IN the last editorial, we had written on BMF and its notoriously belligerent director, Lukas Straumann and examined how they have been caught whitewashing the misdeeds of Swiss Nazi chemical companies while unfairly and distortedly attacking Sarawak with a degree of vehemence that would have been more appropriate when directed at the Nazis - new and old - much closer to home.
In this instalment, the NINE QUESTIONS Panel examines the faulty and sinisterly dangerous worldwiew that the operators of the Bruno Manser Fonds hold fast to. We also explore the twisted 'science' behind the existence of this shadowy organization, the suspicious fundings of which has been verifiably substantiated and covered by the good people at Corruption Watchers.
The Panel will also scrutinise current issues surrounding the subject of the nomads, and compare the many different groups to shed light on the issue concerning the Penan natives of Sarawak and we will show how the people at Bruno Manser Fonds are misleading and even maliciously using the Penans to advance their self-serving and suspicious cause.
– The NINE QUESTIONS Panel
👇🏽
-PART II-
"Over 90% of Sarawak's rainforests were logged."
– Bruno Manser Fonds
THUS goes the oft-repeated mantra favoured by Bruno Manser Fonds and their close - but equally bogus - affiliate, Sarawak Report. Depending on their mood, they will also use the contradictory line of, "Only 5% of forest cover left", just to lend their agenda an air of alarming urgency that is best focussed on other, more realistically urgent locations around the world*.
Over time, they have refined this claim to include the word "primary", when they realised that their original claim cannot be substantiated by any acceptable method whatsoever.
STATIC STATISTICS
The other problem with this whimsical claim is precisely because in the decades since this claim had first been made - since the late 1980s to the early 1990s - their statistics had barely changed from the same old tired general accusation, and thus we can conclude that the original accusation was made from a blatantly biased estimation and thus designed to cause maximum damage despite ground evidence to the contrary.
Thanks to modern technology, we are now better able to discern with little room for doubt that the claims made by BMF and their well-meaning but mislead affiliates (except for Sarawak Report, whom we are adamantly sure is one maliciously unrepentant organisation, with the zeal of a biased and hateful fanatic) are far from accurate.
This zeal is best encapsulated in Bruno Manser's own, albeit gravely false proclamation made in February of 2000 that, "[through] his logging license policies, Taib Mahmud is personally responsible for the destruction of nearly all Sarawak rainforests in one generation."
GOOGLE EARTH TIMELAPSE RELEASED
GOOGLE EARTH TIMELAPSE RELEASED
A few days ago, Google Earth had released their latest innovation, which is a timelapse of satellite photographs composited over the period of 32 years (1984-2016).
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| Satellite shot of Sarawak in 1984. Screenshot: Google Earth Timelapse |
Satellite shot of Sarawak in 2016.
Screenshot: Google Earth Timelapse
Looking closer to the situation using objective data, the interactive map furnished by Global Forest Watch tells another starkly different story than the tired old "90% gone, 5% left" jingle, that makes neither logical nor mathematical sense.
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| In this 2016 rendering of the Global Forest Watch interactive map, forest cover loss is clearly less than 40% to 50%. Furthermore, if only 5% was left, or as Mr Manser would prefer to term it as "nearly all" is gone, then wouldn't Sarawak be left with absolutely no forest cover in the 16 years that the ridiculous pronouncement was first made? Evidently, these campaigners are not interested in the truth, but merely using false data to advance their hidden political/commercial agenda. Screenshot: Global Forest Watch |
Just a cursory view would tell the observer that there is still way more than merely 5% forest cover over Sarawak, and certainly, even the primary rainforests are still largely intact.
Given that Mr Manser had made such a boldly apocalyptic pronouncement way back at the turn of the millennium, the sixteen years that had passed would have seen Sarawak with absolutely no forest cover by today, especially presuming that they were correct in saying that all this is due to then-Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud's "indiscriminate policies".
LET'S GO EUROPE
Let's zoom in closer to Europe where these 'campaigners extraodinaire' come from.
Below is a screenshot of the Global Forest Watch interactive map of a large section of Scotland, United Kingdom, which shows two large forested parks, surrounded by what looks like sparsely tree-covered areas. In other words, Scotland either doesn't have that much forest cover to begin with, or it had already decimated most of its virgin forest covers before environmental data had been collected in such a manner as we see today.
Yet still, there is evidence of relatively massive tree-cover loss occurring even in National Parks not mentioned by BMF or Sarawak Report. Clicking on the photo will show the full extent of the damage.
According to the Trees for Life Organisation, there is only 1% of primeval forest cover left in Scotland.
Anyone cares to save this even sadder state of affairs in Scotland? Apparently BMF and Sarawak Report do not.
If they really cared about the environment, they would have done or said something about this, but they evidently have not.
Whatever be the case, it is clearly hypocritical of the BMF and close affiliate Sarawak Report to give undue focus and spread misinformation about Sarawak to the international community, while at the same time claiming to be eco-heroes to anyone who would believe them. Other than the recent lip-service (at worst)/belated effort (at best) to protect the Polish Białowieża Forest, they repeatedly ignore other hotspots around Europe to give the impression that everything is super-enlightened and that they know what they are talking about.
They evidently don't, as we have clearly demonstrated.
Given that Mr Manser had made such a boldly apocalyptic pronouncement way back at the turn of the millennium, the sixteen years that had passed would have seen Sarawak with absolutely no forest cover by today, especially presuming that they were correct in saying that all this is due to then-Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud's "indiscriminate policies".
LET'S GO EUROPE
Let's zoom in closer to Europe where these 'campaigners extraodinaire' come from.
Below is a screenshot of the Global Forest Watch interactive map of a large section of Scotland, United Kingdom, which shows two large forested parks, surrounded by what looks like sparsely tree-covered areas. In other words, Scotland either doesn't have that much forest cover to begin with, or it had already decimated most of its virgin forest covers before environmental data had been collected in such a manner as we see today.
Yet still, there is evidence of relatively massive tree-cover loss occurring even in National Parks not mentioned by BMF or Sarawak Report. Clicking on the photo will show the full extent of the damage.
According to the Trees for Life Organisation, there is only 1% of primeval forest cover left in Scotland.
Anyone cares to save this even sadder state of affairs in Scotland? Apparently BMF and Sarawak Report do not.
If they really cared about the environment, they would have done or said something about this, but they evidently have not.
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| This 2016 map from Global Forest Watch clearly shows logging activities and forest loss areas unrelated to logging being worryingly present in both the Galloway Forest Park and the Northumberland National Park, both in Scotland - a country with an already scarce forest cover. Screenshot: Global Forest Watch |
Whatever be the case, it is clearly hypocritical of the BMF and close affiliate Sarawak Report to give undue focus and spread misinformation about Sarawak to the international community, while at the same time claiming to be eco-heroes to anyone who would believe them. Other than the recent lip-service (at worst)/belated effort (at best) to protect the Polish Białowieża Forest, they repeatedly ignore other hotspots around Europe to give the impression that everything is super-enlightened and that they know what they are talking about.
They evidently don't, as we have clearly demonstrated.
This is not to say that all's 100% well in Sarawak and there is absolutely no environmental concerns involving the Sarawak rainforest, but we are certainly saying that the hyper-alarmist views taken by these irresponsible and self-serving activists are nothing more than hogwash guesstimates that reflect their own bigoted biases and lack of knowledge on their own part.
Despite the lack of knowledge, they are certainly full of presumptions.
What Sarawak and the Penans need in this case is more NGOs and activists who are not only better informed, but are willing to work with the democratically-elected Sarawak Government to help them preserve their culture and knowledge, but also to ease into modern living, and pursue a destiny they had never charted for themselves before, in harmony with all the other communities in Sarawak - a bottom line too easily ignored by manifest destiny organisations such as BMF and Sarawak Report.
What Sarawak and the Penans need in this case is more NGOs and activists who are not only better informed, but are willing to work with the democratically-elected Sarawak Government to help them preserve their culture and knowledge, but also to ease into modern living, and pursue a destiny they had never charted for themselves before, in harmony with all the other communities in Sarawak - a bottom line too easily ignored by manifest destiny organisations such as BMF and Sarawak Report.
It must be noted that although by now - with the power of the internet and social networking - BMF had managed to 'diversify' their previously skewed focus on Sarawak into other places in the world, we will prove that this is merely 'greenwashing' on their part based on the essential and needful things that they never bothered to take up, and as the window of opportunity had recently closed, they will also not be able to rectify.
And this is what we will explore below to prove the disingenuousness of BMF and its operators.
And this is what we will explore below to prove the disingenuousness of BMF and its operators.
But first, let us take a look at the supposed raison d'être of this organisation, and that is the late Bruno Manser himself. In order to do this, we need go no further than the chilling semi-autobiography of the man himself, called Laki Penan (2006), which we will discuss in detail a little later.
Before we do that, a quick look at who Bruno Manser the man is, pre-Sarawak.
BRUNO MANSER, SWITZERLAND AND HIS FIRST CULTURAL MISAPPROPRIATION
Frequently hailed as an "eco-hero", Mr Manser is of Swiss origin and is said to be passionate about the environment and would fit the description of what Westerners would call a typical 'hippy'.
His personal life - according to Wikipedia, without a doubt fluffed up by BMF or affiliate - reads as following: "Bruno Manser was born in Basel on 25 August 1954 in a family of three girls and two boys...During his younger days, Manser was an independent thinker. His parents wanted him to become a doctor, and he studied medicine informally...Manser spent three months in Lucerne prison when he was 19 years old because, as an ardent follower of non-violent ideologies espoused by Mahatma Gandhi (Satyagraha) he refused to participate in Switzerland's compulsory military service. After leaving prison in 1973, he worked as a sheep and cow herder at various Swiss Alpine pastures for 12 years. During this time, he became interested in handicrafts, therapeutics, and speleology. He laid bricks, carved leather, kept bees, and wove, dyed, and cut his own clothes and shoes. He also regularly pursued mountaineering and technical climbing...At the age of 30, he went to Borneo, looking to live a simpler life...In 1984, while learning more about the rainforests, Manser learned of a nomadic tribe known as the Penan tribe. After learning more about the tribe, he decided to attempt to live with the Penan tribe for a few years and traveled to the East Malaysian state of Sarawak in 1984 on a tourist visa."
Briefly, Bruno Manser has had many a brush with mainstream establishment years before he came to Sarawak, purportedly to live much closer with nature. Evidently, he isn't able to be as hippy as he can in 1970s Switzerland, so he eventually decided to try his luck in Malaysian territory in 1984.
Despite all the polished marketing efforts that BMF and others had spent in creating this eco-hero imagery, what cannot be erased is the fact that Bruno is in fact a belligerent failure in his own society who expects to make a stake - James Brooke-style - elsewhere where the jungle people live, because he simply cannot fit in with the rest of mainstream Switzerland.
Having been jailed due to his refusal to serve the Swiss military service, he is touted as a worthy follower of Gandhi's Satyagraha or non-violence movement/ideology. What the propagandists would love for people not to realise is the fact that even Mahatma Gandhi himself had served in military service for the British Army.
In fact, after Kheda satyagraha ended, Gandhi aggressively started campaigning for the war as a recruiting officer of the empire.
Before we do that, a quick look at who Bruno Manser the man is, pre-Sarawak.
BRUNO MANSER, SWITZERLAND AND HIS FIRST CULTURAL MISAPPROPRIATION
Frequently hailed as an "eco-hero", Mr Manser is of Swiss origin and is said to be passionate about the environment and would fit the description of what Westerners would call a typical 'hippy'.
His personal life - according to Wikipedia, without a doubt fluffed up by BMF or affiliate - reads as following: "Bruno Manser was born in Basel on 25 August 1954 in a family of three girls and two boys...During his younger days, Manser was an independent thinker. His parents wanted him to become a doctor, and he studied medicine informally...Manser spent three months in Lucerne prison when he was 19 years old because, as an ardent follower of non-violent ideologies espoused by Mahatma Gandhi (Satyagraha) he refused to participate in Switzerland's compulsory military service. After leaving prison in 1973, he worked as a sheep and cow herder at various Swiss Alpine pastures for 12 years. During this time, he became interested in handicrafts, therapeutics, and speleology. He laid bricks, carved leather, kept bees, and wove, dyed, and cut his own clothes and shoes. He also regularly pursued mountaineering and technical climbing...At the age of 30, he went to Borneo, looking to live a simpler life...In 1984, while learning more about the rainforests, Manser learned of a nomadic tribe known as the Penan tribe. After learning more about the tribe, he decided to attempt to live with the Penan tribe for a few years and traveled to the East Malaysian state of Sarawak in 1984 on a tourist visa."
Briefly, Bruno Manser has had many a brush with mainstream establishment years before he came to Sarawak, purportedly to live much closer with nature. Evidently, he isn't able to be as hippy as he can in 1970s Switzerland, so he eventually decided to try his luck in Malaysian territory in 1984.
Despite all the polished marketing efforts that BMF and others had spent in creating this eco-hero imagery, what cannot be erased is the fact that Bruno is in fact a belligerent failure in his own society who expects to make a stake - James Brooke-style - elsewhere where the jungle people live, because he simply cannot fit in with the rest of mainstream Switzerland.
Having been jailed due to his refusal to serve the Swiss military service, he is touted as a worthy follower of Gandhi's Satyagraha or non-violence movement/ideology. What the propagandists would love for people not to realise is the fact that even Mahatma Gandhi himself had served in military service for the British Army.
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| Gandhi (fifth from left, middle row) alongside members of the Indian Ambulance Corps during the Second Boer War. Photo: Times of India |
"Gandhi left England for India in December, 1914 and arrived in January, 1915.
That year, Gandhi was awarded the Kaiser-i-Hind Medal.
In the next few years, Gandhi continued to espouse the cause of the British,
though he also fought British imperialism through Champaran satyagraha in 1917 and the Kheda satyagraha in 1918.
In fact, after Kheda satyagraha ended, Gandhi aggressively started campaigning for the war as a recruiting officer of the empire.
This time, Gandhi wasn't recruiting non-combatants but fighters."
Noting that even the father of Satyagraha is not against serving in the military, the claim that Bruno Manser and supporters have been making to the effect that he is merely following the tenets of Mahatma Gandhi's ideology is proving to be just another whimsical claim to justify an action that isn't actually supported by the said ideological founder and main proponent.
At the very least, this reflects the blatant ignorance - not to mention the false misappropriation - of a well-delineated ideology.
Contrary to popular misconceptions, Mahatma Gandhi is far from being a hippy, but is of a different breed altogether - a breed that Bruno Manser evidently is far from belonging to.
1973, THE YENISH PEOPLE AND KINDER DER LANDSTRASSE
Mr Manser was released from Swiss prison in 1973.
That particular year was also a significant milestone for Switzerland, because it was exactly that year that the notorious program called the Kinder der Landstrasse (Children of the Open Road) was finally abolished by the Swiss Government.
For the uninitiated, this controversial program was focused on the Yenish people of Switzerland, with the aim of forcibly settling them down through the process of imposed assimilation.
Who are the Yenish? They are a group of nomadic natives who roam or travel around Switzerland and neighbouring countries as a way of life. In short, the Yenish Travelling Nomads are the Swiss equivalent of the Penans in Sarawak.
We bet most readers have never even heard of the Yenish people until today, and we cannot blame them. Given such an atrocious history, it makes sense that the authorities, and Swiss society itself would rather not mention the subject of the Yenish.
Tellingly, instead of being called the Yenish - as they call themselves - they were for the longest time known simply as "The Travellers", conjuring up images of hippy bandwagons instead of a persecuted minority.
In fact, we are more likely to hear about the so-called Gypsy Romas who originated from India around a millennia ago. While both groups have been facing and still face their own unique brands of persecution in Europe - including Switzerland - it seems that as far as Bruno Manser's native Switzerland is concerned, the Yenish nomads has had it really bad.
Another group, the Sinti nomads, are also not doing any better in Switzerland, as we will see below.
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| A Gypsy Roma beggar in Geneva. Photo: Glocal Forum |
"Switzerland has tried to make the Jenish population settle down.
Between 1926 and 1973 an aid organisation of the foundation Pro Juventute and the guardianship authorities took away more than 600 children from their parents.
The federal government, welfare centres, teachers, pastors and aid organisations supported the operation Relief Organisation for Children of the [Open] Roads.
Many Jenish children were placed with rural families, supposedly as children in care. They were exploited as cheap labour and often mistreated. Because of public pressure, the operation was stopped in 1973.
In 1987 the cabinet apologised.
A foundation was set up to guarantee the future of the travellers, their living conditions and their way of life in Switzerland."
– SwissInfo.ch
The federal government, welfare centres, teachers, pastors and aid organisations supported the operation Relief Organisation for Children of the [Open] Roads.
Many Jenish children were placed with rural families, supposedly as children in care. They were exploited as cheap labour and often mistreated. Because of public pressure, the operation was stopped in 1973.
In 1987 the cabinet apologised.
A foundation was set up to guarantee the future of the travellers, their living conditions and their way of life in Switzerland."
– SwissInfo.ch
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| The persecuted Yenish nomadic natives of Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Wallonia and France. Photo: Traveller's Voice |
As mentioned before, the year that this this program was shut down coincides with Bruno Manser's release from Swiss prison. And although that fascistic program that lasted for 47 years was dissolved officially in 1973, the plight of the Yenish Travelers continue to this very day - not only is their indigenous culture threatened, they are also facing blatant racism and bigotry from the supposedly enlightened and socially compassionate Swiss - the archetype that BMF is trying so hard to cultivate in the persona of Bruno Manser.
According to Traveller's Voice, "The 1948 UN Genocide Convention defines the forcible transferring of children of a 'national, ethnic, racial or religious group to another group' in the intent to destroy, in whole or in part; as genocide and this, along with public shame and pressure brought an end to the forced adoptions and the beginning of a programme of reparations for survivors."
Not only was Bruno Manser a false prophet who was actually a misguided and unruly anarchistic hippy, he and others aligned with him in this whole BMF Progrom are clearly caught being silent about a fascist-inspired genocide that was taking place right at home.
It comes as no surprise then, to see a pattern of whitewashing the misdeeds of various fascists around the home front - while attacking faraway tropical lands inhabited and administered by natives ripe for a 'civilising-to' - emerging from looking at concurrent developments taking place while their campaign has been running.
Ditto Herr Straumann, "historian". Instead of radicalising the Penans and peddling falsehoods, he would do well to expose the neo-fascists that are actively taking hold of Europe as we speak. Unless, of course this is something that he condones.
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| The victorious Sebastian Kurz, whose win is described by the New York Times as such: "An anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim party won the Austrian elections on Sunday, and its leader might form a government with a party founded by ex-Nazis." Photo: NYT |
NOTHING TO SEE HERE - LOOK AT SARAWAK INSTEAD
In all the interim years between leaving prison and embarking on the journey to Malaysia (1973-1984), and even the subsequent years since and until the day he went missing, isn't it strange that Mr Manser had never even mentioned the Yenish people, much less to fight for their rights with as great a zeal as he possessed while fighting in the name of the Penans?
Why is it that Mr Manser needed to venture all the way to Sarawak in order to "be one with nature", when he can perfectly do that with the Yenish people of Switzerland who also need someone like him to fight for their rights?
Unfortunately, Bruno Manser and his Fonds never even cared for their plight for reasons only beknownst to them and their close circle of political/commercial activists masking as well-meaning environmental activists.
Unfortunately, Bruno Manser and his Fonds never even cared for their plight for reasons only beknownst to them and their close circle of political/commercial activists masking as well-meaning environmental activists.
If the reason is that there is very little forest area left in Switzerland that could sustain nomadic living, why haven't BMF done something about that situation, as opposed to Sarawak, which still has those roaming grounds for the Penans to practice their culture?
The Penans may face hardships by virtue of living a hard life in the forest (in case anyone is entertaining that living in the jungle is like living in paradise, let us tell you right now it isn't and the Penans will also be the first ones to tell you that), but they never faced anything remotely close to what Swiss society had done to their Yenish nomads.
The Penans may face hardships by virtue of living a hard life in the forest (in case anyone is entertaining that living in the jungle is like living in paradise, let us tell you right now it isn't and the Penans will also be the first ones to tell you that), but they never faced anything remotely close to what Swiss society had done to their Yenish nomads.
Bruno Manser and BMF can say any number of false things, but what they cannot deny on any level is the fact that the Government of Sarawak had never stooped to approving anything even remotely close to attempting to kidnap Penan children forcibly to assimilate them into mainstream society.
For Sarawakians, that is simply unthinkable, yet the Swiss did it for 47 cruel years.
For Sarawakians, that is simply unthinkable, yet the Swiss did it for 47 cruel years.
In fact, it was only in 1998 - two years before the disappearance of Bruno Manser - that the Yenish, were granted protection under the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities - 14 full years after Bruno Manser left Switzerland and deserted the Yenish nomads in favour of the Penans of Sarawak, thousands of kilometres away from home.
And we haven't even started talking about the plight of the other nomadic tribes currently being persecuted in Europe, despite their protected status, and we shall elaborate later below.
Just as we had caught Lukas Straumann whitewashing Swiss Nazi chemical companies while attacking Sarawak, we are again seeing the same pattern of covering up or blatantly ignoring their own dark fascist history while claiming that worse things are happening halfway across the world, when there is nothing further than the truth.
Perhaps this tactic would have worked before the internet liberated information flow, and thus we are better able to check against a whole backdrop of hypocrisy, long-standing ignorance, and bigoted prejudices being practiced.
Welcome to the 21st Century, Bruno Manser and Lukas Straumann.
LAKI PENAN, STARRING BRUNO MANSER
The video feature Laki Penan was made in 2006, and it aims to glorify Bruno Manser as an eco-hero, who had supposedly managed to figure out a way of living in harmony with nature, before his tragic disappearance in 2000.
It also explores and explains in length the philosophical leanings of the man himself based on his writings found within the pages of his journals - which is illustrated with surprisingly good sketches of the scenes that he witnessed during his stay with the Penan tribe.
But it is precisely the words that he had recorded that we are more interested in looking into.
Given that the whole film is quite lengthy, we would zoom into certain important parts to glean the ideological construct behind the man who would be the self-made Sarawakian Tarzan.
In this part of the film, the audience is introduced to Mr Manser's encounter with the Penans, where he describes their lifestyle and worldview.
Note that while we are not criticising the right for the Penan to maintain a certain cultural identity, we are certainly criticising BMF's continually misguided attempt to preserve the Penan foraging, hunting and gathering lifestyle in toto and without any concessions to be made to fit into mainstream society whenever they are ready.
Note that while we are not criticising the right for the Penan to maintain a certain cultural identity, we are certainly criticising BMF's continually misguided attempt to preserve the Penan foraging, hunting and gathering lifestyle in toto and without any concessions to be made to fit into mainstream society whenever they are ready.
This point is evidenced 7m27s into the Part 1 of 7 instalment, whereby the consuming of wildlife simian flesh is clearly depicted as taking place. Bruno Manser's journal stressed that,"Our guides tell us when a nomad hunts a monkey mother with a child, they'll only kill the mother and then take care of the child."
Contrast that statement with the following news report by the Telegraph, out of Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo: "The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation has reported the discovery of 19 babies so far this year. In the latest cases of a male, six to eight months old, and a three-year-old female weighing only 11 pounds, it is suspected that their mothers were deliberately killed."
Evidently, the same is being frequently and rampantly practiced by poachers just south of the border from Sarawak, where the poachers would kill the adults and adopt the baby primate.
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| A recently rescued baby orangutan clings on its cage at Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation Center in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo: Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS) Foundation, Central Kalimantan |
We don't see BMF either, (1) praising this practice as acceptable and indeed noble; or, (2) condemning this practice taking place in Kalimantan, perhaps it isn't in line with their broader unstated agenda.
It is clear that despite their many endearing qualities, the Penan also need to undergo their own cultural changes in line with modern sensibilities, and even their own philosophical ideals just to survive.
We move on to the Part 2 of 7 video, where at minute 8th, second 25th, we hear something seemingly benign at a glance, and only takes a sharp ear to detect. The narrator reiterates Bruno Manser's words, and in a soothing matronly voice states, "Earth with all its life form is like a huge organism. Even the smallest creature has its own designated space to live in. Everything in nature is fit to work in harmonious cycles."
Seems innocuous enough, until we noticed the following phrase, "designated/living space", or in its original German, der Lebensraum, which is clearly audible through that soothing, raspy voice.
Perhaps the word was mistranslated in order to hide this significance to the non-German speaker.
Perhaps the word was mistranslated in order to hide this significance to the non-German speaker.
This word - der Lebensraum - is a word oft-abused by German-speaking colonialists throughout the ages, and the most recent example we should all remember was 1930s Germany and surrounding countries. Yes. We are seeing Nazis again, and it's all from looking at objective - and in this case, primary-sourced - materials.
"The German concept of Lebensraum, (English: "living space") refers to policies and practices of settler colonialism which proliferated in Germany from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, Lebensraum became a geopolitical goal of Imperial Germany in World War I (1914–1918) originally, as the core element of the Septemberprogramm of territorial expansion. The most extreme form of this ideology was supported by the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and Nazi Germany until the end of World War II."
– Wikipedia, Lebensraum
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| Emblazoned across the entrance to the infamous Auschwitz Concentration Camp are the immortal words, "Arbeit Macht Frei", or "Work Sets You Free". This is eerily echoed by Bruno Manser's own words, "Everything in nature is fit to work in harmonious cycles". The usage of the word Lebensraum by both the Nazis and Bruno Manser himself is strikingly worrying indeed. Photo: DeviantArt |
Seeing how European neo-Nazis are recently gaining more popularity these days, we are not surprised that this attitude had taken root (or rather, never really departed from) within Swiss and the broader European mindset since the 1980s when Bruno Manser decided to make a run to Malaysia.
Whether or not Bruno Manser is a neo-Nazi hippy, we aren't as concerned as towards the fact that he does seem sympathetic to their brand of ideology - whether knowingly or not. His actions, worldview and also lack of knowledge certainly makes him an anarchist in the truest sense of the word, if not also a confused neo-Nazi tree-hugger.
FAULTY SCIENCE, BIASED POPULARISM AND THE ROMANTICISING OF NOMADIC LIFESTYLE
Renowned ethno-anthropologist, Dr Wade Davis is another Western figure who famously did a study on the Penans. He published his findings in collaborative books called, Nomads of the Dawn - The Penan of the Borneo Rainforest, and Penan - Voice of the Borneo Rainforest.
The second book describes the Penans as "one of the world's last hunting and gathering people", which is to be expected given the level of atrocities and genocide that had occurred elsewhere, some of which with impunity - as we have demonstrated with the Swiss program called Children of the Open Road.
Campaigners such as Mr Davis and associates - Lukas and Clare being chiefly amongst them - like to repeatedly accuse the Sarawak Government of stealing from the Penans, based on their very obvious and visible poverty.
With such thick biases, it is best to refer to a more neutral party, who is more of an expert than these fly-by-night visitors, who come and go as soon as their work is done.
We shall see soon below who the actual thieves are.
We shall see soon below who the actual thieves are.
DR JARED DIAMOND
Dr Diamond is a world renowned author of the award-winning Guns, Germs and Steel - The Fates of Human Societies (1997), which won the 1997 Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, and the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. The book also won the Aventis Prize for Best Science Book and The Royal Society's Rhône-Poulenc Prize in Science in 1998.
In his authoritative and groundbreaking study on the nomads of Papua New Guinea, he questions, "What separates the haves from the have nots?", and it is there that he begins his quest to "uncover the roots of inequality".
According to Dr Diamond, who also authored another ground-breaking and seminal book titled, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005), a Papuan nomad named Yali bluntly asked him around 40 years ago, "Why you white man have so much cargo (wealth) and we New Guineans have so little?"
Dr Diamond, whom the eminent anthropologist Barbara King described as one who "does not succumb to a Noble Savage fallacy of romanticizing small-scale societies" - a trait which is all to commonly possessed by the overzealous political/commercial campaigners, purely to advance their manifest destiny agenda - and with his solid academic background and breadth of experience living with the natives, is a more credible neutral party to describe the situation of the nomads with greater clarity and authority.
Excerpted from the transcript of the PBS Special titled Guns, Germs and Steel - Out of Eden:
"To catch an animal requires skill, stealth, and encyclopedic knowledge about hundreds of animal species. You have to be pretty smart to be a hunter. But the fundamental problem with hunting is that it’s never been a productive way to find enough food. It takes time to track each animal. And with a bow and arrow, there’s no certainty of how the hunt will end."
He continues,
"Because hunting is so unpredictable, traditional societies have usually relied more on gathering. In this part of Papua New Guinea, the gathering is done by women. An important source of food here is wild sago. By stripping a sago tree they can get to the pulp at the centre, which can be turned into dough and then cooked. Although it’s physically harder work, gathering is generally a more productive way of finding food than hunting."
And most importantly,
"But it still doesn’t provide enough calories to support a large population. This jungle around us, you might think it’s a cornucopia, but it isn’t. Most of these trees in the jungle don’t yield, don’t give us anything edible. There were just a few sago trees, and the rest of these trees don’t yield anything that we could eat. And then sago itself has got limitations – one tree yields only maybe about 70 pounds of sago. It takes them three or four days to process that tree, so it’s a lot of work really for not a great deal of food, plus the sago starch is low on protein, and also the sago can’t be stored for a long time. And that’s why hunter/gatherer populations are so sparse."
He concludes,
"If you want to feed a lot of people, you’ve got to find a different food supply, you’ve got to find a really productive environment, and it’s not going to be a sago swamp."
And therein lies the crux of the terrible lie spread by these irresponsible political/commercial campaigners: Their message that the Penans should be able to maintain their lifestyles as is, without interference from the outside world will perpetually limit their population and condemn them to a life of poverty and subsistence living - while Bruno Manser and associates get to return to their urban Swiss homes as they please, until such a time they get tired of that again.
Although these campaigners claim that the Penan population are under threat, they are also all too keen on keeping the latter under conditions that we ourselves - including Mr Straumann, Ms Brown and associates - wouldn't want to "emulate, such as cycles of violence, frequent risk of starvation, and short lifespans resulting from infectious disease."
Nomadic cultures have little choice but to settle into an agricultural-based lifestyle simply to be able to have a sustainable population in this era, and they need to learn agricultural practices as soon as possible.
Without a sustained population level, and agriculture, the tribe will remain in an endless cycle of poverty by default.
On the flipside, if everybody in this world start becoming nomads all at once, we would have very little food left for our total population, and there would be perpetual and internecine warfare between all the roaming tribes of the world.
This is an unsustainable future, and it clearly shows how misguided these campaigners actually are.
Certainly, teaching the nomads agriculture is a much better solution than attempting to wipe them out genocidally - as what the Swiss did until 1973 to the Yenish people.
Nomadic cultures have little choice but to settle into an agricultural-based lifestyle simply to be able to have a sustainable population in this era, and they need to learn agricultural practices as soon as possible.
Without a sustained population level, and agriculture, the tribe will remain in an endless cycle of poverty by default.
On the flipside, if everybody in this world start becoming nomads all at once, we would have very little food left for our total population, and there would be perpetual and internecine warfare between all the roaming tribes of the world.
This is an unsustainable future, and it clearly shows how misguided these campaigners actually are.
Certainly, teaching the nomads agriculture is a much better solution than attempting to wipe them out genocidally - as what the Swiss did until 1973 to the Yenish people.
This is further reinforced by current attitudes - ones which are actually bigoted and racist than what they are claiming that Penans experience in general - in Switzerland towards the nomadic Yenish, Roma and Senti natives.
In February of this year (2017), the Society for Threatened Peoples at the United Nations Human Rights Council, in their Written Statement concerning the "Situation of the Yenish, Sinti and Roma communities in Switzerland" stated that,
"The Society for Threatened Peoples calls upon the members of the United Nations Human Rights Council
and its relevant mandatory bodies to urge Switzerland to:
ºAddress the problem of Racial Profiling by raising data on the topic; by sensitizing the Police in dealing with
minorities; by distributing knowledge about Yenish, Sinti and Roma minorities and about travelling groups; by
introducing new methods for police practice like a ticketing system for identity checks,
ºIntervene and to take comprehensive measures to fight antigypsyism in media, politics and society by
recognizing and officially condemning Racism against Yenish, Sinti and Roma,
ºAddress the lack of transit sites and permanent sites immediately,
ºGuarantee systematic political participation and inclusion of Sinti, Roma and Yenish on federal, cantonal and communal level,
ºRecognize Roma as a national minority in the sense of the framework convention on the protection of national minorities of the Council of Europe and recognize Romanes as a non-territorial minority language,
ºSystematically integrate the history and culture of Jenish, Sinti and Roma in Swiss school curricula,
ºActively promote the culture of Yenish, Sinti and Roma in Switzerland by acknowledging their cultures as a relevant and integral part Swiss cultural heritage."
It seems that the campaigners thrive on such an impasse in order to perpetuate their false and self-serving premises, while completely ignoring the more atrocious problems continually faced by the nomads of Europe in general and Switzerland in particular.
Whatever criticisms that BMF, Lukas Straumann and associates can throw at Sarawak, they can never deny that their own society is committing much graver violence against their own nomads, and they have not said a thing about it.
BMF'S TRUE PLANS FOR THE PENANS
Despite BMF's insistence that its activities are legitimate and despite their elaborately stated aims, a November 25th, 2004 interview with Lukas Straumann by Swiss publication, Online Reports reveals a sinisterly different aim, which isn't stated on the BMF official page, for reasons only known to them.
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| Mr Lukas Straumann: All quiet on the Western front. Photo: Online Reports |
In that interview, tellingly titled "Switzerland has Greater Influence than One Thinks", to the last question, "There are several Penan objects of cultural and historical interest in Basel. Are there any intentions of making them accessible to the public or even returning them to the Penan?", Mr Straumann states,
"We envision a Bruno-Manser-Building in Basel where the culture of the Penan and life in the rainforest could be brought closer to the public through a permanent exhibition."
– Lukas Straumann, BMF
– Lukas Straumann, BMF
From these words, we can clearly see that Mr Straumann is more interested in misappropriating Penan culture, with the plan of sequestering their already scarce cultural artefacts permanently in Basel, where they are currently kept.
Is the BMF trying to commit its own 'Elgin Marble' event, when the priceless white marble reliefs from the ancient Greek Parthenon was appropriated to Britain, seemingly with permission of the cultural guardians at the time, but hotly disputed today?
The question is, who really is stealing from the Penans, whilst enjoying their "full trust"?
This is especially worrying given the backdrop of Mr Straumann having the tendency to either whitewash or entirely ignore cases of fascistic behaviours that is occurring much closer to home, even as we speak.
The question is, who really is stealing from the Penans, whilst enjoying their "full trust"?
This is especially worrying given the backdrop of Mr Straumann having the tendency to either whitewash or entirely ignore cases of fascistic behaviours that is occurring much closer to home, even as we speak.
It is is furthermore perplexing as to how Mr Straumann proposes to have the Penans travel all the way to Basel just to visit the proposed "Bruno-Manser-Building" and see their own cultural artefacts?
What's even more insulting is the fact that the proposed building/museum will be named after Bruno Manser, not the Penans. It seems that this whole project is partly aimed at glorifying the late Mr Manser even at the expense of the subject of his 'adoration'.
To further reinforce this notion, we are also witnessing how Swiss scientists themselves tend to ascribe to this 'cult of Bruno Manser' when they named recently discovered Sarawakian species of frog and spider after Bruno Manser, and not any reference to the Penans or any known Sarawakians frequently used by these organisations to promote their self-serving cause.
"The Bruno Manser Fund said that a goblin spider collected by a Dutch-Swiss research expedition in the Malaysian state of Sarawak in the 1990s has been named Aposphragisma brunomanseri. The scientists also dedicated the Murud black slender toad, Ansonia vidua, to Manser. Stefan Hertwig from the Natural History Museum of Bern and Bern University’s Institute for Ecology and Evolution had discovered the toad on the Gunung Murud mountain in the region where Manser went missing in 2000."
– SwissInfo.ch
– SwissInfo.ch
Whatever BMF's stated plans for the Penans, they certainly do not involve immediate benefits for the Penans, when things are completely within their control, such as in the naming of new species.
SWEEPING THE ROHINGYAS UNDER THE CARPET
BMF's first and foremost stated aim is, "the respect of all human rights, especially that of indigenous peoples".
Looking back at how they have been ignoring the plight and erstwhile genocide of the Yenish people right in their backyard, it isn't that surprising to see that they are also complicit in silence over the genocide of the Rohingyas, nearby in Myanmar.
To date, over 800,000 Rohingya Muslims have had to leave their burning homes at the pain of death, rape and torture. The United Nations recognises this catastrophe as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing".
Again, we do not see BMF mobilising its network to help the Rohingyas even by a jot. All they have displayed thus far is more silence, as if they do not even know that the Rohingyas exist. There is also always the possibility that they actually condone such atrocious action.
Lukas Straumann's associate Clare Rewcastle Brown, had in fact acknowledged that such an atrocity certainly is occurring in Myanmar, when she described the cancellation of the Royal Visit to Myanmar by the heir to the British throne - Prince Charles and consort, which is a sign of protest to the genocide taking place there - by contemptuously stating, "Even more disgraceful is the fact that this ‘validating’ tour of Malaysia sanctioned by the British Government has been accompanied by a deliberate and public snub of Myanmar, by means of an announcement that the Royal Couple have abandoned their plan to also visit, because of the treatment of the Rohingya."
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| Bruno Manser was expelled from Malaysia in 1999 for having protested against the destruction of the rainforest and for human rights of the indigenous population [while ignoring graver atrocities that are ongoing much closer at home in Switzerland against the Yenish, Roma and Sinti]. Photo: SwissInfo.ch/Keystone |
CONCLUSION
Using the extrapolation of changes over time, and also utilising the advancement of technology to further dig deeper into the motivation and actions of these political/commercial campaigners, we can clearly see that these actors are merely stating some sweet idealisms to front their actual aims for the foreseeable future.
It is true that they have contributed in some measures to helping some aspects of Penan life, but all those pale in comparison to the things that they would rather not have the general public know.
We can nowadays acquire information at the touch of a button, and all it takes is some legwork and earnest research to see the true picture of what this whole story is really telling us.
And the picture that emerges is one of blatant hypocrisy, neo-fascist sympathy, misinformation, misunderstanding of the world around them, and the overwhelming urge to impose civility in an already auto-civilising society, that has been moving along well and will continue to move well ahead without Bruno Manser, his Fonds and associates.
They can keep doing all the other nice things to benefit the Penan for them to put up pictures online and show some work, but they can never undo their repeated whitewashing and ignoring of major cases of genocide and persecution of minorities that went on and still going on in Switzerland, elsewhere in Europe, and Myanmar - to name just a few.
Their vehemence in chasing after Sarawak's wealth is worrying not due to fears for social justice, but precisely the opposite - these Europeans seem to be thirsting to fix our faraway tropical lands again while letting their own minorities continue to suffer, and misappropriating the cultural treasures of others - whether ideologically, or even physically.
In the process, the cultural and artefactual treasures of the people BMF seeks to "protect" end up in faraway Basel, almost completely isolated from those who need to access them the most: the Penans and other Sarawakian and Malaysian people.
And the artefacts need to return to Sarawak, which Mr Straumann is refusing to do.
Thus cultural misappropriation should be included into the BMF's list of 'achievements', and not just the fairytale fluff stories that is the staple of their own self-promoting portal.
In the truest sense of the word, BMF and associates are actually the ones that are clearly stealing from the Penans as we speak - directly or indirectly - while enjoying the strong and full trust of the said native tribe.
And the picture that emerges is one of blatant hypocrisy, neo-fascist sympathy, misinformation, misunderstanding of the world around them, and the overwhelming urge to impose civility in an already auto-civilising society, that has been moving along well and will continue to move well ahead without Bruno Manser, his Fonds and associates.
They can keep doing all the other nice things to benefit the Penan for them to put up pictures online and show some work, but they can never undo their repeated whitewashing and ignoring of major cases of genocide and persecution of minorities that went on and still going on in Switzerland, elsewhere in Europe, and Myanmar - to name just a few.
Their vehemence in chasing after Sarawak's wealth is worrying not due to fears for social justice, but precisely the opposite - these Europeans seem to be thirsting to fix our faraway tropical lands again while letting their own minorities continue to suffer, and misappropriating the cultural treasures of others - whether ideologically, or even physically.
In the process, the cultural and artefactual treasures of the people BMF seeks to "protect" end up in faraway Basel, almost completely isolated from those who need to access them the most: the Penans and other Sarawakian and Malaysian people.
And the artefacts need to return to Sarawak, which Mr Straumann is refusing to do.
Thus cultural misappropriation should be included into the BMF's list of 'achievements', and not just the fairytale fluff stories that is the staple of their own self-promoting portal.
In the truest sense of the word, BMF and associates are actually the ones that are clearly stealing from the Penans as we speak - directly or indirectly - while enjoying the strong and full trust of the said native tribe.
This conclusion is however, far from being the end of the story, as the facts are still trickling in as the time passes. When that time comes, we will be back again with the next instalment of our exposé on Lukas Straumann, Bruno Manser Fonds and their associates.
[*We note BMF's recent campaign against the deforestation in Poland, but we are of the opinion that this is to preempt suspicions of disingenuousness of their previously Sarawak-only campaign, designed to target Sarawak Governor Tun Abdul Taib Mahmud and family, and in the process also unfairly attacks Sarawak and its fledgling, yet independent economy. This development, however, supports our statements shared by many that BMF should in fact focus more on issues more relevant to them, which are in fact, more atrocious and pressing.]
–END OF PART II–
–END OF PART II–
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The NINE QUESTIONS Blog will return with more facts.
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