KUCHING: The Sarawak Dayak Youth Association (Pebedas) supports the proposal made by Land Development Minister Tan Sri Datuk Amar Dr James Masing for the racial label of ‘Lain-lain’ (Others) on official government forms to be replaced with the word ‘Dayak’ instead.
Its president Daniel Batin believed that ‘Dayak’ would be the most significant term in referring to the state’s indigenous people, based on past writings and research works on the ethnic communities.
“The term ‘Dayak’ is also being used in other parts of Borneo, namely in Kalimantan and Sabah,” Daniel said yesterday, adding that Pebedas would also like to thank the government for finally recognising the community as one of the prominent ones in the country.
“We, representing the Dayak youths in Sarawak, would also like to suggest that the government to erase the ‘Lain-lain’ column on official government forms as the classification of races has already been stated,” he appealed.
Daniel also urged the National Registration Department (NRD) to follow suit and should it have any difficulty in putting each racial category such as ‘Dayak Iban’, ‘Dayak Bidayuh’ and ‘Dayak Orang Ulu’ on birth certificates and MyKAD, then he said it would only be fair for the department to just insert the word ‘Dayak’.
Masing, who is also PRS president, recently thanked Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak for giving the Dayaks an overdue recognition.
Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem announced in Kapit last Saturday that the federal government had acceded to the request by the state government to eliminate the words ‘Lain-lain’ in the race column on official forms and replace it with Bumiputera Iban, Bumiputera Bidayuh and Bumiputera Orang Ulu.
However, both the Dayak National Congress (DNC) and PRS Youth had requested that the word ‘Bumiputera’ be replaced with ‘Dayak’ as the latter was deemed more appropriate in the context of Sarawak.
The two bodies said they preferred the term ‘Dayak’ as it had been used for hundreds of years in the state, being the common term for all indigenous races here.