Winning short film sheds light on Sabah’s citizenship-for-votes caper

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 21 — A chance conversation with her father about his youth set Nadira Ilana on her path to shoot “Silent Riot” — a short film about the 1986 Sabah riots.

She was born just a year after her Kota Kinabalu hometown in Sabah was paralysed by riots and fish bombs that followed the 1985 state elections.

Nadira took a month to put together the story for her documentary. — Picture courtesy of www.tedxkl.com

“I was asking my father what things were like when he was my age,” said the young film-maker in the Singapore Straits Times. “I remember his words: ‘I bet you never heard of the time Sabah had two chief ministers’.”

She hadn’t but it took her a month to put together the story by talking to people who remembered.

Then, the 25-year-old read about the Freedom Film Festival by a human rights group.

Her 30-minute documentary “Silent Riot” won a top prize in the film festival last year, and became an instant hit for shedding light on events that had preceded the alleged citizenship-for-votes plot that is now dominating the headlines.

The “Project IC” plot was said to be the cause of a massive influx of immigrants who now make up one-quarter of Sabah’s residents, with Muslims outnumbering the once-dominant Christian native population.

The issue has simmered but is now the hottest topic of debate in Sabah after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak set up a royal commission of inquiry to probe the matter last year.

The hearings resume this week but the events that led to this Project IC are a mystery to many.

“Very few of us knew about the riots,” said Universiti Malaya law lecturer Dr Azmi Sharom, who was a judge in the film festival. “But it’s important that we know. A lot of things that are happening in Malaysia, we tend to see out of context because we don’t have a context. Or we have the context provided by one side only.”

Azmi said Malaysians are coming to realise they have an incomplete view of their own history, leading many to fill the gaps through efforts such as “Silent Riot”.

The 1985 Sabah election saw then-opposition Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), which represents the Christian Kadazandusun community, winning most of the seats in the state assembly. PBS is now in the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN).

But the other contenders also claimed victory, resulting in two chief ministers being sworn in. Fish bombs went off in Kota Kinabalu and other towns and demonstrations broke out. Protesters were believed to be illegal immigrants from south Philippines.

More than 1,700 people were arrested, five died and a curfew was imposed for a month.

While many have forgotten about the riots, Nadira and many others believe that it was the background to the alleged Project IC.

They believe Muslim immigrants were made citizens in exchange for their political support.

“The cost was Sabah’s democracy, security and the state’s overall dignity,” Nadira said.

Watch this video and trailer: