Our first language must come first

Professor Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
My View - The Sun Daily
February 24, 2016

I ADMIRE the Sarawak chief minister's guts for the many things he has said. "I don't care what Putrajaya says" is most telling as no other chief minister or mentri besar can even dream of saying such a thing.

He is gutsy enough to say that the English policies in Malaysia have "failed".

I cannot agree more but would add the same for bahasa kebangsaan too.

In fact more so since it is not limited to human capital development, more significantly it is about nurturing the "balanced and harmonious human person" as defined in the Falsafah Pendidikan Kebangsaan.

The stark difference cannot be fathomed without making reference to the national education philosophy because this is where it is all rooted. Any success or failure should be judged by this framework.

Hence, it is utter nonsense if English (or any other language) cannot be the "second" language in the context of the falsafah.

As an educationist (not lingual-nationalist) I am baffled why this issue crops up again and again.

More puzzling is when similar concerns about bahasa kebangsaan as the "first" language were raised. There invariably comes a swift put down calling it "nationalistic" or "ignorant". I can only attribute this to another "failure", namely, for not internalising the Falsafah Pendidikan Kebangsaan – one that causes the issue to be debated out of context.

English is claimed as important for commercial and economic reasons, and the southern neighbour is a favourite example.

Others cite the Philippines as another English-speaking country where the economic arguments do not add up.

Indonesia, with hardly any English, is a member of G20 rubbing shoulders with the most powerful economically developed nations – some are not English-speaking either.

Incidentally, most of the G20 are non-English-speaking as well. Indeed, many of the heads of state prefer to address the world in their national language, though we can bet that they are equally fluent in more than one language.

They are proud to speak in their national language.

For those who want to hook this on science and technology, the experience at the 2015 Nobel Prize Award ceremony in Stockholm sprang a surprise (My View, Dec 16).

It was awesome to hear all the scientific discoveries of the nine laureates were announced and narrated in the Swedish language delivered by members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The audience had to contend with verbatim English translations. Do we need to say more?

This does not mean that English is any less important (since as a body of knowledge all languages are equally important and must be protected and promoted equally), but it does mean that the Swedes took more pride to showcase their language at such a prominent world stage.

Despite the population of Swedish speakers being very much smaller than Malay speakers in the Nusantara.

By all means be proud when speaking a foreign language, but only because we can muster the national language just as well if not more so. And not as lame excuses to hide the dismal command of bahasa kebangsaan.

Learn from the other Asean citizens, who are not only conversant in their own national languages, they can confidently sing their national anthems and folk songs, and impressively perform their national dances.

Yet Malaysians are still grappling with "national identity" as documented in both the education blueprints – this after more than 50 years of Merdeka?

This is why the "first" language must come first; beyond the language issue per se. It is about the survival of a nation-state with its values, culture and living heritage intact especially in the era of globalisation with its force to erase all these.

We may not want to recognise it as "colonialism" – but at the end of the day when nothing is left, or being replaced by something entirely alien, we have to call a spade a spade.

This itself is another "failure" to a nation that seemingly declares itself to be independent, and celebrates every year naively unaware of being imprisoned by negative "softpower".

In that light the launch of the "Books for Asia" programme in Sarawak held at the State Legislative Assembly complex on Feb 15 is telling: the two "locals" supporting the "gong" were in their elegant traditional attire unlike the rest on stage.

Ultimately, the Sarawak state election will be interesting to observe. Not the outcomes which seem certain with the state leadership pressing all the "right" (politically correct) buttons.

How much English will be used in campaigning for votes? It should be about 50-50 based on the insistence to be bilingual. Or will it lean towards English in tandem with the pressing need to "live" English. Will actions match the rhetoric?

In South Africa where English is widely spoken, its legendary leaders like Nelson Mandela gave this profound advice: "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.
If you talk to him in his language that goes to his heart." Shrewd politicians know that to swing votes, often the right button to push is the "heart".

That has always been the reality. Let's see if this is different this time around in Sarawak.

Therefore, no matter how important a foreign language is, when it comes to communicating to the rakyat as a whole, the "first" language is still the best bet. And how can we do this when we have "failed" or are "failing" in our bahasa kebangsaan policy resulting in utterly poor usage and comprehension of the language nationwide. At times, the illegal immigrants speak better Bahasa Malaysia than the locals.

It is worst for scientific and technical knowledge if the bahasa kebangsaan is anything but a scientific and technical language since we have opted to conveniently abdicate our responsibility as a nation to nurture it by deploying anti-knowledge arguments to justify it.

While this does not negate the need for English, it is a harbinger to the death of bahasa kebangsaan as the "first" language, and symbolically of the nation. Soon we will have to say: "Rest in peace, Malaysia", in perfect English of course. Soalnya siapa nanti akan bertanggungjawab?

With some four decades of experience in education locally and internationally, the writer believes that "another world is possible".