that the new arrangement would bring them many new things, including independence and freedom, peace and stability, religious freedom (as a secular state) and economic prosperity."

Now, after 51 years in Malaysia, the NGO asked, what is the status of the people in the community.

“Yes, the formation of Malaysia has brought about the end of the British colonial rule and ushered us into an independent and free nation. But, with the overwhelming political dominance of Umno, and its intolerance of Dayak dissent, even within the BN, the Dayak voice is, more often than not, ignored.

“Religious extremism has gone from bad to worse. After throwing insults at Christians, destroying their churches and confiscating their Bible, there are now even some extremists calling for the murder of the Dayak simply because they consider them as infidels.

“Yet the federal government has not taken any action against these extremist groups, as if condoning their acts of intimidation and violence,” DNC said, and it urged the government to take the necessary action before it (extremism) reaches a critical point.

“On the question of economic prosperity, the Dayak, like other fellow Malaysians, have benefited from Malaysia’s economic development.

“But relative to the other races, they remain at the bottom of the economic scale. They are the poorest. Their areas remained the least developed, many still lacking in basic infrastructure.

“Yet, in spite of this they are being discriminated against in virtually every field: economic opportunities, access to the public universities, access to scholarships and access to the civil service, the police and the military.

“They are bumiputera and are entitled to the privileges that go with it, but in practice they get only the crumbs left by the others.

“With the encroachments into their native customary rights land, by public and private agencies and companies, the spectre of them becoming landless in their own native country is becoming more apparent,” the DNC said.

“All these factors are making them left behind the other races even more. The government’s pronouncement that there are opportunities for everybody under the Malaysian sun appears to be just rhetoric.”