Dayak in politics refers to the participation of Dayaks to represent their political ideas and interests outside of their community. The movement has continued to have a profound impact on the development of Indonesia and Malaysia, especially in Kalimantan and Sarawak.
The rise of educated Dayak intellectuals in Kalimantan during early 1900s was attributed to education given by missionary missions in the Kalimantan interior. [1] Missionary education served as alternative for Dayak youths to Dutch formal schools that were relatively expensive and discriminative in nature. [1] Previously, Dayaks, particularly Ngaju people, had traditional education institution known as Kuwu, which focused on knowledge of tribal laws, oral traditions, and traditional medicine. [1] This system however, was reserved for aristocrat group within the tribe known as Utus Gantung and not open for public. The Kuwu system gradually declined by 1823, as missionary activities became more prominent since presence of German missionary named Branstein. [1] The rise of missionary education, however, was not linear with conversion rate. Missionary schools such as those by J.F Becker in 1940 had hundreds of Dayak students, but only 13 people converted to Christianity and mostly retained their Hindu folk religion Kaharingan. [1] Many Dayak families were more interested in the education opportunity for their own cause rather than religious cause of the missionary itself. [1]
Organised Dayak political representation in the Kalimantan first appeared during the Dutch administration. The feudal Sultanates of Kutai, Banjar, and Pontianak figured prominently prior to the rise of the Dutch colonial rule. This changed following Tumbang Anoi Agreement of 1894, where many representative of Dayaks gathered and renounced any tribal warfare tradition. [2] Dayaks in the Indonesian side actively organised under various associations beginning with the Dayak League (Sarekat Dayak) established in 1919 in Banjarmasin, to the Partai Dayak in the 1940s, which serves as an early Pan-Dayakism in Indonesia [3] and to the present day, where Dayaks occupy key positions in government. Early Pan-Dayakism sentiment to unite hundreds of Dayak sub-ethnics later influenced by the rise of Indonesian nationalism and as such often got mixed together. [1]
Early Dayak figure Hausman Baboe, a Dayak journalist who managed newspaper Soeara Pakat and later also worked on newspaper Sinar Borneo, was a friend of prominent Indonesian nationalist Oemar Said Tjokroaminoto. [4] He was a district chief of Kuala Kapuas in 1919 after previously was focusing solely on journalism since 1905 and later worked on a Kalimantan magazine Barita Bahalap.
Another Dayak figure, George Obus, who was also educated by missionary, later continued his education to Surabaya and found Persatuan Pemuda Kalimantan (Kalimantan Youth Unity) or PPK. George Obus later became representative of Dayak during Youth Pledge in October 1928. He was also invited by Indonesische Studie Club to form Partai Persatuan Bangsa Indonesia (Indonesian Nation Unity Party) or PBI in June 1928 and later became member of the party. [1] The party was led by Soetomo and later the party became known as Parindra and among the most active Indonesian party in Volksraad. [1] [5]
The violent massacre of the Malay sultans, local rulers, intellectuals, and politicians by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Pontianak incidents of 1943–1944 in West Borneo (present-day West Kalimantan province) created a social opportunity for the Dayak people in the West Kalimantan political and administrative system during the Orde Lama era of Sukarno, as a generation of predominantly Malay administrator in West Borneo was lost during the genocide perpetrated by the Japanese. The Dayak ruling elite was mostly left unscratched due to the fact that they were then mainly located in the hinterland and because the Japanese were not interested aside of Dayak Desa War, [3] thus giving an advantage for the Dayak leaders to fill the administrative and political position after the Indonesian independence.
The creation of Central Kalimantan province was pushed by Dayak militia Mandau Talawang Pancasila. The militia also on the other hand helped government to fight Islamist rebellion in South Kalimantan.
In the 1955 Indonesian Constituent Assembly election, the Dayak Unity Party managed to gain:
The party was later disbanded after an order by the then-president Sukarno that prohibited an ethnic-based party. The members of the party were then continued their careers in other political parties. Oevaang Oerey joined the Indonesian Party (Partai Indonesia), whilst some others joined the Catholic Party (Partai Katolik).
Among the most prominent Indonesian Dayak politician is Tjilik Riwut, a member of the Central Indonesian National Committee, he was honoured as the National Hero of Indonesia in 1998 for his major contribution during the Indonesian National Revolution in Kalimantan. He had served as the Central Kalimantan Governor between 1958 and 1967. While in 1960, Oevaang Oeray was appointed as the 3rd Governor of West Kalimantan, becoming the first governor of Dayak origin in the province. He held the office until 1966. He is also known as one of the founding fathers of the Dayak Unity Party in 1945 and had been actively assisting the Brunei Revolt in 1962 during the height of the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation.
Under Indonesia, Kalimantan is now divided into five self-autonomous provinces i.e. North, West, East, South, and Central Kalimantan. Under Indonesia's transmigration programme, which was initiated by the Dutch in 1905, settlers from densely populated Java and Madura were encouraged to settle in the Indonesian provinces of Borneo. The large-scale transmigration projects continued following Indonesian independence, causing social strains. In 2001 the Indonesian government ended the transmigration of Javanese settlement of Indonesian Borneo. [6] During the killings of 1965–66 Dayaks killed up to 5,000 Chinese and forced survivors to flee to the coast and camps. Starvation killed thousands of Chinese children who were under eight years old. The Chinese refused to fight back since they considered themselves "a guest on other people's land" with the intention of trading only. [7] 75,000 of the Chinese who survived were displaced, fleeing to camps where they were detained in coastal cities. The Dayak leaders were interested in cleansing the entire area of ethnic Chinese. [8] In Pontianak, 25,000 Chinese living in dirty, filthy conditions were stranded. They had to take baths in the mud. [9] The massacres are considered a "dark chapter in recent Dayak history". [10]
From 1996 to 2003 there were violent attacks on Indonesian Madurese settlers, including executions of Madurese transmigrant communities. The violence included the 1999 Sambas riots and the Sampit conflict in 2001 in which more than 500 were killed that year. Indonesian military and local politician was instead, supportive of Dayak cause and many Dayak figures use the violence for political cause. [11] [12]
Dayak in Indonesia has legal cultural organization which is National Dayak Customary Council (Dewan Adat Dayak). It has local branches in regencies and cities down to villages, recognized by local government laws, and has a paramilitary wing, Batamad. [13] [14] It enjoys relatively high support from government including close ties to Indonesian military. [15] [16]
The Dayak's political representation in Sarawak compare very poorly with their organised brethren in the Indonesian side of Borneo, partly due to the personal fiefdom that was the Brooke Rajah dominion, and possibly to the pattern of their historical migrations from the Indonesian part to the then pristine Rajang Basin. Reconstituted into British crown colony after the end of Japanese occupation in World War II, Sarawak obtained independence from the British on 22 July 1963, alongside Sabah (North Borneo) on 31 August 1963, and would join the Federation of Malaya and Singapore to form the Federation of Malaysia on 16 September 1963 under the belief of being equal partners in the "marriage" as per the 18 and 20-point agreements and the Malaysia Agreement of 1963.
Dayak political activism in Sarawak had its roots in the Sarawak National Party (SNAP) and Parti Pesaka Anak Sarawak (PESAKA) during post-independence construction in the 1960s. These parties shaped to a certain extent Dayak politics in the state, although never enjoying the real privileges and benefits of Chief Ministerial power relative to its large electorate due to their own political disunity with some Dayaks joining various political parties instead of consolidating inside one single political party.
The first Sarawak Chief Minister was Datuk Stephen Kalong Ningkan, who was removed as the chief minister in 1966 after court proceedings and amendments to both the Sarawak state constitution and the Malaysian federal constitution due to some disagreements with regards to the 18-point Agreement as conditions for the formation of Malaysia. Datuk Penghulu Tawi Sli was appointed as the second Sarawak chief minister who was a soft-spoken seat-warmer fellow and then replaced by Tuanku Abdul Rahman Ya'kub (a Melanau Muslim) as the third Sarawak chief minister in 1970 who in turn was succeeded by Abdul Taib Mahmud (a Melanau Muslim) in 1981 as fourth Sarawak chief minister. After Taib Mahmud resigned on 28 February 2014 to become the next Sarawak's governor, he appointed his brother-in-law, Adenan Satem, as the next Sarawak Chief Minister, who has in turn been succeeded by Abang Johari Openg in 2017.
A wave of Dayakism which is Dayak nationalism has surfaced at least thrice among the Dayaks in Sarawak while they are on the opposition side of politics as follows:
The Dayak or Dyak or Dayuh are one of the native groups of Borneo. It is a loose term for over 200 riverine and hill-dwelling ethnic groups, located principally in the central and southern interior of Borneo, each with its own dialect, customs, laws, territory, and culture, although common distinguishing traits are readily identifiable. The Dayak were animist in belief; however, since the 19th century there has been mass conversion to Christianity as well as Islam due to the spreading of Abrahamic religions.
West Kalimantan is a province of Indonesia. It is one of five Indonesian provinces comprising Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. Its capital and largest city is Pontianak. It is bordered by East Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan to the east, the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Java Sea to the south. The province has an area of 147,307 km2, and had a population of 4,395,983 at the 2010 Census and 5,414,390 at the 2020 Census; the official estimate as at mid 2022 was 5,541,376. Ethnic groups include the Dayak, Malay, Chinese, Javanese, Bugis, and Madurese. The borders of West Kalimantan roughly trace the mountain ranges surrounding the vast watershed of the Kapuas River, which drains most of the province. The province shares land borders with Central Kalimantan to the southeast, East Kalimantan to the east, and the Malaysian territory of Sarawak to the north.
The North Kalimantan Communist Party was a Maoist communist party based in the Malaysian state of Sarawak in northern Borneo. It was formally founded on 19 September 1971. Before that, the group had been operating under the name Sarawak People's Guerrillas. The chairman of the NKCP was Wen Ming Chyuan and the party enjoyed close links with the People's Republic of China. The NKCP's membership was predominantly ethnically Chinese. The two military formations of the NKCP were the Sarawak People's Guerilla Force (SPGF) or Pasukan Gerilya Rakyat Sarawak (PGRS), and the North Kalimantan People's Army (NKPA) or the Pasukan Rakyat Kalimantan Utara (PARAKU). The NKCP participated in the Sarawak Communist Insurgency (1962–1990). On 17 October 1990, the North Kalimantan Communist Party signed a peace agreement with the Sarawak state government, formally ending the Sarawak Communist Insurgency.
Pontianak or Khuntien is the capital of the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan, founded first as a trading port on the island of Borneo, occupying an area of 118.32 km2 in the delta of the Kapuas River, at a point where it is joined by its major tributary, the Landak River. The city is on the equator, hence it is widely known as Kota Khatulistiwa. The city center is less than 3 kilometres (2 mi) south of the equator. Pontianak is the 26th most populous city in Indonesia, and the fifth most populous city on the island of Borneo (Kalimantan) after Samarinda, Balikpapan, Kuching, and Banjarmasin. It had a population of 658,685 at the 2020 Census within the city limits, with significant suburbs outside those limits. The official estimate as of mid-2022 was 669,795.
The ninth Sarawak state election was held on Saturday, 20 May 2006 with nomination day on Tuesday, 9 May 2006. The election functioned to elect 71 representatives to the Sarawak State Assembly. The eighth state assembly was dissolved by Yang di-Pertua Negeri Sarawak, Tun Abang Muhammad Salahuddin Abang Barieng by the advice of Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud, on 24 April 2006.
The Sarawak National Party known by its acronym as "SNAP", is now a defunct political party in Malaysia. It was a member party of the Alliance Party from 1963 to 1966 and a member of Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition from 1976 until its expulsion in 2004. It contested the General Election in 2004 as well as the Sarawak state elections of 2006 and 2011 as an opposition party.
The Ibanic languages are a branch of the Malayic languages indigenous to western Borneo. They are spoken by the Ibans and related groups in East Malaysia and the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan. Other Dayak languages, called Land Dayak, which are not Ibanic, are found in the northwest corner of Kalimantan, between Ibanic and non-Ibanic Malayic languages such as Kendayan and the Malay dialects of Sarawak and Pontianak.
The Dayak Unity Party was a political party in Indonesia. Formed to represent 'primordial' interests of the Dayak people, the party was one few political parties in Indonesia at the time which was formed along ethnic lines. Oevaang Oeray, the first governor of West Kalimantan and one of the founders of the PPD, was a prominent leader of the party.
The first Sarawak state election was held from Saturday, 10 May 1969 and scheduled to be completed on Saturday, 7 June 1969 which lasted for 4 weeks and was carried out in staggered basis. This was due to the lack of transportation and communication systems in the state at that time. The state election was held at the same time as the 1969 general election. The Dewan Rakyat of the Malaysian Parliament and all the state assemblies were dissolved on 20 March 1969, except for Kelantan and Sabah. The nomination date was set on Saturday, 5 April 1969. However, because of the riot occurred during 13 May incident and the declaration of emergency and the promulgation of Emergency Ordinance No. 1 of 1969 on 15 May 1969, all the ongoing polls were suspended until 1970. During when the suspension was enforced, polling in 9 out of 48 constituencies in Sarawak had started. None of the elections in Sarawak was completed at that time.
The sixth Sarawak state election was held between Friday, 27 September and Saturday, 28 September 1991. This election elected 56 state representatives into the Sarawak State Assembly. This election saw 72.8% of the eligible voters to cast their votes.
The 1966 Sarawak constitutional crisis took place in the state of Sarawak, Malaysia from 1965 to 1966. This crisis was started by a group of politicians who were dissatisfied towards Stephen Kalong Ningkan's leadership as chief minister. Ningkan was later removed from the chief minister post by the Governor of Sarawak in June 1966. However, Ningkan was reinstated by the High Court in early September 1966. He was ousted from the chief minister office for the final time at the end of September 1966 and was replaced by Tawi Sli as the new chief minister. It was widely believed that the ouster of Ningkan was a result of interference by the Malaysian federal government due to him being a strong advocate of greater state autonomy.
Johanes Chrisostomus Oevaang Oeray was an Indonesian politician. He was the Governor of West Kalimantan from 1960 to 1966; he was the first ethnic Dayak to hold the position.
The communist insurgency in Sarawak was an insurgency in Malaysia from 1962 to 1990, and involved the North Kalimantan Communist Party and the Malaysian Government. It was one of the two Communist insurgencies to challenge the former British colony of Malaysia during the Cold War. As with the earlier Malayan Emergency (1948–1960), the Sarawak Communist insurgents were predominantly ethnic Chinese, who opposed British rule over Sarawak and later opposed the merger of the state into the newly created Federation of Malaysia. The insurgency was triggered by the 1962 Brunei Revolt, which had been instigated by the left-wing Brunei People's Party in opposition to the proposed formation of Malaysia.
The fifth Sarawak state election was held between Wednesday, 15 April and Thursday, 16 April 1987 with a nomination date set on Monday, 6 April 1987. This was a snap election following the 'Ming Court' affair. The state assembly was dissolved on 12 March 1987 by Sarawak governor with the advice of chief minister of Sarawak, Abdul Taib Mahmud.
Pontianak Malay is a Malayan language spoken in Pontianak, Indonesia and the surrounding area.
Agustinus Jelani was an Indonesian Dayak politician, and the chairman of the Dayak Unity Party from 1947 until 1958. He was also a member of the Senate of the United States of Indonesia, representing West Kalimantan, member of the People's Representative Council from 1950 until 1956, and the member of the Constitutional Assembly of Indonesia from 1956 until 1959.
The second Sarawak district council elections was held in 1963. The results of the election was announced from 18 to 25 June 1963. A total of 185,000 voters cast votes in this election. A total of 998 candidates were vying for 429 district council seats in Sarawak.
Hendrik Isam Mahar was an Indonesian Army officer from the Special Forces Command who spearheaded the suppression of the communist insurgency in Sarawak.
Hausman Baboe was a colonial head of Kuala Kapuas district of Central Kalimantan in the Dutch East Indies; he was also an early Dayak journalist and an Indonesian nationalist. Baboe was born into an aristocratic family of Dayak Ngaju people and served as head of Kuala Kapuas under the Dutch colonial government but was dismissed from his post due to his anti-colonial remarks. He became a prominent Dayak political figure and was several times accused of being a communist due to his close association with the left-wing political party Sarekat Rakjat. Despite being a Christian, his Indonesian nationalist ideals drew him close to Sarekat Islam.
In 1967, Dayaks had expelled Chinese from the interior of West Kalimantan. In this Chinese ethnic cleansing, Dayaks were co-opted by the military who wanted to remove those Chinese from the interior who they believed were supporting communists. The most certain way to accomplish this was to drive all Chinese out of the interior of West Kalimantan. Perhaps 2,000–5,000 people were massacred (Davidson 2002:158) and probably a greater number died from the conditions in overcrowded refugee camps, including 1,500 Chinese children aged between one and eight who died of starvation in Pontianak camps (p. 173). The Chinese retreated permanently to the major towns ... the Chinese in West Kalimantan rarely resisted (though they had in nineteenth century conflict with the Dutch, and in 1914). Instead, they fled. One old Chinese man who fled to Pontianak in 1967 said that the Chinese did not even consider or discuss striking back at Dayaks as an option. This was because they were imbued with a philosophy of being a guest on other people's land with the intention of becoming a great trading diaspora.
The role of indigenous Dayak leaders accounted for their "success." Regional officers and interested Dayak leaders helped to translate the virulent anti-Communist environment locally into an evident anti-Chinese sentiment. In the process, the rural Chinese were constructed as godless Communists complicit with members of the local Indonesian Communist Party ... In October 1967, the military, with the help of the former Dayak Governor Oevaang Oeray and his Lasykar Pangsuma (Pangsuma Militia) instigated and facilitated a Dayak-led slaughter of ethnic Chinese. Over the next three months, thousands were killed and roughly 75,000 more fled Sambas and northern Pontianak districts to coastal urban centers like Pontianak City and Singkawang to be sheltered in refugee and "detainment" camps. By expelling the "community" Chinese, Oeray and his gang ... intended to ingratiate themselves with Suharto's new regime.
Before the Indonesian Army could cool off the Dayaks, at least 250 Chinese had been slaughtered: Catholic missionaries believe that as many as 1,000 were actually killed. About 25,000 of the traumatized Chinese have descended on the sleepy West Borneo port of Pontianak, where they live in dismal squalor. The Chinese are crammed into makeshift quarters, bathe in muddy, sewage-filled canals
There was a dark chapter in recent Dayak history, and it concerned the Chinese living on the island. Tribes in the lower hills had been mobilized by the Indonesian military in the mid-sixties to murder many thousands of Chinese in the
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