Is the language liberated?

Is the language liberated?

By Andreas Anastasius

YOGYAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian language hides the truth. Slogans about development, vague terminology and acronyms are rampant.

Indonesians also like to falsify reports. For example, villagers will tell a visiting official that their region is prosperous and orderly, but the truth is that the village is crime infested and extremely poor.

Euphemisms are now a major part of our language, with an increasing number of jokes, puns and foreign terms to express criticism.

Speeches contain many euphemisms, gobbledygook and acronyms. People know that when the government says "Fuel prices have been adjusted and toll road rates reviewed" it means that prices have increased.

The term "formless organization" has added to the confusion. Acronyms add up to the hundreds: litsus stands for penelitian khusus (special investigation), satgas for satuan tugas (task force), tilang for bukti pelanggaran (processing a traffic ticket in court).

Some euphemisms: prostitute is replaced by sex worker or enjoyment promoter, hoodlums are called civilians, corruption is camouflaged as bad loans, arrested is softened to be taken into safe custody (although the incumbent may not be safe), dismissing members of the House of Representatives is called time interval replacement.

Sex worker and civilian sound more dignified that prostitute and hoodlum. But they are the same. Consequently prostitution and crime are on the increase.

This reflects our corrupt communication. Indonesians fear calling a spade a spade. Officials shun transparent language, creating a communication gap in the process.

As writer Mudji Sutrisno has said, there is always a filter of language in communicating with people which often creates bias.

What the public sees, their objectivity and the language filter of those in charge, control the public's minds, its thoughts and its creativity.

Digging for the truth by questioning those who monopolize the language is rare.

The uniform language of authority gets more wind from economists and politicians, the information power houses.

Fifty years after our independence it is time to reflect on the way we communicate. Does it reflect a free people?

Euphemisms abound in many languages. Although initially used to protect the feelings of a second person, they now protect the feelings of the first person. Corruption is therefore called "commercialization of one's function" or "abusing one's position".

The term oknum, literally meaning "person in a certain capacity", like "oknum ABRI", is used for a person who committed a mistake instead of the word "member".

This sort of euphemism is clearly unjustified. It questions the mentality of the speaker and shows what kind of social values the Indonesian community lives by.

Officials resort to this form of speech to cover up their failures.

Misplaced euphemism can only hurt society. The first to suffer is the bureaucracy. They will eventually lose the people's confidence.

Euphemisms also blunt sensitivity to the sufferings of others. If a paper reports that a village is short of food instead of in the middle of a famine, readers might not run to the villagers' aid.

Misplaced euphemisms stem from a slave mentality. It is time to return to the origins of the Indonesian language, origins steeped in egalitarianism and democracy.

The writer is a graduate of the School of Indonesian Language and Literature Education at the Sanata Dharma University in Yogyakarta.