Pesta Kalimaran 2009

The main entrance of the Murut Cultural Centre, Tenom

Pesta Kalimaran is a Murut festival yearly held on the first week of April of a calendar year. It celebrates and honours the Murut people and their uniquie traditions through a 3 day showcase of cultural events that feature among others, a myriad of traditional Murut dances, songs, food, games and handicrafts.

Despite the global economic downturn, Pesta Kalimaran was an exception. Themed “Kalimaran Towards Progressive Community”, It was held for 3 days beginning from the 3rd. April to the 5th April 2009 at the Murut Cultural Centre in Tenom, Sabah where the Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman had this to say ” holding various ethnic cultural festivals is important in ensuring continuity of the State’s cultural heritage which can, otherwise, be easily forgotten due to globalisation”
and further reinforced his belief by saying ” these ethnic festivals not only make the ethnics concerned more known and popular but attract more tourists ” as evidenced from an increase in tourists’ arrival to Sabah from 1.25 million in 2003 to 2.3 million last year alone where the country is also estimated to receive over 24 million tourists by next year of which the expected income to be generated will be about RM59 billion and would be expected to provide 520,700 jobs. “

Among the highlights was the allocation of awards in the form of 2 full-grown cows and goats to the winners who had worn the most complete Murut traditional costumes regardless of ethnicity on the 2nd day of the celebration.

These are some of the pictures taken to show enthusiastic Muruts from all walks of life.

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The Judges with the winner (men) of Murut Kolor ethnicity

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Yes. Ready for the showcase of their lives?

Murut ladies well-known for their handicrafts creativity

an up and coming local murut artist

a very charming and pleasant lady

Folks, I will have more pictures in my next post.

Cheers!

Datuk Rubin Balang, the new Tenom UMNO Chief

Datuk Rubin Balang, the President of Persatuan Murut Sabah (PMS) in action with a traditional Murut Blowpipe

” RUBIN WINS ” that was the New Sabah Times’ headline today. Yes. Would I be delighted of the news? who wouldn’t. He is my president, the current President of Persatuan Murut Sabah (PMS) of which I am currently the Treasurer-General. I have of course served as the Secretary-General of PMS when Datuk Rubin was first elected as the President way back in 2000.

Since then, we have gone back a long way in the rough and tumble of strenghtening PMS and getting it to be offically recognised by the state government as being the rightful platform for the Murut not only economically but I have to concede, the full recognition of the Murut culture, its beautiful traditions and of its people who would excel in producing eye catching original handicrafts. Under Datuk Rubin’s leadership, the evidence of PMS’ success is none other than the state-sponsored KALIMARAN Festival held annualy at the Pusat Kebudayaan Murut in Tenom.

Although he is currently the Kemabong Assemblyman, the Chairman of the Sabah Housing Development Board and a former Sabah Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, he is to me first, a president of our Murut association who, since his election, had done so much in bringing the association to where it is now. A place, aptly recognised by the state government. At the back of my mind, I thought, our association had also played a very important role in determining who the right BN candidate should be to contest in the Tenom Parliamentary seat in last general election? Any of you folks buying this? Unbelieveable? Believe it.

Honestly, I should say that although Datuk Rubin may not have the necessary paper qualifications, he is no doubt, a charismatic leader who had held the Kemabong state seat for four terms. When he was the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, he made it his mission to place the Murut warrior dance at the forefront of every cultural presentation culminating in, if my memory serves me right, a commendable win in a cultural dance competition in Spain?

That is why, I was very confident that where the majority of UMNO members are Muruts and if the Tenom UMNO Divisional election were to be conducted according to the true meaning of a democratic process, Datuk Rubin Balang would win the election this time around after failing to wrest it from Datuk Rizalman Abdullah in the last UMNO election. Well. He did it yesterday. He toppled Datuk Rizalman who had been the Chief for a record 17 years.

It was in fact, an open secret that there was bad blood between the two contenders. No stone unturned in the heat of the campaign. Each had his own pebble to throw at the other and vice versa. The heat became so unbearable that one of the contenders had to lodge a police report alleging someone from the other camp had purportedly hired a hitman to cause hurt to the complainant. I would not wish to dwell further on this as I believe the relevant authority are in the process of investigating the alleged incident.

But what a memorable farewell to the last UMNO divisional meeting in Malaysia!. Apart from the above, I was told later that the recount of votes went on for about 10 times last night. Imagine OMG. At one time, it was Datuk Rubin Balang who won by two votes but on count back, it was Datuk Rizalman winning by a mere one vote. Could anybody believe the tension filling the Chung Hwa school hall where the votes were counted? It was not only very stressful for the contenders but their supporters too. In the end, it was Datuk Rubin who triumphed. He won by a majority of 56 votes after ganering 189 votes to Rizalman’s 133 votes. I was told that the police and Rela had played a very important role in making sure that no untoward incident happened. A big thank you to them.

With this defeat, it is anybody’s guess about the political future of Datuk Rizalman. Would he be able to make a come back? Only time will tell.

Cheers!