THE terms "bin" and "binti" have no religious connotation. Once more, the Federal BN government has conceded an important matter for the non Muslim indigenous communities in Sabah and that is the use of the terms "bin" and "binti" in their Mykad identity cards.
These can now be rectified by the National Registration Department. Hitherto, non-Muslim indigenous communities, like the Kadazandusun and Murut whose Mykads had mistakenly used the terms were required to apply to the Syariah Court to have these terms erased from their Identity cards.
And the process was tedious and some time frustrating as some of the Syarah court judges seemed unsympathetic to the requests. Application to the Syariah court suggested that "ALL" holders of Mykads with the terms are Muslims. And once more, the person who gained or obtained this concession for Sabah's non Muslim indigenous communities is Federal Cabinet Minister, Tan Sri Bernard Dompok.
Bernard made the announcement in Sipitang last week and reported in the front page of the Daily Express (Tuesday December 11th) entitled "Syariah Court Process Dropped". Dompok has had a good share of the many concessions or assistance by the Federal government. It was him who got for the Kadazandusun community the setting up of the Kadazan Chair at the University of Malaysia, Sabah (UMS); it was through his persistence to get recognition of the Kadazansdusun language with the introduction of the teaching of the language in schools.
And he was in the forefront in getting the Prime Minister to agree for the setting up of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) to inquire into the presence of a large number of illegal immigrants in the State.
Dompok is also responsible for the large number of infrastructural developments in the Penampang and Moyog constituencies.
Last month, at the annual meeting of the Penampang Upko division, we heard Datuk Donald Mojuntin the Moyog Assemblyman reading a long list of developments which had been carried out in the Penampang district by the State government under Chief Minister, Datuk Seri Musa Haji Aman.
The total amount of expenditures expended so far, just on road construction alone, was more than RM70 million.
The Federal BN government and the Sabah BN State government have indeed made great transformation of the country and State.
Ever since Najib took over the reins, he has been instrumental to make these great strides in the economic and social developments of the country.
But more importantly for Sabah, he has also been more caring for the Borneo States by providing billion of ringgit in aides for developments.
He has also been very accommodating to the request and needs of the two Borneo States.
It was through him that the nation finally recognised the formation of Malaysia by making September 16th every year as Malaysia Day a national holiday.
This matter had been ignored by successive Prime Ministers in the past.
And in Sabah, the hallmarks of the Chief Minister is the fact that the State has the best financial management as well as the best forest management in the region.
I mentioned then in my column that the BN governments of both Federal and States must be returned to govern so that the programmes set out by them could continue.
This opinion was in fact reinforced by two major financial institutions, JP Morgan and Eastspring Investments Bhd who were both reported in the papers last week as saying that investors - local and foreign - will worry if the Opposition wins and want the BN government returned.
JP Morgan Executive Director said that BN's Economic Transformation Programme (ETP), government infrastructure programmes and rail-related projects would kick off if the political status quo remains.
This is an important and major confident statements by foreign financial institutions on the BN government.
Meanwhile, the question of the "bin" and "binti" terms might be considered by some as a minor matter and does not rate any mention.
But this view is wrong as the matter to the non Muslim indigenous communities is a great one.
They have been agitating for the terms to be erased from their Identity cards as both terms also refer to them as Muslims.
What is the origin of the terms and how were they used for the non Muslim indigenous communities?
I understand that the origin of the terms is Arabic. Bin means "the son of" for males and binti means "daughter of" for females.
When the term was first introduced it was adopted as part of their names by the majority of the Malays , the subjects of the respective Sultans from the four Federated Malay States and five Unfederated Malay States.
It was apparently the colonial administrators who introduced the terms.
As to when were the terms connected to religion, to Islam, I am not sure.
But my feeling is that the term was wrongly considered as having an Islamic connection.
Many Arab Christians in Jerusalem, for instance, also use the terms.
Indeed, many of these Christian Arabs also use the salutation of 'Salam Malaikum" and the name of God as "Allah".
The term Allah actually predates the advent of Islam as it was in use by the Hebrew during the time of Patriarch Abraham (Ibrahim) a thousand years before the coming of Christ and Christianity.
Islam came about 600 years after the rise of Christianity.
But this issue is another matter. The important point is how these two terms were introduced to the non Muslims indigenous communities like the Kadazandusun and Murut, for instance.
It is believed that it was the Chartered Company officials who first introduced the terms on the Muslim indigenous as well as the non Muslim indigenous communities.
They did not make any distinction between the two as they did not think of the religious connotation attached to the terms.
To them, and rightly too, was that, the terms had no Islamic religious connection.
They simply adopted the procedure in Peninsula Malaya.
And this procedure was also then adopted by the colonial administrators who took over from the Company government after the Second World War.
Today there are thousands who have these terms in their Mykads as well as the accompanying "Muslim".
This had caused some inconvenience to the holders of these Identity cards.
Many have been detained, for instance, for eating in public places during Fasting month and it took them some time to convince the police that they are not Muslims but Christians.
I have also witnessed a friend from Sabah with the "bin" term in his Identity card.
He was prevented from entering a place prohibited to Muslims.
He spoke to the manager in Chinese, not just in Mandarin, but other Chinese dialects and we also confirmed that he is a Christian, but to no avail. He was not allowed in.
This is a minor incident but it does demonstrate the problem attached to the Identity cards wth the terms "bin" or "binti".
The Company government officials in Sabah had two wrongful introductions. The first is the use of the term "bin" and "binti" adopted officially to non Muslim indigenous communities.
The second was the use of the term "dusun" on the Tangaah Kadazan of Penampang and Papar.
The Brunei overlords owned the rivers (Putatan-Moyog) and Papar river as their inheritance - as tanah pusaka or tulin.
The people living along the river banks were his "subjects" and he collected taxes (buis) from them.
They called them "dusun" because they were farmers and also because in ignorance of the tribal or suku name; but they also used the term dusun as a derogatory term - to refer to them as the village yokels, the dirty kapir!
The Tangaah Kadazan resented this and there were fights.
Brunei rule was never extended to the interior of Tambunan etc and the term dusun was never heard there. It was only heard when the term was used and adopted by the Company government officials who took over the administration of North Borneo.
An official reported to the Board of Directors in London that the non Muslim indigenous communities have many "names" or "terms" and as the Brunei used the term "dusun" to refer to them, they would also use the same term, he wrote.
Dompok has been asked by the Federal Cabinet to head the matter of "bin" and "binti" in Sabah.
It is a recognition of his interest to settle the matter which had for some time irked many non Muslims Kadazandusun Murut communities, because the National Registration Department wanted the Syariah Court to decide on the issue.
This is no longer necessary.
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