For centuries there has been the free movement of people and goods across North Borneo to its neighbouring countries

The Bajau Laut, or Sea Bajau or also often referred to with the derogatory label Palauh by other communities, are known to be living within their ancestral domain of the Sulu and the Celebes Seas or the Sulu-Semporna-South Sulawesi Triangle. During the Pre-British period, their mobility around this region was well established as part of their civilization and was not an issue with other peoples in the land-based territories.  However, the legal status of the Bajau Laut became problematic when citizenship and territories were formalized by the emergence of the nation-states of the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. In the case of the Bajau Laut population located on the Malaysian side of Sabah, the dynamics of their own internal development has become more complicated.  In Sabah there are three groups of Bajau: the West Coast Bajau, the various groups of East Coast Bajau, and the Bajau Laut who can be found along Sabah’s east coast, and around the islands off of Semporna. These three groups can be differentiated by their language and dialects, as well as livelihood, status in life, education, community structure and their general worldviews.  The West Coast Bajau and the East Coast Bajau have slowly integrated themselves into the Malaysian society, while the Bajau Laut continues their semi-nomadic life at sea and are generally regarded as stateless by the Malaysian government.  This paper looks into the changes that has occurred within the Bajau Laut group and how they are viewed by the Sabah government and society.  One of the main finding of this paper is that the status of the Bajau Laut as stateless has made them more vulnerable and easily exploited. This in turn presents as a possible security problem to the state as these people pledges allegiance to no one.

Malaysia has a significant population of migrant labour force. Out of the 5.5 million migrant workers in the country, more than half are reported to be undocumented, with the state of Sabah being home to the highest population of undocumented migrant workers majority from the Philippines and Indonesia. Since the 1970s the scale of migration increased drastically with the arrival of large number of Muslim refugees from the war-torn southern Philippines, and economic migrants from rural areas of Indonesia, in hopes of achieving better economic and food security. This steady flow of foreign labour also coincided with the state’s economic development plan which saw labour intensive sectors such as constructions, plantation and timber boom. However, when the Covid-19 pandemic began to spread in Malaysia, job opportunities drastically reduced as the government pulled the brakes on almost all economic sectors and closed off the borders. The Movement Controlled Order (MCO) announced nationwide beginning 18 March 2020 thus increased the vulnerability of the undocumented irregular migrants, as the economic threat in the form of loss of wages and movement restrictions decreased the food security of this group.

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Sejak Perang Dingin tamat, kajian keselamatan mengalami perubahan apabila ia tidak lagi menumpukan kajian keselamatan tradisional semata-mata, tetapi turut memasukkan isu-isu keselamatan bukan tradisional. Perubahan ini selari dengan debat dan proses broadening dan deepening yang berlaku dalam kalangan sarjana kajian keselamatan, iaitu fokus keselamatan tidak hanya tertumpu kepada negara semata-mata. Oleh itu, istilah keselamatan sentiasa menjadi isu perdebatan para sarjana keselamatan yang mana melibatkan persoalan bagaimana memahami konsep keselamatan. Dalam hal ini, kemunculan konsep keselamatan societal yang menjelaskan bagaimana identiti sesuatu kumpulan masyarakat menjadi isu keselamatan. Dalam hal ini, kajian ini membincangkan konsep keselamatan societal dengan melihat bagaimana isu kalimah Allah yang merujuk kepada ‘Tuhan’ telah menjadi perebutan di antara penganut agama Islam dan Kristian di Malaysia dan telah menjadi isu keselamatan. Kedua-dua kumpulan menyatakan bahawa mereka mempunyai hak menggunakan kalimah tersebut. Walau bagaimanapun, untuk tujuan perbincangan, artikel hanya memfokuskan perbincangan kepada respons dan tindakan yang dilakukan oleh masyarakat Melayu-Islam dalam mempertahankan hak eksklusif mereka untuk menggunakan kalimah Allah.   Since the end of the Cold War, security studies have changed not only focusing on traditional security issue alone but also including non-traditional security issues. This is in line with the debate and the process of broadening and deepening the issues of security it is no longer confined to just security of the state among the scholars in security where the focus of security is not confined to the state. Therefore, the concept of security has increasingly become a frequent debate among scholars. One such instance is the emergence of the concept of societal security, as an explanation of how the identity of a group of people becomes a security issue. This paper discusses the concept of societal security by focusing on how the issue of the word Allah (Kalimah Allah), which is referred to God, has become a competition between Muslims and Christians in Malaysia and therefore has become a security issue. Both groups claim that they are within their rights to use the word of Allah. For the purpose of this discussion, this paper will only focus on the responses and actions taken by the Malay-Muslim community in defending their exclusive right to use the word Allah.