Freedom of speech means just that

Freedom of speech means just that

Aida Greenbury, Contributor, Jakarta

I am sick of the so-called nationalists relaying their biased
criticism about Indonesian people who prefer English to Bahasa
Indonesia in their daily communication.

So tell me, what's wrong with using English in this
multiracial country? Is there something terribly wrong about the
Queen's language? As long as those people use the language
properly and their reasons to use it, so what?

Even they would have to admit that Bahasa Indonesia is
limited, not very flexible, its initial vocabulary is very basic
and recently to catch up with more modern language development,
it has derived words from foreign languages, mainly English.

That is why it's ironic that if an Indonesian converses in
English in a public place, he or she will be stamped as a non-
nationalist and arrogant, but if an Indonesian speaks say,
Javanese, in a public place, would they get the same flak?

No, because Javanese is not a foreign influence. It's a tad
similar to Soeharto's past move of urging Indonesian
businesspeople to use Indonesian words to describe their business
while he himself spoke a Bahasa Indonesia with heave Javanese
influences.

In the past, I was responsible for a gastronomic section in an
Indonesian edition of an international lifestyle magazine. I had
to write in Bahasa Indonesia. One night I was invited to attend a
chef's table gathering in a restaurant in one of Jakarta's
boutique hotels. With a tiny notebook on my lap, I savored the
food served in front of me, thinking how the hell I'd explain the
flavor in Bahasa Indonesia.

I wanted to write: "The lingering flavor of Caesar Salad Soup
in my mouth gave a sensational zest of velvety yet crunchy coz
leaves and anchovy." Try translate that into Bahasa Indonesia
without using the word kriuk-kriuk (crunchy) and the lame rasa
enak (enak is the obligatory Bahasa Indonesia translated word for
delicious, tasty, palatable and one hundred other English
expressions for delicious).

Basically, enak means nice.

Without belittling the national language, people who are
fluent in both English and Bahasa Indonesia understand how the
Malay-based language is sometimes a bit impractical to use. On a
lot of occasions I find myself trying to describe something in
Bahasa Indonesia and end up using a dozen words while I can
describe the same thing in English in just two. Like a family
tree? Intellectually challenged? Hanky-panky?

I used to work with a New Zealander who was in Indonesia long
enough and spent most of his time learning the language from bar
girls. Of course, he thought he spoke the language really well.
When he spoke, he ended all of his Bahasa Indonesia sentences
with "dong".

One day he called me and started to explain something in
Bahasa Indonesia. I quickly had to drop my IQ a few points to try
to understand what he meant. At the end, I told him to stuff his
gibberish and explain the situation again to me in proper
English. He was offended and thought I was an arrogant wench.
Served him right -- he gave Bahasa Indonesia a bad name.

I am not being arrogant at all here. There's another
expression: if you have a Porsche, why would you drive a Toyota?
What I mean is that if you have found the easiest method to
express yourself, why choose the more difficult one? It's just
the matter of practicality.

It has nothing to do with nationalism or arrogance or with the
"Oh, I have been abroad, I speak English" attitude, although I
have to admit that sometimes some overseas-graduated Indonesians
do have that "cleverer than thou" tendency.

Bahasa Indonesia has been declared Indonesia's national
language. But every Indonesian still has the right to use other
languages to communicate, to suit their purposes. We can speak
Javanese, Sundanese, Papuanese, Chinese, English, Dutch, Tarzan
or any other language whenever we want to, when it's proper.

By using languages other than Bahasa Indonesia, an Indonesian
can't be criticized as someone who has less nationalism than one
who speaks perfect Bahasa Indonesia all the time. For ultimately
it is their right and choice about how to communicate.