Kulturpolitische Implikationen einer Kontroverse um die indonesische Einheitssprache
Creators: name: Carle, Rainer
Publisher: name: ASIEN: The German Journal on Contemporary Asia
Year: 2022

description: Starting point of dispute on the question of Javanizing or modernizing the Indonesian national language was Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana's (STA) recent appeal to the Minister for Cultural and Educational Affairs for closing the national language centre. STA considers its termini technici policy not efficient because de facto it favours an Old Javanese-Sanskrit codification which Indonesians today are not familiar with. STA attendants likewise argue that this kind of termini stratification prevents progressive scientific codification as an instrument for modernizing the Indonesian society. It is also said to make unifying tendencies on ASEAN levels more difficult as far as Malay speaking societies are involved ("Bahasa Nusantara"). The article tries to give more intrinsic insight into the dispute background motivations. First of all survey is given on historical conditions which the (Malay) Indonesian language had to face, referring to some vagueness concerning the roots of the present language: its political dictionary incorporating Dutch, "Revolutionary Malay" and Javanese, its linguistic culture incorporating Dutch-Western and Javanese-Eastern traditions (cf. B. Anderson) dichotomy of termini codification some what between European and Indo-Javanese preference, but the last one as instructed by state office! Why then STA's aversion against this official Indo-Javanese preference? Besides pragmatic reasons the article tries to give answer with reference to cultural politics as supported by relevant parts of the Orde Baru ('New Order') elite. It makes use of M. van Langenberg instructive model of analysing this order by key word approach to its public discourse. This clearly reflects the dominant normative values being based on Javanese Weltanschauung which means particular identification of the state with pre-Islamic, autochthonous animistic and Hindu-Buddhist traditions (kejawen). The Javanese language moreover is coined by an elaborated sociolinguistical ranking variety, krama ('kromo') being its higher level. The "kramanization of public Indonesian" (B. Anderson) in this respect is assumed to endanger the unifying function of the national language. It seems to be not the puritan islamic Weltanschauung in opposition to the kejawen Islamic one which strikes the Sumatran STA, but the kejawen opposition to main ideals of nationalist intellectuals who pioneered the struggle for independence relying on the European concept of rationalism (cf. Enlightenment) - or relying on Indonesian egalitarian tribal concepts as seen by the Sumatran writer Mochtar Lubis. He demands "cultural transformation" from Javanese feudalism to democracy, to put it simply this way. STA point of view is proved by quoting from Armijn Pane novel "Belenggu" (1940) where these opposite positions are clearly elaborated the late Sumatran Armijn being one of STA closest partners in pre-war cultural politics.
description: ASIEN: The German Journal on Contemporary Asia, Nr. 27 (1988): ASIEN (April)