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