Acronyms! Oh, my!

Indonesians may not know it, but they have going for themselves a most comprehensive secret language, which defeats all foreigners on arrival, and which is a never-ending struggle for us old-timers to keep up with.

I refer to acronyms and abbreviated/truncated words. You cannot avoid them; they appear in the English press, TV and in everyday conversations (Bahasa Indonesia and English).

Take for example The Jakarta Post of Dec. 10, 1998 edition, page 2 and page 3 only. KOMNAS, BSD, STMIK, ABAABI, FORBES, FORKOT, PDI, ABRI, DPR, MPR, PGI and IAIN. Most are explained (once), but others are not; I admit the majority of those are not in common use, but there they are.

But where do you live and work? In a rukan or ruko perhaps, sited on a Jl. or Gg. where you must report to the RT/RW. You have a SATPAM at your gate, arranged by POLDA. There is a notice on your door telling you to follow K-5, and all of us are bound to P-7. What about P-3, K-3? You turn on TV (RCTI, SCTV, ANteve, TPI, TVRI) and the subtitles tells you that the Wapres met with the Menlu and Mendagri at a parade near Monas in the DKI.

If you are not already tied up with that lot suddenly new words appear out of the blue, and spread like wildfire like krismon, Mobnas and sembako. There are many others and will be more.

I am not saying it is bad to have all these acronyms, but it would be nice if there was a dictionary to cope with them. I'd like one for my next HUT.

D.C. SEAGROVE

Jakarta