The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion
The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion |
| Holy Men, Holy Women 12 — Gawai 1 Posted: 29 Jun 2011 05:47 PM PDT JUNE 30 — There was an air of great cheer and festivity at the departure lounge of the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal as passengers waited to board the plane for Kuching. The delightful Bahasa Sarawak peppered the air. "Gawai" could be heard intermittently in the conversations as the passengers readied themselves to head home for the festivities. A group of men dressed in black T-shirts and jeans occupied the front seats. They were all wiry, like a pack of lean, hungry wild dogs. A few men behind me were calling out to each other, asking which hotel they planned to visit and booze the night away. "Kita mau tani di mana?" Meanwhile, young couples and old people chattered away non-stop on the flight. To understand the Bidayuhs, I was told by Dr P, I had to observe Gawai in Sarawak. Many people I knew could only talk of the parties and drunkenness in longhouses when Gawai was celebrated. Babai, the priest I met and lived with in January, had also advised me to fly to Kuching to see the adat of the Bidayuh people. Entering Sarawak is always a surreal experience. Peninsular Malaysians and foreigners clock in at immigration, and hold on to a tiny piece of paper which tells you that you have arrived in Sarawak and can only be there for a limited time. Peninsular Malaysians have to apply for work permits in order to work in Sarawak. The immigration counters of the airport never fail to remind me that I am but a tourist when I am in Sabah/Sarawak even though we are all Malaysians. I was to stay in Kampung Grogo, so I had been informed prior to the trip. The evening I arrived I hitched a ride with Dr P, whom I had met on my last trip earlier in the year. He was a man on a mission, and in a hurry. We were late, and the villagers of Kampung Grogo would not start any ritual until he arrived. He had found a family to host me; the matriarch of the family was one of the six priestesses left in the village. "And perhaps even among the Bidayuhs," he said. The Dayung Boris was in great danger of extinction, and this was frightening as no healing could take place if there were no priestesses. I found Dr P quite a delightful man of contradiction. He was a general practitioner who had participated in local politics. He was also in training to become a Bidayuh priest. He was an energetic man, determined to save the Bidayuh culture from ruin and extinction. "I want to set up a centre so priestesses can be initiated," he said. "But I thought priestesses were chosen by Topa, the Almighty," I countered. "You can't decide to be one, if you don't have those dreams." Dr P didn't answer. He was concentrating on getting to the village before eight. The women who eventually become Dayung Boris usually encounter a year of illnesses, all mysterious and cannot be resolved by Western medication. Most of them are married by then and have families. As they struggle to get back their health, it would be revealed to them in a series of dreams that they have been chosen by Topa, and that they have spirit-husbands. I remember asking a Dayung Boris once whether her husband felt jealous or intimidated by his rival. "No. It is our adat. He has to live with it." What a lovely way of sanctioning spiritual polyandry: Topa has said so. A priestess's role in Gawai is important as she and her colleagues would spend three nights praying and singing so the gods will bless the harvest and community. Her presence was also required at healing sessions for the ill and mad, the possessed and heartbroken. Dr P peered into the dark as he drove up a trunk road leading into the provinces. Kampung Grogo was about 40 minutes away from Kuching but there were hardly any streetlights lining the road. "I need to be sighted. But I wonder if I can handle that, because once I can see and talk to them, people will think I'm mad! I'm still a working man!" But it was only appropriate that he becomes a priest. His late mother was a chief priestess of the village. The lineage cannot be broken — healing is in their blood. We arrived, and I was deposited at a priestess's house. The few Bidayuh villages I had been to were similar. Longhouses no longer exist in semi-urbanised areas, and the houses which replaced them are compact, sited next to each other very closely, and located on steep hills. The roads leading into the villages are always narrow. Also, there was a tangy-sweet smell which hovered in the villages I visited, a smell I could not place. Sumuk (grandmother) and Babai (grandfather) were pleasant, but our introductions to each other were rushed. They had to hurry as they were needed at the Rumah Gawai. Sumuk was adjusting her priestess headgear. It kept tilting, and she didn't like it. Young children darted in and out of her house. "Nenek!" they called out before prancing over to the next house. A well-fed young boy sauntered in, plucking at his toy and looking at me unabashedly. Dr P motioned to me to follow him. We're to go to the Rumah Gawai. Tonight was the first of the three nights of rituals, he said. The priestesses would be living there for the three nights, and their duties were going to last well into the night. Kampung Grogo, like all the villages in Sarawak, was going to celebrate Gawai Obuo Sowa, the end-of-the-year harvest festival. It was a time of celebration, especially if the harvest was plentiful. The whole village was involved in helping the priests and priestesses in their work. The Rumah Gawai, like all the houses in Kampung Grogo, was square in shape, and white. A small outhouse and kitchen were attached at the back. Inside, everyone was busy. The male priests were preparing the feast for the ritual, while six very old women in T-shirts, batik sarongs and headgear were on the floor, arranging offerings of sireh and betel nut. One of the Dayung Boris was a tiny and thin woman, who was hunched by age and wore goggle-like spectacles. She hopped about spryly in their section of the room, as she held onto bamboo stalks and leaves. I heard singing outside. It was melancholic, and sounded like a hymn. It came from a house of one of the villagers who had died the night before, and the family was singing. They were Christians, and would only be participating in the Gawai festivities on the last night. Clang! Smoke filled the air. Teenage boys scampered into the Rumah Gawai, and took their seats. The clang I heard was now a full percussion set. They beat, clapped and drummed on the gongs enthusiastically. More children and teenagers appeared, cheering their friends on. Two priests with bowed backs, dressed in white coats and batik headgear, walked to the centre of the room. Their hands were raised in the air as they paid homage to their gods, and they walked around the offerings which had been laid on the floor. Their hands moved up and down, as if they were receiving alms from the air. The gong performance was hypnotic. The beat became faster. More smoke wafted in and out of the wired windows. The Dayung Boris, all six of them, were on a swing, singing softly. The song was even incomprehensible to them, as it had come to them in a dream. All they had to do was to sing it the whole night until the next morning, in praise of Topa and Gawai. Next: Gawai 2. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| Posted: 29 Jun 2011 05:26 PM PDT JUNE 30 — "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" Joseph Welch, the attorney representing the US Army, asked this of Senator Joseph McCarthy at the height of the series of "witch-hunts" under the guise of various congressional committees to uncover unAmerican activities in America between 1953-54. America was in the early years of the Cold War when tales of communists, spies and those bent on destroying the American way of life were rife. McCarthy felt his populism, electability and political future could benefit from playing up the "bogeyman." Proof or even truth was irrelevant in the dark period referred to as "McCarthyism". Eventually the US government, Congress and people disowned that period, and vowed never to repeat it. However, by then, lives had been destroyed. People who had attended certain meetings, or joined a university club or just spent time with someone "dubious" were under suspicion. No one was spared and all conversations had consequences. Fear ruled the McCarthy era, friends betraying friends to escape persecution, lives destroyed based on hearsay and the belief truth comes before judgment became a myth. Trust in government was irrevocably shattered. Which brings us to Malaysia, 2011. In this season of fear, arrests, intimidation, threats and encouragement to right-wing groups mount to cloud the days leading to Bersih 2.0. [Bersih is an NGO initiative to champion freer and fairer elections in Malaysia with its centrepiece mammoth rally planned for July 9. This has resulted in the Barisan Nasional government using all arms of the state to jettison it. (Yes, the democratically elected government of Malaysia feels that there is enough democracy in Malaysia already and therefore objects to any efforts to increase the levels of democracy because this might lead to the end of democratic Malaysia. Hey, welcome to Malaysia!) The police feel it is better to use all their personnel to stop the rally than to work with the organisers to ensure a smooth and trouble-free event.] Malaysians with certain banners, books and pamphlets have been arrested. Some have been accused of sowing the seeds of open rebellion against King and country. Opposition politicians have been summoned left, right and centre to police interviews. Citizens are to be arrested if they wear the wrong attire. This is an old Umno tactic. Apply immense and widespread pressure on all the "usual suspects" so that the following may occur. One, the organisers are so distracted they are unable to mobilise adequately for the event. Two, apprehension to attend the rally will grow in the hearts of citizens (I'll support change from a distant, watch it on the Net). Three, the various Bersih leaders might differ on a response (to go on with the rally, tone it down, cancel it, postpone it or prefer a stadium) and in-fighting will result. The police will maintain the same level of responsiveness as during the first Bersih rally in 2007. A win for the government and police is if the numbers for the rally drop from what is expected. Anything below expectation is proof that there is little support for electoral reform in Malaysia and only those hardcore supporters really want it. It is about keeping dissent as a minority sport. No nation is altered by the majority of its people agreeing on one thing, it is led to an inevitable change when a substantial number of its people desire it. A sort of tipping point. Umno does not want Malaysians to sense a tipping point is at hand. I have to ask the government of the day, so that I have some clarity of the issue at hand, "How afraid do you want me to be?" As a living person I already have my own set of fears. And so do all who wake up in the morning. We fear losing our jobs, or our businesses. And even when we stay above water level in either there are a myriad of fears in those daily working hours. We fear that our loved ones are not secure or in need. We fear that our personal relationships with our loved ones are in jeopardy, that the wrong thing was said or, worst, done. We fear about our own existence as a source of meaning. But above all we fear our mortality. So with my daily routine of fears, perhaps my government is convinced I have space for one more, the fear of them. To live and not know when my "pound of flesh" is to be exacted. Of course there is the argument that I do not have to live with that fear. The fear apparently rescinds when I accept my government in its present shape and not question its powers. Which is not too bad since no good serf ever has grounds to fear his benevolent master, so I am told. I'll kindly reject that offer and postulate an alternate view. How about this? Life already has enough fear to tip each of us from our tiny boat into the depths of a spiralling universe; in that chaos and uncertainty, the government becomes our lighthouse, our lifeboat. For it is natural to look to government for assurance, belief and compassion. Why doesn't my government fill that void rather than chuck me into the void? Government can choose its legacy. There are two classics about men on islands, HG Well's "The island of Dr Moreau" and Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe". The title characters had different views about how to govern their islands. Moreau constructed a society of beasts to serve him through the manipulation of science and knowledge. The power consumes him. Shipwrecked Crusoe finds a native "Friday" by accident. He decides to engage the man from a difference culture; teach him and to have him as a friend. In a combination of personal needs and moral obligation, uses his relationship with "Friday" to express his humanity and live his life. They are stories, and I will not overextend interpretation other than to take their broad and basic lessons: To seek power as an end or a meaningful kinship with those whom you live with, without fear. The present path of this government does not augur well for democracy. It does not augur well just on the count of decency. I have to ask, even before reading about the next arrest in these coming days, have these people no sense of decency? * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
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