Rais Yatim to AG: It's not hard to speak BM

Former socio-cultural advisor to the government, Rais Yatim feels the attorney-general (AG) should begin to brush up on his Bahasa Malaysia skills and start incorporating the national language in government and court affairs.

He opined that it should not be hard for Tommy Thomas to do so and especially as Clause 1a, Article 152 of the Federal Constitution specifically states that Bahasa Malaysia, as the national language, should be used for official purposes.

"In this, the AG should speak in Bahasa Melayu, it's not hard, (after all) if he could master English, why can't he learn Bahasa Melayu? (I'm not saying) all courtroom arguments are not allowed to be made in English, but the opening statements and preambles should be in Bahasa Melayu. I regret that this is not being done.

"I hope the AG is not offended when I urge his to generally use more of the national language in court matters when using general phrases and for his opening statements," he told Malaysiakini in an interview.

Rais was commenting on the incident which took place outside the Kuala Lumpur courthouse on Wednesday when Thomas was forced to cancel a planned press conference after he was heckled by a group of Najib Abdul Razak supporters for attempting to speak in English.

The group had begun chanting "(Bahasa) Melayu! Melayu!" when Thomas (photo) was addressing a large group of local and international reporters at the lobby of the Jalan Duta court complex after the former premier was charged over the SRC International case.

Najib had on Wednesday claimed trial to three counts of committing criminal breach of trust with SRC funds to the tune of RM42million, and one count of abuse of power of the same.

Rais, who had served as de facto law minister, said he would always address the court in Bahasa Malaysia even if the judge allowed the use of English.

He said the country's leaders should understand that the national language could strengthen ties amongst Malaysians and the country.

He said: "It is not like we want to make English the official language, if this should happen, when our leaders do not care to converse in Bahasa Melayu, then our country's development would plummet. This we must see.

"And there falls the rukun negara, because we would not be respecting it. There falls the Malaysian race (Bangsa Malaysia) because leaders cannot and will not speak it, so Bahasa Melayu would lose commercial value."

Mandarin statement shouldn't happen

On a related matter, he said the posting of a statement in Mandarin by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng should not have happened in the first place.

In this, he was referring to the brouhaha which erupted close to two weeks ago after Lim posted a statement solely in Mandarin on Facebook in which he defended the issuance of earlier press statements concerning the Tun Razak Exchange in Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin and English.

Rais instead dismissed the need for government representatives to provide translations for press statements unless it is to Bahasa Malaysia.

"To my friends in the government, there is no need to have any other translations (for statements) we bring to the media covering in other languages, besides to the national language, as we have formed the charter, to hold the language of the Malaysian race above and to be used for future affairs," he said.

He cautioned that should these two matters regarding the use of the national language by government representatives not be resolved, it would give room for BN to turn it into an issue, just as what took place during Thomas's presser.

"BN will emerge with their renewed strength and from (Wednesday's) court proceedings, we can see that they will take aggressive steps in court. We need to address this with changes in our values and behaviour," he added.

Rais is known for his advocacy of the use of Bahasa Malaysia. Back in 2009, when serving the previous BN-led regime as information, communications and culture minister, he once publicly chided a reporter from an English daily for asking him a question in English. - Mkini