H
er hands were clammy. That would not do. Too much was riding on this meeting.
Nervously, Eliana Tan Beng Hui wiped them against her jeans. She felt tears pricking the back of her eyes. They tend to come whenever she is battling nerves and existential dread.
Her sister Diana, older by a year, looked in concern.
Eliana shrugged. Blinking furiously, she willed the tears away and both approached the Department of Orang Asli Development (JAKOA) representative.
The “waterworks” came anyway.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, Eliana handed the official the documents and videos that she, Diana and other young women of the Jakun community in Kampung Petoh, near Rompin in Pahang, had put together, opposing the state government’s padi project. The proposed project would turn about 700 to 800 hectares of swampy area by the river (Sungai Kuala Petoh) near their village into a padi field.
It was 2019, and Eliana and Diana (whose father is Chinese) and fellow members of the local Jakun community managed to get the project halted in the end. One of the key moments was their informing the government via video recordings and stories of the meaning of the land and forest to them, to their culture, their beliefs and their identity, and how the proposed project would leave their village vulnerable to flooding.
“That (was) our first time meeting JAKOA… at that time, we were in tears, but with a very strong sense of support from the community, because we felt we were fighting for the community… and that was our first time fighting for our customary land,” Eliana, 25, told Bernama in the conference room at the Rimba Ilmu Botanic Garden at Universiti Malaya here.
The fight over customary land is a long-running issue between Orang Asli communities and the government and corporations over who controls forest land and what ownership means.
The padi project was the turning point for the sisters. Never had the fight over customary land felt so personal.
“We were puzzled. Why do development and economic projects always seem to be planned so close to our area, our forests?” Diana, 26, chimed in. “It made me feel that we had to do something... that we needed to stand up for ourselves.”
Diana a/p Tan Beng Hui of the Jakun tribe. --supplied photo
SYNERGY
In the past, not many were aware when the Orang Asli argued for recognition of their customary land. While the courts recognised their rights, there are no specific codified laws acknowledging ownership. Despite the courts’ ruling in favour of the Orang Asli in the past – finding that they have the rights to the land based on custom, tradition and continuous occupation, even without owning formal land titles – getting recognition remains on a case-by-case basis.
But new media is changing the tide.
In the midst of the padi project fight, Freedom Film Network (FFN), a Malaysian nongovernmental organisation (NGO) that provides marginalised communities with the tools needed to amplify their voices and stories, was looking for young Orang Asli women to tell their stories. FFN connected with EMPOWER, an NGO working towards political equality, and Jaringan Kampung Orang Asli Semenanjung Malaysia (JKOASM), a group comprising Orang Asli across six states in the peninsula, who put them in touch with the sisters Eliana and Diana.
Through this effort, the girls met other like-minded young women from other tribes, such as Rosdila Ngah Roslan, 28, one of the founders of the Apa Kata Wanita Orang Asli (AKWOA) platform.
FFN director and co-founder Brenda Danker told Bernama via Google Meet that the programme, which would evolve to become the AKWOA, began in 2018 as a loose collective, putting young Orang Asli women together to tell their stories. The first project focused on education and Orang Asli women’s access to it.
“So when we met the girls, they were like, ‘Oh, we are very creative. We love storytelling,’” Danker said, adding Rosdila had voiced her intent to be a YouTuber then.
Rosdila, a Temiar from Perak, and other young women in the collective formed AKWOA in 2020, after the group made and produced three films on their lives.
“Before that, they were (already) coming together. They were coming together for workshops. They were coming together for story labs … it (just) became more formalised (in 2020),” Danker said.
Diana joined the collective the same year, while Eliana joined in 2021. Together with Rosdila, the three are now full-time programme coordinators for the platform, with accounts on YouTube, Facebook and TikTok. They also have a podcast.
Coming from cultures that rely heavily on oral traditions, it was perhaps natural for the young women to become influencers in their own right, creating and uploading content focusing on their lives and their issues.
But coming from cultures where women do not hold leadership roles for the most part, to speak up and speak out loudly as a young woman, it was anything but expected.
PATRIARCHY
Orang Asli cultures vary, and no one culture is an exact copy of the other. Divided into three sub-groups – Negrito, Senoi (including Semai and Temiar) and Proto-Malay (including Jakun) – the Orang Asli nevertheless have gender roles and no woman is head of any Orang Asli tribe for now.
The young women told Bernama there was some patriarchy in their culture, even if their practices and attitudes are different from mainstream Malaysian culture. Eliana said her community was shocked when she first voiced her opinion at a community meeting.
“I was very young then (18 years old) and I gave my views as a member of the community. Some of the community leaders laughed and they seemed to feel that my opinions, as a young woman, were not valid,” she said.
“It was as if we didn’t know (anything). They seemed to say, ‘No need, we don’t really want to hear your opinion, it’s not that important,’” Rosdila piped in, saying this happened even when the women had some knowledge about the topic discussed.
Rosdila Ngah Roslan, co-founder of Apa Kata Wanita Orang Asli, teaching interested villagers of Kampung Petoh, Pahang, on how to do a storyboard. --supplied photo
In the past, the women might have retreated into resentful silence. Now, the three (Eliana, Diana and Rosdila) take the issues to the masses.
“In societies like the Temiar … it's a very male-dominated society. Very, very male-dominated. So to come out and do these kinds of things is actually quite an achievement,” said Dr Colin Nicholas of the Centre for Orang Asli Concerns, an NGO that advocates for Orang Asli rights.
He was particularly impressed by the women’s online rebuttal to recent claims that Orang Asli customary land did not exist. Currently, members of the Temiar tribe in Kampung Kelaik, Kelantan, are suing the Kelantan government and mining companies for violating their customary land, disrupting their traditions and polluting their rivers without their consent. Hearings are expected to continue in June.
AKWOA has made videos on the pollution in Kampung Kelaik and the surrounding areas.
The girls said a lot of their focus is on customary land issues as they are very important to women, who are expected to work the land these days, tending to their vegetable gardens and foraging the forest for medicinal herbs. Women are usually the keepers of a tribe’s cultural heritage.
They also said their communities now support their efforts, although some blind spots remain.
While it may be easy to point a finger at patriarchy, experts in Orang Asli cultures say their youth, on top of their gender, were possibly major barriers.
Tijah Yok Chopil, a mentor and one of the founders of JKOASM, told Bernama that it was not always this way. Although developments such as colonialism may have positioned men as de facto leaders, she said many tribes, in the past, considered women of equal standing.
Specifying that she could only use her Semai heritage and experience as an example, she said, “In the Semai clan, in the past, men and women were part of an institution we call the Elders Institution (Elders Council). The Elders Institution doesn’t only comprise men but also women. Why? Because we have women shamans as well,” she said.
STAYING AUTHENTIC
Since 2018, when FFN embarked on its loose collective for young Orang Asli women to tell their stories, its membership has dwindled. It had 18 when the collective started and 25 at its highest point in 2020. Now, only four members regularly contribute to the collective, although other young women supply content when they can. Nevertheless, Eliana, Diana and Rosdila do not plan to stop.
Telling their stories was not the only thing important to them, but getting feedback from their audience was also gratifying.
Diana marvelled at the public’s response to the February arrest of 21 Orang Asli protestors, 17 of whom were women, from Kampung Jemeri, Pahang, who protested against the encroachment of their customary land by a palm oil developer. The Jakun protestors were arrested for trespassing on state land. However, the Orang Asli argued that they had a historical claim to it and therefore, had the right to access the land and live off it.
“The power of the media. From there, we could see that many people were angry over the arrests. Many netizens said the Orang Asli were not criminals,” Diana said.
The girls don’t just talk about the issues plaguing their communities. They also highlight aspects of their cultures and identity for their audiences, who are international.
On their YouTube channel, they have a series of videos on their language, teaching interested viewers common phrases, as well as how to cook their cultural dishes.
Eliana told Bernama they were shocked to discover they had fans in South Korea, who had tried making some of the dishes featured on their YouTube channel. Receiving such positive feedback and knowing the world is listening makes their work worthwhile, she said.
“Even within our own community, there are those who don’t want to listen (to young women), let alone outsiders. But if we don’t step forward, then who will?”
