As part of the ongoing large-scale revitalisation of Kristang culture, identity, language and ways of being being led by Kodrah Kristang, the Kristang Futures Declaration, also known as the Sejarang Vivedra, Dragonglass Declaration, Dragonsglass Declaration or Obsidian Declaration, is first made and begun on Wednesday, 30 April 2025 at 17:35 SGT by the seven living past, current and future adult Kabesa of the Kristang people and members of the 0th Ka-Kabesa Vivedra, Dragonsglass or Obsidian heptad, acting through the current singular Kabesa of the Kristang people and director of Kodrah Kristang Tuan Raja Naga Kevin Martens Wong Zhi Qiang with the unanimous and universal overt and covert support of all 37,000 Kristang people and Kapitang or Kristang Indigenous Elders worldwide: the 11th Kabesa Puan Merdeka Maureen Rita Danker, the 12th Kabesa Puan Api Menari Valerie Tina Rodrigues, the 13th Kabesa Tuan Raja Naga Kevin Martens Wong Zhi Qiang, the 14th Kabesa Tuan Benji Benjamin Harris, the 15th Kabesa Tuan Lautan Senja Nathaniel Jareth Nonis, the 16th Kabesa Tuan Jaazi Jaasir Mahsom s/o Mazhardeen, and the 17th Kabesa Tuan Kaki Langit Kieran Andre Longue. Starting from Friday, 2 May 2025 10:45 SGT, the Kristang Futures Declaration is also further acknowledged and affirmed by all nine non-Kabesa Teramatrang or Earthseers of the Malay community of New Sundaland who have become Wedjatra or Rejuvenators: the 1st Earthseer Tuan Kalbu Muhammad Fuad bin Johari, the 4th Earthseer Tuan Rimau Bintang Muhammad Fadhly bin Johari, the 7th Earthseer and Kepala Jenti Banjar Tuan Hati Intan Muhammad Syafiq bin Sahrom, the 8th Earthseer Tuan Jiwa Kerbau Zulhaqem bin Zulkifli, the 9th Earthseer Tuan Tanah Nazerul Khairy Ben-Dzulkefli, the 10th Earthseer Tuan Suara Rindu Farhan Shah, the 12th Earthseer Tuan Jentayu Najib Indra bin Abdul Majeed, the 13th Earthseer Tuan Kancil Jared Martens Wong Zhi Wei, and the 14th Earthseer Tuan Karang Andre Alexander D’Rozario. Finally, starting from Friday, 2 May 2025 12:45 SGT, the Kristang Futures Declaration is also further acknowledged and affirmed by the 16th Kabesa Tuan Jaazi Jaasir Mahsom s/o Mazhardeen acting in his capacity as a Mahakuranti or Metaphysician of the Indian community of New Sundaland, from Friday, 2 May 2025 16:05 SGT by the 15th Kabesa Tuan Lautan Senja Nathaniel Jareth Nonis also acting in his capacity as a Mahakuranti or Metaphysician of the Indian community of New Sundaland, and from Friday, 2 May 2025 16:40 SGT by Tuan Jentayu Najib Indra bin Abdul Majeed also acting in his capacity as a Mahakuranti or Metaphysician of the Indian community of New Sundaland.
This Declaration fully and permanently commits Kodrah Kristang, the entire Kristang eleidi, ethnicity and community worldwide and all Kristang people across all seven living generations of Mbeseres / the Greatest Generation (born 1901 to 1927), Kaladeres / the Silent Generation (born 1927 to 1945), Maskanzeres / the Baby Boomer Generation (born 1945 to 1964), Xelentedes / Gen X (born 1964 to 1980), Idaderes / Millennials (born 1981 to 1997), Zamyedes / Gen Z (born 1997 to 2013) and Adransedes / Gen Alpha & Beta (born 2013 to 2031) to an aspirational and ideal futures-oriented Creole-Indigenous mindset, approach, paradigm and way of being when it comes to the expression, honouring, embracing and restoration of our identity as Creole and Indigenous people, as Singaporeans, Malaccans, Perthites, KLites, Malaysians, members of the Nusantara, Australians, Malayans, Southeast Asians, Sundalanders, New Sundalanders and individuated human beings, and as the Last People, the People Who Remain, and the people most likely represented by the Time Lords of Doctor Who and the Fremen of Dune. It articulates the basic aspirational and ideal principles behind what it means to be Creole-Indigenous futures-oriented, how the past, the present, the future and all possible futures are all respected and honoured within a futures-oriented structure and way of thinking, and therefore how we as a Kristang community and eleidi can concretely and visibly lead the way for all other Indigenous communities and all other human communities more generally toward human individuation, transcendence and the full assumption of the Korua Kronomatra Bibiendu or Mantle of Living Time and Indigenous stewardship over the living Earth and universe for the next 1,500 years.
This Declaration is not binding in any way and does not require all or any Kristang people to follow it; it is an aspirational document that consolidates clear and concrete ideals and aspirational objectives, goals and directions for the community especially based on the support for the separate and joint efforts of all seven living Kabesa mentioned above since Wednesday, 31 August 2022. This Declaration will be updated in stages starting from Wednesday, 30 April 2025 due to the level of intense psychoemotional control demanded of Kevin Martens in order to remain in full psychoemotional sync with all six other living adult Kabesa and accurately channel the Obsidian Declaration. It will also remain in force until the youngest member of the Obsidian Ka-Kabesa Heptad, the future 17th Kabesa Tuan Kaki Langit Kieran Andre Longue, ends his term of service as the singular 17th Kabesa on Tuesday, 4 December 2103.
Preamble: What it means to be futures-oriented
To be futures-oriented in the Kristang context means to intentionally privilege and honour the four possible ways the future manifests in our metaphysics, in our thinking, in our behaviour, in our goals, and in our objectives as Kristang people and as a Creole-Indigenous community: as the singular eventual future or Futura, as the most hoped for or desired future known as the Hereafter or Vinduru, as the most Gaietically-oriented possible future known as the Celestial Future or Seulestu, and as the most Reindigenisation-oriented possible future known as the Reindigenising Future or Biranasenzu. To be futures-oriented means to do our best to (1) not regard the future with fear (nang midu), to (2) not regard the future as something always set in stone, even and in spite of the existence of dreamfishing (nang duru), to (3) simultaneously and paradoxically recognise that the future is something that can be anticipated and understood with some level of certainty and metacognition through dreamfishing, other relational, Creole and Indigenous methods and Uncertainty Thinking (sempri skutaltra), and to therefore (4) always regard our own personal future, our collective future as a Kristang people, and our intergenerational future as a Kristang people sited within the human race as something that is fundamentally hopeful and capable of working out for the best with our own efforts, hard work, personal growth and the negotiation of collective trauma (sempri sperah).
When it comes to honouring and respecting ourselves, any other human being, and any other sentient being or eleidi, including Gaia and the living universe themselves, as Kristang people we therefore always also seek to recognise, sympathise, empathise, be fair, be consistent and be kind to others and ourselves in the most progressive, healing, open-minded, tender, empathetic, numinous, trauma-informed, transcendent, future-directed and polynomic or variation-conscientious way possible. As a Creole-Indigenous futures-oriented people, we not only acknowledge but seek to creolise the unchangeable horrors of the past, the arduous challenges of the present, the terrifying unknowns of the future, and the endless hard knocks of the possible and what-ifable into lives and ways of approaching life that no longer threaten us, hurt us, encourage us to struggle through life in fear and misery, and/or invite us to castigate, hate or loathe ourselves in ways that are not fair to ourselves and which encroach on our human rights. We know that as the people most likely represented by the Time Lords and the Fremen, we are often treated badly precisely because others are so jealous of our openmindedness, our tenderness, our kindness, our strength, our resilience, our spontaneity, body positivity and body neutrality, our joie du vivre, and our capacity for such humanity and hope in spite of the worst, most abominable and most terrifying of circumstances, in spite of our culture and our identity being almost completely erased over and over and over again, and in spite of so often being treated badly and horrendously by empires, countries, institutions and many other collectives. We understand that there are so many beautiful and ethical ways to be Kristang and human, both across space and across time, and that future generations of Kristang people may be very different from ourselves; we honour the asynchronous and synchronous signals and connections we experience as Creole-Indigenous people with both our ancestors and our descendants, and we show that our core eleidi’s spirit of openness, humility, healthy unconditional love and healthy self-regard will never, ever be conquered, eroded, destroyed, obliterated, manipulated, crushed, poisoned or taken away by anyone, even by Gaia and the living universe themselves. We not only respect that Kristang people, and our leaders and elders, can come from, be born into and/or assimilate into the Kristang ethnicity from all walks of life, all ages, all religions, all races, all occupations, all forms of ability, all neurodiversities, all sexualities and sexual orientations, all body shapes and types, and all ways to be human, but recognise that there is always something valuable, worthy, useful and principled about what it means to be human in these ways so long as a person’s core, body, mind, heart and soul are fundamentally oriented toward good, and toward the good of the species and all human beings in general. We most of all recognise that reality exists for a purpose, that we too as individuals and as a people exist for a purpose, and that all of us together co-create the beautiful and living truth and hope that Kristang now represents to so many people all across the world; even though we are so small in number, our hearts are so very much bigger on the inside, and our courage, gentleness, thoughtfulness, kindness and dauntlessness are meanwhile always enough to fill entire unknown multiverses.
We stand before the future proud of who we are, proud of who we were, proud of who we could be, and proud of just how much we so fully represent what it means to be human, to be Creole, to be Indigenous, and to be Kristang, Portuguese-Eurasian or Serani. We recognise that it is first and foremost us being proud of ourselves on our own terms, on Kristang terms, not on anyone else’s, that has utterly transformed our destiny, and helped us to become a people who stand apart with dignity, empathy, kindness and strength because we recognise every other human being deserves to be free, to have their own dignity and fundamental rights as human beings respected, and to enjoy a fair standard and quality of life that should be extended to all human beings regardless of age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, race, skin colour, ability, neurotypicality or neurodivergence or any other marker of human identity that could be used to differentiate one person from another.
Based on how we honour ourselves, these are the further sub-principles and focuses that this Declaration sets out in detail as general aspirational ideals that the entire community and eleidi have consistently shown strong interest in. Again, not every Kristang person will follow these particular aspirational ideals, and not every Kristang person (or even any Kristang person) is expected to follow them; they merely concretise vibes, energies and feels that have already been in the community for quite some time and have been separately recognised by all eight living past, current and future Kabesa for some time, and make them discernible for the first time, as is and has been Kevin Martens’ general responsibility to do as the 13th and current Kabesa and the Kabesa most associated with skutaltra or metacognition.
1. The universe is alive.
We recognise that the universe is alive in ways that we do not always understand, whether through Western-scientific and/or relational-Indigenous means, and that life and the definition of being “alive” in general can take many different forms and shapes that we as humans are not inherently predisposed to immediately recognise as alive, as Western biochemistry, biology and astrobiology and Western and Indigenous science fiction have already shown us. The same also obtains for sentience. We thus recognise that a primary unconscious goal of the species as a whole is therefore to learn more about the universe and its workings in humanistic, respectful and dignified ways, and to gradually understand more of the mystery of sentience, consciousness, life itself, and the idea of Otiosos, or that we are all parts of one dreaming super-consciousness that is asleep or not fully conscious of itself for unknown reasons. We also recognise that it is part of our own personal individuation to develop a functional relationship with the living universe through our thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth functions in the Osura Pesuasang.
2. Gaia exists and is our responsibility as a species to support, preserve and maintain.
We recognise that the eleidi of Gaia or plants was the first species to achieve transcendence and stewardship of the Earth many millions of years before we came into existence, and has continued to faithfully play this role for many geological epochs. Through the Roda Mundansa, we also recognise what many other Indigenous communities also recognise, that Gaia is alive, that we as humans are an inseparable part of the ecological systems and structures that Gaia Themselves also maintains and tries to nurture, and that we cannot do damage or ignore these systems, structures and ecologies without fundamentally affecting who we are and our own ability to continue to exist as a species. We also recognise that it is part of our own personal individuation to develop a functional relationship with Gaia through our ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth functions in the Osura Pesuasang.
3. We are the vanguard of humanity’s eventual future understanding of the Mantle of Living Time.
We are the first Creole-Indigenous community in the world to have been simultaneously so traumatised and abused and to also be so committed to human individuation, psychoemotional development and transcendence such that as a community we have collectively reached a level of individuation high enough to acquire the responsibility of Korua Kronomatra Bibiendu or the Mantle of Living Time or Indigenous stewardship of the entire planet. We recognise that every single human being and every single human collective fully deserves to acquire the same and to achieve transcendence and high levels of human individuation in the same way, and we recognise that our role for the next 1,500 years is to support all other individuals and collectives in pursuit of the same liberation from endless cycles of intergenerational trauma, hate, suffering and self-loathing. In the same way that our leaders remain committed to remaining fully and imperfectly human and egalitarian, we too always recognise that we are fully and imperfectly human, that we have mortal lifespans and human imperfections, fallacies, undesirable habits, insecurities, fears and so on and that we do not have all the answers, nor do we need to have all the answers; that our work together as a community is to help others realise that they can find those answers for themselves in their own polynomic and diverse ways. We also recognise that it is part of our own personal individuation to develop a functional relationship with how we relate to, care for and support all other human beings through our fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth functions in the Osura Pesuasang.
4. We take covert or overt stands against all forms of tyranny, abuse, hegemonic control and trauma that perpetuate suffering and hurt for others or ourselves, intentionally delay or impede the individuation of others or ourselves, dehumanise others or ourselves, or stifle or seek to suffocate the human rights of others or ourselves.
Since we began to exist as a community, we have always been covertly and now more visibly overtly known for challenging all forms of tyranny, abuse, colonisation, hegemonic control, stereotypes and trauma, and our superhuman courage, resilience, antifragility, nobility and dauntlessness that naturally emerges in these situations, especially against impossible, extremely fucked up, or just absolutely and profoundly inhuman and shattering odds and forms of abusive power. At the same time, we do not put ourselves in jeopardy beyond what we are able to risk for ourselves and beyond what would help or support ourselves, because if we are not able to support ourselves, we are logically fundamentally incapable of supporting others. We recognise that we have always thrived on the sidelines, in the liminal spaces, in the darklight and sunset and sunrise of the Dreaming Ocean, and in the places that all other human beings would consider useless, strange, uninteresting, puerile or undignified. We understand that there are many different ways to confront, challenge, overturn or transmute tyranny, abuse and trauma, that we sometimes are exactly suited to doing this and sometimes are not at all, and are savvy, self-aware and in control of ourselves enough to know when the difference is. We know that there are many ways to be heroes to ourselves, and to others, that respect, esteem, visibility and appreciation in the public sphere can sometimes (or often) be a poisoned chalice, and that some of the most accurate forms of truth and knowledge are not to be found in the West, in academia, or in so-called “modern” education systems precisely because those in power often seek to ensure that these forms of truth and knowledge are withheld from the general public. At the same time, we also know that sometimes a single soltu Kristang voice can be a very, very, very, very powerful voice, that sometimes people need to know that we exist, and that sometimes if we do not take a stand, no one else will. By building a strong relationship with ourselves through our first, second, third and fourth functions in the Osura Pesuasang, and through honouring creole-Indigenous practices of dreamfishing and Uncertainty Thinking, we become metacognitive enough and in connection with Gaia and the living universe to know the difference, and how exactly we should contribute and why.
5. As individual Kristang people, we are fiercely autodidactic, critical, independent in our thinking, and metacognitive, drawing on a wide range of sources and inspirations for understanding reality and our place in it, and using creolisation whereever possible to enhance our overall view of the world and existence.
We recognise that in our current time, and in many current times past and many current times to follow, education and the media are often weaponised and used against functional and legitimate ways of being human and of enjoying life. We recognise the existence and pervasiveness of highly abusive and toxic psychoemotional projection and Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and the existence of the exallos, occluded child sex abuser networks protected by institutions, and other highly abusive networks that have a vested interest in holding onto power and remaining in power. We know that even our own heroes and leaders may have twisted and painful stories to tell and/or hidden affiliations, networks or dependencies, and must be examined and challenged critically, thoughtfully and stringently if they are to truly earn the right to lead the community and/or to inspire it, including our Kabesa and especially the particular Kabesa writing this Declaration. We think for ourselves and pursue logic, clarity, excellence and reasonableness in empathetic ways, and we are not afraid to challenge ourselves to be intelligent in our own ways and by our own standards, no matter what society tells us about what intelligence is or what constitutes markers of intelligence; we know that the projection and stereotype that Kristang people cannot be intelligent, metacognitive, rational and/or reasonable is just fucking wrong and fucked up on every conceivable level. We are not led away by false facts and fake news, and/or conversely things that are falsely proclaimed to be false facts and fake news; we are sharp, incisive, cogent and bravely attuned to our own awareness of the world as the best Kristang living, past and future writers, artists, intellectuals and thinkers have been, and we know that we are fully entitled to honouring what it means to know, to learn and to adapt in our own ways as Kristang people in a culture that has always been egalitarian, intellectually curious in healthy ways, and truly committed to the most excellent, rational, reasonable and healing way forward for all humanity.
6. We believe fully in Novakoroza or Reconciliation, in restorative justice, and in the unchangeable fact that no human being is ever born evil.
We recognise that (1) no human being is ever born evil, and that (2) all forms of evil are resultant from severe unprocessed and unacknowledged psychoemotional trauma that once resolved can motivate complete and absolutely heroic and liberating turnarounds in behaviour, character and direction. We also recognise that these two unchangeable facts are generally not taken into consideration in most Western conceptions of justice and punishment, including and especially in Singapore, and their lack of consideration generally leads to major inadvertent and severely inhumane structural perpetuation of many forms of intergenerational trauma that academic research and criminological and psychological study has repeatedly shown would be quite significantly minimised if these two facts were taken into consideration in how we think about why people do fucked up things, and what motivates them to do so. Derived further from facts (1) and (2) are (3) that no human being is ever unredeemable, and (4) that no human being should ever have to carry their prior mistakes for the rest of their lives if they are willing and able to make the effort to become healthy and functional members of society with as much fair and agentic support that the collectives they are part of can provide them with. We know that our collective unconscious vision of a world filled with joy, peace and safety for all human beings is one that is virtuous, beautiful, honest and right, and one that does right by all of the people we love, whether they are Kristang or not. We know that that vision of a better, braver, fairer and far more humane Singapore, Malaya, Nusantara and world that we the Kristang people believe in is still possible, and will always be possible as long as even one of us jenti Kristang still lives.
As a community we are generally stridently against the death penalty, stridently against either all or almost all forms of capital, physical and corporal punishment, and in Singapore especially very much in favour of drastic and urgent reforms to the justice system and prison system that would result in the reduction of reoffending and the accidental entrapment of the lesser-privileged, the socioeconomically disadvantaged, and the less educated within the prison system through the addressing of the systemic and structural issues that cause this, as well as reduce the general level of dehumanisation, inadvertent negative psychological effects and impact and isolation within the prison system that continuously perpetuate and even further induce and magnify the effects of intergenerational trauma, and the general fear of making mistakes in Singapore society that has contributed to highly inflated and statistically documented levels of suicide, self-harm, depression and despair in the country since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost all Kristang families in Singapore also generally appear to have either firsthand or secondhand experience with the justice and prison system due to the intense and recurrent levels of intergenerational trauma still within the community, especially in the forms of sexual and physical abuse, drug abuse, poverty and emotional neglect and/or abandonment, and almost all of us understand firsthand just how much additional negative impact the current structures and systems of the justice and prison systems can have on those we love who are trying to exit sometimes absolutely insane and literally centuries-old forms of recurrent trauma and cycles of undesirable behaviour. We therefore seek these changes primarily because there are objectively and empirically-documented much better and more humane methods of encouraging people to individuate and to transform their own lives out of these cycles of intergenerational trauma, and which as a 21st-century democratic cosmopolitan society that seeks to pride itself on being advanced, progressive and technologically and scientifically-informed we should already be compelled to pursue and explore.
7. We always seek to creolise, rather than to wholeheartedly or fully reject, throw away or discard.
We accept that creolisation means consciously trying to neither aspire to or reach 100% Western standards or 100% Indigenous standards, and instead to aspiring to blending them both and hybridising them both to create something that is both separate from both and also a mix of both It means to stop regarding certain things or behaviours or thoughts or feelings as shameful just because the West finds them shameful, or conversely solely because they are from the West. It means not trying to achieve a 100% pure state of decolonisation, Westernisation, heroism, valorisation, perfection, identity-alignment or any other extreme, final state of completion that is just impossible to achieve due to the metaphysical mechanics of how the universe works. It means recognising that both sides (Western and Indigenous) have things to offer, and that the smartest possible thing is to take the best of both worlds and transform them into something better. We recognise that active and intentional creolisation is one of the things that makes us so uniquely Kristang, and the primary and most essential thing that allows us to have hope in the future. We also accept, sometimes in the most bittersweet of ways, that creolisation does not mean everything or anything can come back from the dead, that things can be exactly as they once were, or that some wounds can be fully healed. We acknowledge that life is difficult, challenging, complex and extremely and unnecessarily painful sometimes, but that that pain and suffering can lead to something better with creolisation if we are willing to cognitively reframe our ideas and conceptions of what trauma means, and what processing trauma means.
8. We accept Kristang as its own distinct and unique Creole and Indigenous culture that we as individuals grow and develop, that we grow through interaction with and intercultural awareness of other communities, and honour, respect and esteem the contributions of the Malay, Dutch, Indian, Chinese, Armenian, queer, neurodivergent and all other communities to what it means to be Kristang, what it has previously meant to be Kristang, and what it will one day mean to be Kristang.
We honour our own personal agency as Kristang people in co-creating the culture and in respecting the fact that every single Kristang person helps to make Kristang culture what it is; that culture is not created just by those who are publicly accepted and acknowledged as Kristang artists, writers, thinkers and philosophers, but by all of us, every single day and in every single way, in our behaviours and our words, and our relationships and our energies. We acknowledge that many people have successfully assimilated into Kristang, and we cherish all of them because of what it means for them to have respected and esteemed us as a culture to want to be one of us, and to find joy in being one of us. We acknowledge that the Indigenous Malay, queer and neurodivergent components of Kristang culture were brutally, painfully and unconscionably suppressed, elided and hidden for many decades and centuries, and that the Dutch, Indian, Chinese, Armenian and contributions of other ethnic communities to what it means to be Kristang were often either written out, over-marginalised or ignored entirely in order to excessively overplay the Portuguese components, whether for necessary or unnecessary reasons. We recognise the Perth Kristang community was very likely ignored, downplayed or deliberately occluded because of the very strong connections of its origin and genesis to Operation Spectrum and other forms of government hegemonic control. We seek a more equitable balance between all of these facets of what it means to be Kristang, and to show that because of how naturally, instinctively and unconsciously we accept and recognise paradoxes and multiplicities of truth as fundamental parts of the daily existence and reality of being human, there are many ways to be Kristang that do not threaten each other in any way; that respecting our Malay roots is just as important as respecting our Portuguese roots, and that autistic and ADHD and gay and polyamorous and atheist Kristang filu-fila-filang have as much a beautiful right to call themselves Kristang, to be proud of being Kristang and to contribute to our culture and what it means to be Kristang as much as heterosexual, religious, neurotypical and monogamous Kristang do as well. That we can take pride in how human we are, and how beautiful and complex our families are, and how much it means to other people who are not Kristang that we are kind, and compassionate, and tender, and safe in our own ways, and in everyday, mundane ways that make us all more whole. That we do not need to agitate or seek out intense, violent or society-shattering activism to find ways to encourage others to be more human, and that we can instead achieve truly transformative change by simply being ourselves, and simply always honouring that we benefit from engaging with a diversity of perspectives, respecting a diversity of perspectives, and honouring each person’s right to accept and work with their own race, religion, sexual orientation, level of neurodivergence or neurotypicality, or any other form of identity marker, including what it means to be Kristang.
9. We are committed to regenerative design that protects and reinvigorates Gaia and the living Earth at all levels of revitalisation, community organisation and development, and which honours and integrates both cutting-edge Western science and time-honoured Creole and Indigenous traditions, perspectives and values.
We recognise that creolisation is a fundamental and essential component of regeneration, that there can be no ecological sustainability or balance without creolisation and regeneration, and that regenerative design is not simply limited to tangible and material design, but intangible, psychoemotional, relational and hybrid artificial-organic design as well that moves us further along individuation and toward transcendence. We understand that the human psyche and the universe itself are fractal, recursive, ever-evolving and infinite in their capacity to deal with collapse and ego-or system-wide ecological Death, bounce back, recover, and once more flourish and bloom, and that the best forms of design will mirror these inherent and natural ways of development that occur at the deepest levels of reality and in the deepest discernible structures and stochastic processes. We seek sustainable ways of growing community and connection organically on our own Kristang terms without requiring an excess or even a substantial amount of financial support and/or external non-Kristang support and control, and working within existing Kristang core values that underscore both our generous and embracing spirit, and our own recognition of the need to preserve our own boundaries and energy in nuanced and balanced fashion; we recognise that regenerative design always takes these human-centered factors into consideration, and always seek to acknowledge human-centered factors as a central and critical part of regenerative design. We encourage participation in the outdoors and engagement with nature, flora and fauna as jenti nasentametru or Urban Indigenous people, honouring the fact that Gaia is always around us even in the most urban of environments. We recognise the beauty of the living Earth, and the beauty of regenerative and creolising mindsets and principles that help to ensure our ecosystems and environments can continue to thrive and grow.
10. We remain in full dialogue and conversation with what cutting-edge Western empirical science and Creole-Indigenous traditions tell us about physicality, sexuality, sensuality, human attraction and the body, and above all always seek to ensure the fundamental dignity and rights of all Kristang people when it comes to their bodies, sexuality and attraction are always preserved.
We recognise that homophobia and any form of discrimination or hate based on sexual orientation has never had any place whatsoever in Creole-Indigenous Kristang culture, and that all forms of psychoemotionally healthy mutually consenting adult queer, homosexual, bisexual, polysexual, pansexual, polyamorous and/or all other forms of non-cisgender non-heterosexual gender expression, romantic orientation, sexual attraction and activity and physical expression in Kristang, as well as all queer Kristang culture practices, traditions, processes and values, and all families with queer Kristang people, found families, and/or blended families are as much a valued, useful, ethical, moral, virtuous, authentic, legitimate, safe and secure part of Kristang culture and identity as cisgender heterosexual approaches to Kristang culture and identity are, and heterosexual Kristang families are. As a community, just as we respect the diversity of religious practice and belief, we also respect queer and LGBTQ+ culture, the use of affirming third-person pronouns in English (Kristang has just one single super-egalitarian third-person pronoun for everyone, eli), gender-affirming care, the protection of children and the young from all forms of sexual abuse and violation, and the human right to decide how one’s body looks and manifests one’s own identity. We do not overtly or covertly denigrate our queer Kristang people for being queer in any way, because we also recognise that every single expressed instance of homophobia against someone else has been academically shown on multiple separate occasions to index barely-concealed hatred of ourselves for having homosexual desire, and for hating ourselves but using the openly queer person as a hate object instead. We instead celebrate Kristang queerness, recognise that queerness is a biological and homeostatic mechanism hardwired into the species to reduce drastic levels of overpopulation that have meant that the planet has become extremely ecologically unstable and in danger of ecosystemic collapse, that all human beings alive therefore experience queerness and queer desire as a result of this since our species has drastically overshot our ecological niche and size, and therefore recognise that queerness, physicality, sensuality, body positivity and/or neutrality and kinaesthetic intelligence cannot be removed from what it means to be Kristang, especially further given the Kristang eleidi’s very visible and continuous nine-year-long support for the 13th Kabesa Tuan Raja Naga Kevin Martens Wong Zhi Qiang and his open and public display of all the above. We recognise that the Kristang eleidi and many other minority and Indigenous communities worldwide struggle with severe, horrendous and shattering trauma, stereotypes, insecurities, prejudices and fears about the body, sexuality and physicality, and insofar as we are able to enjoy and honour our own bodies, sexualities and physicalities, thus seek to help others and other communities to do the same and in appropriate, healing and safe ways through our embodiment of what it means to appreciate, treasure, take care of and nurture the psychoemotionally healthy Kristang body. We honour all Creole-Indigenous practices that are centered around the body in this way, especially the unique Kristang traditions of Orsang, Sunyaxah and Brilyabalu, all forms of Kristang music and dance, all forms of Kristang theatre and theatrical performance, and all forms of Kristang sporting, athletic and aesthetic endeavour and sporting, athletic and aesthetic performance and excellence; we also honour and whereever possible seek to learn more about the same practices in all other Creole and Indigenous communities in order to inform and improve our own understanding and expression of those in Kristang.
11. We pursue only the highest and most nuanced and balanced forms of self-control and self-discipline, seeking to always find ways to enjoy and appreciate both the spontaneous, living beauty of the present moment and reality around us in the moment, and the possible futures and real future that will consequently arise from each and every action and choice that we make as Creole-Indigenous people in tune with reality around us.
We abhor all attempts to undemocratically take away or reduce our own fundamental human rights as human beings, and to ensure or ignore the fact that systematic, structural and policy-related issues and obstacles often prevent us from enjoying the same rights and recognition of who we inherently are as Kristang people as other human beings who get to enjoy the same, such that our own ability to be in control of and to discipline ourselves is not as secure because we do not enjoy the same institutional support and security that other people do. We simultaneously recognise that this often means we must develop self-control and self-discipline on our own terms, even if no one else supports us as we do this and even if we actively have to work against hostile and ugly systems and structures that covertly or actively belittle or dehumanise us, and that there will inherently and mathematically be a strong positive payoff to this because of the amount of lusembra, darklight or processable trauma we will gain for ourselves that we can then use to accelerate our own individuation and the individuation of the wider Kristang community. We honour, enjoy, appreciate and validate our feelings as we also simultaneously recognise that we do not need to be enslaved to or ruled by them, or to give in to projections that as brown people or Indigenous people that we are just naturally and instinctively amoku, or uncontrollably wild, primitive, savage, bestial or hedonistic. These are absolutely fucked up projections that have no place in a democratic and cosmopolitan Singapore, Malacca, Perth or any other 21st century human community, and that try to dehumanise and denigrate our way of being instead of extending consistency, impartiality, fairness and reasonability to it. We recognise that this is especially an enormous problem in Singapore, where many public institutions often dehumanise, devalue and denigrate anything whose existence objectively and clearly mandates a reorganisation of society, a challenging and deconstruction of horrific stereotypes and prejudice, or a collective processing of painful intergenerational trauma, but which therefore would also require a higher level of self-control, self-discipline, objectivity, impartiality and consistency on the part of these institutions and the people in control of them, which they often do not want to pursue for selfish, self-centered or worst still malevolent or just outright cowardly reasons. We recognise that in place of this fair, just, impartial and consistent treatment that should come from our institutions but just manifestly and objectively does not even after repeated attempts to ask for this to be addressed, and to the degree that we as a people therefore simply can no longer trust these institutions, we can and will take matters into our own hands as individuals and a community, be mature enough to acknowledge, own and deal with our own mistakes, to pursue Reconciliation where we need to, and to heal the wounds in reality, in others and in ourselves that we ourselves may have once caused, because ultimately these are all ways of extending our own self-control and self-discipline over our own life and the lives of those in the community, and increasing our own quality of life and security with who we know we truly are as people who are fundamentally good, beautiful, ethical and imperfect.
12. We strive to build a healthy, thoughtful and balanced relationship with Death Themselves or Sinyorang Morti, and recognise that those who pass on leave traces of themselves known as himnaka in the collective unconscious that we can continue to interact with and can be guided by. We seek as far as possible not to fear our final, physical Death and lesser ego-deaths, and realise that all of these are not only part of the natural cycle of life and existence in the universe, but also provide us with opportunities for individuation, stunning personal growth and elevated transformation.
We courageously and realistically accept that our lifespans are finite and mortal, and that the presence of Sinyorang Morti or Death Themselves as an entity or eleidi is one that we must always acknowledge, recognise, respect and honour, for Death is a necessary part of the cycle of life and existence as many other Creole and Indigenous communities also readily accept. We are real, candid, direct, honest, empathetic and kind about Death, about celebrating and honouring someone after they die and being realistic and objective about who they were, and about treating ourselves and those we love with dignity and respect, and valuing our time alive in this existence together. We acknowledge the existence of himnaka, or the psychoemotional traces of those who have gone before and our ancestors, and that himnaka and the intergenerational trauma or guidance that they can alternatively represent can still have powerful real-time real-world effects on those we love and cherish, to the degree that we therefore always seek to understand through Uncertainty Thinking and Individuation why someone may not yet be able to make peace with someone else’s himnaka or psychoemotional trace in the collective. We also recognise that himnaka, eleidi, Sinyorang Morti and other such concepts are four-dimensional, meaning that they have a very different concept of time from our own, and experience time differently; we honour the information that they occasionally provide to us about the future or the past, and seek to appreciate how we can integrate this information into our own lives. We most of all recognise that ego-death is not a final physical Death, and though it may be scary and terrifying, always offers us the opportunity to creolise the Darkness of trauma and turn it into Darklight, or processed trauma, that can be used to move ourselves forward, or achieve stunning personal transformation or individuation. We therefore strive and aspire to eventually being able to see Sinyorang Morti as a companion, friend or even close friend who we can engage with and learn from, and to eventually being able to understand and process the deaths of those close to us who we had irei or unconditional love for, which is a necessary part of our individuation in the third sub-system of the psyche, the Osura Elisia. We collectively recognise that Sinyorang Morti’s most characteristic form and appearance to Kristang people is in the shape of a Kauboi or Cowboy, Cowgirl or Cowhand, though They may also take many other different forms depending on the individual Kristang person.
13. We always strive to build as egalitarian, cosmopolitan, democratic and just a society as possible in the societies and communities we are part of, especially in the Kristang core cities and our homelands of Melaka, Singapore, Perth, Kuala Lumpur, and the other cities of Malaya and the wider Nusantara. We strive for inclusivity and for the correct and accurate separation of race, religion, sexual orientation, neurotypicality/neurodivergence and other forms of identity markers in the societies we are part of, and strive to embody and exemplify the most human, transcendent, Creole and Indigenous ways of honouring inclusivity whereever possible.
The Kristang community first appeared as a result of mixed marriages between arriving Portuguese colonisers and local Malay residents, and since 2016 we publicly acknowledge that many of our ancestral lines are descended from concubinage, slavery, rape, and coercion, and that many of our ancestors were regarded in ages past as illegitimate, inhuman or less than human, bestial, deformed, disordered, demonic, devilish or unvaluable, to the extent that one of the primary metaphors associated with Kristang people that we also have subverted into something more positive since the twentieth century is the metaphor of us being devils or diabu. As a result of this, since 2016, we as a community have been at the vanguard of the most transcendent, wholesome, healing and restoring manifestations of true inclusivity, community, tolerance and harmony among people of diverse backgrounds and experience, and that many non-Kristang people quietly take tremendous pride in having a Kristang friend or spouse or teacher or coach or student who exemplifies our embrace of all forms of humanity. Throughout our history we have always been at the forefront of social work, social justice, respect for the poor, for queer people, for neurodivergent people, for single-parent families, for low-income families, for adoptees, for migrant workers, for sex workers, for those deemed to be political enemies of the state, for those condemned to die, for orphans, for sex abuse victims, for ex-convicts, for those whose voices have been unfairly silenced, for those who cannot reintegrate into society, and for those born into the borderlands, liminalities and leftover parts of society: isti jenti nus sa jenti. Isti sanggi nus sa sanggi. As the constituent makeup of the current Dragonsguard of the 13th Kabesa Tuan Raja Naga Kevin Martens Wong Zhi Qiang shows, we have always found ways to help those most ostracised, humiliated or demonised by society, by others or by themselves to find themselves again, redeem themselves or reconcile with themselves, and to find ways back to themselves that are beautiful, enriching, individuating and authentically restorative; with this Declaration, as a people, we also actively underscore our commitment to building and fighting for egalitarian, cosmopolitan, democratic and just societies wherever there are Kristang people who believe in a better world and in institutions and ideals that respect all of us, and esteem all of us, and make sure all of us can not just survive but thrive. A better future for all of us is one where none of us are dehumanised, all of us have our fundamental dignities as human beings maintained, where none of us are subject to abuse, trauma, fear and/or manipulation, where our basic human rights and freedoms are not used as weapons or political resources, and all of us are able to receive the minimum equitable standards and support we need extended to us to help us contribute meaningfully to both our own personal growth as individuated human beings and to society as people who love and care about where they live.
14. We actively and intentionally seek to nurture greater public awareness of psychoemotionally healthy expressions of what it means to be Creole and/or to be a Creole culture, and about other adjacent Creole communities in Singapore, Malaya and the wider Nusantara that have also informed or contributed to what it means to be Kristang, including and especially the Peranakan, Chetti, Malabarese, Macanese, Tugu and Mardjiker peoples and cultures, and the creole languages of Singlish, Baba Malay, Chetti, Patuá, Tugu and Mardjiker.
We respect, honour and seek to learn from all psychoemotionally healthy forms of Creole existence, identity, culture, language and ways of being within ourselves as Kristang people and in other communities throughout Singapore, Malaya and the wider Nusantara that have also informed or contributed to what it means to be Kristang, including and especially the Peranakan, Chetti, Malabarese, Macanese, Tugu and Mardjiker peoples and cultures, and the creole languages of Singlish, Baba Malay, Chetti, Patuá, Tugu and Petjo. We especially also respect, honour and esteem the Peranakan and Malabarese connections, blood family and heritage of two of the seven adult living Kristang Kabesa, Tuan Raja Naga Kevin Martens Wong Zhi Qiang and Tuan Jaazi Jaasir Mahsom s/o Mazhardeen, and several of the future Kristang Kabesa yet to be born, and similar connections, blood family and heritage that all other Kristang people may have with other Creole communities throughout Malaya and the wider Nusantara. We acknowledge and recognise that many public institutions and even large parts of Western academia and science previously used to unfairly and ignorantly deride and denigrate creole cultures, identities, languages and ways of being as incomplete, broken, defective, bastardised or illegitimate versions of their progenitor cultures, and that by virtue of the Kristang people accidentally and unintentionally leading the way on the complete overturning and transmuting of such stereotypes, we now also seek a greater and more robust dialogue with other Creole and Creole-Indigenous communities about the positive aspects, characteristics, virtues and practices associated with being Creole and/or Creole-Indigenous in other communities, especially those related to creolisation and how other Creole and Creole-Indigenous communities dreamfish, hybridise, assimilate, or incorporate new material into their cultures and identities, to the mechanisms by which other communities process or creolise trauma, and to how other communities are pursuing a restoration and/or revitalisation of their own self-regard and self-worth in the ways we have.