Prior Transcripts, Divergent Paths: Resistance and Acquiescence to Logging in Sarawak, East Malaysia

Abstract

In 1987, there was an uprising of sorts in the remote interior headwaters of Sarawak, East Malaysia, on the island of Borneo. In March of that year, Penan hunter-gatherers in the Baram and Limbang Districts of Sarawak suddenly erected more than a dozen blockades against logging companies. Since that time, scores of Penan have been arrested for resisting the activities of these companies by erecting more blockades and engaging in other acts of civil disobedience. In doing so, they have achieved a great deal of international reknown among environmentalists, indigenous rights activists, and the Euramerican public at large. Their story has received broad international media coverage, and scores of celebrities, from politician Al Gore and musician Jerry Garcia to Prince Charles, have spoken out on their behalf. The Malaysian government has responded to these efforts with a vigorous media campaign of its own and, in the process, has come to play an increasingly visible role as a critic of what is portrayed as neocolonialist attempts at control over environmental affairs in the South.Recently I have been examining the international campaign that emerged around the Penan issue in the late 1980s. In a series of interviews with European and American environmentalists, Penan resistance to logging was repeatedly cited as an important influence in the growth of movements promoting rainforest preservation and indigenous rights. Virtually everyone describes the Penan as exemplars of how an indigenous people can assert control over their own destiny and, in the process, halt the loss of global biodiversity. In short, the Penan have become an icon of resistance for environmentalists worldwide.