Hey everyone,
i wrote this reflection as an assignment for my capstone project that Im completing while Im here in Malaysia, so if it sounds a little "academic," please forgive me 🙂 I hope its still interesting and helpful for you all, either way. I just havent had much time to write, so i thought Id kill 2 birds with 1 stone here! Enjoy:
In a land far, far away, and in what seems to be a time strangely wedged between the 21st century and decades, or even centuries, long past, exists this quietly hidden haven in the jungle, small and simple, yet colossal and powerful in its capacity to re-imagine and manifest the Kingdom of God on Earth. Ladang MCare, the name of this hope-filled place, is the budding brainchild of Malaysian Care’s (the Christian NGO I'm working with here in Malaysia) Rural and Urban Development branch, a living experiment and educational facility of sustainable living and farming. Set at the foot of two converging mountain ranges and nestled between two small rivers, Ladang MCare’s 15-acre plot creatively entwines its local ecosystem’s natural heritage, the exotic and iconic durian trees, and a fascinating array of agroforestry and sustainable agriculture demonstration areas. Physically and relationally, it is also very much a part of the small Orang Asli (original or indigenous people) village, Sunggai Chinchin, that calls this locale home. Its other neighbors, however, include government and privately owned oil palm and rubber tree plantations, as well as a taxpayer sponsored, government-controlled camp that is designed to invigorate its 17 and 18-year old Malaysians with national pride and commitment. Needless to say, Ladang MCare’s quite complex, and even conflictive, physical context is a fairly good reflection of the socially, economically, ecologically religiously, and ethnically volatile tangle within which this ministry lives.
Although there ample facets of this entangled web of conflict and complex interrelationships that I would love to unpack, I must focus each of these reflections as best I can, for the sake of clarity and sufficient development of each thought process: for this first one, I will discuss the particular issue of oil palm plantations and their high-stakes role in the intersection of this context’s ecological, socio-economic, and ethnic tensions. According to many people I have talked to, and a publication of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council, palm oil production is considered to be the pride of Malaysia in its contribution to the global community. This touted industry is Malaysia’s largest employer after the government, and it has been revered as the pivotal piece to Malaysia’s social and economic development over the past few decades.[1] On a practical scale, it is a relatively easy business and process to run and, most notably of all, for many of the Orang Asli, it is viewed as the golden ticket to fast cash and quick jump into a more comfortable, “modern” lifestyle.
Flying into Kuala Lumpur, I was shocked, perhaps even horrified, to see the seemingly endless miles and miles of almost unbroken palm oil plantations that pervade the Malaysian landscape. It’s as if Malaysia has set up millions of cloned, many-armed green soldiers all standing at attention, poised to attack any enemy that enters their country… the problem, however, is that these soldiers themselves, the millions of mono-cropped, chemically fertilized palm oil trees, are more of an enemy to Malaysia and its future than any other nation’s soldiers that might come against it. Replacing millions of acres of rich, beautiful rainforest, destroying immeasurable biodiversity, degrading the soil with huge amounts of chemicals, contributing high volumes of greenhouse gases, and luring thousands of poor, small landholders into a deadly game of zero food security, oil palm plantations may have driven Malaysia’s development train, but they are quite likely leading it now towards an unsustainable, hungry future of ecological and economic collapse.
As I said earlier, oil palm’s powerful presence is literally at my front door here, as a number of large corporate and small villager-owned plantations surround the farm and the area around Sunggai Chinchin village, visibly displaying their dominant role in the local economic system. In addition, 2 of the villages I’ve visited, and almost every one of the 26 with which Malaysian Care has a cooperative microfinance relationship, have oil palm plots. If that wasn’t enough for close encounters with this internationally recognized issue, Adidas (yes, like the sports brand, and yes he loves to wear their clothes with his name on it J), the Orang Asli farm manager here, invited me to work with some villagers on one co-op trip to harvest some of the oil palm fruit bunches! As I forcefully jabbed the pointed metal pole into the black, spiky, very heavy fruit bunches, picking them up and throwing them into the back of our Toyota pickup, my heart and head swirled with ethical controversy. I had to be quite careful too, as many of the bunches were home to angry ants that like to bite, most of which were left crawling homeless and hungry in the dry, nutrient depleted dirt where the fruit bunches had been lying, only a very few lucky ones remained on the bunch were able to ride on the truck out of the parched land to the processing center. Perhaps this harvesting process is a vivid, symbolic representation of how these trees are being forcefully stabbed into the earth and effectively trucking off its rich, God-given resources of abundance and diversity by cutting everything else away and scorching the soil with chemical fertilizers. The ants left behind frantically searching for food are illustrative of what the Orang Asli and other peoples of Malaysia might be as climate change continues to warp our planet and as they continue to devastate their rich soil and refuse to grow their own food. As is always the case everywhere and in every time too, only a few people, like the very few ants who made it onto the truck, will be lucky enough to strike it rich, and as all things of this world, even their money wont’ last forever and can not fulfill them as human beings.
So here we are, (Malaysian Care, and me here for a few months), fumbling through the murky waters of how to be a witness to God’s Kingdom and empower the Orang Asli to find their own way with God and each other to build that Kingdom in their own communities: do we continue to let them chase the cash-craze of converting their beautiful land to oil palm, as a way of “lifting” them out of poverty through cash income, or do we challenge them to maintain some of their native ways of living in harmony with the forest and land and assist them in making their land produce more food sustainably to provide for their needs? Although I hope for the Orang Asli to benefit from the good and life-giving advances of modern technology and society, I don’t know if simply falling into the mold of modern society is the best answer for them. My sense, along with some of the people here, is that we need to be advocates of a way forward that entails maintaining as much of their unique and ecologically wise ways as possible. Being a facilitator (through the microfinance loans Malaysian care gives) of the Orang Asli ditching their beautiful way of life, their knowledge of the forest and its hundreds of medicinal and healthy plants, and their strong communal identity by becoming slaves to the cash-dependent and materialistic mode of modern life can not be the “best” and full picture of what holistic development and Kingdom witness looks like here in Malaysia. Oil palm, rubber, and other cash crops, when planted alone and without any food, could be the highway to death of the Orang Asli heritage and the future of food and life in Malaysia. I hope and pray that during the rest of my time here I will be able to engage the Orang Asli friends I have and will meet on these perplexing questions, to get a better sense of where they stand and what they want for themselves and their communities… I just need to improve my Malay a little more so I can understand and communicate at such levels with them! Please pray that God will unveil wisdom to all of us, Malaysia Care, the Orang Asli, and myself, so we can discern the best ways for all of us, and all of God’s creation, to move forward more sustainably towards the endlessly abundant Kingdom that God is making a reality through the presence and Spirit of the resurrected Jesus Christ.
