Post Script

We mentioned in our last posting that the Sungai Kinabatangan was a fruitful, and environmentally sensitive place from which to observe Sabah's wildlife, and this is undoubtedly the case. However, we were also sad to learn that one of the main reasons this river is such a good base for spotting wildlife is that, because of de-forestation, increasing urbanisation, and the ever-encroaching palm-oil plantations everywhere, the jungle that remains intact is mainly in smaller and smaller 'corridors' of un-cultivated land along the banks of Borneo's rivers, particularly the Kinabatangan. Certainly, in all of our road trips through, and plane trips over, both Peninsula Malaysia and Borneo, we saw thousands and thousands of acres of palm-oil plantations, and this fast-growing industry is now one of the biggest threats to wildlife: although it looks lush and green, and tropically exotic (from the air, it's like looking down on a whole country full of pineapple tops!), the lack of bio-diversity in these vast swathes of 'orchards' - and, I guess, everything else that goes with this industrial-scale farming, like insecticides for example - means that it cannot provide the conditions to sustain insect-life, bird-life or mammals.

We also learned a bit more about the issue we'd discussed with a few of the Chinese and Indian people we've met, about the 'positive discrimination' in favour of indigenous Malays which pertains in their country. Apparently, in 1970, a 'New Economic Policy' (NEP) was brought in by the then government, purportedly to establish greater economic parity between the different races here, and thus achieve a greater sense of Malaysian identity, following some savage inter-ethnic riots during the 1960s. The NEP set a target whereby 30% of Malaysia's corporate wealth had to be in the hands of indigenous Malays (or the bumi-putra) within 20 years. The term bumi-putra is sometimes translated to mean 'sons of the soil', but more bombastically as 'princes of the land' - a meaning which inflames the passions of many Chinese-Malay (baba-nyonya), and Indian-Malay (chitty) people, almost as much as the positive discrimination measures of the NEP itself. And still now, 42 years on, many of these positive discrimination measures remain in place - for example reserved quotas, large discounts, hugely favourable terms for the bumi-putra in such things as the awarding of public works contracts, or the sale or letting of housing or business developments - because the original targets set in the NEP have still not been met. Now, some of those we've heard from about this situation, have suggested that one of the reasons for this is because, even where the bumi-putra own businesses, they tend to employ cheap labour from the Phillipines and Indonesia, rather than providing more employment for their fellow bumi-putra, because, so they tell us, most indigenous Malay people are both lazy, though greedy for higher wages.

Perhaps not surprisingly, there's quite a debate in Malaysia at the moment about how the votes will stack up in the forthcoming General Election here, given concerns that - partly beause of these NEP measures, some would say - political parties are almost entirely split along race and religious lines. Indeed, there was just last week one of the country's first-ever televised live political debates between the governing party (Barison Nasional) and one of the parties supported by a majority of Chinese and Chinese-Malay people, about this whole issue of race and political affiliations. And these ethnic tensions are further aggravated by a belief amongst opposition supporters that the governing BN party, and some of its coalition partners, whilst claiming to represent the interests of both Islamic and non-Islamic people, are becoming increasingly Islamist, or at least to have within their membership increasingly fundamentalist Islamic factions. One example cited recently was the call, by the youth leader of one such faction, for the government to legislate to 'regulate inter-actions' between Muslims and non-Muslims. In his speech, this youth leader had supported a recent, fairly brutal, police raid and break-up of a religiously-mixed public gathering inside a Christian church in Penang: he saw this police response as entirely legitimate - to protect those Muslims who'd had the temerity to attend, from the 'proselytizing' Christians. This youth leader has also called upon the government to outlaw the celebration of Valentine's Day in Malaysia - this being very dangerous to Muslims, encouraging, as he believes it does, un-Islamic behaviour, such as un-chaperoned 'close proximity' between couples, leading to the danger of the 'Devil's work' taking place - intimate or even sexual relationships forming between 'courting' (which is also un-Islamic!) couples!

Equally depressing has been recent, and sadly not entirely critical, newspaper reports of pronouncements from the Malaysian branch of the Islamic 'Obedient Wives' Club'. The women 'elders' in this club (of which there are a growing number in every Muslim country of the world, apparently) have recently issued a pamphlet explaining that it is a Muslim wife's duty to obey and submit to every whim of her husband, however violent or sexually depraved, and however much the women has to suffer: it is, they say, the best and only way to satisfy men's 'natural needs', and will also help the greater good of society, by obviating the 'need' for men to turn to prostitutes and child abuse!

Reading such newspaper reports and hearing these conversations has been both interesting and depressing at times. Fortunately, however, there ARE plenty of voices from more moderate Muslims being raised in the press and in private conversations against what one Malay academic here has termed the rise of 'Islamic Fascism'. We certainly found that the overwhelming majority of people we've 'inter-acted' with on our travels through Malaysia - Muslims and non-Muslims - are amongst the friendliest, most welcoming and helpful we've met anywhere,and we really hope that the voices of reason will prevail, and that these mainly wonderful people manage to retain these very best of human qualities, irrespective of their political or religious differences.

And, on that hopeful and optimistic note, here endeth the lesson (or at least the lessons we've come away with) - and here endeth, also, this blog!   But what a wonderful four months .........!