'Allah' and second class users of BM

Lim Guan Eng had chided “the extremists in BN” who oppose Penang’s bilingual road signs in Bahasa Malaysia and Arabic, Mandarin, Tamil, or English.

The Chief Minister is overeasy in labelling people “extremists”, when what’s extreme is having road signs in five different languages on a small island.

He also said in his speech at the DAP national conference in Ipoh on Jan 17 that “Malays have no problems with bilingual road signs, just as a 100 percent Chinese area is comfortable with Arabic road signs”. For Lim’s info, Jawi (as the script for Bahasa Melayu) has been superseded by Rumi or the Roman alphabet. The modern Arabic of today’s tourist dollar is not our historical Jawi heritage.

But how difficult is it, really, for a foreigner to figure out the meaning of Jalan? Do you see other cities- say Paris and Berlin- adding second languages beneath Rue and Strasse?

Lim, in mooting his party’s nouveau notion of multilingual ‘Middle Malaysia’, missed one of the most fundamental pillars of nationhood – the role of a national language.

Pakatan Rakyat, in their common policy framework presented at the Dec 19 inaugural convention in Shah Alam, had agreed to “uphold the use of Bahasa Melayu in accordance to Article 152 of the Constitution”. Pakatan-ruled Penang should prove that they are not merely paying lip service to the promise.

Malays of Middle M’sia

One reader, Teoh Soong Kee, responded to my article on the ‘Allah’ controversy by saying “The need for our young to be competent in English for the global markets is different from fighting against extremists who want to take away the right of a Malay-speaking Christian …”

Firstly it is Middle Malaysia, and not only just “extremists” who are uncomfortable with Christians using ‘Allah’. Secondly, the lack of a hue and cry over the Herald’s English, Mandarin and Tamil sections implies the BM language factor is most relevant. Hence, attitude to BM viz. the PPSMI Maths and Science in English issue has a comparative bearing on the present discourse.

To rebut the two prongs of Teoh’s criticism, firstly, I beg to disagree that PPSMI promotes English competency, and secondly, I reiterate my contention that the convention of Allah belongs to Islam.

On point one, I’m venturing that instead of acquiring better English through PPSMI, pupils are instead likely subjected to incorrect grammar and poor pronunciation during their Maths and Science lessons - compare Western Europeans, who have a more than adequate command of English despite being deprived of PPSMI.

The crux of the matter actually is upholding standards in education (and other areas).

On point two, ‘Allah’ is an Arabic word. Sabahans, Sarawakians and Christians in Malaysia don’t speak Arabic. How do you make a case for appropriating a word from a language remote to us? Or to put it another way, imagine insisting that we’ve got an inalienable right to a Greek or Swahili term.

The Christians may have a leg to stand on if they wish to claim that ‘Allah’ is a word in our national language. In this regard, we still need to acknowledge that ‘Allah’ was absorbed into the Malay lexicon through the filter of Islam when the religion reached the shores of the Malay Archipelago in the 1300s.

But even in this context, Islam has first dibs anyway, as Christians in Borneo only started using ‘Allah’ following European colonisation.

Relation of language to citizenship

Last week I noted “inconsistent action” in those enthusiastic about their Constitutional right as pertains to ‘Allah’, and how an equal degree of enthusiasm is missing re BM usage in other spheres.

If one side wants to invoke rights, they should at the same time glance at worldwide custom. Although he is multilingual, Zinedine Zidane speaks French and not his mother tongue (Algerian Arabic) in interviews. Malaysians are polyglots but not everyone accords BM such precedence in the public domain.

I cannot imagine an identical clamour in France to have English as the medium of instruction like the tooth-and-nail battle we’ve witnessed for installing English in Malaysia. Only here do we find residents contemptuous of the capability of our national language.

Lee Kuan Yew pronounced in March 2009 during his country’s ‘Speak Mandarin’ campaign 30th anniversary that “To become a united nation, the population must speak a common language”. Singapore favoured English, Lee basing his rationale on the quarter of the populace comprising non-Chinese that would have been alienated by the adoption of Mandarin as lingua franca.

In Oct 2007, footballer Ashkan Dejagah’s refusal to play an international match in Tel Aviv prompted some German newspapers to ask if it was a sign of failed integration.

Dejagah, then 21, was born in Tehran and held dual German-Iranian citizenship. German Football Federation president Theo Zwanziger said: “A player who wears our team shirt must identify with this country and its values.”

Our current entangled situation only serves to underscore strong support for the national language project in Sabah and Sarawak, and how far these two states have come to identify with Malaysia.

Therefore, negotiating a resolution to the conflict should not be switching the East Malaysian natives over to using English (so that, alternatively, they become competent enough to read the Bible in English). This proposed solution will be a regression, in addition to undermining the national policy of ‘Memartabatkan Bahasa Melayu’.

BM is Islam-compliant?

Instead now is an opportune moment to review how the peninsula can and should embrace our bahasa kebangsaan. The axiom Bahasa jiwa bangsa infers that embedded in language is the channel for transmitting cultural values. Shared values equate better integration.

A common language allows discovery of commonalities.

Take for instance the cover story of this month’s Milenia Muslim magazine, “Penangan Si Tanggang moden’. For anyone possessing some familiarity with Malay folk literature, the headline reference is already shorthand to the article content. The cautionary tale of Si Tanggang touches on filial piety, a valued cherished by Confucian society.

But sadly, Malaysia’s diverse communities don’t appreciate - or are seemingly unaware of - what we have in common, instead choosing to magnify our differences. This mutual incapacity to understand the acute anxiety of The Other is compounded by the stance taken by official quarters.

“Clearly what the Christians are trying to do is to de-Islamise the Malay language for missionary purposes …” How would you interpret this statement by Md Asham Ahmad, a fellow at the Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia? (nb: Ikim is an agency under the Prime Minister’s Department)

Saying Christians are attempting to ‘de-Islamise’ the language presumes BM as containing an inbuilt faith orientation; a claim in the same vein as declaring that English or Latin is a Christian language.

The same sort of Malaysians who make the surau off-limits to non-Muslims may want to render BM exclusive to Muslims as well.

As I mentioned previously, the state religious departments have a list of words banned for use by non-Muslims. While I can comprehend the apprehension over ‘Allah’, I don’t see how essays on Christianity can be published in BM without recourse to forbidden words like nabi, mubaligh, iman, ibadah, Injil, and dakwah; also how to address the Old Testament prophets Nabi Nuh (Noah), Nabi Yunus (Jonah), Nabi Musa (Moses) and a host of others if ‘nabi’ is prohibited?