Datuk Sebastian Ting
MIRI (July 4): SUPP has rejected PAS president’s statement deriding the use of English language, saying usage of English in Sarawak is guaranteed by Article 161(3) of the Federal Constitution and Paragraph 28(a) of the Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC) Report.
Its secretary-general Datuk Sebastian Ting said most Sarawakians did not share Tan Sri Hadi Awang’s view and found it repugnant and uncalled for.
“Sarawakians are shocked and upset as the PAS president absolutely showed zero respect to Sarawak’s rights to use English as an additional official language apart from Bahasa Malaysia,” he said in a statement.
On Sunday (July 3), Abdul Hadi said in a statement published on Harakah Daily that Malaysians who prefer English over Bahasa Malaysia (BM) are still trapped in a colonial mindset and he also criticised Malaysians who constantly belittle the Bahasa Malaysia (BM) language.
Sarawakians’ right to use English as an official language was promised to them as one of their fundamental requirements when the former and founding leaders negotiated to form Malaysia, SUPP said.
Ting, who is a lawyer by training, pointed to the constitutional guarantee stipulated in Article 161(3) of the Federal Constitution and Paragraph 28(a) of the Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC) Report that says ‘the English language shall be an official language and may be used in the Legislative Assembly and for all other official purposes in the State, whether Federal or State purposes, including correspondence with Federal Ministries and Departments’.
The GPS government, led by Premier Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg, has assured that Sarawakians will not abandon Bahasa Malaysia but embrace usage of both English and Bahasa Malaysia.
“We know what we are doing in order to move forward in tandem with the world’s progress and advancement of digital economy,” the statement said.
The state will continue to attach great importance and encourage all Sarawakians to master the English language in her drive to be one of the leaders in digital economy and renewable energy, recognising that thousands of research papers, findings and new technology are being discovered and researched on everyday and majority of them are published in English.
SUPP takes pride in Sarawakian students, researchers, government officers and decision-makers who are able to read immediately, plan and decide for Sarawak without the need to wait for someone to translate into Bahasa Malaysia.
It is a blessing that many Sarawakians are multi-lingual with the ability to speak not just the official languages, Bahasa Malaysia and English, but also their own mother tongue like Bahasa Iban, Mandarin, Bahasa Bidayuh and other languages, it said.
SUPP supports the comments by Minister of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah that the PAS president is shallow-minded and ignorant to the importance of mastering English language for advancement in science and technology.
The party said Sarawak will not follow blindly any unwise move but always think of the best interest and future of their children.
“If the PAS president insists that he does not want to speak English or communicate in English and some Malayan politicians are of the same boat, let them be,” said Ting.