Self-determination, therefore, not only involves restoring to the Orang Asli their ownership and control over traditional territories, but also involves allowing them to re‑establish their indigenous social order as they themselves determine it. In this regard, the Orang Asli community should not be more controlled than any other community in the country. Doing so merely extends the perception that the Orang Asli are wards of the government, incapable of leading their own lives. 2.3.3 Losing Control As has been argued elsewhere (Nicholas 2000), introducing and maintaining the concept of a ‘mainstream society’ has been politically important insofar as the nation state has been able to assert its logic of a single nationality. By doing so, the state immediately denies recognition of the Orang Asli as a separate people, who are entitled to enjoy the rights as sanctioned by various UN and other international declarations. Instead, by introducing the concept of a ‘mainstream society’, the state makes the presumption that the Orang Asli are to be considered as backward communities in need of government largesse and direction. Hence the expressed objective of the government (and it follows, that of the JHEOA) of ‘integrating the Orang Asli with the mainstream society’. One Director-General of the JHEOA even considered the Orang Asli as children or wards of the state, whom the government needs to care for “from the womb to the grave”. Thus, this sets the justification to govern the Orang Asli—invariably by more progressive members of the mainstream society. Such ‘governing’ over the Orang Asli is achieved via the JHEOA, a government agency still currently headed by non-Orang Asli and which has imputed upon itself the role of godparent of all the Orang Asli, often also representing the Orang Asli on their behalf. Sadly, however, the plans and programmes 66 ORANG ASLI – RIGHTS, PROBLEMS & SOLUTIONS