State mufti told to apologise

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KOTA KINABALU: The Kadazan Society Sabah (KSS) has strongly condemned and demanded a public apology from state mufti Bungsu @ Aziz Jaafar for saying that the name Kadazan was an allegedly “invented” ethnic group made of non-Muslim Dusun people who are mostly Catholics.

“Bungsu’s statement is not only insensitive but insulting to the Kadazan community. Kadazan is a race that is multi-religious, multi-culture and multi-ethnic through inter-marriages,” he said in a statement yesterday.

KSS president Datuk Marcel Leiking said that the Kadazan race had been in existence in North Borneo (Sabah) since time immemorial.

“Lest Bungsu forgets history, the first Huguan Siou of the Kadazans, Donald Stephens (later Tun Fuad Stephens) was the first Chief Minister when North Borneo became independent from the British on 31st August, 1963. Donald Stephens was president of the then United Kadazan National Organisation (UNKO) who together with USNO and SCA formed the new Federation of Malaysia on 16th September, 1963.

Meanwhile, Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) Supreme Councillor cum secretary of SAPP Youth Exco Stephan Gaimin said the statement made by the state mufti was questionable and had created a feeling of disharmony among the natives in Sabah.

He said the natives of Sabah were the original race in Sabah, despite the various ethnicity and religions.

“Race and religion should never be equated. This harmony amongst the various ethnic groups has existed for hundreds of years.

“To say that the term ‘Kadazan’ is invented shows that the state mufti is both ignorant and arrogant of the facts,” he said in a statement yesterday.

If any term was invented, it should be the word “Melayu” in Sabah. They was never any “Melayu” race in Sabah. Even the Brunei Malays in Sabah are called “Melayu Brunei”. There are totally different from the Melayu in Peninsular Malaysia, he added.

“What locus standi has the state mufti to talk on behalf other races? He should stick to his ‘scope of work’,” he said.

Gaimin added it was also interesting to note that the state mufti had decided to reveal on mass Islamisation programmes in Sabah.

“This has been going on since the seventies, why stop short of officially announcing the ‘islamisation movement’?

“As a young Sabahan, I implore the state mufti to read on the 1963 Malaysia agreement which includes protection of natives’ rights in Sabah and Sarawak.

“I am saddened that a Sabahan has decided to become the torch bearer for “Ketuanan Melayu” here in Sabah.

“He should apologise to the KDM (Kadazan Dusun Murut) community for his outburst and at the same time, resign from his post for trying to deny the KDM (native) community’s right to religious freedom,” he said.

UPKO Komulakan movement and Penampang member of parliament Darell Leiking had earlier also taken the State mufti to task for suggesting the ‘Malayanization’ (meMelayukan) of Sabah Muslim Bumiputeras.

Bungsu, who was a panellist speaking at a Muslim symposium in Putrajaya on Saturday on theme of the “Malay Leadership Crisis”, had told a thousand-strong audience that many of the indigenous Muslims in the north Borneo state still refused to call themselves Malay, unlike ethnic groups like the Javanese and Bugis in Peninsular Malaysia who today identify themselves as belonging to one Malay race.

Bungsu also admitted what he labelled a “successful” mass “Islamisation movement” of Sabahans in the 1970s, which according to him played a role in making Islam the religion of the State.

In the original 20-point agreement drawn up before the formation of Malaysia, it was agreed that there should be no state religion in North Borneo, and the provisions relating to Islam in the present Constitution of Malaya would not apply to North Borneo.

The Sabah Constitution was amended in 1973 by the state government to make Islam the religion of the state of Sabah.

Muslims now make up 65.4 per cent of Sabah’s population according to the latest census in 2010, up from 37.9 per cent based on a North Borneo census in 1960, three years before its independence.