'Nyabung manok' in Batang Ai

The bushfire of by-elections has finally arrived at the shores of my home state Sarawak. It will threaten to burn all the way to the Iban heartland of Batang Ai under the shadow of the mountains that separate Sarawak from the Indonesian territory of Kalimantan on Borneo Island.

The Batang Ai river system has often been described as the Ibans' ancestral home. When the Ibans followed upstream the Kapuas River on the Indonesian side, climbed over the mountain range, the Batang Ai territory was the first place they settled down God knows how many centuries ago, before they moved throughout all other parts of Sarawak.

The Iban language is quite universal in the Land of the Hornbill, although there are peculiar differences in certain words and manners of pronunciation.

It is often said that the Iban tongue spoken by the Ibans from Batang Ai and Sri Aman is till the most refined language of their people. Naturally, the Ibans in the Rejang Basin may respectfully beg to differ.

And now, national attention may yet focus on this remote hilly corner of Malaysia, where people still live by tilling their land, and hunt for whatever there is left in the jungle after logging for many years.

I am not sure if the local residents can find fish in the river nowadays.

Driving from Kuching City, especially in a solid four-wheel drive, you can reach Batang Ai overland through some spectacular scenery in three and a half hours.

Somewhere along the way, you will pass the Batang Ai Hydroelectric Dam; the resettlement of the local Iban villagers in the 1980s had been far from a complete success, a lesson that should be, but has not been, learned by all dam related resettlement projects.

War drums will beat

By the man-made lake behind the dam, there is the Hilton resort, which I am told, is built like a longhouse.

I have never been a guest there because of the prohibitive high room rates. Tourists can make trips in the evening from the hotel ( right ) to nearby Iban longhouses to enjoy partaking in the local way of life. That is what I call a tourist trap.

If my aging memory serves me right, the last town as you drive inland is the two-horse Lubok Antu town, with dilapidated shops over-looking the limpid river. I am told that beyond that point, communication and transport becomes difficult.

And now the sedate and tranquillity of the ulu landscape in Batang Ai will be disturbed by the war drums of a by-election within 60 days.

The state seat of Batang Ai has been declared vacant following the death of the incumbent Dublin Unting.

I have known Unting personally since the 80s, and during this period of mourning by his family and friends, I will not indulge in any comment on his success and failure during his political career out of respect. This is our Sarawak 'adat'.

Unting fell into coma about nine months ago, following a surgery to remove a blood clot in his brain after a stroke. The Sarawak PKR people have known the prospect of a by-election for a long time. I hear they have held more than a few workshops in the Sri Aman area, and the party structure has been in place at the grassroots level.

Even Anwar Ibrahim went to visit a longhouse in the constituency once. He would have a rough idea of what the party is up against in the forthcoming by-election.

Some have suggested that the polling day in Batang Ai would be fixed on April 7, on the same polling day as Bukit Gantang in Perak, and Bukit Selambau in Kedah.

This move, they suggest, would prevent the Peninsular PKR army of campaigners from descending en masse on the small constituency of Batang Ai. Such is how little confidence some members of the public have in the impartiality of the Election Commission.

Must know Iban tongue

Again, I repeat myself. Politically, as well as socially and culturally, Sarawak is a different universe altogether from this side of the South China Sea.

Ibans make up 95 percent of the voters in Batang Ai. Those in the longhouses probably never read newspapers, and I am not sure there are that many longhouses that would enjoy electricity supply to allow them watch television. I am not sure that there are that many remote longhouses that have TV broadcast coverage.

Most of them would still depend very much on word of mouth and the government controlled radio Iban service for news of the outside world. Political campaign would be best done face to face.

PKR top guns may need to be paraded through the common corridors of the longhouse ruai to spearhead the PKR message in simple bazaar Malay.

But unless the PKR army of by-election campaigners from West Malaysia are well versed in the Iban tongue, there is not much for them to do, except perhaps to take in the spectacular sight and the unimaginable hospitality of the Iban villagers!

Alternatively, selected teams of campaign workers from West Malaysia can tag along with their local PKR members in the Batang Ai by-election. It is a rare opportunity for them to learn about political campaign in Sarawak, in preparation for the next state election due in 2011.

What they can do is to raise as much campaign funds as is possible for the Sarawak PKR team.

I am told that beyond and upriver from Lubok Antu, the communication and transport problem is quite horrendous. Ferrying workers and voters by river can be really costly.

The three Ms of Sarawak rural politics are forever Money, Money, and more Money.

Sarawak is already abuzz with who would be the two fighting cocks that would represent the two contesting parties.

Cock fights ( Nyabung manok in Iban), legal and illegal, are very popular with the Ibans, and the terminology used for cock fights is very central to the political language of rural Sarawak.

Personally, I will prefer Nicholas Bawin to be the PKR fighting cock in Batang Ai. He lost to Unting by merely 806 votes. He was contesting under the banner of the opposition Sarawak National Party (Snap), and should be low on funds and campaign workers.

His access to voters in remote parts of his constituency would have been limited. His narrow loss to the late Unting despite this overwhelming disadvantage speaks loud volume for the presence of his many relatives and followers in this constituency.

Good advice from blogger

This time around, contesting as a candidate of the resource-rich PKR, Bawin can do only better than the last round. The Ibans there have long suffered from the threat to their NCR land tenure to logging and plantation companies, so this by-election is a golden opportunity for the poor villagers to show their displeasure.

A Sarawak blogger by the name of Sarawak Head-hunter in his latest posting entitled 'Corrosion of BN among Ibans in Batang Ai,' has this advice to offer to the PKR:

"Prediction by Sarawak Headhunter: If Nicholas Bawin is the PKR candidate, he will win by a 1,200 vote majority with between 75-80% voter turnout. PKR must ensure that they control logistics on the ground and on the rivers.

"Make sure that they have enough transport both by land and river to campaign and ferry voters - if possible deny the BN the use of all local transport, book them all NOW and ensure enough local stocks of fuel at strategic locations. Book all fuel pumping stations if necessary. If PKR has one or two helicopters it will help greatly to ensure a bigger win.

"PKR please take note, the people of Sarawak (and that includes the rakyat of the Batang Ai constituency) DO NOT want to hear what Taib has done to them, they already know this. What they want to hear is what PKR can do for then."

That is sound advice, especially that reminder about booking all facilities for transportation. The PKR national and Sarawak leadership should adopt the blogger's recommendation, like yesterday. Such small details decide victory or defeat in rural Sarawak during any election.

As for me, the Batang Ai by-election is a good accession for me to introduce my readers and friends to the unique and beautiful world in my home state.

---

SIM KWANG YANG was MP for Bandar Kuching in Sarawak from 1982 to 1995. He can be reached at kenyalang578@hotmail.com.