Foreign names bias decision

Foreign names bias decision

JAKARTA (JP): The City Administration has rejected 43 new
business proposals because they had foreign names, an official
said yesterday.

Kuseini Budiantoro, head of the City Security and Order
Office, said that 30 of the 43 companies whose proposals were
turned down, wanted to establish entertainment centers.

"We temporarily rejected the proposals after we learnt about
the trend to use foreign names rather than proper Indonesian," he
said.

He explained that processing could continue after the
applicants changed the names to Indonesian.

Most of the applicants are currently changing the names of
their businesses before applying again, he said.

As Aug. 17, the 50th anniversary of Indonesia's independence,
approaches, the government is determined to have all housing
estates, hotels, shopping centers and buildings given proper
Indonesian names.

The aggressive promotion of Indonesian is intended to make
Indonesians proud to speak their own language.

Governor Surjadi Soedirdja recently said that the city
authorities expect owners and operators of buildings and other
business centers to change to Indonesian names.

"We have to be proud to our own language. And it is time now
to improve our identity as a nation. If we still use other
languages, it means that we still feel inferior," he said.

"The excessive use of foreign terms reflects an erosion of
pride in our own language. In a more extreme sense it may even be
that the use of foreign terms reflects a lack of national
spirit."

Surjadi said that the city administration had issued Regional
Regulation No.1 in 1992 regarding the proper use of Indonesian on
billboards and for the names of office buildings and business
centers.

Aug. 17 has been set as the deadline for all foreign names to
disappear.

In a related development, Kuseini said his office shut down
four entertainment centers for violating various regulations.

"The four entertainment centers were a discotheque, a billiard
center, a massage parlor and a ding-dong gambling center,"
Kuseini said.

The violations ranged from staying open after hours to
gambling. (31)