By Nur Ashikin Louis
KUCHING, May 30: Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak Baru (PBDSB) has lashed out at Dayak leaders for ‘keeping quiet’ over the recent viral incident of an influencer insulting the Iban clothing.
The party’s president Bobby William described the insult as “becoming a trending pandemic” and said it would only get worst because none of the leaders bother to say or do anything at all when it happened.
“After all that has happened, where are all our Dayak leaders? Are they not Dayak too? Why when such issue happens, we never see any Dayak YBs comment anything about it at all?
“Is it really not a problem for Dayak ministers to see such insults be made towards our Dayak’s heritage traditional outfit? Or is our Dayak YBs just don’t have any communal spirit towards ancestral traditional at all after being high up position in a governance hierarchy?
“It is a known fact that in the past, by not being present in any Dayak’s land cases in court for showing concern over its community’s ancestral land is already disappointing enough.
“But by keeping silent when our Dayak’s ancestral tradition is being made fun of and also insulted upon, without even bother to defend the legacy of our Dayak’s traditional culture, has allowed many more others to provide more insults and also get away with it in the end,” he said in a statement today.
Bobby warned that the recent viral incident is not the first and shall not be the last.
“It seems that now, those who insulted the Dayak’s culture or its traditional outfit, seem to think that they can just get away with anything, just as long as they can make a public apology on social media after the damage is done.
“It is okay to accept the apology if such manner is sincerely genuine with full remorse but [what if] it finally becomes just an excuse to insult the Dayak community, intentionally taking full advantage of the humbleness and ever forgiving Dayak tribes in Sarawak?,” he added.
He further urged those like minded individuals to refrain from commenting on others’ traditional costumes as it will further spread ethnic hatred. — DayakDaily
