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ENGLISH by Reed L. Wadley and Michael Eilenberg Reed L. Wadley teaches in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Missouri-Columbia (USA). Michael
Eilenberg is a PhD Candidate in International Development Studies,
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The Kalimantan Iban have become accustomed to considerable autonomy in dealing with local civil and criminal matters and have not been bashful in challenging attempts to reduce that autonomy. A late nineteenth-century Dutch official referred to them as een levendig en strijdlustig volk (a lively and pugnacious people), and though we should be cautious about an essentialized perspective such as this, it does speak to a certain cultural vitality and confidence that has been fostered, in no small part, by the unique relationship the Iban on both sides of the border have crafted with the state over the past century and a half. It is no accident that the Iban-inhabited stretch of the border between Dutch West Borneo and British Sarawak produced the most continuous border tensions between the colonial powers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, because the Iban were so difficult to contain and pacify (Wadley 2001, 2004). Even after formal pacification (in 1886), the colonial governments treated the Iban with caution in order not to antagonize them. For example, on both sides of the border, Iban paid less in taxes than other native peoples—in Sarawak, because they were obligated to serve on government expeditions, and in Dutch West Borneo, probably to keep things equivalent with Sarawak practice. In addition, the system of Dutch-appointed leaders—temenggong and patih—became increasingly autonomous over time, particularly during the great political turmoil and transition of the 1940-50s. Furthermore, the Kalimantan Iban’s special affinity for Sarawak was encouraged by the Sarawak government: In 1882 Charles Brooke, the second British ruler of Sarawak, unsuccessfully offered to take the Kalimantan Iban under his control, “even if a certain portion of the land |
adjoining the frontier where these Dyaks are located, were transferred to the Sarawak rule” —a fact that is retained within Iban historical narratives. It is not surprising then to see the Kalimantan Iban asserting their interests in particular situations, even when it may be dangerous: During the counter-insurgency militarization of the border in the 1960-70s, the Iban rejected the Indonesian military’s order to turn in their shotguns. Descending on the army headquarters in full ritual regalia and led by their temenggong and patih, the several-hundred-strong group of men said they would turn in their guns only if the army promised to post soldiers in their fields to protect them against marauding forest pigs and monkeys. To this day, the three subdistricts dominated by the Iban are the only places in the district, and perhaps the province, where citizens are allowed to keep their shotguns at home and not registered at the local police stations. In light of this background, and in the context of de facto governmental decentralization and demoralization of the police and military following the fall of Suharto in 1998, the revenge killing of Usnata makes much more sense, and we see a number of historical continuities: The strong sense of cultural autonomy is particularly apparent in the belief that customary law should precede national law locally and that the forceful pursuit of Iban interests is entirely legitimate. The ability of the Iban to mobilize rapidly also comes through and finds its historical parallel in nineteenth-century headhunting expeditions that could number in the hundreds and thousands (Freeman 1960). Although changes in Indonesian political life provided them additional space to operate after 1998, |
the Iban involved in the Usnata incident would not have been able or willing to engage in it without the benefit of these historically precedent qualities. With regard to the case of gangsterism, two additional factors are at work. First, as a result of national decentralization processes, district governments throughout Indonesia now have more power than they have ever had, and Kapuas Hulu District officials have seen cross-border logging as a good opportunity to develop the borderland economy, which had been long neglected by the central government. Additionally, given sharp declines in financial support from the central and provincial governments, district officials have had to find ways to provision their own ranks. Second, many local Iban (along with some district officials) do not share central and provincial government views on the legality of current logging activities, and they see the interference of “outsiders,” such as in the government operation described above, as a breach of local autonomy. The passivity of the local district police and military can be seen then as a careful response to the economic benefits they have derived from logging and a healthy respect for the ability of local Iban to take action. Following the fall of the New Order government in 1998, Malaysian Chinese timber entrepreneurs have crossed the long and porous border into West Kalimantan in order to set up local logging operations. They have routinely cooperated with local communities in need of income-generation and have enjoyed the unofficial approval of district governments. In addition to the economically and politically conducive climate and an international demand for tropical timber, easy access across the border through an improved road network |
(originally justified by national security concerns) has facilitated such operations. For their part, local communities have viewed the forested areas along the border as their own traditional managed forest, and the harvest of that timber as the result of locally negotiated agreements. So that their businesses would run smoothly, the timber entrepreneurs have bribed important district and subdistrict officials, including police, military, and immigration agents at the border, a fact widely known by local borderlanders.
In Batang Lupar Subdistrict, Kapuas Hulu District, such processes involving Malaysian entrepreneurs (known |
locally as tukei) and local Iban have been widely in play. As a consequence of their long cultural and economic affinity with Sarawak and having been long marginalized by their own central and provincial governments, many Iban borderlanders have felt little commitment towards their own state. They have seen no dilemma in cooperating with the more familiar Malaysian tukei (and their Malaysian Iban employees), who know much more about Iban customs and language than Indonesian government officials. Local Iban have thus felt comfortable dealing with the tukei and their cross-border cousins. In addition, because the Kalimantan Iban have long engaged in wage labor across the border while their Sarawak kin have felt no similar pull from Kalimantan, these activities have introduced a new set of connections among the partitioned Iban, strengthening the long tradition of cross-border ethnic relations (Wadley and Eilenberg 2005). In the years following the initial onset of cross-border logging, the provincial and national press reported only sporadically about these undertakings in the remote Kapuas Hulu (e.g., Jakarta Post 2000, 2002, 2003; Pontianak Post 2003a, 2003b). But later, as the volume of cross-border smuggling grew and the loss of resources and state revenue became too high to ignore, media attention was once more directed toward the remote border area. The theme then became the Malaysian exploitation of West Kalimantan resources, with provocative headlines such as “Malaysia eats our fruit, while Indonesia swallows the sap” (Suara Pembaruan 2003) and “When will Malaysian ‘colonization’ of the Kalbar border end?”(Suara Pembaruan 2004b). The stronger nationalist tone to these later reports also included an explicit |
criminalization of cross-border activities: The tukei and their Malaysian workers were now seen as gangsters armed with guns, intimidating local communities, and “Gengster Cina Malaysia” became the buzz phrase (Suara Pembaruan 2004a; Sinar Harapan 2004a, 2004c; Media Indonesia 2004). As a consequence of this change in political will, national and provincial politicians demanded that district officials take prompt action. Despite district government assurances on dealing with these “Malaysian gangsters,” early attempts to crack down on illegal logging in the border area were few and half-hearted, and the people arrested were mostly “small fry” (Kompas 2003a, 2003b; Pontianak Post 2004), especially as district officials were in no hurry to end the lucrative cross-border connections. It seemed that the “gangsters” would continue their activities unabated, supported by district officials and local communities (Kompas 2004b, 2004c, 2004d; Sinar Harapan 2004b). Operasi Hutan Lestari, however, appears to have altered the previous state of affairs. Indeed, what we may now be seeing is a national and provincial attempt to wrest control of revenue streams from the districts, with talk of re-militarizing the border and establishing oil palm plantations along its length for better control (Jakarta Post 2005; Pontianak Post 2005b). What becomes of the local borderland communities that have gained some income (albeit limited) from this logging remains an open question. Conclusion Located on the periphery of the Indonesian state and in close proximity to a neighboring state with which they have long cultural and economic relations, the |
feeling of being different is predominant among West Kalimantan Iban—a sense of separateness and otherness from the heartland and its population, economically, culturally, and historically. In addition, a general characteristic of Iban borderlander life is the feeling of being pulled in several directions at once, but the strength of the pull depends on the degree of interaction and relations on both sides (Martinez 1994b:12). Indeed, borderlanders with the weakest loyalty to their own national state are often those with the strongest cross-border ties (Martinez 1994a:19). Politically, the Iban belong to a state that demands their unswerving loyalty, but ethnically, emotionally, and economically, they often feel part of another, non-state entity (Baud and Schendel 1997:233), the bulk of which is located in another state. For many Iban, the connections across the border remain stronger than those with their own national heartland, resulting in a weak sense of national belonging or identity. Often border populations maintain cross-border economic links although they may subvert national law; in many cases, they have little other choice because their national governments have failed to integrate the borderland into the larger national economy (e.g., Baud and Schendel 1997:229). Borderlanders thus exhibit a tendency to bend, ignore, and breach laws that they see as interfering with their interests and special way of life. Rigid laws governing international borders that restrict cross-border interaction may lead to diverse conflict and rule bending (Martinez 1994b:12). Furthermore, the sense of otherness towards the state as experienced by borderlanders is increased because their interests often diverge from and conflict with national interests. Seeing themselves |
as marginal to a larger national unity, many Iban often feel that the distant political center does not understand the special circumstances of living in a borderland. Its ambiguous nature of both uniting and dividing characterizes the special environment of the border. By its very nature in dividing two separate states with their often different administrative and regulatory regimes, the border thus may generate an “opportunity structure” for activities, such as smuggling and immigration, that both states deem illicit (Anderson and O’Dowd 1999:597). Smuggling and illicit trade is often described as “the borderland occupation par excellence” (Wendl and Rösler 1999:13). For example, Donnan and Wilson (1999) note how international borders can be both “used” (trade) and “abused” (smuggling). On the one hand, borders bring economic opportunity and generate a two-way flow of goods and people, but on the other hand they facilitate economic gain through illegal import and export, such as we have seen with the smuggling of timber from West Kalimantan. Such illicit processes form the subversive economy of borderlands (1999: 87), often highly important for the livelihoods of many borderlanders and sometimes the most important economic force in the border region. Yet this typical “borderland” scenario presents us with only part of the picture with regard to the Iban borderland, as it cannot be fully understood without reference to the special affinity West Kalimantan Iban have developed for Sarawak. Not only are they a minority group within their own province, partitioned from a much larger population in a visibly more prosperous country across the border, but they have |
been treated as special by successive colonial and national governments on both sides of the border. This has allowed them considerable space to develop a strong sense of autonomy, heightening the sense of separateness that appears ubiquitous with borderlands. Under the circumstances following the Asian economic crisis of 1997 and the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998, it is perhaps not very surprising to see events turn out as they have, given this critically important historical precedent. Notes 1. Quote
from Sarawak Gazette (1 October 1895) in Report from Assitant Resident
Burgdorffer, 2 December 1914, Verbaal 20 Augustus 1915 No. 41, Politieke
Verslagen en Berichten uit de Buitengewesten van Nederlands-Indië (1898-1940),
Ministerie van Koloniën, Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague, Netherlands
[hereafter ARA]. |
