I refer to the letter Nothing has changed for the Semang .

I was reading the above letter and I was wondering, who is this Semang that Jeevindra Kumar was talking about? I read the newspapers almost everyday, and I did not see any mention about Semang at all. I am a Borneon, and Malaysia is my country, but Borneo is an ocean away from mainland Malaysia. I guess that is why we, the people who live across the ocean, are ignorant of many things in mainland Malaysia. We only get to know about such things when they are written or mentioned in the media.

So I searched ‘Semang’ in Google. Yes, I found Semang and that they are actually a living group of people of the Negrito ancestral. So why is this group of people hardly mentioned at all? We hear about the Australian Aborigines, of the Native Americans, of the New Zealand's Maoris, but why not of the Malaysian Semang?

We fight for the rights of the Malays non-stop, and the Borneons, of course, are also trying hard not to be forgotten in this nation. Not to forget the Indians and the Chinese, all whom are voicing out loud their rights as citizens of this country. They are building their schools and educating their children in their mother tongues. But regretfully, hardly a whisper is heard about the Semang, the people who have been marking their existence on this land since thousands of years ago.

Lucky us, we are big in numbers, we make it to the statistical charts of this country. But the Semang, who are they? They are almost nil on the statistical charts. Shout they may, cry they may, but who will hear them, except the anthropologists and that is for their own benefit of studies.

My fellow Malaysians, let us hear their voice, and let us hear their cry from time to time. Let us not keep grabbing their land. Let us not push them deeper into the jungle, threatening them into extinction. And at the same time, let us stop trying to assimilate them into the society (by force) through changing their beliefs, and racial components.

Allow them to have the freedom of choice. Allow them to live with pride and dignity in this nation. We ourselves believe in spirits and souls, we believe in our ancestral lines, thus we shall respect their culture and their beliefs - their animist way of worshiping nature and their ancestors.

Help their culture to flourish along with the Malay culture, the native people of Borneo, the Chinese and the Indians of this country. Let it be the nation’s special gift to recognise them as the special minority group of this country, that is even 'above' the Malay’s priority rights.

Please do not make the Semang as just a part of our history, but raise them up as we raise every majority group in this country too. They may be insignificantly small, unable to make their voice to be heard but nevertheless they are the main colour of this land. Let nature not to be forgotten especially when we are trying hard to promote our ecosystem and eco-tourism, to the world.

The way we pray may be different, but together we shall respect the spirit and soul of our land, and let us share the blessings of our land equally. This is Malaysia, a beautiful and 'colourful' nation, and to forget the Semang is as good as an artist's loss of memory of the main colours.

Thank you, Jeevindra Kumar, for ‘banging the podium on the Semangs’ behalf". We shall together help to voice up for this silent minority now and save our descendants the shame of having to apologise in the future for our wrongdoings in the past.