A MYTH TO PROMOTE BM TO STRENGTHEN UNITY?
AT the “Malaysia: A New Dawn” forum recently, former international trade and industry minister Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz commented on Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik’s concept of “Memar tab atkan Baha sa Malaysia” (empowering Bahasa Malaysia).
I would like to add to her rhetoric. To me, promoting Bahasa Malaysia to strengthen national unity is nothing but a myth.
This concept, based on Shih Huang Ti’s efforts to unite the many kingdoms into one country, using Mandarin as the official language, has been sung by politicians and academicians for many decades.
This narrow-mindedness has sidelined English and other vernacular languages. This has destroyed the country’s competitiveness in the international arena.
How can Malaysia be an Asian Tiger if its people can hardly speak standard English and communicate with the rest of the world? With Bahasa Malaysia, we can only reach out to people in Nusantara.
With English and other vernacular languages, we can conquer at least two-thirds of the world, but after all these years of promoting Bahasa Malaysia at the expense of other languages, we have become a kampung within a world of mega cities and metropolises.
With China fast becoming an economic powerhouse in this region, being able to speak Mandarin is an important communication tool when trading with the Chinese. Mandarin, Tamil and Hindi are spoken by nearly two billion people, or one-third of the world’s population.
By all means, Bahasa Malaysia should be promoted extensively. It is embarrassing to learn that one can use the Read Aloud app on iPhones for text in Mandarin, but not those in Bahasa Malaysia.
As pointed out by Rafidah, some politicians in Malaysia Baru, including Maszlee, are still singing the slogan “Memartabatkan Bahasa Malaysia”, thinking it will lead to national unity.
Why do I call it a myth? The answer is simple. Look at how Malays voted in the last general election. Sixty per cent of the country’s population voted in three directions. All speak Bahasa Malaysia and practise the same religion, but where is the unity?
The Chinese, Indians, Dayaks and Kadazan Dusuns united with one-third of Malays to vote out the old regime, bringing about a new dawn in Malaysia.
We each speak different languages, yet whenever a ceramah is conducted using the common language, everyone understands and a bond is created.
In some ceramah, politicians speak in Mandarin and Tamil as well, but yet they could not rally the different races together.
So why is it that after the general election we are seeing a Uturn to the point that the Unified Examination Certificate cannot be recognised until Bahasa Malaysia is given prominence in private Chinese schools?
Why do we still think that Bahasa Malaysia alone will unite the nation when this is just a myth?
I suggest that if you have time, go and watch a famous 1970s sitcom Empat Sekawan (Four friends). Tan Ah Chek spoke in Hokkien, while Wong Ho and Hon Yin spoke in Cantonese. Lai Meng spoke in Hakka, although her mother tongue was Cantonese.
All four of them understood each other despite using different dialects. In real life, they were good friends. What united them since their days in Bukit Bintang was not the language, but the fact that they were fellow Malaysians with a common direction in life.
Malaysians have proven that with race, religion and language set aside, we can unite in the last general election. Can’t we unite ourselves with a common vision to bring Malaysia to the next level, putting aside our differences in race, religion and language, which otherwise would divide us?
If we want to see Malaysia become an Asian Tiger, we have to make a paradigm shift. We have what it takes to trade with the rest of the world using the language our trading partners are most comfortable with. Let us not lose our diversity.
There is unity in diversity. Commonness only leads to communism.