A tip of the iceberg

Adopted from The Borken Shield by Joseph Tawie in Kuching

It is indeed a sad story of a student, Nadia Selimin, who scored 9As and a B in her Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) early this year, but denied entry to further her studies at Kolej Matrikulasi just because her mother is a Chinese.

Her father is an Iban, Selimin Kring.

Sad, because there is such a thing as prejudice being practised in Malaysia, despite the fact that we are supposed to be in the 21st century and has been independent for 46 years in the federation of Malaysia.

Her plight was brought up YB Mong Dagang, State assemblyman for Bukit Begunan at the Dewan Undangan Negeri meeting.In fact under PM Najib Razak’s “One Malaysia” concept such prejudice should no longer exist.

But yet Nadia’s case is a tip of the iceberg.

There are many more silent sufferers of this biased policy of the government.

Under the Sarawak Interpretation Ordinance, Nadia is a Dayak Iban and as such she should be entitled to any privileges as spelt out in Article 39 of the State Constitution or Article 153 of the Federal Constitution read together with Article 161A of the same Constitution.

We would have thought that the special position and privileges of the Natives are fully guaranteed under the Supreme Law of the country.

But that is not so as the case of Nadia clearly shows.What should we do to rectify this anomaly? Can suing the authority concerned of any help? Or bring her case to higher authorities? Or through our respective YBs?At least in the case of Nadia I think we have to thank YB Mong for highlighting her plight.

We need more YBs like him who are not ashamed to be called Dayaks to highlight Dayak problems. – The Broken Shield