Borneo, Redrawn by Oligarchs and Capitalists
The Colonial map is brutal, the Capitalist map: even more brutal, by AI.
🌍 DAYAK TODAY | PONTIANAK: In the sprawling metropolises, the Heer van overzee play golf in peace. They sip wine between meetings, flipping through maps that no longer simply show rivers and mountains—but new, invisible lines.
Ethnic borders. Lines of power. All redrawn like sketches that can be erased and altered at will. That island —once so distant—is now just numbers in an annual report, a volatile graph, stocks changing hands.
Read Peta Kolonial dan Peta Kapitalisme di Borneo
Elsewhere, far from the boardrooms and golf courses, the earth cracks open. The forests, once shaded and serene, are now riddled with holes. Rivers that once flowed long and clear now run in colors no one can quite describe.
The people are now fading into silhouettes
The people who’ve lived there for centuries—who know every birdcall and shift of wind—are now fading silhouettes. Their names appear in documents, but not in decisions.
And now they’re learning to survive. In cities they never knew. On land they no longer own.
The myths once told before sleep are now just echoes in their minds. What remains isn’t the stories of ancestors or the songs of rivers.
Read Dayak: Origins and First Use as Indigenous Identity of Borneo
But a single, haunting question:
How much longer must they survive in a land that was always supposed to be their home?
How the Locals Resist—and Survive—the Oligarchs' Map
But not everyone folds quietly into the shadows.
Across Borneo, local communities are pushing back—not with guns or slogans, but with memory, dignity, and strategy. They see the new maps not as destiny, but as a challenge.
- First, they refuse to sell their land.
Even when offers come wrapped in legal jargon and thick envelopes, many locals hold firm. To them, land isn’t just property—it’s identity. It holds the bones of their ancestors, the roots of their stories, the trails of their childhood. - Second, they’re securing what’s theirs.
In villages once left off official maps, people now gather to document, measure, and certify their land. Handwritten family records become formal titles. Oral traditions are mapped in GPS coordinates. They’re turning unwritten truths into legal facts. - Third, they lean into compassion—belarasa—and solidarity.
They build grassroots economies rooted in trust and shared struggle. Credit Unions rise not just as banks, but as movements. Built by the people, for the people. Money, once a weapon used against them, becomes a tool they control—circulating in ways that empower rather than exploit.
This isn’t just resistance—it’s reinvention.
In the face of a world that redraws their existence, they draw their own lines. Quietly. Boldly. Together.
-- Masri Sareb Putra