PAHLAWAN MURUT, AKI ANTANOM 1915

Murut Warriors Murut people (Murut means “Men of the Hills”) are famous for their headhunting history and bravery. Their traditional warrior costume is always my favorite, so are their stories. We still could find pieces of their past in their dance performance and festival (such as Kalimaran Festival). With a bit of imagination, I try to use some photos to paint a complete picture of how they looked like in the past…
Photo: Ontoros Antonom Memorial
Murut Warriors

Standing in the heart of Tenom town is the Memorial of Ontoros Antonom, a Murut hero who led the uprising against the British colonists in 19th century. Under the administration of British Chartered North Borneo Company (BCNBC) more than 100 years ago, besides imposing many funny taxes, which the locals never heard of, British also forced every Murut couple, who had two children, to give up one of them as forced labor.

Photo: Murut warrior get ready for battle
Murut Warriors

Running out of tolerance, Ontoros Antonom gathered nearly a thousand of Murut warriors from Tenom, Keningau dan Pensiangan to fight the British empire in 1915. According to the description in Murut Museum, the British officers were totally shocked to see hundreds of Murut flooded their administration building and attacked them. The document also mentions Ontoros Antonom built a few strongholds that even got underground tunnels and houses!

Photo: The rise of Murut warriors
Murut Warriors

In April 1915, British sent 400 soldiers equipped with firearm to counter attack. Though Murut were only using primitive weapons such as blowpipes, swords and spears, British army failed to take them down. Therefore, they set a trap by offering a peace talk at Rundum. When Ontoros Antonom and his followers were on their way to the venue, hundreds of British surrounded them and arrested them. Later Ontoros Antonom was executed. This Sabah hero died at age of only 30 (year 1885-1915). Seeing more and more corrupted, self-interest and big-mouth Sabah politicians nowadays, the more I respect this hero who loved his land and really did something for his people.

Photo: Warriors departed for battle
Murut Warriors

Photo: Murut girl celebrated the victory of the warriors with Anggalang dance
Murut Warriors

Below are the weapons used by Murut to fight gun and bullets. Note the hole in the spear. It is a 2-in-1 weapon (Blowpipe + Spear). Also note the human hair at the end of the headhunter sword. I wanted to buy the headhunter sword (for appreciation, of course not for headhunting), but it costs RM300 (nearly USD100). Ok… O_O
Murut Warriors

Below are the containers that store the darts and poison for blowpipe.
Murut Warriors

Photo: Murut girls waiting for the return of the Murut warriors
Murut Warriors

Murut Warriors

The era of conflict and headhunting has become a thing of the past. No matter you are British or tourists from other countries, what you will experience here is very warm welcome from our friendly Murut people. They will invite you to dance with them and even try the blowpipe.

Photos taken in Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Pahlawan Murut, Aki Antanom

Murut Warriors Murut people (Murut means “Men of the Hills”) are famous for their headhunting history and bravery. Their traditional warrior costume is always my favorite, so are their stories. We still could find pieces of their past in their dance performance and festival (such as Kalimaran Festival). With a bit of imagination, I try to use some photos to paint a complete picture of how they looked like in the past…

Photo: Ontoros Antonom Memorial
Murut Warriors

Standing in the heart of Tenom town is the Memorial of Ontoros Antonom, a Murut hero who led the uprising against the British colonists in 19th century. Under the administration of British Chartered North Borneo Company (BCNBC) more than 100 years ago, besides imposing many funny taxes, which the locals never heard of, British also forced every Murut couple, who had two children, to give up one of them as forced labor.

Photo: Murut warrior get ready for battle
Murut Warriors

Running out of tolerance, Ontoros Antonom gathered nearly a thousand of Murut warriors from Tenom, Keningau dan Pensiangan to fight the British empire in 1915. According to the description in Murut Museum, the British officers were totally shocked to see hundreds of Murut flooded their administration building and attacked them. The document also mentions Ontoros Antonom built a few strongholds that even got underground tunnels and houses!

Photo: The rise of Murut warriors
Murut Warriors

In April 1915, British sent 400 soldiers equipped with firearm to counter attack. Though Murut were only using primitive weapons such as blowpipes, swords and spears, British army failed to take them down. Therefore, they set a trap by offering a peace talk at Rundum. When Ontoros Antonom and his followers were on their way to the venue, hundreds of British surrounded them and arrested them. Later Ontoros Antonom was executed. This Sabah hero died at age of only 30 (year 1885-1915). Seeing more and more corrupted, self-interest and big-mouth Sabah politicians nowadays, the more I respect this hero who loved his land and really did something for his people.

Photo: Warriors departed for battle
Murut Warriors

Photo: Murut girl celebrated the victory of the warriors with Anggalang dance
Murut Warriors

Below are the weapons used by Murut to fight gun and bullets. Note the hole in the spear. It is a 2-in-1 weapon (Blowpipe + Spear). Also note the human hair at the end of the headhunter sword. I wanted to buy the headhunter sword (for appreciation, of course not for headhunting), but it costs RM300 (nearly USD100). Ok… O_O
Murut Warriors

Below are the containers that store the darts and poison for blowpipe.
Murut Warriors

Photo: Murut girls waiting for the return of the Murut warriors
Murut Warriors

Murut Warriors

The era of conflict and headhunting has become a thing of the past. No matter you are British or tourists from other countries, what you will experience here is very warm welcome from our friendly Murut people. They will invite you to dance with them and even try the blowpipe.

Photos taken in Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Great ruins Malaysia, says Simon Sipaun

By Eleazar Zachariah KOTA KINABALU: The wise man of Sabah, Simon Sipaun, warned that human greed is on the rise and that it would ruin the country as it destroy everything in its path, be they good men, good policies and programmes.
He said greed had been inherent with human beings from the beginning but it had become more and more prevalent and worse with the advent of today's very materialistic and consuming society.

"Way back in the early 1960's even the British confided in me that little did they realise that greed would overwhelm the earlier leaders of Sabah. The British identified three leaders of the major communities then and wanted them to lead.

"The British thought that in order for the three leaders of the major communities to command respect, they should be in better shape economically than the others, and so the British gave them timber licenses. But is is difficult to satisfy human, or human's greed..." he said acknowledging that money politics in Sabah started with the birth of its two earliest political parties in 1961, albeit not as virulent as today.

Sipaun, who is former vice chairman of SUHAKAM, was sharing his understanding as panelist at a public forum on "reforming political financing in Malaysia" jointly organised by Transparency International - Malaysia and Malaysian Movement for Free Election (MAFREL), Thursday evening in Kota Kinabalu.

Saying greed is the root cause of corruption, Sipaun, who is well in his 70's and was a luminous civil servant until he retired as state secretary, said very few in politics would be able to avoid the temptation of greed especially when they were in power.

Even then, he said, someone who did not succumb to greed would be ridiculed by the public as "stupid" for not taking advantage for ownself. Instead of being praised, such selfless breed of politician or leaders, are stamped as stupid, he said adding that such view does not help at all.

"I have a friend from Penampang who was a state minister of health and later natural resources minister in the 1960's and he was a traightforward person and did not take chance of his position for himself, and he retired a pauper, but people said he was stupid for not taking advantage to himself," he said adding that it shows how greed rules human's mind.

"Mahatma Gandhi once said "this world is enough for every human, but is not enough for every human's greed" and so this is very true to this day," said Sipaun.

He also admitted that being a Yang Berhormat (YB) is not easy as many supporters look up to YB as their "saviour" in time of their needs. Hence, he said, people come to Yang Berhormat for money to pay even water and electricity bills.

"And a lot of politicians nowadays are very cash-rich. We don't know where their money come from... One YB even told me that he spent one million of his own money on an election...," he claimed.

Ironically, the Thursday forum was informed that a candidate in a state constituency is only allowed to spend a maximum RM30,000 while a Parliamentary candidate allowed RM100,000. But somehow this has not been followed in all elections, judging from the way many candidates spent money on huge billboards and on foods and transportation, the panelists agreed.

TI-M and MAFREL are in final leg of their round-the-country forum in an attempt to refine proposals on how to regulate and make political financing during election campaigning more transparent.

According to TI-M executive director Alan Kirupakaran, they have had roundtable sessons with both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat and that they are submitting their proposals to interested parties soon.

Meanwhile, Malaysian Election Commission (SPR) deputy chairman, Wan Ahmad Wan Omar, who was a panelist at the forum said there were grey areas on aspects of operating election in Malaysia and this include making political financing transparent and regulated.

"We need more legislations on political financing. We can propose but it is the Attorney General who initiate legislation," he admitted the constraint on his part on instituting legislations for even better, fairer and transparent running of elections in Malaysia.

The other two panelists were Prof Dr Mohamad Ali Hassan, deputy president of TI-M and Col (R) Shaharudin Othman, deputy chairman of MAFREL. Also in attendance with about 80 other people were SAPP's Liew Teck Chan and consumer activist Patrick Sindu.

SAPP will subdivide communal title if it comes to power

Kota Kinabalu, March 7, 2011: Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) said it would push for sub-dividing of the communal titles into individual native title, if it has a say in the future new state government.

"If we have a new government and we (SAPP) have a say, the communal title can be subdivided. The election is just around the corner and we will do it properly if we win," he said.

Speaking at a news conference held after the inter-party dialogue and leadership seminar organized by the Borneo Heritage Foundation (BHF), at the Beverly Hotel here yesterday, Yong was responding to a question on whether the issuance of the communal title for Native Customary Right (NCR) land to the natives was beneficial to the natives.

He said land reform is one of the three issues which SAPP intends to resolve if it comes to power. The other two issues are employment among the youth and high inflation rate.

"Communal title is under the trustee of a village head and if the trustee is to heed the instruction of the government to go into joint-venture or to transfer it to someone else, all the native people in the scheme will lost their land rights," he said.

Yong also said there's nothing to stop the government from issuing native title to individual native, as this had been done in the past.He said that when he was Chief Minister from 1996 - 1998, more than 40,000 native titles were issued.

On the State government's contention that the issuance of the Communal Titles was to safeguard the interest of the natives to prevent them from selling their NCR land to others, non-native especially, he contended that like in the case of the low-cost housing scheme, the state government could impose a policy barring the transfer of native title land to a non-native or even to another native except the next of kin of the holder.

Penghidupan rakyat Sabah sebelum 1963 lebih baik dari sekarang

Kota Kinabalu, March 7, 2011: Tan Sri Simon Sipaun said life in Sabah was considerably better in many aspects before Malaysia was formed compared to now. [Watch video]

"Life in Sabah before Malaysia was good to say the least. Admittedly, there was no development then, as seen today, but Malaya was not much better," said the former Vice President of the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) at the United Borneo Front's (UBF) Inter-Party Dialogue and Leadership Exclusive Seminar held at Beverly Hotel, Saturday.

He was making his concluding remarks at the panel discussion which he chaired at the one-day seminar. (Video on Speech)

He said there was no racial problem (in Sabah before Malaysia was formed) while "inter marriages were very common and that's why there are many 'peranakans' in Sabah."

"If Sabahans are now conscious of racial and religious divides, they learned this from Semenanjung. There were no illegal immigrants.

There were no cases of Sabahans losing citizenship status and foreigners gaining it without much difficulty," he said.

"There were no repressive and draconian laws such as the Official Secrets Act, the Internal Security Act, the Printing Presses and Publications Act, the Sedition Act, the Police Act and the Proclamations of Emergency."

"There was no quarrelling over dead bodies. The composition of civil services was multiracial. Meritocracy was appreciated, observed and practised. Corruption and 'ketuanan Melayu' were unheard of. The list continues. How not to miss pre-Malaysia?" he said.

Sipaun, also said that agreements and related legal rights of Sabah as well Sarawak within the federation of Malaysia are, more often than not, seen as inconvenient truths and preferred to be forgotten than fulfilled.

Citing September 16 as an example, he said the fact that it took the Federal Government 46 years just to admit and officially recognise the date as the birth of Malaysia speaks volumes.

He added the political union between Borneo territories and Malaya was at best an artificial one as the two regions had very little, if any, in common.

"The inclusion of Sabah and Sarawak was an afterthought to counter balance the Chinese population of Singapore. As it happened, Singapore left or were kicked out of the federation in 1965 but continued to progress by leaps and bounds.

"Brunei decided to withdraw from the negotiation at the eleventh hour and has survived well to this day. It remained a big fish in a small pond while Sabah and Sarawak became a small fish in big pond," said Sipaun.

He pointed out that Sabah which is rich in natural resources and once the second richest state is now the poorest in the country while its so called self autonomy is only imaginary, arguing that Malaysia although federal in form is unitary in substance.

Sarawak, he said, was somewhat better than Sabah as its people, in the absence of Umno, still have a say in deciding who is going to be the Chief Minister.

"I believe that there are also more local Sarawakians holding senior and important positions in federal departments in Sarawak.

The illegal immigrant problem is also minimal," he said.

However, he said Sabah and Sarawak do have many things in common since forming Malaysia including, sadly, predicaments.

As such, it is in the best of both states to have very close cooperation and to continuously pool their resources and exchange skills, knowledge and experience to maximise mutual benefits.

He added there is general consensus that Sabah and Sarawak deserve better treatment by Federal in terms of, among others, more equitable distribution of opportunities and development projects.

He noted that the value for development projects for Sabah and Sarawak in the 2011 Budget only amounted to about RM9.55 billion which is "peanuts" compared to the massive RM109.74 billion for Semenanjung.

"One project, namely the 100-storey building located in KL has been allocated RM5 billion which is more than what Sabah received.

Yet both Sabah and Sarawak are producers of oil and gas, which represent an important source of federal revenue.

The term 'fixed deposit' used by Barisan Nasional (BN) in referring to Sabah, said Sipaun is derogatory and insulting, as the central government continues to give lop-sided treatment to the State.

He stressed that during the last general election, it was the voters of Sabah and Sarawak who saved the present government from losing power, so much so that Sabah has now been referred to as a fixed deposit.

"But in return for all these Sabah and Sarawak appear to continue to be short-changed and getting a raw deal," he added. (source DE)