Soeharto launches national discipline campaign

Soeharto launches national discipline campaign

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto launched a nationwide
campaign yesterday to encourage people to use the Indonesian
language correctly and to observe basic elements of discipline,
ranging from queuing to maintaining punctuality.

"Let us begin this National Discipline Movement with
everyday's participation, such as by observing traffic signs,
disposing of litter in the proper place, queuing, obeying working
hours and many others," Soeharto said in a ceremony marking
National Awakening Day.

"Remember this. To achieve major accomplishments, very often
we have to start with the smallest things," he said in the
ceremony held at the Jakarta Convention Center.

"On this the National Awakening Day and in the year we
celebrate Indonesia's 50th anniversary, let us reinvigorate and
renew our spirit of nationalism by using Bahasa Indonesia
properly and correctly and by strengthening our discipline."

Soeharto emphasized that the Indonesian language is one of the
elements that has helped unite the nation since the Youth Pledge
in 1928 declared the language the national language.

"We're proud that Bahasa Indonesia has grown and developed. It
has not only become a language for everyday conversation. Bahasa
Indonesia has become an official language and it even has the
potential of becoming a language of science and technology.

"However, recently there have been signs that worry us about
the way Bahasa Indonesia is used," he said in underlining the
reason for the campaign for the proper use of the language.

Language experts say that the Indonesian language is now
spoken by around 160 million out of the 190 million people in
Indonesia. It is the language that has allowed communication
between the hundreds of diverse ethnic and cultural groups, each
one with a different language or dialect.

But the deterioration in the way the Indonesian language is
used, and the increasing preference for foreign terminologies
over Indonesian ones, has prompted language experts to call for
actions stop the trend and reestablish the supremacy of the local
language.

"One of the symbols of our nation state is Bahasa Indonesia,"
Soeharto said. "So let us preserve it with the greatest sense of
responsibility."

Assets

He said the Indonesian language will remain one of the
nation's assets that can ensure Indonesia's survival in a rapidly
changing world resulting from the globalization process.

National Awakening Day has always been used by the government
as an occasion to reinvigorate the people's nationalist
sentiments.

The day marks the founding, on May 20, 1908, of Boedi Oetomo,
the first indigenous organization formed when Indonesia was still
governed by the Dutch colonial administration.

It marked the beginning of the nationalist struggle which
culminated with the declaration of independence in 1945.

"Our national assets are the spirits of nationalism and nation
state. The globalization process will not eliminate the role of
the nation state," Soeharto said.

"That's why we have to preserve this nation state. We have to
avoid moving in the direction that could endanger our state. We
have to guard the symbols of our state." (emb)