NGOs want 'Dayak' and not Bumi inserted in govt forms
Published on: Monday, January 26, 2015
Kuching: Dayak based non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and political parties preferred 'Dayak' as more appropriate to replace the words 'Lain-lain' in the race column on official government forms.The Dayak Bidayuh National Association (DBNA) is the latest to voice its support for the proposal.A DBNA supreme council member Joseph Jindy said the association would standby the call that it should be "Dayak", because "for generations we are people of the land".ADVERTISEMENT He suggested that it was best that government official forms be simplified as one word on the race part and that is "Dayak".Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem announced in Kapit recently that the federal government had acceded to the request by the state government to eliminate the words 'Lain-lain' in the race column on official forms and replace it with Bumiputera Iban, Bumiputera Bidayuh and Bumiputera Orang Ulu.However, the Dayak National Congress (DNC), DBNA and Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) Youth had requested that the word 'Bumiputera' be replaced with 'Dayak' as the latter was deemed more appropriate in the context of Sarawak.The three bodies said they preferred the term 'Dayak' as it had been used for hundreds of years in the state, being the common term for all indigenous races here.ADVERTISEMENT PRS president Tan Sri Dr James Jemut Masing had said it would be more appropriate for the racial label of 'Lain-lain' (Others) on official government forms to be replaced with the word 'Dayak' instead.Also in support of the request was the Sarawak Dayak Youth Association (Pebedas) whose president Daniel Batin believes 'Dayak' would be the most significant term in referring to the state's indigenous people, based on past writings and research work on the ethnic communities.
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"The term 'Dayak' is also being used in other parts of Borneo, namely in Kalimantan and Sabah," Batin said.He also urged the National Registration Department (NRD) to follow suit and should it have any difficulty in putting each racial category such as 'Dayak Iban', 'Dayak Bidayuh' and 'Dayak Orang Ulu' on birth certificates and MyKAD, then he said it would only be fair for the department to just insert the word 'Dayak'. – Bernama