Strategic language(s) for effective activism

My old friend and fellow patriot Hishamuddin Rais is right when he says that to effect social changes and reforms more effectively in this country where about 60% of the population uses Bahasa Malaysia as, at least, their daily tool of communication, it is necessary for true reformists and NGO activists to master the language in order that their ideas and messages can be known, understood, accepted and acted upon by broad masses on the ground.

He certainly thinks in terms at the overall level of the country as a whole. For those of us whose grandparents or even great grandparents have decided long ago that di mana bumi dipijak maka di sana langgit dijunjung, the truth of Hisham's instrumentalist or functionalist observation is simply self-evident which needs no more hair-splitting debate in 2006. Ho Chi Minh had already made remarks of similar nature 76 years ago on 30 April 1930 in a rubber estate in Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan.

Of course, even independent and sovereign Republic of Singapore's national anthem is Majulah, Singapura! and it is sung in Bahasa Melayu by its citizens of all ethnic communities.

To be strategic at local or specific levels, Hisham's idea also means that when and if one intends to win over the hearts and minds of the ordinary people in, say, Kampung Baru Mambang Diawan or Malim Nawar or Tronoh Mine in my former constituency in Kampar, it would be more effective if one could understand and speak Mandarin, Cantonese or Hakka. In Penang, it is Mandarin or Hokkien.

I myself, for example, master a few boleh-pakai Tamil words and phrases like ' ladies and gentlemen, how are you?', ' greetings to you!', ' vote for XYZ party! ', ' brother ' and ' sister ', etc. I, together with my childhood friends, first learned them from the late Uncle Raju, a supporter for the late D.R. Seenivasagam's opposition People's Progressive Party (PPP), who sold rojak, mee rebus and ais cendoi in Ipoh's Old Town in the 1970s. We also learnt how to shake and move our heads like Uncle Raju from the most popular Indian (can't remember if it was in Tamil or Hindi) musical movie in town at that time: Elephant, my friend.

Uncle Raju, a great campaigner for the late D.R. Seenivasagam and his opposition party, spoke Cantonese and secular Melayu Pasar in public rallies (before 1978, public rallies were allowed for electoral campaigns) and he drew Chinese crowds like my aunts who cheered him (especially when he attacked MCA's chau-kaus) like our younger (and more rootless) friends in their 20s nowadays respond to their popluar singers or movie stars from Hong Kong, Taiwan or the United States.

To share these real-life Malayan/Malaysian experiences is, of course, not to run down English as one of the five official languages of the United Nations and a great language itself for international and inter-cultural communication but only as a strategic reality-check for politicians and activists who want to see real and on-the-ground (not syok sendiri) progressive changes in this beloved land of ours and of our families.