Practically every other week, there is news of people and businesses from either side of the border separating Sarawak from West Kalimantan wanting to forge greater formal relations.
Just the past week, it was reported that a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Dayak National Congress (DNC) and the Ulu Kapuas District Iban Association as a way to further bond kinship and business ties between peoples sharing common ethnic and cultural heritage even as they are divided by an international border.
“The Iban Dayaks in Kalimantan have managed to preserve the originality of their traditions and cultures. These are the areas we can learn from our Dayak counterparts in Kalimantan,” said DNC president Mengga Mikui at a ceremony in Kuching to seal the memorandum.
Quite how useful this and countless other similar agreements inked over the years have proven to be is of course open to debate, but they are at least expressions of desires for formal links usually concluded after frequent exchanges of visits.
At any rate, the frequency of such formal exchanges pales in comparison to the almost daily to and fro of people across the long common border through numerous crossings. It is these more informal social and business contacts, one suspects, which provide the real adhesive binding these communities together.
The advent of political decentralisation in the post-Suharto era in Indonesia has in recent years seen a Dayak elected to the governor’s office in the West Kalimantan capital of Pontianak. This has seen quite a bee-line of mostly Dayak politicians from Sarawak visiting Pontianak, no doubt wanting to bask in the reflected glory of a fellow Dayak making good across the border.
If all the evident goodwill flowing back and forth presages the cusp of a new era of greater cross-border social and economic developments in these far-flung reaches of Malaysia and Indonesia respectively, it should all be to the greater good of both our nations.
But as things stand now, it looks like Sarawak will only peel further ahead of its Kalimantan counterpart in almost every sphere of human development. Finding ways to avoid ever-widening gaps such as this must be an imperative for both Malaysia and Indonesia.
Take the Pan-Borneo Highway for example. The very first leg will link Sarawak’s western-most point at Tanjung Datu to Kuching and is slated for completion within a year. Tanjung Datu is also where Sarawak meets West Kalimantan and where local Sarawak residents and holiday-makers to the pristine waters off Telok Melano regularly make the short side excursion by speedboat to the town on the Indonesian side.
The road link makes for even easier access from Kuching to this traditional coastal resort area that also happens to be the political bailiwick of Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem. It may also prove in time to be a vital economic life-line to residents on the Indonesian side that will make greater economic integration with Sarawak all but irresistible. In West Kalimantan, despite some hype, plans for more infrastructure works remain largely still on the drawing boards.
The most eye-catching of such plans was revealed sometime at the turn of the century when talk about a Trans-Borneo Railway ringing the entire coastal fringe of the island made for some fairly dramatic headlines in the wider region.
Continue reading (Incl. Pic) at: Rail has potential to make Borneo the new Australia
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