Sylvester (third left) handing the summons to Christopher yesterday.
PENAMPANG: The Kadazan Society Sabah (KSS) lodged a summons in the Native Court against Sabah mufti Bungsu @ Aziz Jafaar yesterday for insulting and humiliating the Kadazan community by calling the Kadazan an invented race.
KSS deputy-president Sylvester Disimon said Bungsu’s remarks had drawn anger from the Kadazan community and their feelings and dignity had been hurt beyond repair if not settled through the Native Court.
“Mufti Bungsu is therefore required to make appeasement to the Kadazan community in accordance with native customary law,”
he said.
KSS members, headed by Sylvester, met with District Chief (Customary) OKK Christopher Mojungkim in Penampang to lodge a summons against Bungsu yesterday.
In his press release issued yesterday, Sylvester said the term ‘Kadazan’ existed since time immemorial and it was never invented nor was it of recent origin as claimed by Bungsu.
“There is evidence to show that the term has been used long before the 1950s,” he said.
The book “The Pagans Of North Borneo”, written by Owen Rutter and published in 1929, said on page 31 that “The Dusun usually describes himself generically as a ‘tulun tindal’ (landsman) or, on the west coast, particularly at Papar, as a Kadazan.”
Sylvester said Rutter had worked in Sabah or North Borneo for five years as a District Officer in all five residencies and left North Borneo on the onset of the First World War, which meant that Rutter started working in North Borneo from 1910 till 1914.
“If this misconception is left unchecked and not rectified, the other communities might think that Bongsu’s statement is correct.
“It might eventually become the truth if left uncorrected, and our future generations might be forever misled by what the mufti has said about the Kadazan community,” he stressed.
KSS is taking the lead to summon the Mufti, and every Kadazan has the right to do the same, Sylvester said.
“It is enshrined in the constitution of KSS to defend the rights and dignity of the community.
“Mufti Bungsu must pay for his misdemeanor, by calling the Kadazans an ‘invented race’ which has insulted the pride of the Kadazans, through the process of Native Customary Law.”
KSS vice-president Freddy Ekol had on September 30 lodged a police report against Bungsu on the latter’s statement that any Kadazan who embraced the Islamic religion should be made Malay and that Kadazan was an invented race.