East Timor Herald
Saturday 10th September 2000 EDITION 1
Time to talk sense on official languages
The debate needs an injection of common sense
The debate over the official language of East Timor has become emotional
and divisive, with each side's proposals attracting hostility from the
other. For the older generation, the use of Indonesian is anathema, while
for the younger generation, the idea of using Portuguese is seen as a step
backward. Both sides harbour suspicions about the other's motives, and
Xanana Gusmao's announcement on the adoption of Portuguese as the official
language appears unilateral and unconsultative. It does nothing to allay
the fears of younger East Timorese, that they are being excluded from the
political process by an elite of returned exiles. Ironically, the CNRT's
emphasis, or overemphasis of Portuguese may threaten the promotion of the
language in East Timor, and the arrogant and clumsy attitude of the
Portuguese government in this regard does nothing to endear young East
Timorese to the language either. Lisbon's attitude almost smacks of
recolonisation.
Xanana Gusmao's romantic idea that East Timor owes a debt to Portugal for
its very existence is almost laughable. Indonesia's boundaries are the
legacy of Dutch colonialism, but today, Indonesia's cultural ties with the
Netherlands are negligible, except for Dutch loan words in Indonesian.
Many young East Timorese, understandably, do not share Xanana's love
affair with Portugal and its language, and see them as an irrelevance. The
situation is potentially volatile, rather like that in South Africa under
apartheid, with hostility among young black students to the teaching of
Afrikaans.
It is important to look at the experience of other post-colonial societies
when choosing an official language, or indeed, official languages. There
is no reason why East Timor cannot have two or three official languages.
Singapore has four, South Africa has eleven. In Macau, Portuguese has been
retained as an official language after the territory's return to China,
even though more schools teach in Chinese and English than in Portuguese.
Perhaps if Lisbon took a similarly pragmatic approach to the promotion of
Portuguese in East Timor, and recognised that it is not the territory's
lingua franca, it would reduce tensions over the future use of the
language there. Portugal should, for example, help to promote the use of
Tetum, as well as Portuguese, and fund the publishing of textbooks in the
language for use in schools. (Tetum, does, after all, have many Portuguese
loan words.) This would be no different from the promotion of regional or
minority languages in much of Europe.
An independent East Timor will probably join the CPLP, the community of
Portuguese-speaking countries, and the territory already has observer
status, although this does not necessarily mean that Portuguese will
become East Timor's principal working language. The English-speaking
Commonwealth has several members, such as Malaysia, where English has
ceased to be an official language, and indeed, Mozambique, where the
official language remains Portuguese. Similarly, Portuguese-speaking
Guinea-Bissau is a member of La Francophonie, a consequence of its
neighbours being French-speaking, and the association includes members
such as Vietnam, where the number of French speakers is highly
questionable.
Nobody denies that English is the lingua franca of international business,
and indeed, the language of East Timor's southern neighbour, Australia,
nor that East Timor cannot live with its back to Indonesia. Bahasa
Indonesia is widely taught in schools in the Northern Territory, and
elsewhere in Australia. But Australia also has a policy of
multiculturalism, and hence, multilingualism, which sees the official
promotion of community languages, from Indonesian to Portuguese, and
Vietnamese to Croatian. East Timor should promote its own linguistic
heritage, Tetum and Portuguese. There is a misconception, particularly in
English-speaking countries, that learning and speaking more than one
language is unnatural or impossible. Yet in many European countries,
speaking up to four languages is not uncommon. Why can several languages
not coexist happily in East Timor, not only those of its former rulers,
but its own languages as well, of which Tetum is only one?
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