Angola Press - Timor e Moçambique defendem maior difusão do português dentro das suas fronteiras

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Angola Press - Timor e Moçambique defendem maior difusão do português dentro das suas fronteiras

(Use the Quick Google Translator gadget in the sidebar if you can't read Portuguese.)

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Appeal if not happy with Court's decision, says Prosecutor-General while Defence Force Commander condemns conviction of soldiers and the use of Portuguese in Courts

Diario Nacional, March 11, 2010 language source: Tetun - The Prosecutor General Ana Pesoa Pinto has said that the only way for the lawyer for Frederico da Conceicao Oan Ki’ak, a former guerilla fighter, and Alberto da Costa Belo, to challenge the Court's decision is to appeal to the higher court.

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Both Oan Ki’ak and Alberto were armed by the Defence Force to stabilise the country following the dysfunction of the Timorese National Police to maintain law and order in 2006.

“The only legal way is for the lawyer to lodge an appeal and make submission to the court so that the Court will process the case in accordance with the law. It is therefore inappropriate to make comments to the media,” Ms. Pinto said.

Ms. Pessoa made the comment following the statement by the lawyer for Florindo and Belo that he was dissatisfied with the recent decision made by the court to sentence Florindo to eight years and four months and Belo to six years and six months in prison.

Meanhile, in an extraordinary outburst reported by Televizaun Timor-Leste on March 11, 2010, the Timor-Leste Defence Force General (Falintil-FDTL) Commander Major General Taur Matan Ruak has said that members of the Defence Force are being criminalised for defending the country in times of war.

“Our Prime Minister Xanana was in the jungle defending his homeland and the Indonesian court convicted him as a criminal and now we are being criminalised as well for defending Timor,” Matan Ruak said Thursday in Metinaro, Dili.

He added that if defending the nation is a crime, then they would simply run away from defending the country in times of war.

He said that those who have big mouths today should be mindful of the sacrifices of the liberation army which brought good fortune for those who become ministers, presidents, and other important political positions.

“Those who have big mouths today should not forget that because of us defending the country they are now happy and hilarious …. as presidents, ministers, etc,”, said the two-star general.

He said that it is unacceptable for him that even after Timor-Leste gained its hard-fought independence, members of his defence force are still criminalised.

Recently the Dili District Court sentenced Frederico da Conceição Oan Ki’ak, a former guerilla fighter, and Alberto Belo eight and six years in prison respectively for an incident in May 2006.

Both Oan Ki’ak and Alberto were armed by the Defence Force to stabilise the country following the dysfunction of the Timorese National Police to maintain law and order in 2006.

In May 2006, many PNTL members joined F-FDTL deserters whose total was about half of the number of the defense force loyal to the government. The rebels were led by Major Alfredo Reinado Alves, who was then shot in a shoot-out at the resident of President Horta in early 2008.

Matan Ruak went on to harshly criticise the use of the Portuguese language in the Courts of East Timor, calling for the end of Portuguese in the judicial system because it caused difficulties for the people.

“As a General I ask all Timorese to join me in launching a big campaign to end the use of Portuguese in all Timorese courts,” said Matan Ruak.

Matan Ruak made the comment following the decision of the Dili District court where verdicts to sentence Oan Ki’ak and Alberto da Costa were read in Portuguese.

He said that the court should only use Tetun and other native languages in its proceedings.

Matan Ruak added that with the call for language change in the court, international judges, prosecutors, and lawyers should be able to speak Tetun, which is an official language of the country.

He urged that those who cannot speak Tetun should be replaced by Timorese to make the process easy for Timorese to comprehend.

Many Timorese judicial actors like lawyers, judges and public defenders, graduated from Indonesian law schools, making them competent in both Indonesian and Tetun.

Matan Ruak said that those cannot speak Portuguese should not be penalised for this reason as it was part of the history.

The Constitution adopts both Tetun and Portuguese as official languages of Timor while Indonesian and English are used as working languages in the country. Posted by : Voice of East Timor on 12 March 2010

Barcelona Journal - Trumpeting Catalan on the Big Screen

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By JOHN TAGLIABUE

BARCELONA, Spain — Here in the principal city of Catalonia, the native language, Catalan, is heard just about everywhere except in the movies. But that may be about to change because the local government is expected to pass a bill requiring that at least half the copies of every film from outside Europe, including all major American productions, be dubbed in Catalan.

That prompted 576 of the 790 movie houses in Catalonia, a region slightly bigger than Maryland, to close for a day last month in protest.

Industry leaders recalled that Catalonia’s government, which enjoys a broad measure of autonomy from Madrid, made a similar proposal in 1998 but backed down in the face of opposition from theater owners, film distributors and foreign production companies. “They say it’s necessary for the government to make a rule, because the private sector doesn’t do it,” said Camilo Tarrazón Rodón, president of the Association of Film Businesses in Catalonia, which opposes the bill.

Film attendance has declined in recent years, he said, with the exception of an uptick last year thanks to the arrival of digital and 3-D. “Banks are not lending, companies have business problems and kids look at films on cellphones,” Mr. Tarrazón said. “How can we pay for it?”

With an influx of immigrants to prosperous Catalonia — about one million of the 7.3 million population are newcomers — the region has been struggling to maintain what it considers its Catalonian soul. The bill is but the latest attempt to assert Catalan culture and its language — similar to Spanish, but also to French and Italian — yet with its own history, poets and prose writers.

By law, schoolchildren are required to receive their education in Catalan. In a further blow to Spanish culture, a referendum before the Catalan Parliament would end bullfighting, another Spanish passion, here altogether.

The draft film law comes at a time of deep uncertainty for the central government in Madrid, which is struggling with a severe economic crisis and high unemployment. But it also highlights Barcelona’s curious role in Spanish culture, even as it seeks to assert its distinctness.

Oddly, Barcelona is the capital of Spain’s publishing industry, and roughly three-fourths of all books purchased in the region are in Spanish, said Joan Manuel Tresserras, 55, a former communications professor who is now the Catalan culture minister. Half of all radio programs are heard in Catalan and a majority of plays in the city’s theaters, with the exception of musicals, are in Catalan.

“We think we need a more diverse cinematic culture, a wider range of opportunities,” he said, seated under two big canvases by the 20th-century Catalan painter Miquel Barceló. Under Franco, the use of Catalan was discouraged, Mr. Tresserras said. That eased after Franco’s death in 1975, but even two years later, Mr. Tresserras, then serving in the army, said he spent three days in solitary confinement after officers overheard him speaking Catalan.

Mr. Tresserras says moviegoers do not go to films in Catalan because so few are shown — about 3 percent of all movies — that they are not aware they might have that alternative. But theater owners and distributors say there are few films in Catalan because moviegoers do not want them.

The magazine Cineytele said that in tests at a multiplex in Barcelona, only 12 of 131 moviegoers chose Catalan when offered the choice of seeing the same foreign film in that or Spanish.

Not everyone is convinced. “Most theater is in Catalan, and there are no complaints,” said Rosanna Rion, 46, who grew up speaking Catalan and teaches English at Barcelona University. “These tests — I’m not so sure about them.”

What major film producers, including American majors, have told the government here is that they fear, in addition to the additional cost, a possible knock-on effect. “They fear that Galicia or the Basque countries, or even the Bretons or Corsica, in France, could be next,” said Joan Antoni Gonzáles, 61, who is secretary general of Catalonia’s Federation of Audiovisual Producers, which last year broke away from Spain’s national organization. The draft law would not affect films that were shot in Spanish, or European films unless more than 15 copies are circulated, so the brunt will clearly be felt by American productions.

Mr. Gonzáles says he believes that Parliament will “make the law sweeter for the majors,” possibly by having the government pay for the dubbing — a task made easier by the introduction of digitalized films. Last year, box office revenue at Catalonia’s film theaters rose by almost 10 percent, thanks mainly to the introduction of digital and 3-D blockbusters like “Avatar,” he said.

He cited a recent film, “Elegy,” by the Catalan director Isabel Coixet, an adaptation of a Philip Roth novel in which a college teacher becomes obsessed with a student, played by Penélope Cruz. “Elegy,” he said, was shown in seven theaters in the original English with Catalan subtitles, and was a total success.

Some visitors to Barcelona feel the city is sufficiently cosmopolitan to absorb any languages. “Most of my courses are in Spanish, though my American literature courses are in English,” said Luigi Suardi, 23, an Italian exchange student at Barcelona University. He said his friends spoke a mix of Spanish and Catalan. “People living in Barcelona don’t have strong feelings” about language, he said, adding, “It’s difficult for small countries.”

Enric Juste, 33, a documentary filmmaker, said that above all, Catalonia lacked original films with subtitles. “There is no tradition here of using subtitles,” he said. “People are not used to such films.”

He favors the draft law, dismissing critics who say films in Catalan do not draw viewers. “But there are so few films in Catalan, you’re talking about a situation that, at the moment, is fiction; you cannot talk about a situation that doesn’t exist.”

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The Retreat of the Tongue of the Czars - NYTimes.com

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By CLIFFORD J. LEVY

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine

IN a corner of Bukvatoriya, a bookstore here in the capital of the Crimean Peninsula, are some stacks of literature that may be as provocative to the Kremlin as any battalion of NATO soldiers or wily oligarch.

The books are classics — by Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo, Mark Twain, and Shakespeare — that have been translated into Ukrainian, in editions aimed at teenagers. A Harry Potter who casts spells in Ukrainian also inhabits the shelves.

Two decades ago, there would have been little if any demand for such works, given that most people in this region are ethnic Russians. But the Ukrainian government is increasingly requiring that the Ukrainian language be used in all facets of society, especially schools, as it seeks to ensure that the next generation is oriented toward Kiev, not Moscow.

Children can even read Pushkin, Russia’s most revered author, in translation. (This tends to bother Russians in the way that “The Star-Spangled Banner” sung in Spanish can touch off cross-cultural crankiness in the United States.)

The Ukrainian policy has become a flashpoint in relations between the two countries and reflects the diminishing status of the Russian language in not just the former Soviet Union, but the old Communist bloc as a whole.

The Kremlin has tried to halt the decline by setting up foundations to promote the study of Russian abroad and by castigating neighbors who shove the language from public life. In some nations, a backlash against Russian has stirred its own backlash in the language’s defense.

Still, the challenge is considerable. At stake is more than just words on a page.

Language imparts power and influence, binding the colonized to the colonizers and, for better or worse, altering how native populations interact with the world. Long after they gave up their territories, Britain and France and Spain have retained a certain authority in far-flung outposts because of the languages that they seeded.

Czars and Soviet leaders spread Russian in the lands that they conquered, using it as a kind of glue to unite disparate nationalities, a so-called second mother tongue, and connect them to their rulers. That legacy endures today, as exemplified by the close relationship between Russia and Germany, which stems in part from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ability to speak Russian. She learned it growing up in Communist East Germany.

But with the language in retreat, there are unlikely to be many future Angela Merkels. For the Kremlin, could there be a more bitter reminder of how history has turned than the sight of young Estonians or Georgians or Uzbeks (not to mention Czechs or Hungarians) flocking to classes in English instead of Russian?

“The drop in Russian language usage is a great blow to Moscow, in the economic and social spheres, and many other respects,” said Aleksei V. Vorontsov, chairman of the sociology department at the Herzen State Pedagogical University in St. Petersburg. “It has severed links, and made Russia more isolated.”

Russian seems to be faring more poorly than other colonial languages because the countries that had to absorb it have a more cohesive sense of national identity and are now rallying around their native languages to assert their sovereignty.

Russian is one of the few major languages to be losing speakers, and by rough estimates, that total will fall to 150 million by 2025, from 300 million in 1990, a year before the Soviet collapse. It will probably remain one of the 10 most popular languages, but barely. Mandarin Chinese, English, Spanish, Arabic and Hindi head the list.

The situation has not been helped by the demographic crisis in Russia itself, which is expected to shed as much as 20 percent of its population by 2050.

The fall in Russian speakers has not been uniform across the former Soviet Union, and Russian officials praise former Soviet republics like Kyrgyzstan where Russian is embraced.

But countries that felt subjugated by Soviet power, like the Baltic States, have taken vengeance by mandating knowledge of the native language to obtain citizenship or other benefits. (As a correspondent in the former Soviet Union, I find that in some countries, I can often speak Russian with people older than 40 and English with those younger.)

The dispute is vitriolic in Ukraine, especially here on the Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea, a former Russian territory where about 60 percent of the population of two million is ethnic Russian and others also speak Russian as a first language. Many residents here would prefer that Russia reclaim Crimea.

Ukraine’s pro-Western president, Viktor A. Yushchenko, indicated this month that a deepening understanding of the Ukrainian language is one key to keeping Moscow at bay. “With our native language, we preserve our culture,” Mr. Yushchenko told the German magazine Spiegel. “That greatly contributes to preserving our independence. If a nation loses its language, it loses its memory, its history and its identity.”

The policies in Ukraine, the Baltics and other countries have often drawn the ire of not only the Kremlin, but also local Russian speakers.

At the Bukvatoriya bookstore in Simferopol, the manager, Irina P. Germanenko, said locals were upset by “Ukrainization” — laws compelling the Ukrainian language in government, on television and in other areas.

Many schools in Crimea use Russian as their primary language, but they often must teach courses in subjects like geography and math in Ukrainian. And important national examinations are given only in Ukrainian.

Most of Bukvatoriya’s stock is in Russian, but Ms. Germanenko said sales of books for teenagers in Ukrainian showed the policy’s impact. “It’s an unfortunate process that is occurring,” she said. “People should be able to have freedom of choice in their language.”

The resentment can bubble up in unexpected locales. When Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, said this summer that it would demote the status of Russian, requiring government documents to be only in the Tajik language, an outcry arose from those who saw Russian as a bridge to Russia and the outside world. And in former Soviet satellites in Europe, where Russian was essentially purged after Communism, there has been a small but noticeable revival.

The language is obviously helpful in doing business in Russia’s sizable market, so interest in Russian-language classes is rising. The lingua franca of Communism, it seems, is now an asset in the pursuit of capitalism.

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English Still 1st Language

Aug 14, 2009

It will be decisive for career advancement for all, says MM Lee

By Clarissa Oon & Goh Chin Lian

ENGLISH will remain Singapore's master language even as the country nurtures more bilingual talents who can do business with China, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said on Thursday. 'The command of English is a decisive factor for the career path and promotion prospects of all Singaporeans. 'For Chinese Singaporeans and those who want to study Chinese, Mandarin will be an added economic advantage with a thriving economy in China for many years to come,' he said. Even new residents from China know they will not go far without an adequate grasp of English, he added. 'And they are pushing their children to master English, otherwise they will be disadvantaged in getting places in our good schools and universities, and in getting scholarships and eventually jobs.' However, he drew the line at making it a requirement for permanent residents and new citizens to be fluent in English. 'We cannot make (the requirements for residency) so onerous that they will not come, for example, by requiring permanent residents or new citizens to be fluent in English, which even some existing citizens are not.' His remarks at a constituency dinner follow a recent debate in The Straits Times Forum pages on whether Mandarin is slowly replacing English as the language on the streets, and its consequences for Singapore's multiracial society. One ST reader, Ms Amy Loh, wrote how Geylang has evolved from a racially mixed, multilingual area into an enclave for new residents from China, with a growing prevalence of Chinese-only shop signs. Another letter writer, Mr Samuel Owen, said it is becoming increasingly difficult to order in English in some Chinese restaurants and shops because many workers from China cannot speak English. While agreeing that Mandarin proficiency was important to Singapore society, Mr Owen urged the Government to strike a balance between that and English as a lingua franca. MM Lee called on Singaporeans to give the new arrivals from China some time to adapt to life here. 'It is not easy to adjust to a different society, multiracial, multilingual, multi-religious, with different customs and ways of life,' he said. People also need to be circumspect about the Government encouraging Singaporeans to speak more Mandarin and take scholarships to study in China's top universities Said MM Lee: 'Do not be misled by the emphasis on Chinese language and culture... It does not mean we are displacing English as our working and common language, our first language.' clare@sph.com.sg

Beyond Language Learning

s/pores » 学语以外 : Beyond Language Learning

李慧玲 : Lee Huay Leng

English version

Translated by Francis Lim Khek Gee, with additional translation by Tan Siok Siok

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我们回到上海时，赶紧把在汕头买的潮语配音《白雪公主》卡通片拿出来播放，听着皇后用潮州话问那镜子：“魔镜，魔镜，世界上那个芝娘最美丽？”全家人都被逗乐了。

小时候由外婆照顾、有点潮州话基础，但后来疏于应用的表弟这次跟我一起到潮汕去。才几天在潮汕浸濡，他的潮州话大有进步。表弟比我小了将近12岁。 我哥问他现在知不知道“厕所”潮州话怎么讲，他可以字正腔圆的说出。换作以前，他一定用“toilet”取代。表弟说，在岛国的经验里，潮州话是老人、至 少是成年人的语言。没有想到在潮州，碰到三岁的小孩，原来都是说潮州话的。它就像在岛国英语会从孩子的口里源源不断的流出来一样，词汇丰富，表述生动。

我不知道从哪年开始，我们日常的语言有了年龄之分，甚至有阶级之分。但是我确实经常听到这样的说法，不是关于方言的——方言已经不在家长选择的语言 之列了。是关于孩子入学前，一些会讲华语的祖父祖母在家跟他们华语，有的父母也跟孩子讲华语，而小孩上了学跟其他同学接触，说的都是英语，回到家跟兄弟姐 妹讲的也是英语。

在他们的概念里，华语成了老年人（至少是部分成年人）的语言，平时跟自己同辈的人说话，正常还是用英语的。

这样对不对，好不好？家里该讲什么语言？父母分别讲英语和华语，还是全都讲一种语言？孩子的语言学习是个费力的工程，家长要趁早尽心怎样的规划？

回去祖父和外婆的潮汕老家，不同的空间，让人有不同的体悟。我观察那里碰到的店员、路上的行人、亲戚的小孩。除非是外省来的人，否则人们彼此交谈， 都是用潮州话。我心里纳闷，他们为什么不用普通话？或者，他们也应该知道英语的市场价值有多重要吧？为什么亲戚似乎一点不急于教小孩英语？我问了一下，孩 子学英语吗？父母都说等入了学，课堂老师会教。

后来我问在村里当小学华文老师的长辈，他说，老师们也还在学英文，学了就教孩子。谈起来，似乎也都不很当真。我分辨不出那是按照我们的标准看时，一 种眼界不够开阔，目光不够长远的表现，又或者是一种在完全不同的国情里的自信和自得。我的潮汕亲戚没有想要做世界第一，或者全国第一，只想在原来的土地上 继续生活。而本事和他们的语言是没有关系的——至少我感觉他们是这样的思维方式。还有一点：他们不要求我们，但是自己家里的孩子如果不会说潮汕话，对他们 来说是比较难接受的。

我参考着他们的方式，想象如果我也有小孩，到底要怎么教育他们，用什么语言教育他们。我在北京的一个朋友，牛津大学回来的，但我见她跟两岁的孩子一 句英语不说，都只有普通话，甚至逗着让孩子学给我们听听幼儿园里山西人的口音。我问她时，她一副不着急的样子，觉得英语以后自然是会的。

回到岛国，完全是另一个环境，另一种思维。有用和没有用，有多少用处，是一个总在思索求生存的国家衡量人和事情的标准？我读过历史，不怀疑国力强大 能使某一种语言和文化地位攀升，识时务者自然要紧跟其后。有时也想到路易十四时代，法文如何盛行。但是如果换一个方式思考，语文的学习，不是因为它的现实 价值，采用哪一种方法比较理想，也就同样不是关键了。孩子小时，大人教他们一种不一定能与全世界对话的语言，为的是那是属于他们自己文化与传统的一部分 ——这样的教育，着重自我面对的态度，是一种自我尊重和对原则的坚持。这不重要吗？

而后，再去想实用价值和教授的方法的问题。

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李慧玲，新闻工作者，曾经担任《联合早报》驻香港、北京记者。也是公民团体圆切线创社社员。

As soon as we got back to Shanghai, we played back the dubbed in Teochew version of “Snow White”, which we bought in Shantou. The whole family was tickled pink when we heard the Queen asked the Magic Mirror, in Teochew: “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of us all?”

With me on this trip to Chaoshan was my cousin, who knows some Teochew as Grandmother brought him up, but thereafter he has little use for the language. After just a few days of immersion in Chaoshan, his Teochew improved greatly. He is almost 12 years my junior. When my brother asked him if he knew how to say “toilet” in Teochew, he was able to answer with precision. In the past, he would have used the English word “toilet”. My cousin said, in the Singaporean context, Teochew is a language of the elderly, or at least the grown-ups. He was surprised to find that in Chaozhou, even three-year olds speak Teochew. It is like the fluent English pouring forth from children in Singapore, rich in vocabulary and vivid in expression.

I am not sure when the languages we use daily started taking on age, and even class distinctions. However, I have often heard it said—not concerning the use of dialects, as they are no longer a language option for parents—that before the children enter school, some grandparents who know Mandarin will speak to them in Mandarin. Some parents might also speak to them in Mandarin. But once they start interacting with their schoolmates, speaking only English, they end up speaking English to their siblings at home too.

In their minds, Mandarin has become the language of the elderly (or at least of some grown-ups), while English is the norm when communicating with their peers.

Is this right or wrong, good or bad? What language should be spoken at home? Should one parent speak English while the other Mandarin, or should only one language be spoken at home? Language learning for kids is an arduous task; what sort of plans should parents put in place?

When I returned to Chaoshan, the hometown of my grandfather and maternal grandmother, being in a different space inspired a different understanding. I noticed that the shop assistants, pedestrians, relatives’ kids all spoke Teochew unless they are from another province. I was puzzled: why didn’t they speak Putonghua? Don’t they know the commercial value of the English language? Why did my relatives not feel a sense of urgency to teach their children English? I asked them, “Are the kids learning English?” The parents all said that teachers would teach them when they start school.

Later I asked an elder who was a Chinese teacher in the village. He said that the teachers themselves were still learning English, which they then teach the children. He did not seem to take it too seriously. I am not sure if we should judge according to our own standards, seeing this as a lack of broadmindedness and long-term vision, or see it in a totally different social context: as a mark of confidence and self-assurance. My relatives in Chaoshan do not aspire to be number one in the world or number one in the country; they only wish to keep on living in their homeland. Capability is not linked to language—at least that is my sense of their way of thinking. One more thing: they don’t expect us to speak Teochew, but will find it hard to accept if their own children don’t speak the language at home.

I observe the way they do things and wonder: if I have kids, how would I educate them, and in what languages? I have a friend in Beijing who has just returned from Oxford University; she speaks to her two-year-old child not in English, but only in Putonghua. She even coaxed the child to mimic the Shanxi accent overheard in the kindergarten. When I asked her about this, she did not appear anxious, and felt that English learning would come naturally in the future.

I returned home to a completely different environment with different mode of thinking. Is a thing useful or not: to what extent is it useful has become the criterion for evaluating people and matters in a country that constantly ponders its own survival. Through reading history, I do not doubt that the rise of a nation may bring about the elevation of status of a particular language and culture. The smart and sharp observers quickly fall in line. Sometimes I reflect upon the reign of Louis XIV, when the French language was all the rage. But if we think in another way, that we learn a language not for its practical value, then finding the best method would become less crucial. When the adults teach their children a language that might not necessarily facilitate global dialogue, but because it is an intrinsic part of their culture and tradition—this type of education emphasises self-awareness, and a sense of self-respect and integrity. Isn’t this important?

Only later would one consider questions of usefulness and pedagogy.

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Lee Huay Leng is a journalist who works for Lianhe Zaobao. She was its correspondent in Hong Kong and Beijing and she is now based in Singapore. Huay Leng is also the founding member of Tangent, a civil society group.

Malaysia Ban on 'Allah' Upheld

The Catholic church in Malaysia has failed in a bid to suspend a government ban on the use of the word "Allah" in its weekly newsletter after the court rejected its application.

The high court ruling on Thursday effectively upheld the federal government's 2007 ban, which has become a symbol of religious tensions in the country.

The court will hear the newspaper's original bid to review the administrative order on July 7.

The government directive bars non-Muslims from translating God as "Allah" in their literature, saying it would confuse Muslims in this plural, Muslim-majority country.

The Herald, which reports on Catholic community news in English, Malay, Tamil and Mandarin, tried to get the order suspended while waiting for a court decision on the ban's legality.

'Status quo'

Lawrence Andrew, a Catholic priest and the editor of The Herald, told Al Jazeera they had asked to suspend the ministerial directive until the court rules on whether the ban is legal.

"Since the status quo remains we will not use the word "Allah" in our publication. In fact we have not been using it since our January edition."

The government had previously warned The Herald, which has a circulation of 12,000 limited to Catholics, that its permit could be revoked if it continued to use the word "Allah" for God in its Malay-language section.

The section is read mostly by indigenous tribes across the country who converted to Christianity decades ago.

In 2007, the government issued a warning over The Herald's use of the word "Allah", which officials had said could only be used to refer to the Muslim God.

Christian groups say the ban is unconstitutional, arguing that the word "Allah" predates Islam.

Print publications in Malaysia require a permit which is renewed every year, and is subject to conditions set by the government.

State laws

In multi-racial Malaysia, the government considers religion a sensitive matter and often classify related matters as a security issue.

S Selvarajah, a lawyer for The Herald, told Al Jazeera the court said about 10 Malaysian states had similar prohibitions on non-Muslims' use of the word "Allah".

He said the judge explained that suspending the ban "would tantamount to the court aiding the infringement of those provisions".

"But it [the ruling] has no real prejudice as such because The Herald, in compliance with the ban, had stopped using the word since January," he said.

"We'll wait for July when the court will hear the parties and decide on the matter once and for all."

About 60 per cent of the country's 27 million people are Muslim Malays, with one-third of them ethnic Chinese and Indians, and many who are Christians.

The minorities have often said their constitutional right to practice their religion freely has come under threat from the Malay Muslim-dominated government.

The government has repeatedly denied any discrimination against the country's ethnic minorities.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/05/200952894123668106.html

Malay Language Chauvinism Breaks Out Again in KL

Sadly, Malay-language chauvinism never seems to die in Malaysia, even when it has been in the ascendancy for decades. Today, diehards held a large protest rally (much YouTubed) in Kuala Lumpur, calling for the end of a minor sensible policy concession proposed by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and implemented from January 2003 which mandated a gradual switch in instruction medium for science and mathematics from Malay to English from the first year in so-called national (Malay-medium) schools. Mahathir's rationale, widely considered to have merit, was to remedy serious decline in English competence (especially among Malay students), a handicap to future economic prospects. The policy change has improved this awkward situation somewhat in just the half-dozen years it has been in effect.



Well-organized segments of Malay teachers and Malay student leaders have always opposed any change to Malay as the main medium of instruction, even to the point of making it sole medium in the education system. Many in the raucous demonstration today (over 124 arrested by national police officers, according to The Star) were precisely these large factions of Malay teachers and other Malays vested in current language policies premised on the assumption that Article 152 of the Federal Constitution dictates those policies, an argument impossible to sustain rationally. Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan proclaimed the procession illegal as he justified repeated use of tear gas and water cannons against more rowdy marchers. Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, who will likely give way to Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak in just weeks, made his usual apologies for doing nothing by blaming the Ministry of Education for dilly-dallying in its consideration of the established policy and the current newly aroused highly politicized opposition to it. (This Ministry implements primary and secondary education policy, while tertiary education policy is guided by a new Ministry of Higher Education established in 2004.) It is possible the march was planned in part as a warning shot for Najib, who would likely not make any significant alteration to medium of instruction policy.

The huge crowd, estimated from "hundreds" (by the fairly cautious Singapore-based Channel News Asia) to "at least 5,000 ethnic Malays" (AFP) to "8,000" (Malaysiakini) to even higher numbers was physically led by opposition PAS leader Abdul Hadi Awang, prominent Malay literary figure (Sasterawan Negara) A. Samad Said, 76, and former Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka director Hassan Ahmad. They worked under the formal demonstration sponsor, GNP, Gerakan Mansuhkan PPSMI (Movement to Abolish PPSMI), a coalition of 14 NGOs. PPSMI is the Malay acronym for Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran Sains dan Matematik, the policy protested today. A memorandum was successfully delivered to the State Palace (Istana Negara), official residence of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (always a Malay), popularly known in English as 'king.' The march had begun at Masjid Negara, another potent symbols of Malay political hegemony.

Perhaps surprisingly to some, PKR Supreme Council member Badrul Hisham Shaharin in the opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat, also participated, evidently in his private capacity. While PAS is regarded rightfully as the more conservative Malay Pakatan member, PKR is seen as its more open multi-racial though predominantly Malay component. There were no reports of participation by members of Pakatan's third partner, DAP, an outspoken proponent of multi-lingualism in medium of instruction and in official languages since its founding

Background:
Education in Malaysia
List of political parties in Malaysia