Alena Murang
KUCHING (Oct 17): Award-winning sape player Alena Murang welcomes the news that children of mixed marriages between Sarawakian Bumiputera and non-Bumiputera or foreigners will be given Bumiputera status once Parliament passed a law on their racial status.
“FINALLY!! We have been waiting for decades (three decades, for me).
“Children with one native parent (like myself) will soon rightfully be legally considered as Native by the state. Prior to this – we weren’t! (If you think we were, trust me, we weren’t- it was only by administrative policy and not law),” she wrote in a Facebook post yesterday, where she shared a photo of The Borneo Post front page titled ‘Bumiputera status for mixed race children’.
Noting that the Bill to amend is Articles 1 (2) and 160 of the Federal Constitution and the Interpretation Ordinance 2005, Alena said the change is important because they could inherit parent’s NCR land in Sarawak inherited from their ancestors.
She also expressed her appreciation to those involved in making the change possible.
“Thank you for listening to us. Thank you dad, aunties, uncles for fighting for us. Let’s see this through,” she added.
Alena was born in Kuching to a Kelabit father, former deputy State Secretary Ose Murang and English-Italian mother Valerie Mashman.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Parliament) Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar made the ground-breaking announcement when he told reporters that this law will be included in the proposed amendments of the Federal Constitution, which require two-third majority votes to be passed.
Modeled after the Sabah “Pribumi” concept, the new law if passed will affect children of mixed marriages between Bumiputera and non- Bumiputera or foreigners who account for about 30 per cent of Sarawak’s population.