KDMs hurt by this irresponsible act

This was published in the Daily Express. See here: http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/read/4292/kdms-hurt-by-this-irresponsible-act/

Only Dr Jeffrey Kitingan has come out to speak about this issue of restoring road names, where are the other leaders? See here: https://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news/167513/call-to-restore-road-name/

Okk Lojungah (left) at Native Chiefs Advisory Council of Penampang meeting in 1935. Beside him is NC Mogunting and Manjaji.

REFERENCE is made to your recent report on a suggestion by the Sabah and Labuan Chinese community to have a road sign in the State Capital named after the late Tan Sri Peter Lo, Sabah’s second Chief Minister and the first Chinese to hold the post. 

Besides being Sabah’s first Federal Minister in the Cabinet of first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman as well as Sabah’s first local-born lawyer he put his legal mind to work on coming up with many of the 20-Point safeguards when agreeing to form Malaysia seemed the only path to independence on September 16, 1963.

Truly Lo deserves a street to be named after him for his immense contributions at the time of Malaysia’s formation. But hopefully it will be at a prominent part in the city and not in some back alley or beside his house.

That would defeat the whole purpose of appreciating the roles played by historical figures like Lo. We feel justified in saying so because of some people we suspect were racists who held the post of Kota Kinabalu Mayor before who did not conceal their dislike for people of other ethnicities.

We only need to cite two instances but are not sure whether it was deliberately done by the same Mayor or such behaviour was emulated by others as well.

The first was the renaming of Jalan Edwina Mountbatten with Jalan Pintas near Sabah College. For those who are not aware, Edwina was the wife of Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India who   played a major role in the Second World War. She died in the house above the dual carriageway tunnel, which later became the army’s property.

How can Kota Kinabalu lay claim to preserving history when a mayor with zero knowledge about the historical significance of the roadsign replaced it with Jalan Pintas? 

 We need to appreciate and honour our colonial past. Changing a road sign will never hide the fact that we were once colonised. Didn’t this mayor benefit from the colonial education, respected judiciary, good governance, no-nonsense civil service and a westminster parliamentary system? 

Tourists today go in search of places connected to historical figures. By that token, Labuan should have a Jalan McArthur in honour of the five-star US General who walked the streets of Labuan before liberating the Philippines. 

We would be sure to get hordes of American tourists making Labuan one of their stopovers.

Secondly, there was a road sign that was replaced which was an open insult to the Kadazan Dusun community in Sabah but went unnoticed because it was done quietly.

 We are referring to the act of removing altogether Jalan Lojungah in Kampung Air which even for reasons of nationalism is wrong because the late Lojungah was a very important native leader of his time, just like Laiman Diki whose name on a road sign is to be found nearby – but was not touched! 

We may be wrong but the only reason we could think of for this Mayor doing so was because Lojungah happened to be a Kadazan Dusun and a non-Muslim native leader. OKK Lojungah was the first native chief of Penampang.

It is the actions of people put in important positions and who abuse their power  to undertake such actions that can affect the unity and harmony among the various races in Sabah.

We found it strange that at least one Kadazan Dusun Mayor who is now a Minister, Datuk Abidin Madingkir, did not undo this damage by reinstating the sign during his two terms. 

He can be forgiven if he was not aware but he is in a position to do so. As do current Mayor Noorliza Awang Alip who appears to be a fair and reasonable person in the two months since occupying the post.

Reinstating the road sign would also send a strong message to future mayors and local authority heads not to tamper with existing road names.

Any attempt to do so must be made public because being ratepayers we have the right to know why a particular road name was being replaced and whether it is done according to whims and fancies, or dislike for a particular community’s leaders as the Lojungah case clearly seems to suggest.

We recall reading in your paper huge public uproar over the KL Mayor’s decision to arbitrarily change the name of Jalan Raja Laut to Jalan Palestin. His reason was that it was in support of the Palestinians. Here is another example of a seemingly dim-witted decision by a person holding the post of Mayor of the nation’s capital. He had no idea that it was named after the then Raja Muda of Selangor, Raja Laut Sultan Muhammad Shah back in 1898.

 As a Mayor and as a Malay, any change in the road’s name should have been made known to the Selangor Sultan as Raja Laut was his ancestor. As a Malay, he did not know that Raja Laut, like Lojungah in the case of KK, was a very important person as he was the Penghulu of Kuala Lumpur, established the Kuala Lumpur Sanitary Board and as President of the Malay Agricultural Settlement was behind the creation of Kampung Baru where a good majority of Malays today reside.

We wonder if any road in the Palestinian territories have been named after Malaysia, for promoting their cause.

Roads and surrounding areas carry names of important and respected people like Lojungah because of historical significance, value and serve as a heritage site.

It instils appreciation and raises awareness about a person and his or her contributions to society. It is a pity that we promote Sabah as Land Below The Wind but have no shame in not naming any street after Agnes Keith whose book made Sabah world famous or even her husband, Harry, who is responsible for identifying  the State’s current first class forest reserves from the 1930s until they left Sabah in 1952.  

Any move to change a road name must take into consideration the feelings of the community that will be hurt, as in the case of Lojungah. 

The new Mayor and Madingkir can repair the damage and restore the pride of the Kadazans and Dusuns on this matter. 

A wrong has been committed and must not be allowed to continue. It simply must be reinstated to what it originally was, i.e. Jalan Lojungah.

Late Peter Lo