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.