By Fr Paul Ling & Fr Justin Chawkan, SSS
KUCHING — At the invitation of Archbishop Simon Poh of Kuching, the FABC-OTC (Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences – Office of Theological Concerns) held its annual meeting at the St Peter’s College Seminary, Kuching from 28 April 2024 to 5 May 2024. OTC is one of the nine offices of the FABC and carries out theological reflections, provides feedback and organises theological courses (such as the BITA – Bishops’ Institute of Theological Animation) at the requests of the Asian bishops.
This office usually has at least three bishop members, one executive secretary and a number of theologians from various fields and from diverse countries of Asia. Those present at the 2024 OTC meeting in Kuching comprised three bishops from Indonesia, India and the Philippines with 10 ordinary members from India (2), Sri Lanka (1), South Korea (1), Hong Kong (1), Taiwan (1), Philippines (1), Indonesia (1), Thailand (1) and Malaysia (1). A member from Japan joined online for some of the sessions.
The main purpose of this year’s meeting is to complete the paper on ‘Synodality’ from the Asian perspectives, which began last May at the OTC meeting in Seoul. To keep ourselves grounded in the reality of the Asian lives, OTC usually have a dialogue session with the locals, be it with local fellow theologians, university students, school children, youth, forum with general public, etc. For this meeting in Kuching, a visit to the local indigenous community in the setting of their traditional culture was planned, and Bunan with its Bidayuh longhouse was chosen as the venue. This is also in line with FABC’s desire to pursue further the indigenous theology in the context of Asia.
Longhouse visit
Fr Justin Chawkan, SSS shares his experience visiting a longhouse.
On the second day of the Annual Conference of the Office of the Theological Concerns (OTC) of FABC, 2024, we had the wonderful opportunity of visiting a kampong “longhouse” in Bunan-Tebedu. This longhouse consisted of 14 separate houses but with one long corridor under one roof, belonging to the indigenous people of Malaysia. To understand the concept of “longhouse”, we may want to compare with the so-called ‘line houses’ of the Tea Estate-Workers in Sri Lanka. Nevertheless, longhouses are pretty much longer and bigger, each home containing two rooms, refectory, kitchen, a toilet and a bathroom. The corridor as such is maintained well by all the families and used for common recreational activities such as beating drums, playing cards and other various indoor games, sing-along, etc.
The corridor is also made use of for special occasions of joys and sorrows, for example, funerals, weddings, First Holy Communion parties, birthday celebrations, etc. They also told us how they come together very often to pray the rosary and read the bible which was followed by a fellowship meal and drink.
I thought of sharing my views on this ‘longhouse’ as it became an inspirational model for theologising of synodality even creating platform for AsiPA (Asian Integral Pastoral Approach) since all those families are practicing Catholics.
While one would surely think of some disadvantages and inconveniences of such set-up of families in close vicinity, the elders who are used to this “longhouse” system highly appraised its advantages, privileges and blessings. One such advantage is the celebration of their ‘togetherness’ at all times.
In their past history, these indigenous people had to fight a lot physically against many enemies in order to protect their lives. When alone, it was easy for the enemies to take their lives off and conquer their lands and belongings. But when people lived together, they were not defeated. That was when the families pledged oath to each other to build their homes together into a ‘longhouse’ and live forever in the warmth and protection of one another. They also shared how so many projects are accomplished with the presence and contributions of one another. For example, the second home of the longhouse has its harvesting today, so everyone of the longhouse gathers together to give support without any pay, but a grand ‘agape’ meal was cooked and eaten together. In addition, they were also commending on the emotional and moral support given to each other.
Archbishop Simon Poh, the Archbishop of Kuching who accompanied us to this ‘longhouse’ began the celebration with the blessings of the new rice and the instruments used for the cultivation.
It was a joyful evening for us, theologians, with sharing of stories, traditional dances, fellowship dinner, enjoying the singing of children, etc. We were flanked not only by the members of those 38 families, but by the parishioners of other longhouses too, numbering to some 400 persons.
The gathering, I must say, was vibrant, joyful and spirit-filled ‘until the end’ when we bade farewell to each other. I insist on this word ‘until the end’ because in some of our social gatherings, it is unfortunate that we are unable to sustain the joyful spirit of the celebration until the end as some other ‘spirits’ enter us, destroying the very purpose and meaning of our gathering and fellowship. We are taught that the ‘longhouse’ system doesn’t permit serving alcohol. If at all, the elders of the families decide to have a drink or smoke, they need to get away from the ‘longhouse’ without causing any nuisance to their own families and others. The archbishop told us that drinking alcohol, smoking, drugs—all that were considered a ‘taboo’ prohibiting them to be part of the community. This raised their standard of life with deep commitment and genuine love for their families.
