by DayakDaily Team
KUCHING, March 28: Parti Bumi Kenayalang (PBK) president Voon Lee Shan opines that all who are natural born Sarawakians should be accorded the ‘bumiputera’ or ‘natives’ status.
In a statement today, he referenced the Rajah Order 1920 and the jus soli (right of the soil) principle as the basis for this view.
“Under the rule of ‘jus soli’, we all belong to the soil because the soil where we are born has rights over us.
“Meaning that, those who are natural born in Sarawak are sons of the soils and by being sons of the soils we all who are natural born in Sarawak should therefore, all be accorded the status of bumiputera or natives,” he said.
He further explained that the word ‘Bumiputera’ or ‘Bumiputra’ literally means ‘son of the soils’ and this is consistent or the same with the rule of ‘jus soli’.
“However, it has to be noted that the word ‘natives’ as defined in the dictionaries does not mean the first inhabitants or original people living in the country but it refers to persons born or reared in a particular place or country,” he said.
“We are born here, die, and shall be buried here as Sarawakians. If all are recognised as natives of this country, there will be less or no politiking about race,” he opined.
“We need to take the cue from what our late Pehin Sri Adenan Satem said, when he said Chinese, Indians, etc born and married here and also die and buried here. They are not ‘pendatang’.
“We should not classify people by race because this amounts to discrimination and inequality. Politics of race divides people,” Voon added. – DayakDaily
