Datin Dona Drury Wee – File photo
KUCHING: The Sarawak Eurasian Association (EA) supports the calls for the Sarawak government to come to the aid of the children of mixed marriages between a native and non-native.
Its president Datin Dona Drury Wee in a statement said EA took note of the issue raised by other associations, asking for Land and Survey Department in particular to enable the children of these mixed marriages to inherit their ancestral lands.
She pointed out that with many of its members having fallen foul of either National Registration Department (JPN) or Land and Survey Department’s increasingly exclusive rulings on native status, the EA is supporting these calls by requesting that lawmakers in the state to clarify the issue once and for all.
According to her, this can be done by proposing an amendment to the Interpretation Act 2005, Chapter 61, which gives the definition of Native that Land and Survey is relying on.
Sharing her own experience, Drury said her mother is an Iban while her father an American.
“I myself am married to a Chinese. Though we live in Kuching, my mother and I both want my sons to know and appreciate their Iban culture and so we maintain our links with her ancestral community in Bawang Assan, Sibu. This is an expression of Sarawak, our history and our lifestyle going back over a hundred years.
“Yet, in modern Sarawak, my mother is not able to pass her ancestral lands to me or my siblings. This is not a recent issue. It has been a problem for many decades. I have been applying for native status for over 20 years, since the late Dato Sri Tra Zehnder was the head of Majlis Adat Istiadat Sarawak, and have been successively denied, despite a full longhouse wedding in 1985 and letters of support from community leaders detailing my connections,” she said.
She went on to say her situation was certainly not an isolated or even an unusual case.
She explained EA represents a broad cross section of racial groups, bound together by familial ties, many between a native and a non-native, going back several generations.
“We are a diverse group, mixing Javanese, British, Malay, Chinese, Dayak, Orang Ulu, Indian, Australian, New Zealanders and Filipinos to name a few. But we are all Sarawakian, we are all Malaysian.
“Yet, our members have multiple stories of issues with multiple government agencies from JPN to Land and Survey – stories of issues with scholarships, identity cards or citizenship recognition for their children born overseas,” she added.
According to her again, the issue of native title lands, however, is one issue that is within the immediate control of the Sarawak government.
“We have one member, for example, with an Iban father and a Swiss/New Zealand mother, who has returned to Sarawak with a wealth of knowledge specifically to set up a farm. Despite the fact that he is listed as Iban on his identity card, he is still unable to inherit his father’s ancestral land.
“A simple change to the Interpretation Act, which currently restricts the definition of native to ‘any admixture of these races with each other’ would solve this issue and send a message to the various agencies about the Sarawak government’s intent,” she said.
She also mentioned restrictive interpretations of identity have meant that many Eurasians, and indeed other mixed Sarawakians, have to choose to identify with one parent over another.
While this can, in some ways, help to preserve indigenous cultures, she said it can equally only serve to wipe out the marvellous and magical mixes that have characterised Sarawak throughout its history.
“Why can’t people be members of more than one race? Their parents are and Sarawak is the ultimate melting pot of diversity! This land is our identity and that identity is built on a community of different races, different opinions and different ideas which all come together under one Sarawak,” she said.
Dayak Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) on April 10 issued a statement hoping for a resolve to the issue of children who are born to parents of mixed marriages between a non-native person and a native of Sarawak.
DCCI secretary general Libat Langub was quoted as saying the legal implementation of the law has rendered these children raceless.
As such, Libat said DCCI is urging the Sarawak state government to take the necessary step to amend the state’s existing laws to give due recognition to the children of a mixed marriage between a non-native and a native, whether father or mother, as natives of Sarawak.
Libat also pointed out that for many years the Land and Survey Department had allowed registration of such transfers of native titled land but lately there has been a change in practice.
This is because the Lands and Survey Department has recently taken a more restrictive interpretation of ‘native’ under our laws overturning the original time-honoured recognition of these inheritance rights and adat that had been accepted and practised by our predecessors since last century, he added.
The DCCI’s statement had also received the support from Sino Dayak Association Sarawak and Rurum Kelabut Association.