West Kalimantan Malay Kings Hold a Gathering

Sanggau, MelayuOnline.com- On Monday (21/07), West Kalimantan Malay kings held a gathering to discuss the future of Malay culture in balairung (meeting hall) of Paku Surya Negara Palace, Sanggau District, West Kalimantan Province. The gathering was one of the agendas during the celebration of West Kalimantan Malay Cultural Festival (FBMKB) which will be available during July 21 – 24, 2008. The gathering was held after a cultural parade from Sanggau District Office to Paku Surya Negara Palace.

Came to the gathering were kings from Sekadau Kingdom, Ketapang Kingdom, Sambas Kingdom, Simpang Kingdom, Landak Kingdom, Sintang Kingdom, Mempawah Kingdom, and Pontianak Sultanate. Came also to the meeting were cultural experts from Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam, the Chairman of Cultural and Tourism Service of West Kalimantan Province, Rihat Natsir Silalahi, SE., and Mahyudin Al Mudra the Head of the Center for Research and Development of Malay Culture (BKPBM).

Before being begun, all people attending the gathering were offered with sungkui, a delicious local food made of rice wrapped by sungkui leaves, typical of Sanggau District. It is almost the same as lontong in Java Island but it is flat. It is better to be served with opor ayam and relish of grated coconut and spices.

The gathering was opened by a remark from Gusti Ariman. He summoned the attendants to keep maintaining such harmonious relations with all West Kalimantan Malay kings. “Now we can see that some people use the name of culture and palace for political interest. They are absolutely wrong, they must think that palace is the last defence of Malay culture,” Gusti said.

The King of Landak Kingdom, Gusti Suriansyah, highlighted the urgency of royal development as a medium to revive Malay culture. From such event Suriansyah hoped that Malay culture would remain forever.

Cultural Heritage

The development of Malay culture is a consequence of the efforts to reveal, to preserve, and to maintain Malay cultural heritages. Therefore, Mahyudin Al Mudra said, “The efforts done by West Kalimantan kingdoms, so far, are merely aimed at maintaining and preserving physical cultural heritage. There is no endeavour to develop and take the advantages from those abundantly cultural heritages.”

The awareness of developing Malay cultural wealth is totally rare to be found. One of the real facts is the lack of publics‘ attention to employ tourism sector.

“Many tourism potencies owned by a certain region have not been managed and promoted well. Whereas, through tourism sector, people‘s awareness of cultural heritages may rise up,” Mahyudin added.

In the same opinion to Mahyudin, the Chairman of Cultural and Tourism Service of West Kalimantan, Rihat Silalahi, would support totally the idea to develop the wealth of royal culture. “Now, we are being driven to the economic system based on cultural heritages. Hence, we must cleverly use and manage our cultural heritages,” Rihat said. Likewise, Rihat also summoned all West Kalimantan Malay kings attending the gathering to look on the future, without ignoring Malay tradition.

(LS/brt/07-08) (NI/ter/20/07-08)

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