langkau fiction

She was told to harvest her pepper that very same morning. Being confused and a little shocked, she did as she was told. She, in her 50s, went to her pepper orchard and started frantically picking those tiny pepper seeds – from more than 200 pepper vines! – even though the pepper was not yet ripe for harvest. By noon, she almost fainted due to exhaustion. “You have to collect all your pepper this morning because the company will bulldoze your land tomorrow! You have to make way for this project”, the guy told her that morning, about one week before gawai dayak. The guy is a fellow villager representing the company, whose project was to establish a quarry from the nearby limestone hill of Darod Mawah in Bengoh. This is part of the Bengoh dam project.

Unfortunately, she was not the only one who was approached by this guy representing the company. There are at least seven others whose lands are already affected by the quarry project, and none of them were consulted prior to the land clearing activities, let alone a discussion between the company and local landowners on releasing their lands for this project.

Landowners and their lands being destroyed

According to the landowners, each of them were told by the company representative that they must release their land for this quarry project. While none of them were opposed to the project per se, everyone was clearly displeased with the way the project was carried out. They said none of them were consulted before the company decided to bulldoze the land. Even the tua kampung (village headman) was not informed of this matter. Talk about neglecting a simple but official courtesy!

Although the landowners erected a blockade against the advancement of the bulldozers so as to allow them to discuss this matter with the company, this proved to be only temporary. The company workers easily dismantled the fragile blockade only a few days later. The mean yellow machine hungrily devoured anything in its way.

Initial clearing on Darod Mawah

Seeing that their effort to negotiate this matter with the company representative had failed, a lawyer was then engaged to fight their cause. Something came out of it. People became more aware of their rights and the discourtesy of the company in carrying out their project. But in the days that ensued, the bulldozer continuously cleared the lands of fruit trees, cocoa, pepper vines, rubber trees and other perennial cash crops, as if the whole space and things on it don’t belong to anyone.

Banana trees and pepper vines on the fringe of the project area

Cut the long story short, the landowners decided to file a police report to stop the company from further clearing their land area. The police issued an order that all activities in the affected area must be stopped until the issue is resolved. That was about two weeks ago.

New building popping up on one of the landowners’ land

Either the company representative is made up of a bunch of fuckin’ illiterates or it’s a deliberate demonstration of their total disregard for the law, the company workers casually erected a building frame the day after the police order! It was built on one of the landowners’ land, again, without his permission. The landowner in question was aghast when he saw that alien object on this land. This was not all. Across a small stream behind a limestone hill on the slopes of Darod Mawah, a newly crafted development destruction was happily in progress.

In progress, ignoring the authorities

After receiving the police order to stop the activities in the area, which they gladly ignored, the company representative practically summoned each of the landowners to the site office in Bengoh. The landowners were summoned individually to discuss certain matters, obviously in response to the police report. The result from this discussion made things a bit complicated. Four of the landowners told the tua kampung that they had signed some kind of “documents” while at the site office. Each of those who signed did it individually behind closed doors accompanied by 3-4 company representatives. The tua kampung was upset with the four who signed after they were repeatedly told not to deal with the company without their lawyer present. The four left and isolated themselves from the rest. Two of the four landowners who signed are old and illiterate. One of the two is deaf. To say that they agree with whatever is on the “document” without a thorough comprehension of what is at stake is nothing short of being cheated.

A week after the four signed, the woman who was told to harvest her pepper was coaxed into signing a “document”. But unlike the four, she did not isolate herself from the rest and told her story. Apparently, the company representative had visited her house on three different occasions, trying to persuade her to go to the company site office and sign a document. She refused on that three occasion. The company representative told her that (1) she is the only one who has not signed the “document” and (2) if she doesn’t sign, then the money that the company are willing to pay her for the land will “go to the welfare”. Welfare? What welfare? Whose welfare? Not knowing what to do and understandably confused, she signed the document. Apparently, her son read the document for her. He said that the documents had three pages: page one, a ‘map’ description of his mother’s land area and its acreage; page two, the kind of crops on the land; and page three, a declaration that the landowner is willing to give up her land for this project. Although they told her that she’d receive compensation for her damaged fruit trees, there was no exact amount agreed upon in black-and-white. Just words of mouth.

The remaining affected landowners who did not sign the document and other village members decided to file another police report against this project. The police, obviously disturbed by the disregard of the first police order, decided to issue another order to halt the project. 4-5 police personnel even went to the affected site and ordered the workers to stop working in the area until the matter is solved. One day after this, the lawyer and landowners submitted their application for a court injunction on the company. Last Friday, the court slapped an interim court injunction on the company to temporarily stop working in the area. Landowners happy.

(Instead of straining your eyes to read, click the article to enlarge)

Accompanied by their lawyer, the landowners decided to visit the company’s headquarters to serve the injunction themselves, also complete with a press conference. Now, here’s the funny part. When the injunction was served, one of the company’s representative went down to the lobby to receive the injunction from the landowners. The press asked this representative only asked for his name but all he could say was that he was an office boy without any significant position in the company. One reporter asked “Well, even an office boy has a name. We just need your name.” It turned out that this ‘office boy’ was the corporate finance manager for the company! [see the last paragraph in the article] In other words, this made him the most highly paid ‘office boy’ in Malaysia (or probably the world!). A RM20k-per month office boy isn’t a bad job at all!

Why even bother to lie about his job? If they can lie or take this matter lightly, imagine the kind of disrespect that this company is capable of formulating against the local communities where they carry out their projects. Ok, so if this ‘office boy’ ‘wants to lie, then his kind should lie properly. If they can’t then, they should hire a consultant lair. In fact, I have a friend of many years (and whom I try to avoid) by the name of Seman who is a bloody efficient liar. He’s so bloody good at lying that you’d refuse wanting to know the truth! Fuckers!

This injunction is temporary. I’m sure the company is cooking up some monkey penis to lift this injunction against them. For instance, on the day the landowners had the press conference at the HQ, the company counteracted by calling for another press conference that same afternoon to ‘clarify’ the matters. First, they said that the landowners have been compensated and that they’re asking too much by serving the injunction. This is one monkey penis. Then, they said that the landowners had already agreed to allowing the company to establish a quarry in the area. This is another monkey penis. And lastly, the company said that out of the eleven landowners, nine of them signed the document agreeing to the company’s proposal to extract rocks from Darod Mawah. Huh? Eleven landowners? Nine of them signed? Either I am very poor at counting or is another monkey penis going into the cooking pot?

Dark clouds looming over Bengoh

How is it possible that such a reputed company willing to stoop that low to cheat the people? And to make it worse, they respond to benign inquiries with defensive and negative remarks? tsk, tsk, tsk…

salary n fixed regular payment, usu. monthly, to an employee. – Collins Gem English Dictionary

To all of us who earn receive some form of payment – be it in the form of cash, cheque, bank draft or er…sex – for the labor we provide to our Whip Bearers, the term ’salary’ is an idea that we are all familiar with. When we were kids, our parents taught us that they had to go to work because it will bring food to our table. But we all knew that work equals to salary and salary is good. So, it doesn’t matter what kind of work you do, as long as you get that ’salary’ at the end of the month, or every week, or that every stupid fortnight thing, that’s okay. Why? Because it’s ’salary’, and salary is good. Well, I hate to be the one to tell you this but I just discovered that ’salary’ is nothing but an idea. Yes, it’s an idea planted into our head by the Whip Bearers since Capitalism was born! There is no such thing as a ’salary’. The dictionary lied to us all. If you’ve taken economics in school before, then you’ve been kooneykianged too. Economics is also an idea to befit the evil scheme of the Capitalist albeit a grand one. Our parents lied about getting salaries. No, we don’t blame them because they didn’t know about it. But our ancestors since Capitalism A.D. have been duped!

Don’t let me school you into the complexity of mathematics, okay? Alright, alright, so I failed my Matematik Moden Form 5 but my theory about ’salary’ may still be valid. Here is what happened to me when I was struck by this glorious anti-capitalistfuck revelation. It’s a working class revelation, okay? Okay. Like any other blucolls, I received my monthly salary yesterday. On the same day, I made two maximum withdrawals that the ATM allowed me to transact in a day. My wallet was voluptuous. Now, my use of “was” in the previous sentence is not meant as a indicator of grammatical tense. It’s meant to be a verb, meaning “was” as in “It was there”, not as in “Was my fart that stinky?” kind of sentence. And after paying off the electricity, water, ASTRO, internet bills, things people call miscellaneous, and of course, the fuckin’ evil twins Car and House Loans, the items that remain inside my wallet are: (1) Small change of RM1s, RM5s, and Rp.3,000; (2) ATM bankcards that will not be used for another 4-5 weeks; (3) ATM bank slips that indicate how much I withdrew from and how much is left in the bank account; (4) a stack of my own namecards that no one had ever asked from me; (5) other people’s namecards but for the love of Doraemon, I can’t remember who they were; (6) my driving license and identity card; and (7) a key that’s been there for years and I still do not know what it’s supposed to unlock.

Now, let me ask you: did you see the any word resembling ’salary’ among those items remaining in my wallet? No? Why? Because it never existed! Neraka berdarah, it’s all in the mind! ‘Salary’ is just an idea to fool us all! Now, just think about it the next time you receive your nothingness salary in your palm. aaaaaarrrggggghhhhh…..

I don’t really like to write about the shitty situation that we are in at the moment. Yes, the increase in oil price and those kind of things. I was just finished talking to my demented kanid a few minutes ago about the whole thing and he reckons it’s better to live in denial when we’re experiencing such shitty situation. Now, I don’t know from where he gets his mental therapy but it does sound a bit stupid. Of course, I didn’t tell him that it sounds stupid but I feel sorry for him to pay his psychiatrist such and such amount of money just to be told to live in denial. I do that all the time for free.

This morning, the prophet of doom a.k.a. Pak Lah said that as of August 2008, government employees will be paid twice a month as a “measure to facilitate management of expenses and cashflow of households following the increase in fuel prices”. What? Suddenly, our prime minister is also our personal accountant? Who is he to help us “facilitate management of expenses and cashflow”? It will only mean that I will fuck up the flow of my car’s monthly loan. For instance, I pay RM1,000 per month for my car loan at the end of every month. If my employer pays me twice a month as proposed in the paper, that means I will have not enough cash – let alone flow – to last me until the next payday is due at month’s end. And paying “twice a month” does not mean getting paid fortnightly. It was said that government employees will get paid in the middle and end of the month. Contrary to common beliefs, some months have five weeks.

So, how? Die lah like this…

p.s. – As a temporary mechanism of relief from the thought of fuel price increase and impending destruction of the world, this story was a fresh distraction. The world isn’t that crazy after all…

By now, I’m sure this topic is being flogged to death although I doubt it’ll die that easily. On the eve of that dreadful day, I must have at least received four phone calls and text messages telling me to fill up my car because the oil price will increase the day after! It sounded so urgent as if I’d die a thousand times if I don’t get my car to the petrol station a.s.a.p. Slightly before midnight, another friend sent a text message to kindly inform me that the queue to every petrol station in Kuching is jammed with fuel-thirsty vehicles. He asked me if I’m stuck in that long queue too, and when I replied “Er…no, I’m at home trying to finish a bottle of wine..”, I swear he sounded like he was going to choke on his own saliva upon hearing – what seemed to him to be – a ridiculous statement from moi. “What?! The price is going up! Are you not going to fill up your tank?”, he asked. I told him it’s already late at night and the prospect of driving to any of the petrol stations, knowing very well I’d be stuck in such a terrible traffic jam, didn’t particularly go well with my wine-induced thought. There was no response from his number.

I can’t understand this. Somehow, people know the oil price goes up the next day. They grab their vehicles and rush to the petrol station. They get stuck in a long traffic jam. They start swearing at the traffic. They wonder why the attendants at the station is doing such a slow job. Then, they start to blame the government. They start to blame the world. They start to blame the dwarfs working in Willy Wonker’s chocolate factory. Some would start blaming OPEC although no one really knows what are OPEC’s roles in this matter. They do all these just to fill up their car tank with fuel to the fullest. Now, I don’t know about you but I think it’s silly to go through all these chaos just to fill up my tank. It’s not like the petrol station would install a miracle software to produce eternal fuel supply for my car on the eve of oil price increase, would it? I mean, what horrible difference does it make if I decide to fill up my tank the day after, thus paying the new fuel price? The price of fuel will increase and soon everyone will have to pay that hiked up price anyways, so why the fuss? Let me enjoy my bottle of wine.

What pisses me off about this stupid phenomena is not so much of the price increase per se but rather the inevitable increase in the price of goods. For instance, the price of my favorite bak kut teh immediately increased from RM5.70 to RM7.00 on the day of the new fuel price! That is definitely a tulan situation. Very soon everything else will increase…including beers. Oh god, noooo!!!

Another thing that really pisses me off about this stupid phenomena is the political hoo haa that goes along with it. When the price increase was announced several days ago, this Pak Lah-led government became the first casualty of being cursed in 30-plus different languages of this glorious multicultural country. I argue that these curses are necessary because promises were etched in the media early this year by one of the ministers saying that the price of oil will not increase this year. This was before the parliamentary election. And after the election, I vaguely recalled our Prime Sleeper assuring us that there will be no oil price increase this year, thus fulfilling the wishes of every Malaysian. What a noble promise, Malaysia is indeed boleh…boleh bohong.

Beginning May 5th, the price of petrol is up RM0.78 and RM1.00 for diesel, which means the new price is RM2.70 for petrol and RM2.58 for diesel. Now, if that is not one hell of a price hike I don’t know what is! RM0.04 increase, I can understand. RM0.13 increase, I can cope. RM0.23 increase would make me sweat a bit but I’d understand. But pulling off the subsidy rug from under our feet and present us with this fuckin’ ugly monster? That’s a bit too much lah…Somehow, these ministers said that we need to change our lifestyle in order to cope with the price hike. What in the name of kooneykiang, right? I mean, that’s what they say all the time whenever the price of oil goes up. “Change your lifestyle to cope with it”…tiu lah. How many times do I have to change my lifestyle to support YOUR cronies? It’s bad enough that I don’t often go out and spend money on beers at Ruai anymore, and now you want me to change my lifestyle? Is that a kind of justification on your part or is it just an excuse that your government isn’t able to cope with what’s happening in this world?

And these group of ministers also have the guts to compare our revamped oil prices with other countries, as if saying “See? We’re not that bad. C’mon, some countries charge more for their fuel so stop whining!” I’m not an economist nor am I an expert dealing with such matters of increase in oil prices. But aren’t we like one of the world’s major producers of oil and gas? In 2005, Malaysia produced 751,800 barrels per day, which meant that we’re ranked 27th largest oil producer. If there’s any field of competition that Malaysia’s boleh-ness can be applied, it is here! So, why do these honorable ministers compare our oil prices with countries like Thailand or Singapore whose economy don’t depend on the exportation of oil? Do they enjoy making a fool out of us thinking that we’re still living in the early 1950s?

Perhaps the assumption of shortage in oil supply can explain the increase in global oil prices? Like I said, I’m not an economist and I’m definitely not an expert in the oil thing. I know there’s oil somewhere ‘out there’ and when I was a kid growing up in Miri, I used to enjoy sitting by the beach at night watching the bright lights from the offshore oil rigs and vessels in the horizon, thinking it was another city out there in the sea. That was as far as my knowledge on oil production goes at the time. Even now. But really, are we experiencing shortages in oil supply? Yes, I know it’s a non-renewable resource but is the supply dramatcially depleting that the price has to radically ascent to the heavens? Or is it purely the genius work of speculators whispering into the air saying that the world’s experiencing shortages of crude oil? But even if the speculators are at work, which is what they do anyways, then isn’t it the job of our capable *cough cough* government to cushion this catastrophe?

Oh well, damn it. Ok, so some bloody optimist would say there would be less cars and motorcycles on the road and therefore, pollution goes down. I don’t dispute that, really. In fact, I’m all for this environmental bullshit. Heck, I would even ride my bicycle 10km one-way in a 30-degree Celcius climate to go to work IF my slave masters provide me with a good shower room at my office. Also, if we all agree to change our mindset and consider the smell of sweat is in fact really invigorating, then fuck yeah, I would cycle to work from home anytime. I propose that our honorable ministers take the lead in changing their lifestyle. Tiu lah…