Language reflects power: Experts

Language reflects power: Experts

JAKARTA (JP): The holders of power define everything in ways
that place the less-powerful at a disadvantage, a scholar says.

"The powerful elite determines the reigning ideologies," said
communication expert Jalaluddin Rakhmat from Padjadjaran
University in Bandung in the book titled Bahasa dan Kekuasaan
(Language and Power) which was discussed here yesterday by
prominent scholars.

Jalaluddin said that once a government assumes power, one of
the things it will do is set up a specific "dictionary" of words
to be used, and which will dominate political discourse.

"Through this dictionary, the members of political communities
have to interpret the political reality," Jalaluddin said.

He compared the use of language in the Old Order
administration under late president Sukarno to the language used
by the current New Order administration of President Soeharto.

"When the Old Order was replaced by the New Order, the
powerful elite changed. The reigning ideologies changed as well.
In political discourse, there was also a change in people's
vocabulary and a shift in the meaning of words," he said.

He pointed out that during the first administration, people's
jargon was dominated by the idea of revolution. The current
administration's political discourse, on the other hand, is
marked with the jargon of economic development such as "take off
era", "growth", "technology" and "modernization".

"In the New Order, there's no antirevolution group. What we
have, instead, is people who are antidevelopment...who may come
from either the left or right extreme," he said.

Jalaluddin said that the new order's political discourse was
at one stage dominated by jargon which show the great influence
of the Armed Forces (ABRI). He mentioned the use of the acronym
for ideology, politics, economic, social and cultures
(ipoleksosbud) as an example of political discourse influenced by
the military.

"Does the recent decline in the use of words influenced by
ABRI, and the increase of technological terms, reflect a shift in
the powerful elite?" he asked.

Jalaluddin wrote a chapter titled Communication and Political
Changes in the book, which was published by Mizan and edited by
Yudi Latif and Idi Subandy Ibrahim.

The book's other prominent writers include sociologist Ariel
Heryanto, senior journalist Goenawan Mohamad, political scientist
Mochtar Pabottingi, historian Taufik Abdullah, Virginia Matheson
Hooker of Australian National University and Benedict Richard
O'Gorman Anderson, a professor of government and Asian studies at
Cornell University in the United States.

The book was discussed at the National Library yesterday by
Mochtar Pabottingi, Moslem scholar Emha Ainun Nadjib and editor
of Kalam cultural magazine Nirwan Dewanto. Some 300 youths
attended the discussion.

Mochtar spoke of need to "put the (Indonesian) language back
in order so that when people speak, their words represent
resistance against despotism".

The senior researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences
said going along with the words that the powerful elite define
for the community "only bolsters the power that people wish to
resist". (swe)