HISTORY
"MALAY-NISATION" OF SARAWAK LANGUAGES -1965, 1977
BURIAL & BURNING OF IBAN & BORNEON LANGUAGE BOOKS BY MALAYAN GOVERNMENT
The UMNO Government on the formation of Malaysia wasted no time in tearing up the whole Malaysia Agreement by proceeding to exert its central authority over Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore.
This was strongly opposed by Singapore which led to its leaving the federation in 1965.
Kuala Lumpur 's attempt to “Malayanise” Sabah and Sarawak instead of abiding by its promise to “Borneonise” was also met with strong resistance by their respective chief ministers.
But it was not strong enough and the Malayans got their way by pushing aside those who opposed them.
This then saw the stepped up Malayanisation of Sabah and Sarawak government public service and education system.
Local languages became a casualty.
The replacement of the Borneo Literature Bureau also saw all Sarawak school text books replaced with sanitized Malayan text books.
In 1965 the language issue was one of the issues which Chief Minister Stephen Kalong Ningkan had strong disagreements with the new Kuala Lumpur colonial masters. He fought them over the continued use of English as the teaching medium which he saw as advantageous for students going overseas for higher education.
He resistance against attempts by the UMNO government to take control of Sarawak led to his dismissal.
According to the book "Media & Nation Building: How the Iban became Malaysian" by John Postill, page 59.
"Soon after Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP), Malaysia's language planning and development agency, took over the Borneo Literature Bureau in 1977, they had all the books in Iban and other Bornean languages buried.
Shortly afterwards, the mass media grave was discovered by a reader who rescued some of the books. To prevent future finds, my informants allege that the new cultural authorities resorted to a traditional agricultural practice known as “open burning.”
If this is true, what in the 1960s had been a modest literary boom, ended up feeding a bonfire."
In Sarawak this saw local languages totally ignored or sidelined without much protest even from the Ibans.
Credits: Borneo Wiki
The central governmen even clised down Sabah and Sarawak RTM TV channels to cut down any local attempts to disseminate lical news and activities. Look at the effects today.
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