Ceritalah | The tale of one Iban man in Johor is a story of Malaysia’s diversity
- The experience of Gawing, a Christian man who migrated from multiracial Sarawak to Johor state, holds lessons for how Malaysia can have a more progressive and dynamic future
- East Malaysians are committed to the national language of Malay in contrast to ethnic Malays, says columnist Karim Raslan
Gawing – a member of Sarawak’s indigenous Iban race and a Christian – was 19 when he first arrived in the state of Johor back in 1993. He certainly never expected – just over a quarter of a century later – to be living and working in the state capital of Johor Bahru.
Growing up in an isolated longhouse community about 250km from Kuching, the capital of East Malaysian state of Sarawak, and the eldest son of struggling black pepper farmers, he received a scholarship to study civil engineering.
One of the first things he noticed in Johor was the way the various races seemed to live quite separately.
“Sarawak is a very accepting and multiracial place – we gather together regardless of whether it’s a Chinese restaurant or the “mamak” (Indian Muslim coffee shop), but in Johor it was very different.”
Of course, at that time, Malaysia – the combination of the Federation of Malaya (the peninsula) and Bornean states of Sabah and Sarawak had only been in existence for some 30 years.
