A guide to Malaysian insults

Joe Fernandez

In Malaysia, 'pariah' is just one of a long list of words you can use to make your neighbour feel small.

Whenever an Indian loses his cool, he’s likely to lash out by calling someone Pariah (outcaste).
This is like calling someone Sakai or Jakun for any perceived misbehaviour. The implication is that the Sakais are uncivilised and backward. Of course, the real Sakais and Jakuns are not amused at all
by all this and now prefer to call themselves Orang Asli, a term covering the Negritos, Senois, Semangs and Jakuns.

In fact, the Orang Asli are more civilised than many people in Kuala Lumpur will ever be. Civilised behaviour can ultimately be seen in the way that people treat each other, the land and Mother Nature.

In Sarawak, a Murut will run amok if you call him a Murut, a word with connotations of rude, crude, rough and uncivilised behaviour. He prefers the term Lun Bawang. In Sabah , the Muruts, who are not related to the Muruts of Sarawak, are happy to call themselves Murut.

Meanwhile, the “real Muruts” of Sabah – related to the Sarawak Murut – call themselves Lun Dayeh.

At one time, Dusun was thought to be a backward word, and so some Dusuns – those staying in the urban areas of Penampang and Papar – decided to call themselves Kadazan as suggested by their late Huguan Siou (paramount chief), Mohd Fuad Stephens, who was actually Australian and Japanese. Many Dusuns took offence at this and insisted on retaining the word.

These days, the word favoured is KadazanDusun, a mouthful that leaves out the Muruts. So we have bigger mouthful, KadazanDusunMurut. The old Sabah Times once suggested the word Kadasun to shorten the term, but this caused an uproar among some purists. Besides, what about the
Muruts? The sensible thing to do, of course, is to just use Dusun, as favoured by anthropologists.

The Chinese in Sarawak, meanwhile, happily go around calling the Dayaks by the derogatory term Lakia, prompting an open warning not so long ago from Parti Rakyat Sarawak chief James Jemut Masing, who was then facing an anti-Lakia rebel faction led by Larry Sng.

In Peninsular Malaysia, we have the word Keling, which was liberally used by a female teacher – again not too long ago – against her Indian students. But the K word did not vent her anger enough; so she used the P word. Still not satisfied, she called the students Negros and monkeys.

Shrimp paste

Among older generations of Tamils, the Chinese are called manjatholi (yellow skins) and the Malays valiangkati (one who stands and watches while others work). The Chinese return the compliment with Keling kwai (Keling devil) for dark-skinned Indians, Mangali kwai (Bengali devil) for any fair-skinned hairy Indian and Belacan (shrimp paste) for Malays.

The word Keling originates from the Kalinga Empire in South India, whose allies crushed Sri Vijaya in a naval combat over control of the trade routes and paved the way for the rise of Majapahit.

In Sarawak, at every Gawai Dayak (Dayak Festival or Harvest Festival), they crown a Keling Gawai (Festive King).

Now we have the P word again, this time in the novel Interlok by so-called national laureate Abdullah Hussain. The novel does not explain, inform or educate on the P word or keep it within its proper context. Instead, it uses it in a subtle design to humiliate and degrade an entire people. The running theme is to give some people the dubious pleasure of having someone else to look down upon.

The last time the P word surfaced was in a spat between blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin and lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah. Taking offence to an earlier remark by Raja Petra describing Shafee’s conduct as kurang ajar (ill-mannered), “probably because he’s a Mamak (Tamil Muslim) and is not a Malay and is therefore ignorant of Malay culture and protocol”, the lawyer declared that he was proud to be an Indian and a Malay. He referred to Raja Petra as “a half-breed who is actually a common Pariah and not fit to be a member of the royalty”. Is he implying that not all Pariahs are common?

In kurang ajar society, we have variations of Mamak. Examples include KDK (Keturunan Darah Keling – Descendent of Keling blood) and DKK (Darah Keturunan Keling). The usage is widespread among Umno members to differentiate between the “Malays” and others.

The root cause of the bad blood between PKR’s N Gobalakrishnan and Azmin Ali is the fact that the latter referred to the former more than once as a Pariah. Even if Gobalakrishnan was a Pariah, was Azmin insinuating that there’s no place in PKR for the Pariahs of Malaysia?

If the P word is used liberally for any Tom, Dick and Harry to mean something unflattering, what about the millions of the real Ps who are peaceful, law-abiding citizens?

The origin of the word is shrouded in mystery and ignorance for most people, even Indians, but this should hardly be the case.

Polluting influence

When the Aryans from central Asia overran the Indian subcontinent some thousands of years ago, the entire place, including Afghanistan and Iran, was Dravidian. Superimposed on this was the Aryan civilisation, and there was a coming together of the Dravidian god Siva (the destroyer), and the Aryan gods Brahma (the creator) and Vishnu (the preserver).

Hinduism divided society in North India into four castes for division of labour: the Brahmins (priests), the Kshatriyas (aristocracy), the Vaisyas (farmers) and the Sudras (artisans). Outside the four castes were the outcastes, the Pariahs, who were further divided into untouchables, unapproachables and unlookables for their polluting influence on the caste groups. The unclean trades, like working with leather and removing night soil, were reserved for the Pariahs.

As British author VS Naipaul has written, India finds its ultimate humiliation in the degradation of the night soil carrier. Does Malaysia, likewise, want to find its ultimate humiliation in the
degradation of the Pariahs through novels like Interlok?

In South India, with the coming of the Brahmins, there were three castes: the Brahmins, the Kshatriyas and the Commoners, who are sub-castes of equals. Outside the three-fold Hindu caste system in the south are the Pariahs, formerly the priestly class but dislodged when Hinduism swept south and the Brahmins replaced them. The Tamil kings were persuaded by the Brahmins to convert to Hinduism.

In MIC, the Pariahs were ousted not so long ago and went on to form the IPF (Indian Progressive Front) under the late G Pandithan.

Mahatma Gandhi preferred to call the Pariahs by the term Harijan (Child of God) and he set an example by cleaning his toilet himself.

The Harijans have banded together and today call themselves Dalits, and they have spawned militant wings like the Dalit Panthers. No longer are they willing to accept the caste system or allow India to be ruled by the caste system rather than the Constitution and the Rule of Law.

DNA studies have proven that there is no difference between the Dalits, Harijans or Pariahs and other Indians. So, it’s not a race thing.

Ultimately, it must be remembered that the entire human race came from east Africa and spread all over the world in three great migration waves.

Today the P word has crept into the English language and we have terms like “Pariah nations” reserved for Iran and the Sudan, among others, by the United States and its allies.