Sabah … “of Nationality, Race, or Citizenship”

(Part 3)

We can discuss endlessly about the ambiguity between the terms “nations” and “states.”  Or we can make a distinction between ownership and jurisdiction.  On closer scrutiny, those should not be too difficult to dissect.  But the more difficult thing to do, in places which have common borders between them, is to separate the issues relating to nationality, race, or citizenship, especially in times of conflict.  When there's peace, people live together in harmony for thousands of years in the common borders of the world.

It might be a bit difficult for Filipinos to understand communities who lived in borders.  We are an archipelago, separated by bodies of water from the rest of Asia and the world.  Only those living in the Sulu island group and the small islands on the southernmost tip of Palawan would know what it is like to live in a common border.  Or those living on the other side of the border, which, unless you are in the Korean DMZ in the 38th parallel, is actually imaginary.  For these people, there is no border - you can't distinguish one country to another.

Nationality and citizenship are more or less synonymous to each other.  But not to the word “race.”  Here we have to defer to the fact that, as far as the “Malay” race is concerned, it would be next to impossible to distinguish a Malaysian, a Filipino, and an Indonesian.  Sure there would be others who will be less Malay, or more Chinese, or Indian, or Caucasian because of intermarriages, but for the most part, we are part of the Malay race, and we know that since elementary school.  Ask a Malaysian or Indonesian to count from 1 to 10 and see if you can't recognize the words.  Watch a Malasian movie and chances are, you'd understand half of what they are saying and guess the remaining half.

So for people who live in both the Sulu archipelago and Sabah, there is no border.  You simply ride a bangka and reach the other side.  For hundreds of years they cross the strait thousands of times, migrating back and forth, intermarrying until you can no longer distinguish between Filipino and Malaysian.  Except for citizenship, when one gets a passport.  And it has been that way for folks living there.  What happens when one group suddenly declares “This is mine,” and the other naturally resists, “No, this is mine.”?  Manila and Kuala Lumpur exchange diplomatic notes and newspapers in both capitals go into a frenzy trying to explain what took centuries to reach a modus vivendi, still maintained until a confrontation broke out.

In the mid-80s I spent some time in a Thai village called Aranyaprathet near the Cambodian border.  It was not the best of times as Aranyaprathet was actually the site of a refugee camp, admitting hundreds of Cambodians fleeing the war.  I stayed with Thai farmer and his family and he told us (through an interpreter), “I do not understand - these are my friends, we belong to the same community.  I go there, they come here, it has been that way since I was born.  We are the same people.”  That really struck me.  We are the same people.

Years later, I was in the city of Nong Khai in Northeast Thailand, a city beside the Mekong River across Laos.  This is where the first Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge was built, and we visited the site when it was still planned.  Again, in the course of daily conversation, the subject of crossing the river cropped up, and the Thai fisherman we were having lunch with, said there is no border.  You go out and fish on the river, you might want to go ashore on the opposite bank, and those across can come anytime - they trade on a daily basis, and many of their wives are Lao people.  The nationality and citizenship makes no difference.

So what happens when you have a Russian wife and Russia suddenly declares war on the Philippines?  Are you going to fight your wife?  What about your children?

Which is why, rant as many would want to, all the saber-rattling would only mean the worst for our brothers and sisters in these parts of the world.  For to them, they are simply a community, being Filipino or Malaysian becomes secondary, even nonexistent to some, since they are simply Malay.  And what about the children of cross-marriages?  We can only hope and pray that God will provide wisdom and discernment to the leaders of both countries to arrive at a peaceful resolution of the problem.