Why Are Some Dayaks Getting Their Cawats In A Twist?

Most, if not all, Dayaks don't wear cawats (loincloths) any more, except perhaps on ceremonial or festive occasions, which is good. So the question is why are some Dayaks getting their cawats in a twist about what Hadi Awang said, especially if what he said was true?

Or is it because what he said was true that they are getting their cawats in a twist? Or perhaps they didn't really understand what he said or meant to say and felt insulted for nothing?

Well, let's see.

Sarawak Headhunter's comments in red as usual.

Raging storm in the Land of the Hornbill over Hadi and PAS

Malaysian Mirror Saturday, 25 July 2009 11:52

KUCHING – People of the Land of the Hornbill continue to make a storm over recent remarks by PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang that are seen as disparaging to the Dayaks and all Sarawakians. If his remarks are "seen" as disparaging to the Dayaks, why drag other Sarawakians in as well? After all, not all Sarawakians once wore cawats. By the way, even Sarawak Headhunter's tribe did wear cawats - hey! that was the only fashion they knew in those days and nothing to be ashamed of, even today. And Sarawak Headhunter doesn't feel at all disparaged or insulted by Hadi's remarks and neither should any one else, least of all the Dayaks. Obviously these are some BN idiots bent on causing mischief and sowing the seeds of discontent amongst the steadily growing opposition in Sarawak. Don't be fooled by such twists of the story. They lie as usual - they are not really insulted, just making political capital of what they want everyone to think is an insult. A villager of Rumah Lagan Empit, Batang Ai, Zainie Ajie, said Hadi had crossed the line. What line did Hadi cross? Was he telling a lie? Did he say it to insult anyone? Is the truth insulting? If any Dayaks really felt insulted, perhaps they should mend the error of their ways and stop supporting oppression of their own people by Taib and his regime. “Hadi should apologise to the people of Lubok Antu and the Dayaks as a whole for making us look uncivilised. Next time when he talks, he should watch what he says. Don’t make any further sensitive comments,” he told the Borneo Post. Did Hadi really want to make the people of Lubok Antu and the Dayaks as a whole look uncivilised? Was that his point? Again, why should anyone feel sensitive above Hadi's remarks unless they were true? Zainie felt that the Dayak people should also take Hadi’s comments as a challenge. Yes, of course, a challenge to overthrow Taib's regime and the unholy BN government as a whole! For the benefit and prosperity of all Dayaks and Sarawakians! 'We are not like before - uneducated and downtrodden' “Dayaks in the rural areas must work to make sure that strangers like Hadi can see that we are not like before - uneducated and downtrodden,” he said. This must be a rich educated Iban talking, one of the minority who have benefited from Taib's regime and who has not had his land taken away from him like many of his uneducated and downtrodden brothers. If he is not rich or educated, that is even worse. He must be stupid. Does he think that Hadi is really that stupid to look down on the Dayaks? Or that Hadi doesn't know the actual condition of the Dayaks? In another development, the Batang Ai Youth wing of Parti Rakyat Sarawak said they are going to burn PAS flags on Sunday. Its deputy chief Edwin Raoh said they are very angry that over the ‘cawat’ remarks made by Hadi, which “insult the dignity of the Iban people.” What dignity? Is there any dignity in continuing to support an oppressive regime which only cares for the rich and to beg for crumbs from their table? Is there any dignity in continuing to remain so stupid? “We are very upset and we are very offended. We are planning to burn PAS flags,” he was quoted as saying in the Borneo Post Saturday. You might as well burn your own longhouses down, you idiots! Taib's regime will be tearing your longhouses down one by one anyway and giving NCR lands to his family and cronies if the Dayaks continue to support the BN in the next state elections. Why is it that you are not upset or offended by this, which has been happening and is still happening? How opposition leaders see them He hoped that with the burning of the flags, the people of Lubok Antu and Engkilili would realise how opposition leaders really saw them. Hadi had said in a report in news portal Malaysiakini on July 11 that the opposition lost in the Batang Ai by-election on April 7 because the voters did not know how to vote and they were still wearing cawat (loincloth). What Hadi meant, Sarawak Headhunter thinks, is the cawat or backward mentality of the Dayaks, who in spite of being the victims of Taib's regime, still supported their oppressors and victimizers. Then again, perhaps the voters of Lubok Antu were smarter than either side thought they were. See Sarawak Headhunter's posting here, where he said: "There is a factor that both BN and PKR underestimate, and that is the collective intelligence of the voters. The voters of Batang Ai are not stupid. They understood full well the dilemma that this by-election put them in - a vote for PKR which had only "Dayakism" on its agenda would have made them a target for discrimination by the BN until at least the next state elections, while a vote for the BN would mean that they had to swallow their Dayak pride yet again and accept the "goodies" offered to them by the BN, tempting enough as these were. Do you think that the Ibans of Batang Ai still don't know what Taib and his bunch of rampaging rapists, pillagers and looters have done throughout Sarawak under the guise of the "politics of development" and how they and other Sarawakians have been abused, made use of and discriminated against by Taib's evil regime? All this is no longer news in Sarawak and has gone beyond the blogs". PRS information chief Richard Wil Uban challenged Dayak leaders in the PKR and Pakatan Rakyat to make their stand on the issue, singling out Ngemah state assemblyman Gabriel Adit Demong and former Lubok Antu MP Jawah Gerang. Hopefully these two will not fall into this trap. Jawah had lost to political novice Malcolm Mussen Lamoh, representing Barisan Nasional, in the by-election. PAS, PKR, the DAP and the Sarawak National Party are members of Pakatan in Sarawak. Wil Uban said Hadi must have surely known that Adit and Jawah are Ibans and yet he still made such derogatory comments about members of the community. “I feel demoralised and looked down upon. We have been in Malaysia for 45 years and they are still talking about us as if we are cavemen. And Taib's dispossessing your people of their land and bulldozing their longhouses is what if not forcing you to look for caves to live in? If there were valuable minerals or metals in those caves, Taib would probably force you out of the caves too. “But what are Adit and Jawah going to do now that their friend in Pakatan has insulted their dignity and the dignity of the Ibans as a whole? “What do they have to say?” he was quoted as asking by the Post. Why should they say anything? Why should they feel that their dignity and that of the Ibans as a whole has been insulted? Taib insults the dignity of the Ibans and all other Sarawakians daily, and no one feels offended? Wil Uban added that voters had the right to vote for whoever they chose and no one should think that those who supported the government or Barisan did so blindly. Who are the fools? “Voting is every eligible Malaysian’s right. I can vote for the opposition if I want to. But I vote for the government and it is not because I am a fool. “It is those people who vote for the opposition, even when they have been receiving assistance from the government of the day, who are fools,” he said. ALL governments exist for the purpose of assisting ALL their citizens, you fool! But if such assistance (little as it is in the case of Taib's regime) is used to justify oppression, then you would be a fool to continue voting for and supporting such a government. He said he spent five days in Engkari to help campaign for the Barisan during the Batang Ai by-election and every longhouse along the Engkari river had tiled corridors, flush toilets and other amenities. This is what this fool calls "development"? “Where are the people wearing ‘cawat’ there? If Hadi doesn’t believe me, ask our Deputy Prime Minister (Muhyiddin Yassin) who visited the place during the by-election. Obviously Hadi knows that the people don't literally wear cawats any more. Anyway, don't Dayaks wearing cawats still appear in official BN government tourist brouchures and cultural performances? “But I wish to say this to all Dayaks of Sarawak, if we are marginalised it is because of people’s ignorance of our existence,” said Wil Uban. Dayaks are marginalised because of their ignorance of Taib's regime's manipulation and oppression of their own people and other Sarawakians, or if they are not ignorant of this, then because of their own stupidity. PRS secretary-general Wilfred Nissom said as far as he could see, no one cast their votes in their loincloths during the by-election. Perhaps he couldn't see the invisible mental loincloths blocking their brains. At the same time, he said there were not many spoilt votes so it must mean that the people there knew how to vote. “Actually, I think that the people in Batang Ai are very smart because they know what a constituency under PAS or Pakatan is like. They have seen the level of development in Permatang Pauh (in Penang), so they decided to vote for the best, and that’s the Barisan,” said Nissom. He can justify iot anyway he wants but the fact is that most rural areas of Sarawak inhabited by the Dayaks and non-Dayaks alike are still at least 30 years behind the rural areas of Malaya. PAS world knows no Dayaks In LUBOK ANTU, the Dayak population expressed their anger over Hadi’s remarks. They felt that what Hadi had said was not a mere political issue, but had racial undertones bound to create much dissatisfaction particularly among the Ibans. Now it has become a race issue! When will these BN politicians stop making everything into a racial issue? Again, don't let them fool you. If Hadi is a racist, then of course he doesn't deserve any support from the Dayaks or anyone else, but if he is not (which Sarawak Headhunter believes he is not), then the real racists are those making a big issue out of this in an attempt to discredit the opposition, thereby allowing Taib to continue to divide ands rule the Dayaks. Do you really think this is about race, or about lust for power, position and wealth, irrespective of race? Village leader Sirai Medol from Rumah Jubang, Sebangki Panjai, said political leaders like Hadi should know the background of each race in Malaysia, particularly the different ethnic groups. He said Hadi made the remarks because of his ignorance of Malaysia outside his small world of PAS. He said Hadi was also insensitive to Ibans because he knew very little of the contributions of this ethnic group, who fought against Communist terrorists and helped in the creation of Malaysia. “Therefore, Dayaks must reject Hadi and PAS because if he and his party should ever come into power, we will be seen as mere rubbish,” he said. Dayaks are already seen as mere rubbish by Taib. No space in Dayaks' hearts Sirai stressed that whoever supported Hadi in this matter must be rejected by Dayaks, saying that Hadi and those who shared his views must not be given any space in the hearts of Dayaks. Councillor Temeling Juna from Rumah Jemat, Nanga 3, was shocked that a party leader like Hadi could make such remarks. He said the opposition was deliberately trying to hurt the feelings of the people in Lubok Antu and in the Batang Ai constituency in general. “They have run out of issues and they are now thinking of other ways to turn the people away from the Barisan. Since the Batang Ai by-election, the opposition has been unhappy with the Barisan’s victory and that’s why they make such statements,” he said. “If they really want to know what our life is like, they should come here and see for themselves. See whether we are still running around in cawat as he claimed,” he added in a statement to the paper. All sadly but typically missing the point, perhaps purposely. Why should the opposition deliberately want to hurt the feelings of the very people whose support they need? Everyone, including Hadi, knows very well that the Dayaks no longer "run around" in cawats. But that doesn't mean that the Dayaks have yet managed to outgrow their cawat mentality, just like many Malays (read "UMNO Malays") have still not managed to outgrow their feudal mentality. Do the Dayaks still want to get their cawats in a twist over this purported insult?

Dayaks, throw away your cawats for good - get rid of your slavish mentality!

GET RID OF TAIB AND HIS REGIME!