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The polemic on the identity of the indigenous peoples of Sabah has been a point of highly emotive contention since the congress of the Unko (United National Kadazan Orgnisation) whch was followed by the creation of the United Pasok Momogun Organisation (Pasok Momogun) in the early 1960s.The argument then was between Unko which was pushing for “Kadazan” to be the new generic name for all the people in the Dusunic language family and those insisting on continuing their “Dusun” tag.

This statewide “identity crisis” resulted with Donald Stephens going to Bingkor with a large delegation seeking reconciliation with the Gunsanad brothers, Sedomon and OKK G.S. Sundang. Sundang agreed to the proposed merger while Sedomon was adamant in going against it. Sedomon was so angry with the eventual merger that the two brothers never spoke to each other again until Sedomon’s death on March 8, 1966. But Sundang attended the funeral.

Sundang’s firm demand as conditions for the merger, i.e. that the campaign to denigrate the Dusun name be stopped immediately and the name “Pasok” preceed the name “Kadazan” in the party’s new name, led to a unity between the Kadazandusuns and Muruts. But the same identity crisis resurfaced in the late 1980s after Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) came into power, caused by PBS leaders in Kadazan Cultural Associton (KCA) who began a campaign of denigrating those PBS leaders in the United Sabah Dusun Association (Usda) for their unshakable adherence to the “Dusun” name. This renewed crisis led to the establishment of the Mark Koding-led political party, Angkatan Keadilan Rakyat (Akar), which was another of several breakaway factions from PBS. The outcome was a significant compromise on the part of KCA which decided to modify its name to KDCA, inserting “Dusun” into its name as a strategy to maintain support for  PBS from among those who prefer to be known as Dusuns.

NBN  & ST report on August 7, 1961 that Unko has been formed as Sabah’s first political party at a congress.

The report in the NBN & ST on August 9, 1961 which upset the Muruts and for which Stephens was forced to apologise.

Even when the sourness in the relationship between KDCA and Usda was still simmering, the two associations were forced to sign, without being in the same venue, an agreement on January 24, 1985, to accept “Kadazandusun” as the name of the People’s Own Language (POL) to be taught in school. The signatories were Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan and Datuk Wilfred M. Bumburing as KDCA President and Secretary General respectively and Datuk Mark Koding and myself as Usda’s President and Secretary General respectively. It was amusing that many in KDCA believed it was a surrender by Usda to disband in favour of being absorbed into KDCA, such that Koding and I had to stress that the agreement was to agree on the name of the language not and agreement to change the name of the race.

Now, while the “Kadazan vs. Dusun” identity crisis has died down, we have now moved together on a common platform to argue on what we should call ourselves, thus creating what should rightly be called an identity confusion. We are now at a point at which we literally don’t know what to call ourselves anymore!

There was the anger with the federal government’s to categorize the multifarious Sabah natives indigenous groups as “others” or “dan lain-lain” in official forms. On our part we have called ourselves as “Kadazandusun”, “Dusunkadazan”, or “KDM” (or Kadazan, Dusun and Murut) which is opposed to by some as not a name of any race.

This initials  has been extended to “KDMR” (Kadazan, Dusun, Murut and Rungus) an exasperating creativity which many see as extendable by adding more alphabets to include all the other native tribes!

As a strategy for indigenous unity, there was a proposal by the new Upko to call all natives as “Kadazan” by tagging every tribe as “Kadazan Rungus, Kadazan Bisaya, Kadazan Tindal…” but the proposal raised the ire of the Ranau Dusun delegates in one Upko Congress. The delegates saw it as direct threat to their Dusun identity suchthat one delegate was almost screaming in Malay, “If this is the case we may as well leave Upko…” This forced the party to change its name to “United Pasok Kadazandusun Organisation” and in a congress the following year to “United Pasok Kadazandusun Murut Orgnaisation”. We have introduced “Momogun”, a shorter form of the 1960’s Pasok Momogun, which means “indigenous dwellers”. This term is meant to be very inclusive, encompassing within it all the original peoples of Sabah – the Kadazandusuns, Muruts (and Tidongs), Lundayehs. Kedayans and Paitanics. The Momogun Foundation was registered to unite all the indigenous groups but the KDCA declined from being part of it, possibly due to its concern about becoming one of the subsets of the foundation, hence presumably downgrading itself from its position as the most senior native NGO in Sabah. Later the Momogun National Congress was formed and the Huguan Sious was duly consulted to seek his blessing. However, despite the conviviality and accord of the meeting, the KDCA again later made a strong refusal to use the Momogun tag.

Despite the agreement of 17 indigenous NGOs to accept the term, Usda too made a forceful opposition to the name with its rationale that it’s not the name of a race and insisted that the association continue to use “Dusun”. And then the idea of adopting “Dayak” as the collective name of all the Borneo indigenous peoples gained traction among farsighted leaders who were motivated by the thought of the Sabah indigenous peoples becoming part of a much larger pan-Borneo grouping which would command respect for us within the regional political map.

But due to ignorance and shortsightedness, the “Momogun” and “Dayak” terms had caused even more confusion. The muddled opinions argue that “Kadazandusun”, “KDM”, “KDMR”, and “Momogun” are not names of race. Many feel “Dayak”, being such a novel idea, is stretching the racial definition for Sabah too far. Then again, some say we should call ourselves “Dayak Lotud, Dayak Kimaragang, “Dayak Liwan…” while others refuse to be identified as Dayak. But in the meantime Star Sabah at the initiative of its President, DSP Dr. Jeffrey Kitingan, being also the president of the Borneo Dayak Forum (BDF), has succeeded in bringing the bare-breasted, feather-plumed, red-attired and sword-wielding Dayak ‘warriors’ to the streets of Sabah.

But the simple classification is: Dayak is the collective name for all Borneo indigenous, Momogun is the collective name of all the Sabah indigenous or original peoples which are broken down to the various tribes. But rationality cannot prevail in a sea of groups each having vanity and parochial attitude. As such, we can be certain the confusion on terminology to call ourselves, hence the disunity, will still persist for still a long time to come.

- The views expressed here are the views of the writer Rayner Tombung and do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Express.

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