Abang Yusuf Puteh

Former Sarawak State Secretary Datuk Amar Abang Yusuf Abang Puteh, who passed away at 74 after a long illness last November 9, will always be remembered as one of Sarawak’s foremost Malay (Berunai) intellectuals and the man who said ‘no’ to long-serving Melanau Dayak Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr Abdul Taib Mahmud.

Abang Yusuf from Saratok near Sri Aman (Simanggang) was State Secretary during the 1970-1981 Chief Ministership of Taib’s uncle Tun Abdul Rahman Yaakub, the first Melanau Chief Minister of Sarawak.

He served in the Sarawak Civil Service for 24 years before becoming State Secretary. He retired in 1985.

Abang Yusuf formed the opposition Sarawak Malaysian People’s Party (Permas) and contested in the 1987 State Legislative Assembly election. He won a the Kalaka seat in his hometown and served for a term.

Abang Yusuf was a strong proponent of indigenous self-reliance and unity and opposed religious and racial extremism.

He was opposed to what he alleged was Taib’s and earlier Rahman’s political favouritism towards their own indigenous tribe.

Abang Yusuf was also a notable historian who had extensive knowledge of Sarawak’s indigenous people especially the Malays.

He shared the late Sarawak Museum curator Tom Harrison’s viewpoint that the Sarawak Malay people were not descendants of immigrants from Peninsular Malaysia’s Johor-Riau people or any of the Aboriginal Malay tribes of the Peninsula such as the Temuans (the taproot of the Johor-Riaus), the Beras (who are also called Minangkabaus and Semelais), the Kanaks (the Kedahs), the Bulangs (the Kelantans), the Kualas, the Seletars, the Bintans and the Batams.

Instead, he and Harrison stated through extensive research that the Sarawak Malay people were the Berunai who founded Brunei and were from the Kadayan or Kedayan Dayak people of Sarawak, a close relative of the Iban Dayak majority.

Abang Yusuf retired from politics in 1991 and devoted his time to writing memoirs and books about Sarawak’s rich history.

Until his last days, he stood firm in asking the Chief Minister to step down and make way for new blood to take over the Chief Ministership.

Abang Yusuf famously slammed the Chief Minister in 1988 for changing the Sarawak state flag which Rahman and the Chief Minister himself introduced in 1973 to replace the 1846 state flag which was designed by the private colonialist Sir James Brooke.

Abang Yusuf reasoned that flag-changing was a waste of money and it was ‘pointless’ to change the 1973 flag just because it looked like that of the then Communist-ruled Czechoslovakia (now split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia).

Abang Yusuf also rejected Taib’s grounds that the 1973 flag’s colours of red, white and blue were ‘too British and too colonial’.

Furthermore, he said the introduction of black to the 1988 flag was not sensitive to the feelings of Malaysian Chinese.

Sarawak’s current state flag is yellow with two diagonal bands of black (top) and red and a 9-point yellow star between them in the centre.

The bands run from the top left corner to the bottom right corner of the flag.

The colours of yellow, black and red are the traditional colours of Brunei, Sarawak’s original overlord and from whose royals Abang Yusuf is descended.

The design of the flag was that of the proposed federation of Bornesia mooted in the early 1960s by the British.

Bornesia was to comprise Sarawak, Brunei and Sabah and was to be headed by the Sultan of Brunei.

Sarawak’s first flag was a variation of the flag of England with the St George Cross halved black on the left and red on the right, set on a yellow background.

The Sultan of Brunei back then, Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin had told Sir James not to use the flag of his native England as the flag of Sarawak, but modify it to include the state colours of Brunei.

The 1973 flag Rahman and Taib introduced had two horizontal halves of red (top) and white with a blue triangle at the left and it looked almost like the flag of the Czech Republic.

This flag was based on another flag of Bornesia which was introduced by Brunei’s first democratically elected Prime Minister the late Sheikh Azahari Mahmud, the grandson of former British colonial Resident of Perak Sir Hugh Low, the first Englishman to conquer Mount Kinabalu in Ranau, Sabah.

Azahari was sacked as Prime Minister of Brunei in 1962 by Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin, the late father of Brunei’s current monarch Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah (this is a different Sultan Omar, the other whom Sir James met was his great-great grandfather).

With the backing of the late President Ahmad Sukarno of Indonesia, Azahari subsequently launched a poorly planned insurrection against British colonial rule in Brunei which quickly fizzled.

This insurrection was the run-up to the 1963-1966 Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation declared by Sukarno to oppose the merger of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah as the Federation of Malaysia (a new federation to replace Malaya and which comprised 11 states in Malaya and three self-governing region-states namely Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah each with equal status to the whole of Malaya).

At that time Brunei was controlled by a British Resident who ‘advised’ the Sultan on all matters of state.

Brunei gained independence on January 1, 1984.

It had been run by a British Resident since 1888, thanks to the machinations of the Brooke dynasty of Sarawak.

Azahari was sent into exile in Indonesia and died there in 2002.

As an Indonesian citizen, he became very close to former President Megawati Sukarnoputri and supported her political campaigns till the end.

At the time of his passing, a pardon for Azahari was in the pipeline from Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah.

Azahari’s right-hand man was Tun Ahmad Zaidi Adruce Mohamad Noor, a Melanau politician from Sibu.

Ahmad Zaidi subsequently received a pardon from the first Sarawak State Governor the late Tun Abang Openg Abang Sapiee who served from 1963 until his death in 1969.

Abang Openg was the father of Sarawak State Cabinet Minister Datuk Seri Abang Johari Abang Openg.

The Opengs are relatives of Abang Yusuf being Brunei royals.

Until the day he died, Abang Yusuf supported Abang Johari for the post of Chief Minister, reasoning that he was a man for all races and faiths.

The Melanaus are the indigenous people of the Rejang basin of Sarawak and they form 18 percent of Sarawak’s population.

However, official statistics inherited from the Brookes are misleading because they put 11 out of 18 percent of Melanaus as Malays (Berunais), leaving only the 7 percent Melanaus from the Mukah municipality, the Melanau heartland near Sibu, gazetted as Melanaus.

Sir James suppressed Melanau identity after the famous Melanau chieftain Sharif Masahor revolted against British rule.

He made many Melanaus register for the census as Malays, sans those living in Mukah.

It can be said that almost everyone gazetted as Malay in the Sibu, Sarikei, Kapit, Bintulu and Miri residencies or divisions of Sarawak is actually Melanau.

The real Malays (Berunais) are found in the residencies of Kuching, Samarahan (Muara Tuang), Sri Aman (Simanggang), Betong and Limbang.

The Malays ran the kingdom of Brunei covering Kuching, Samarahan, Sri Aman and Betong since time immemorial.

After a dispute between two factions of the royal clan called the Abangs, one faction, the Awangs went to the kingdom of the Melanaus centred in Mukah and covering Sibu, Sarikei, Kapit, Bintulu, Miri, Limbang and modern-day Brunei (technically an extension of the Limbang residency).

The Melanau king gave the Awangs control of the Limbang region.

There the Awangs created a second kingdom of Brunei called East Brunei in contrast to the West Brunei, their original home.

West Brunei was subsequently renamed Sarawak, leaving East Brunei as just Brunei.

Sir James occupied the Melanau kingdom after defeating Sharif Masahor in battle.

Sharif Masahor was banished to Selangor where he became a prominent minister in Sultan Abdul Samad’s court until his death.

Sharif Masahor’s relative Tuanku Bujang Tuanku Osman became Sarawak’s second State Governor from 1969-1977.

His son is retired politician Datuk Wan Yusuf Tuanku Bujang, a good friend of Abang Yusuf.

His grand-nephew is Deputy Speaker of the Malaysian House of Representatives (People’s Assembly) Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar.

Brunei eventually ceded the present-day Limbang and Lawas districts, together known as Limbang Division or Limbang Residency to Sir James.

This resulted in Brunei’s division into two zones - Metropolitan Brunei covering the districts of Muara or Bandar Seri Begawan, Tutong and Belait and Temburong or Bangar which is separated from Muara by Limbang.

The ceding of Limbang and Lawas to Sarawak gave Sarawak a land border with Sabah and made Brunei a virtual enclave of Sarawak.

The Sarawak Malays (Berunais) form 11 percent of the state’s population even though they officially form 22 percent (the other 11 percent are Melanaus).

Out of the 11 percent, 6 percent live in Kuching and Samarahan, and the rest in Sri Aman, Betong (including Saratok) and Limbang.

Ibans form 30 percent of the state’s population while Bidayuh Dayaks form 8 percent.

Kenyah Dayaks form 2 percent while Kelabit Dayaks form 1 percent.

The remaining 30 percent is the Sarawak Chinese whose ancestors arrived from Singapore during the era of British colonialism.

Sarawak Chinese are largely Hokkiens (both Amoy or South Hokkien and Foochow or North Hokkien, the latter heavily concentrated in Sibu) and Hakkas, with a small number of Cantonese.

Rahman’s first wife the late Toh Puan Normah Abdullah was a Sarawak Chinese and the Normah Medical Centre in Kuching where Abang Yusuf spent his final days was named after her.

Taib’s late wife Puan Sri Laila Abu Bakar was of Tatar (Azeri) ancestry from the former Soviet Union. Her family lived for generations in Lithuania and Poland before moving to Australia where she met Taib.

The Ibans provided Sarawak with its first two Chief Ministers namely the late Tan Sri Stephen Kalong Ningkan (1963-1966) and Datuk Tawi Sili (1966-1970).

All subsequent Sarawak Chief Ministers have been Melanaus, likewise Sarawak State Governors beginning with Bujang.

Rahman was Sarawak State Governor from 1981-1985. He was succeeded by Ahmad Zaidi (1985-2000) and Tun Abang Luis (or Abang Salahuddin) Barieng.

Abang Salahuddin also served as State Governor after Bujang from 1977-1981.

The Abang and Awang titles are not confined to Malays but also include Melanaus.

They denote aristocrats (royals) of the Malays and Melanaus.

Abang Yusuf is survived by his wife Datin Amar Rugayah Majid and three children.