THE MURUT PEOPLE
By MURUT PEOPLE
Problem Faced
Being Dispossessed of Their Land
The main issue confronting indigenous people today, is of being dispossessed of their native lands. These lands provide the source of livelihood, the result of its dispossession has trapped indigenous peoples a continuous cycle of poverty. Just as important is that their land holds their cultural identity, and its loss shakes the base of their identification. It is in their traditional belief that states these lands are not a commodity, therefore it cannot be traded, bought or sold. Rather, the land is loaned to the indigenous from a Higher power, and it’s their chore to oversee these lands. Therefore, the land intrinsically has spiritual and cultural values to it. For example, the indigenous uses the skill of shifting cultivation to allow the farmland to regenerate from each cycle of farming. In addition, indigenous peoples do not take excessive resources from the forest and rivers than what they require.
Indigenous peoples are reluctant to separate with their land for plantations projects, water dams, industrial zones, logging and mining, and this behaviour is considered as "anti-development". This also insinuates that their lifestyle as "outdated" or "backwards" . The irony behind this thinking is that modern development strategies have often resulted in environmental trauma. There is an international level agreement that development has to be environmentally sustainable, and considerations has to be taken to the environment during the planning process. It is important to note that research has found that the traditional lifestyles of indigenous tribes are do not harm the environmentally and is environmentally safe.
Socio-Economic Status of Indigenous Peoples
Refugees had changed Sabah’s ethnic composition to such a degree that the indigenous people are in effect being marginalized by the government authorities. Resulting in their rights relating to both land ownership and resource have been increasingly dismissed in recent years.
The inpouring of perhaps more than one million Muslims immigrants from the southern Philippines and Indonesia in the last couple of decades to settle and acquire voting the current government under the UMNO (United Malays National Organization) party has assured its political assurance over the Sabah State, as most of the UMNO support derives from Muslim belief groups. The indigenous non-Muslim groups such as the Murut and Kadazan-Dusun are becoming more insignificant in demographic and political terms, while Muslim groups have become more dominant. Indonesians are thought to have only constituted about 5.5 percent of the population in 1960, however in 1990, there are up to 21.3 percent which are represented from Indonesia. It is probable that the figure is much greater today, though these statistics do not necessarily encompass all the illegal settlers. It can be concluded that the indigenous people are clearly underrepresented in the political and economic arenas in our modern era.
Deforestation and Pollution
Illegal logging activities had lead to a decrease of forest area and caused long term environmental pollution to their native lands. This not only adds to the issue of being dispossessed of their land from the authorities, it also limits their resources for their livelihood. As most of the tribes rely on the jungle for food, water and housing material. When the land can no longer support them, they will most likely be forced to find refuge elsewhere and find another part of the forest that has not been polluted, driving them further from our society. In addition to that, a major part of their community do not have an education background, therefore they cannot apply for local jobs that require the basis of reading, basic mathematics, communication skills between cultures and problem solving skills.
