COMMENT It is human nature to remember your maker when things are bleak. Crisis and emergency and disasters remind us that there is a higher force at work, often times in conflict with the wants of mere mortals.
Who are we to question the heavens?
We accept the fact that we are mere dust in God's creation.
Yet, this mere fact has been turned into excuses by mortals seeking to hide the truth of the matter. Hiding fact behind a cosmic guise is nothing new. It has been practised by civilisations throughout history.
The Mayans cut out the hearts of captive soldiers to appease their gods when the harvest was bad or sickness hit the nation. The Egyptians believe that Pharaoh was a god in his own right, thus you should never question his word.
In Sarawak, the gods are the culprits for landslides and log jams and possibly the drought hitting the Rajang River.
The gods are responsible for putting Sarawak in the record books for staging the longest logjam in the world. And if that was not enough, the gods have been able to reduce the longest river in Sarawak, from mighty torrents of water to a mere stream.
Yes, the gods in Sarawak are really powerful. And with 10 pigs and 50 “piring” (small plates) and 200 people in attendance, the gods will promise not to break their record for the longest logjam and maybe turn a blind eye to the impoundment at the Bakun Dam and allow the Rajang River to flow again.
And before Barisan Nasionals start spinning the tale that disaster would strike Sarawak if Pakatan Rakyat takes over government, let’s look at the real disaster playing out under our noses.
Any sensible person, religious or not, would see that the logjam is man-made. Any sensible person, with basic common sense, would see that the drying up of the Rajang River can be traced back to the impoundment of the Bakun Dam.
Yet, we find none of these sensible people in the current establishment.
Scary reality
So far, there is no official report concerning the logjam, even though an investigation was promised to the people of Sarawak and various officials making trips to assess the situation.
Yet, reality seems too scary and it amounts to bad press for the establishment; hence, it takes the easy way out – blame the gods.
It is convenient to point the fingers at the gods and hold an appeasement ceremony. The gods are happy and no report is needed to explain things.
Who would question divine mischief? Aren’t the gods more superior to a report written by mere mortal man?
In one smooth move, the logjam has been swept under the carpet and the Ibans are made out to be really feeble-minded people who belong to the Stone Age.
Hooray for the government of Sarawak, which takes pride in dealing with the gods when it comes to man-made natural disasters.
How then will the drying up of the Rajang River be explained away? Will we need another 10 pigs and 50 “piring” to appease the gods of the Bakun Dam? Is nature to blame because the rains have not come on time or the gods have not allowed enough rain to fall in the Bakun area?
Clearly, the gods have gone crazy in Sarawak. And our sensible politicians are giving us the answers we all have been waiting for. It is a good thing that our local politicians have priestly backgrounds that allow them to mediate between this world and the nether-world in matters that defy explanation such as the logjam and the drying up of a river.
God from the machine
There is something wrong, seriously wrong, in Sarawak: people want to see Sarawak modernised and high-tech yet they won’t bat an eye to stooping down to old-wives tales in order to appease the masses.
The people of Sarawak want real answers to real problems. The logjam caused real problems to the people living along the Rajang River. It killed off large numbers of fish, prawns and river animals.
It stops everyday life for many riverside communities – children could not attend school, fishermen could not fish, commerce was at a standstill and river folks could not get much needed supplies.
And this is now compounded by the drying up of the Rajang River. With waters running dangerously low, the same effects of the logjam will be felt in the long term by the same communities who were just getting over the October logjam incident.
We want real answers and not mere “deus ex machina”.
The Latin “deus ex machina” meaning “god from the machine” points to a practice in ancient times in theatre which the script writer would employ to explain problems in the plot where no apparent solution can be provided to the audience.
Where no answer can be given, a god would appear on stage as it lowered down by a mechanical crane from the ceiling or raised via a lift through the floor of the stage.
This practice was considered bad writing and the practice was frowned upon by ancient writers such as Aristotle, who advocated a solution that was logical and acceptable based on the logic of the story.
The Sarawak government has pulled a “deus ex machina” on the people of Sarawak, and no amount of pigs or “miring” should blind the people to the fact that the government of the day has truly failed in looking after the welfare of the Rajang River communities.
Maclean Patrick is a webmaster based in Sarawak.
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