There was a simple dignity in the May 24 defiant protest of 13 Penan
village representatives from upper Baram, visiting the state assembly to
push for a Penan Peace Park.
The Penan Peace Park is similar to a 'Biosphere Reserve', promised the Penan by Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud in 1993, even as Taib kept sending in the logging trucks and bulldozers.
Taib's promise was never kept, to no-one's surprise.
The
gentle Penan leaders had invited all 71 state assembly representatives
to hear their plan for an area protected from logging and other
incursions.
The Penan chiefs proposed an ecologically conserved Penan Peace Park covering 1,628 square kilometres.
All 15 DAP and PKR members showed up to the presentation to support the Penan proposal, but not a single BN member replied to the invitation.
There was also dignity in the restrained joy shown by villagers from Sebangan, Sebuyau, this week, when the High Court awarded a land rights victory to them over the state government.
Taib's administration had allowed Quality Concrete, partly owned by Taib's sister Radziah @ Roziah, a 'provisional licence' to log on native customary rights land.
When local native landowners protested, the 'Sebangan Seven' were jailed, and then released without charge, as a form of intimidation.
There was also courage and dignity on display, when native representatives from 13 different villages in middle Baram met in Long San, to sign a joint letter of protest against the Baram Dam.
After months of promising that the Baram Dam was merely a proposal, and after insisting it had been shelved pending public consultation, the state government announced that local communities would be uprooted to somewhere in the highlands of Usun Apau.
Desperate times, desperate measures
In contrast, there was conspicuously less dignity in the desperate measures taken by Lawas MP Henry Sum Agung to defend his seat in the upcoming general election.
On May 9, the Borneo Post reported that the MP had urged the (mainly Christian) Lun Bawang majority in his constituency to vote for the BN, because "the Lun Bawang must uphold their integrity and not act as ‘Judas' of BN (sic) which had contributed much to their well-being".
Henry Sum Agong's comparison of the BN to Jesus triggered a furious reaction.
Baru Bian, PKR state assemblyperson for Ba'kelalan and a Lun Bawang from Lawas, called Henry Sum's remark "ludicrous, if not blasphemous".
Baru Bian (right)
has long campaigned for decent public services in Lawas. Local
villagers languish without paved roads, treated water or electricity, in
most parts of this vast division.
"I humbly urge not only the Lun Bawangs in Lawas or Sarawakians in Limbang, but all Malaysians, to remember it was not that we the rakyat betrayed the BN government, instead the BN government that had betrayed and short-changed the rakyat for the last 50 years", he said in a press statement.
The Archbishops of the Catholic and Anglican churches in Sarawak, the two largest congregations of Christians, did not respond to requests for comments on the 'Judas' quote.
If Henry Sum Agong is relying on divine intervention to retain his parliamentary seat, he may be disappointed.
Looking to divine intervention
Politics does not divide neatly into good and evil - there are shades of grey. Demonising opponents does not advance political debate.
Many Malaysian Christians insist that religion must be left out of politics completely, quoting the biblical exhortation to "render unto Caesar the things that belong to Caesar; render unto God those things that belong to God".
But most do not understand that all that belong to Caesar also belong to God.
As Mahatma Gandhi said, "those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is." Demagogues have tried, throughout history, to manipulate God to stay in power.
As geneticist Johnjoe McFadden described in the British newspaper The Guardian, a study published by Lee Ross and his Stanford University colleagues in March found that the image of Jesus held among left-leaning or liberal Christian Americans bears little resemblance to that imagined by Christian conservatives.
"The researchers asked respondents to imagine what Jesus would have thought about contemporary issues such as taxation, immigration, same-sex marriage and abortion," McFadden wrote.
"Perha
ps
not surprisingly, Christian Republicans imagined a Jesus who tended to
be against wealth redistribution, illegal immigrants, abortion and
same-sex marriage; whereas the Jesus of Democrat-voting Christians would
have had far more liberal opinions.
The Bible may claim that God created man in his own image, but the study suggests man creates God in his own image."
Henry Sum Agong has certainly attempted to have himself and his party cast in the divine image.
But the BN's ban of the word "Allah" in Christian worship, and the confiscation of Bibles in Malay, have caused widespread disquiet among Christian Sarawakians.
Henry Sum Agong's 'Judas' rhetoric has caused more unhappiness, and his chances of retaining his Lawas parliamentary seat remain decidedly shaky.
KERUAH USIT is a human rights activist - ‘anak Sarawak, bangsa Malaysia’. This weekly column is an effort to provide a voice for marginalised Malaysians. Keruah Usit can be contacted at keruah_usit@yahoo.com
The Penan Peace Park is similar to a 'Biosphere Reserve', promised the Penan by Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud in 1993, even as Taib kept sending in the logging trucks and bulldozers.
Taib's promise was never kept, to no-one's surprise.
The
gentle Penan leaders had invited all 71 state assembly representatives
to hear their plan for an area protected from logging and other
incursions.The Penan chiefs proposed an ecologically conserved Penan Peace Park covering 1,628 square kilometres.
All 15 DAP and PKR members showed up to the presentation to support the Penan proposal, but not a single BN member replied to the invitation.
There was also dignity in the restrained joy shown by villagers from Sebangan, Sebuyau, this week, when the High Court awarded a land rights victory to them over the state government.
Taib's administration had allowed Quality Concrete, partly owned by Taib's sister Radziah @ Roziah, a 'provisional licence' to log on native customary rights land.
When local native landowners protested, the 'Sebangan Seven' were jailed, and then released without charge, as a form of intimidation.
There was also courage and dignity on display, when native representatives from 13 different villages in middle Baram met in Long San, to sign a joint letter of protest against the Baram Dam.
After months of promising that the Baram Dam was merely a proposal, and after insisting it had been shelved pending public consultation, the state government announced that local communities would be uprooted to somewhere in the highlands of Usun Apau.
Desperate times, desperate measures
In contrast, there was conspicuously less dignity in the desperate measures taken by Lawas MP Henry Sum Agung to defend his seat in the upcoming general election.
On May 9, the Borneo Post reported that the MP had urged the (mainly Christian) Lun Bawang majority in his constituency to vote for the BN, because "the Lun Bawang must uphold their integrity and not act as ‘Judas' of BN (sic) which had contributed much to their well-being".
Henry Sum Agong's comparison of the BN to Jesus triggered a furious reaction.
Baru Bian, PKR state assemblyperson for Ba'kelalan and a Lun Bawang from Lawas, called Henry Sum's remark "ludicrous, if not blasphemous".
Baru Bian (right)
has long campaigned for decent public services in Lawas. Local
villagers languish without paved roads, treated water or electricity, in
most parts of this vast division."I humbly urge not only the Lun Bawangs in Lawas or Sarawakians in Limbang, but all Malaysians, to remember it was not that we the rakyat betrayed the BN government, instead the BN government that had betrayed and short-changed the rakyat for the last 50 years", he said in a press statement.
The Archbishops of the Catholic and Anglican churches in Sarawak, the two largest congregations of Christians, did not respond to requests for comments on the 'Judas' quote.
If Henry Sum Agong is relying on divine intervention to retain his parliamentary seat, he may be disappointed.
Looking to divine intervention
Politics does not divide neatly into good and evil - there are shades of grey. Demonising opponents does not advance political debate.
Many Malaysian Christians insist that religion must be left out of politics completely, quoting the biblical exhortation to "render unto Caesar the things that belong to Caesar; render unto God those things that belong to God".
But most do not understand that all that belong to Caesar also belong to God.
As Mahatma Gandhi said, "those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is." Demagogues have tried, throughout history, to manipulate God to stay in power.
As geneticist Johnjoe McFadden described in the British newspaper The Guardian, a study published by Lee Ross and his Stanford University colleagues in March found that the image of Jesus held among left-leaning or liberal Christian Americans bears little resemblance to that imagined by Christian conservatives.
"The researchers asked respondents to imagine what Jesus would have thought about contemporary issues such as taxation, immigration, same-sex marriage and abortion," McFadden wrote.
"Perha
ps
not surprisingly, Christian Republicans imagined a Jesus who tended to
be against wealth redistribution, illegal immigrants, abortion and
same-sex marriage; whereas the Jesus of Democrat-voting Christians would
have had far more liberal opinions.The Bible may claim that God created man in his own image, but the study suggests man creates God in his own image."
Henry Sum Agong has certainly attempted to have himself and his party cast in the divine image.
But the BN's ban of the word "Allah" in Christian worship, and the confiscation of Bibles in Malay, have caused widespread disquiet among Christian Sarawakians.
Henry Sum Agong's 'Judas' rhetoric has caused more unhappiness, and his chances of retaining his Lawas parliamentary seat remain decidedly shaky.
KERUAH USIT is a human rights activist - ‘anak Sarawak, bangsa Malaysia’. This weekly column is an effort to provide a voice for marginalised Malaysians. Keruah Usit can be contacted at keruah_usit@yahoo.com
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