ASEAN leaders advised to back campaigns for Malay

ASEAN leaders advised to back campaigns for Malay

Jupriadi, The Jakarta Post, Makassar

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders have been
urged to show a more proactive stance in response to a campaign
by Malay linguists and experts for Malay to be accepted as an
official language in their countries alongside English.

Dustin Cowell of the Center for Southeast Asia Studies at the
University of Wisconsin at Madison, said that efforts to make
Malay an official ASEAN language would be pointless without
strong backing by ASEAN leaders.

Cowell spoke to The Jakarta Post on Tuesday night on the
sidelines of a ceremony to mark the closure of an annual two-day
congress by Malay linguists and experts from Indonesia, Malaysia,
Brunei, Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries in
Makassar, South Sulawesi.

Cowell said that he was motivated and proud of serious efforts
by the 330 participants attending the meeting dedicated to making
Malay equal as an internationally recognized language on par with
English.

"Their enthusiasm is honorable and extraordinary ... and the
success of their efforts to expand the use of Malay depends on
the policies of the ASEAN governments," he added.

Cowell, president of the Consortium for Teaching of Indonesian
and Malay, said that the efforts to make Malay recognized as an
official language in ASEAN nations is not impossible.

Chief delegates from Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei -- all
members of the Malay Literature Council -- agreed at the meeting
to promote Malay to be officially spoken in the 10 ASEAN member
countries.

They promised to take their plan to leaders of their
respective countries to be discussed at an ASEAN forum. Singapore
has reportedly pledged to support the campaign.

The delegates expressed confidence that they would succeed.

Abdul Ghafar Bin Haji Abdullah, a Malaysian delegate, said
that the campaign would not work if Malay-speaking ASEAN members
were not proud of their own language.

He called on the ASEAN leaders to scrap policies in their
countries that hamper the promotion of Malay terms in areas such
as science and technology.

He cited the example of the trafficking of Malay-written books
which are often hindered by policies applied by certain ASEAN
countries.

Some 250 million people in ASEAN countries -- including
Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines -- speak Malay.