Language use in Indonesia

Language use in Indonesia

On July 22, 1995, Lie Hua wrote an interesting but misleading
article taking up the theme of my earlier articles on limitations
on language use in Indonesia and in other countries. This article
at once misstated my arguments and then defended their real
message.

What I am confused by are the author's allegations that my
analogy with the case of Malaysia is confusing, when the article
does not itself clearly indicate what confusion the author
suffers from. Instead it offers even more "proof" of my
contention that these matters are related not to "xenophobia" but
to a form of cultural "pollution" that is harmful to Indonesian
society because it promotes class differentiation. I would be
happy to clear up the author's confusion if contacted, but I am
sure that a prolonged debate in this paper would not be of
interest to the average reader.

JOHN PHILLIPS

Yogyakarta