JUNE 26 ― Let’s talk about stereotypes. And in this regard most Sarawakians on this side of the South China Sea have heard it all.
Among others, we are uneducated folk who live in either longhouses or treehouses. We ride sampans to work. We are generally poor and wear just loincloths (pro tip: it’s called sirat in Iban) as we go about our daily blowpipe-a-squirrel-for-breakfast routine.
There are many more. It can be funny, especially in well-aimed banter among friends. In some situations it is helpful ― certain assumptions make it easier to begin understanding someone from a different background.
But over time, it gets old. And infuriating. Because often these stereotypes are not true and devolve into negative stereotyping. And when repeated by people who seem to genuinely believe they are, you have to wonder what planet they live on.
This is why a recent prank call by radio station Fly FM was upsetting. It was both insulting and in bad taste. The radio station should apologise for it.
In the call, a woman doctor was called by someone "in charge of transfers." She was informed that she would be transferred to Sarawak and that the tribe chief of the place she will be going to is on the other line waiting to speak to her. She didn’t want to go to Sarawak, so this was a big problem for her.
They connected her to the “tribe chief”, whose name doesn’t sound at all Sarawakian by any measure. The purported “chief”, sounding decidedly Indonesian, asked her to come and help his people, but she declines and in the end pretended to be mentally ill at the officer’s whispered urgings to avoid going.
And the “chief” believes her and asks for another doctor to be assigned to his tribe. The call, since uploaded to their website as a podcast, can be listened to here.
Now it is one thing to repeat stereotypes. It is quite another to repeat false stereotypes. And yet another to repeat false stereotypes on national radio.
The radio station should have known better than to perpetuate such prejudice, especially since it does not broadcast in Sarawak and therefore Sarawakians in the state would have been judged without their knowledge as a result.
Because stereotyping is in fact a form of prejudice. By stereotyping, we are really latching onto a specific general characteristic of a group of people and then forming judgments by presuming that characteristic applies to every member of that group.
It’s offensive and unfair. Stereotypes cast people in a specific mould despite their individuality. And this exaggerates certain things, even causing us to think unrealistically aboutpeople from a different background.
This is how we have all these outdated, outright false stereotypes about Sarawak.
Imagine someone coming up to you just outside your average terrace house in the state capital of Kuching, among the biggest cities in Malaysia, having travelled there for the first time in probably his first plane trip ever, and saying: “Oh, I didn’t know you have this sort of houses here.” (True story.)
No, we don’t all live in longhouses, and we even have modern longhouses these days with running water, electricity supply and Astro.
No, we’re not all living hand-to-mouth with whatever we can scavenge off the jungle floor. Some of us hold regular desk jobs, live in homes that look no different than those found in Peninsular Malaysia.
And we even have actual, paved roads on which Protons and Peroduas often zoom along. You can spot the occasional Vios, Elantra and BMW too as they go to the drive-through KFC or McDonalds. We have schools, universities, malls, you name it, even tolled roads (although thankfully not for much longer for that last one).
Talk to most Sarawakians about the matter and you’ll come away with terrible anecdotes of how people just seem to think we are from a different planet altogether.
Here’s an example. Did you know it is a genuine concern for most non-Muslim East Malaysians when it comes to eating in the open during Ramadan?
Someone might take one look at their facial features, think ‘Malay’ because they look neither Chinese nor Indian, and proceed to scold them for eating ― true story that has happened numerous times. It’s gotten to a point where some were asked to stop eating and show their IC to prove their non-Muslim status.
So here, now. Can we stop with these stereotypes already? We talk about 1Malaysia, about national unity. Some people talk about how the so-called fixed-deposit voters need to wake up and smell the coffee already.
Yet in the same breath there are still people who spread false generalisations like these, which unfairly pigeon-hole Sarawakians into a pre-determined mould, which in turn leads to resentment from Sarawakians.
How lah?
* Fly FM has since apologised for the prank call on its website and removed the podcast of that episode as well.
**This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
