Yes that's right . You read the title of this post correctly . I strongly object to the proposal by UMNO Overseas Club to reinstate Bahasa Melayu as the national language .
The following is an article from The Star :
Group: Rename the national language Bahasa Melayu
KUALA LUMPUR: The Overseas Umno Clubs Alumni will submit a resolution to the supreme council to reinstate Bahasa Melayu as the national language. Alumni deputy chairman Datuk Rais Zainudin said that although the term for the national language now was Bahasa Malaysia, it was still the Malay language. “It is only proper to use the original term instead of renaming the language,” he said. For example, in the United States the official language is the English language, not American language. The term “English” is retained to indicate the origin of the language. The call to reinstate Bahasa Melayu was among several resolutions passed during the Third Malay Agenda Seminar: Malays 2057 – 1st Series: Politics at PWTC here yesterday.
To those who don't know , Malaysia used to be known as Tanah Melayu . Due to the independence conditions granted by the Brits , we became Malaya and soon together with Sabah and Sarawak , we are now the popular Malaysia Truly Asia nation .
The same goes for our national language . It is true that the Malay language became the national language . For harmony and unity , after going through changes here and there in title , we have gone back to calling it Bahasa Malaysia .
Reasons for doing that I believe coincide with the Vision 2020's statement .... "To create a united Bangsa Malaysia" . Why then is UMNO Overseas Club proposing to change it back to Bahasa Melayu ?
Could it be there is a sense of insecurity that the identity of Malays will be taken away ? Impossible . If by languages spoken we can identify the race of a person , then I definitely can be a mainland Chinese , a Hong Kee , a Malay .... perhaps partly Japanese too . My dad could even be partly Indian because he can speak a little of it since his mates working in his plant used to be Indians .
So why is UOC pressuring the UMNO led government of Malaysia to do so ? One wonders why . It would be making a fool of the Cabinet if they revert it back . It would seem like the government has lost all control and are willing to kowtow to any groups or lobbyists .
Malaysia evolved from Malaya which in turn came from the name Tanah Melayu . For unity and harmony , we all called Malaysia our home . Why can't we call it Bahasa Malaysia then ? I believe the English had many "clans" last time . But they were all united under one national name called English and it is now the international language though till today I can't understand why the Japanese and Koreans can excel without it .
So I believe it is a wise choice to keep it as Bahasa Malaysia and let life move on from there . Make it an identity for Malaysia . It has been 50 years . We have not even synchronized our identity yet . How then can we take the world by storm ?
One wonders .
3 comments:
According to Farish Noor, our land was not even called Tanah Melayu, it was just merely names of various ports, places, kualas like how we described the nusantara; eg: Palembang, Melaka, Selangor, Srivijaya.
The concept of Malayness do not exist because people are identified by their origins, eg: orang Riau, orang Mendeling, Jawa, Batak, Bugis.
It is only when the British stealed the lands, they merely wanted to give us a false sense of belonging by naming it Tanah Melayu and naming the people as Malays.
Bahasa Melayu is just a concept created by the colonialist, and sustained by narrow communal politics.
Bahasa Malaysia is a truly indigenous, a truly independent one and truly inclusive one, coined by Tunku after the formation of Malaysia.
Lepas Sufiah, HUJAN lebat melanda Manchester
http://ceritarassa.blogspot.com/
Keep up the good work.
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