Congress wants 'Bahasa' mandatory for companies
Congress wants 'Bahasa' mandatory for companies
A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Formulating a law on Bahasa Indonesia (the official Indonesian
language), good and correct language use by the media and
improvement of Indonesian language instruction to foreign
speakers were among the recommendations resulting from the eighth
Indonesian Language Congress.
Congress committee chairman and the Language Center head Dendy
Sugono said on Friday after the closing ceremony that Article 36
on state language in the amended Constitution allows the
formulation of a law on Bahasa Indonesia. The article stipulates
"further direction on national flag, language, state symbol and
national anthem will be regulated by law".
The Language Center and the Language Supervisory Board are
currently drafting the law, including sanctions that could be
applied to institutions and companies that fail to use the
national language.
Dendy refused to give details and only said the law still
needed further study.
He also said that so far, there had been no legal basis to
force institutions and companies to use "good and correct"
Indonesian.
"We want companies' names and brands to be in Indonesian. We
are not targeting individuals," he said.
Minister of National Education Malik Fadjar rejected the
recommendation on formulating the law, saying it was unnecessary.
"We already have too many laws .... The last thing we need is
another law to rule our lives," he said.
Malik said the national language had a strong legal basis as
an element of the Youth Pledge in 1928, and as it was stipulated
in the State Constitution.
Undeterred by the minister's rejection, Dendy said he would
gather public support on the proposal.
The congress also pointed out that many television programs
were being presented in colloquial Indonesian language combined
with different dialects, except on state-run TVRI.
Some young TV presenters even mixed English and Indonesian in
narrating their programs.
Earlier, legal expert Harkristuti Harkrisnowo suggested that
long sentences and foreign terms be avoided in legal documents
because laymen could not understand them easily.
The four-day biennial congress was attended by 843
participants from Indonesia and several foreign countries. As
many as 61 local and 18 foreign experts on Indonesian literature
and linguistics presented papers.
Bahasa Indonesia has lost its popularity as the language
curriculum, as set up by the Language Center, focuses only on the
good and correct use of the language, to the exclusion of socio-
cultural evolution and developments.
The center has been dubbed the "language regime" used by
former president Soeharto to suppress critical opinions and to
spread euphemism. It still maintains its "good and correct"
campaign, five years after Soeharto's downfall.