Council discusses bills to save 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.