Bills to preserve, popularize Sundanese culture
Bills to preserve, popularize Sundanese culture
Yuli Tri Suwarni
The Jakarta Post
Bandung, West Java
The West Java legislative council and provincial administration
are deliberating three bills to prevent Sundanese culture and
literature from becoming extinct in the future amid the rapid
drive of modern development.
If endorsed, the bills will include the Sundanese language as
a mandatory subject in the curricula of elementary, junior and
senior high schools in West Java.
The bills will also allow the local government to issue a
decree ordering relevant authorities to name public facilities in
the Sundanese language in order to popularize the language.
The three bills comprise a draft ruling on the preservation of
the Sundanese language, literature and alphabet; a draft
regulation on the preservation of local arts; and a draft law on
the management of Sundanese archeology, history, museums and
traditional values.
West Java Governor R. Nuriana told journalists on Tuesday that
if the bills are passed into law, the Sundanese language would be
treated on a par with, or higher than, the national and foreign
languages.
The three bills were drafted to preserve the local culture,
which he said was facing the threat of extinction.
"The longer time passes, the more seldom the people in West
Java, mostly of Sundanese ethnicity, speak Sundanese. At the same
time, many archeological treasures have disappeared or have been
damaged as we do not preserve them," he added.
Ahmad Saelan, secretary of a special committee at the West
Java legislative council which will deliberate the bills, said
most legislators support the draft laws.
Quoting Sundanese culture researcher Tatang Soemarsono, Saelan
said only 35.4 percent, or less than 10 million out of 36.2
million, of people in West Java speak Sundanese as their native
language.
Around 47.5 percent of ethnic Sundanese families communicate
in a mixed Sundanese and Indonesian language, while the remaining
only speak the Indonesian language, he added.
The council started deliberating the three bills in the middle
of last month and would pass them into law by the end of
December.
Saelan denied rumors that the bills were drafted as a response
to the much-criticized excavation of the historical Batu Tulis
site in the West Java city of Bogor, which was ordered by
Minister of Religious Affairs Said Agiel Munawar.
A number of Sundanese figures strongly protested the minister
and sued him for the excavation, which they claimed was illegal.
A court in West Java dismissed the lawsuit, however.