As the saying goes, self-praise is no praise. But as the devil’s advocate, I must tell you a few things about myself before you get me wrong.
First of all we must understand who the devil’s advocate is. The Bible describes the devil’s advocate as Satan, the serpent who told Eve that God had lied about the benefits of eating the forbidden fruit because it would, in effect, make her and Adam “like God, knowing good and evil.”
And we all know what happened after that! The late Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem explained that in man’s quest to play God, we have become a society of self-seeking egotists.
Sometime in the late 1970s and at a time politicians awarded timber concessions to their families and cronies, he wrote a speech called “The Eighth Day”.
“According to Biblical knowledge, God created the world in six days, on the seventh day he rested. On the eight day, mankind messed it up,” he said satirically.
But in common language, this devil’s advocate in the New Sarawak Tribune is someone expressing an opinion to make his argument more interesting.
The Malay proverb batu api (fire stone or flint) likens the devil’s advocate to a troublemaker or inciter.
But I think the Sarawak word pengakal, derived from the Javanese word ngakal, best suits its meaning; the word is a Javanese term for naughty or cheeky.
But sometimes if you ngakal somebody, or tease him in good faith, he may misunderstand your purpose.
In these days when you use a pun in a sentence and not everyone understands what you really mean, he may be utterly confused!
Therein lies the problem in Malaysia where the standard and understanding of the English language in this day and age is so poor that our neighbours in Singapore are streets ahead of us.
Time and again our Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has impressed on the fact that English is the language of knowledge.
In his own words the Singapore-trained doctor said: “Those who view English in a negative light would lose out as it is both an international language and the language of knowledge.
“In the past, it was Greek, then it was Arabic, then it was Latin and from Latin, European languages became the language of knowledge, the most common being English.
“If we want to wait until that knowledge is translated into our own languages, there’s a possibility that not everything will be translated. There is also a possibility of things getting lost in translation,” he said.
Since time immemorial, English was the lingua franca of Malaysia’s educated elite until a London-trained Sarawak lawyer decided to change the medium of instruction in the education system to Malay.
Fifty years ago in 1969, Malaysia’s Education Minister Tun Abdul Rahman Yakub altered the national education policy at federal level as well as Sarawak from English to Malay to our detriment and from then on the rot set in.
Five years ago, I conducted a journalism session for a group of Upper Six students from the top six secondary schools in Kuching. I asked them to write short essays on why they wanted to be a reporter. The results were appalling – they could hardly string a coherent sentence in English.
Even today, Sarawakians from our homegrown universities are struggling with the usage of English, especially in the spoken form.
In 2015, Adenan introduced English as the second official language in the state, warning that if we are not careful, we will be left behind.
“It is a pity that many graduates are unemployed because of their poor communication skills in English,” Adenan said tongue-in-cheek.
While Sarawakians encouraged usage of the English language in formal correspondence, there were quarters in the peninsula belittling this move.
Ironically it was, among others, Social and Cultural Affairs Adviser to the Government Tan Sri Dr Rais Yatim, who was one of the handful of dissenters from the peninsula.
Also joining the chorus of critics was Universiti Utara Malaysia political analyst associate professor Dr Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani, who said that adopting English as an official language was against the “spirit of the Federal Constitution”.
The revered scholar said: “It must be remembered that the spirit of the Constitution is general in nature and applies to all states. It is however, the otherwise if the state government plans to turn English as the second official language as the move requires the amendment of the Constitution.”
But Dr Azizuddin must be reminded that Sarawak is not just “one of Malaysia’s states” but one of three separate entities – Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak – who formed the Federation of Malaysia, and who used English as a formal language long before Independence.
And what has wanting to master the use of an international language have to do with abiding by the Constitution?
Such narrow-minded thinking within our midst just confirms that there are those who can’t see the forests for the trees.
Even Wikipedia cannot help because when literally translated, seeing the forests for the trees means melihat hutan untuk pokok-pokok which misses its meaning completely!
We are so engrossed in legislation that we are encouraged to be versatile and innovative. We must allow for discourse as better communication will enable us to look at ourselves as a developing country in an original and creative way!
If we live like the Malay idiom katak dibawah tempurung, as a cocooned society living under a coconut; how are we to progress with the rest of the world?
Even though Sarawakians prefer to read and write in English as expounded recently by Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg, we still have a long way to go.
But to be fair, Malaysia is unique in that while Bahasa Malaysia is the main medium of communication, we have television programmes in the three main languages in the country – English, Mandarin and Tamil.
Over the recent years, we have programmes to cater for the larger indigenous communities in Sabah and Sarawak like Kadazandusun and Iban.
It’s never too late to adjust our thinking to be inclusive because we want our younger generations to grow within a progressive society.
Forty years ago, RTM ran a British sitcom that premiered on ITV in 1977, “Mind your Language” where foreign students had fun learning English.
Yes, learning can be fun and sometimes it’s good to laugh at ourselves. After all, who’s perfect?
Maybe RTM should do a re-run of the popular series?
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the New Sarawak Tribune.
