Orang Asli in Malaysia

Abstract

At the end of the UN Decade for Indigenous Peoples (1994-2004) it is still highly unlikely that the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples will pass through the General Assembly. Granting special rights to a particular part of the population is still a very controversial issue in many countries. In a few, it is true, indigenous peoples have been given a special status: the Philippines, for instance, has been amongst those countries since its Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act came into force. In most countries, how ever, national policies do not favour a special status for indigenous peoples, and in fact the very notion of being indigenous is denied. Malaysia is among those countries that do not want to get involved in this international debate, claiming that all Malay people are indigenous, while at the same time recog nizing the Orang Asli as a special category within the population. Over the years the number of publications about the various groups of Orang Asli has been very substantial. Officially the Orang Asli comprise 18 ethno-linguistic groups of which the Temiar, Semai, Senoi, Jakun, Temuan, and Negritos (such as the Batek) are the best known. Both foreign and Malaysian researchers have written extensively about them in specialized monographs. In spite of their relatively small numbers (about 130,000), they feature prominently in the discussion about indigenous peoples and the