BAHASA....

Re: Promoting the use of Bahasa Whenever this issue is brought up, it is only meant for bullying the local Chinese, and as a prelude to accuse the Malaysian Chinese of being unpatriotic. Bahasa to them is never so important. The language that reign supreme to these people is Arabic. Today in Malaysia you must know what is tahaluf siyasi, muafakat, muamalat, kalbu, iftar, and you see a new place in buildings called musolla. Their well to do would send their kids overseas, their favourite of all places is UK. Some would prefer France nowadays. These are called their elites, they don't believe in education based on Bahasa. The local authorities used to take down business signboards belonging to the Chinese, for having Chinese words bigger in size than the Bahasa ones, or just simply because they contained Chinese characters. The old shops belonging to the Chinese had since closed down, and some replaced by businesses run by bangla, Burmese and Pakis. Their signboards are in foreign languages, no bahasa, yet the local authorities felt OK, accepted with open heart, and the racist ones have no complaints. And they accused the Chinese businesses of being unpatriotic for using Chinese names, such as kwong yik, chung khiaw etc. But when the Chinese starts to use nice bahasa names, they whisper to each other accusing that as an attempt to trick their kind pretending as one of them. Worse still if the business involves halal food, and has a proper halal logo. All it takes is just one unverifiable viral message, that it contains non halal ingredient and no clarification could save the business. In fact you do not need all these viral misinformation, as the campaign Buy Muslim's First had kicked off and on going, promoted by the most prominent clerics amongst them. And finally, who are the Chinese friends of their powerful government heads and corporate chieftains? Invariably they are those rich towkays who know only one language : cash is king. Do the heads and chieftains bother whether the cina could speak bahasa, or at least treat him differently if he could speak good bahasa? No. It has never happened in Malaysia.

RJ MLK