Read the signs, not only the signboards
Apparently, homes, towers, condos and whole developments appear more affluent — or atas — in English. City Hall if judged by the signboards all over the city are less prickly about English signboards.
Praba Ganesan, MMO
There is this old development near my home. It started off during construction as Evergreen, but ended up as Alam Jaya when they finished construction.
Evergreen became Alam Jaya.
For those unacquainted with Malay, shame on you, and yes, they mean the same thing.
It’s Malaysia in the 1980s, names ostensibly changed to fall in line with a raft of bureaucratic conditions — synonymously the law in those seemingly lawless days — to raise the import of Malay (Bahasa Melayu).
Then, roads, schools, malls, buildings and maybe the odd streetlight were renamed in Malay, to end colonial or ethnic hangovers.
Yet, Alam Jaya is not in Kuala Lumpur, where the scene of our current power-play transpires. It’s close though. Almost in KL, edged out by a kilometre.
Almost and close is a recurring theme in today’s column. But does not explain the corrosion of Malay language primacy in displays. It’s certainly not down to city shopkeepers as officials suggest. Not even close.
Talking about Kuala Lumpur signboards and city hall’s enthusiasm to fine businesses over their displays of other fine languages.
Coincidentally, the fining episode kicked off after former PM Mahathir Mohamad walked the streets, not like a streetwalker. The nonagenarian was appalled by the number of signboards emblazoned in Chinese.
His traipse around Kuala Lumpur inadvertently brought him a sense of abandonment and rejection, not unlike how Langkawi voters treated him.
Fortunately, for him, KL City Hall in what they publicly claim to be unrelated, went out to discipline the transgressors.
These signboard dissidents.
Malaysia still being Malaysia, various groups accused city hall — in their unadulterated passion to uphold the Malay language — of targeting Chinese owned businesses.
Which prompted Federal Territories Minister Zaliha Mustafa to defend her team. Her rebuttal? City officials together in tandem with Dewan Bahasa and Pustaka (DBP) were merely actualising The Advertisement (Federal Territories) By-Laws which is subservient to the 1976 Local Government Act.
The by-law’s Article 3(2) reads: The letters of the words in the national language shall be given prominence and shall of a size bigger than the letters or characters of the words in the other language.
Short version, Malay above all other languages.
Therefore, the actions of city hall enforcers are correct.
However, when context and history is lumped together with the actions, there are glaring inconsistencies.
While officers assiduously looked at street shops’ signboards, they failed to look up at skyscrapers and assess their attitude to the national language.
Like Kuala Lumpur City Centre.
