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)