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In our region’s slow but unstoppable movement toward unity, the
Malay people of Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines will
do well to form a tight bloc within Asean. We Filipinos will
do ourselves a disservice if we do not do what the late statesman
Blas Ople vigorously recommended: Learn to speak Bahasa Melayu/Indonesia
and speak as our ancestors did before Magellan and Legaspi arrived.
The language of our Malay cousins in Malaysia
and Indonesia are identical as British English and American
are.
Indonesian is the younger language. It
developed from Malay, which was the lingua franca of the prosperous
kingdoms of the Malay Peninsula, the coastal towns of the Indonesian
and Philippine archipelago.
Our pre-Christianization ancestors, the
Philippine Malays, spoke Malay. Magellan’s Malay interpreter,
whose name reaches us as “Enrique or Henrique de Malacca” could
have been a Philippine Malay the Spaniards got through the
Portuguese in Malacca.
Kapampangan—the language of Pampanga which is
not a coastal province—is the Philippine language closest to
Malay. This reinforces the theory I adhere to that Malay must
have been the lingua franca of the Philippine Malays everywhere
before and during the 15th century. For language theory posits
that the older language of a people is preserved in remote and
isolated areas. In the United States, for, example, the
English used by the Okies and other highland Americans, until the
spread of the TV culture after WWII, was the one closest to the
language of Shakespeare.
Now, let me tell you about the phrase “rasa
sayang.”
“Rasa” means exactly as our “lasa”
does—and more. It means not only “taste” but also
“feeling.”
“Merasa” means to feel. “Merasa-i”
is to taste. “Saya rasa” means “I think.” (“Saya”
is our “ako” but in Bahasa, especially in Indonesia, “ako”
is used in sentences in which the one who refers to himself as
“ako” is a feudal superior.)
“Bagaimana rasa nya?” is “How does it
taste?”
“Tidak berasa” means “tasteless or has no
taste.” But it can also mean “heartless, unfeeling.”
“Merasa” means “to feel.”
“Merasakan” means “to feel, to experience.
To endure and to bear.”
“Rasa tanggung jawab” means “sense of
responsibility.”
Now “sayang” means “longing, love,
affection” or “pity, sorry.”
Our use of “sayang” is one way the
word is used in Malay and Indonesian. So “Sayang!” means in
Bahasa as we use it in Tagalog, “Dear! Dear!”
“Sayang sekali!” means “It’s a great
pity!” and “Alangkah sayang nya!” means “What a pity!”
“Kasih sayang” means “to love” or the noun “passion.”
“Kesayangan” is one’s “darling, pet or favorite.”
One of the most popular old Malay-Indonesian
songs is “Rasa Sayang—“Feeling love” or “Feeling a
passion” or “Feeling a longing.”
In the days before Lee Kuan Yew’s republic
became a First World country, I was working in Singapore (with
Johnny Gatbonton, Arnold Moss, Bert and Blanche Gallardo and the
late Noli Galang—and with a happy bunch of Indians, Sri Lankans,
Pakistanis, Chinese, Malays and Singaporeans). One of our
watering holes was a pub named Rasa Sayang. A chanteuse would
sometimes sing the plaintive “Rasa Sayang.”
I am writing about it today on learning news
that, as Malaysia’s New Straits Times says, “It appears that in
the eyes of many Indonesians, the use of popular songs like ‘Rasa
Sayang’ and traditional dances like the barongan to promote
Malaysian tourism amounts to appropriating what is theirs. As such,
we should seek their consent before making use of what belongs to
them. All we need to do, said Indonesian Culture and Tourism
Minister Jero Wachik, is ‘just mention’ it is Indonesian and
‘just inform us.’ ”
The Indonesian minister must be blaming himself
for not using the song and the dance in his own commercials.
The Malaysian commercial is really so beautiful and good. CNN and
CNAsia and other cable channels run it.
Happily, the New Straits Times continues,
Minister Wachik’s “is not a sentiment that is to be found within
the top circles of the Indonesian government.”
The trouble is that the “feeling… is shared
by the Indonesian people and their press who have vented their
spleen in the streets and in column centimeters. If the discord over
culture, the disputes over territory, the dissatisfaction over the
treatment of Indonesian migrant workers, and other troublesome
issues which are pushing relations between the two countries into
deeper and more troubled waters are not better managed, there is a
danger that things could spiral out of control.”
I agree with the NSTPress that it does “not do
any good if the invectives and insults degenerate into something
worse.”
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