English language is still important for communication world – wide, says Datuk Sebastian Ting

suppadmin | July 4, 2022

PAS President’s posting in labelling Malaysians supporting the usage of English as people who are still trapped in the colonial mindset is uncalled for and must be strongly rejected, said Sarawak United Peoples party Secretary General, Datuk Sebastian Ting.

He said most Sarawakians do not share his views and indeed most Sarawakians are repugnant, shocked and upset as PAS’s President absolutely showed zero respect to Sarawak’s rights to use English as an additional official language apart from Bahasa Malaysia.

“Our right to use English as an official language was promised to us as it was one of our fundamental requirements when our former and founding leaders negotiated to form Malaysia. The 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 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”, he added.

Ting pointed out that any Malaysian who speaks English language whether in Malaysia or in foreign country does not mean that he is not loyal to Malaysia. He is still ‘hormat dan taat setia’ to Malaysia.

Indeed, he added, the usage of language has never been listed and or defined as an important ingredient or requirement to establish whether a person is loyal or otherwise.

” In Sarawak, our GPS government, led by our Premier of Sarawak YAB Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Zohari, we know what we are doing in order to move forward in tandem with the world’s progress and advancement of Digital economy.

Sarawakians feel proud of our Premier giving his speech in English entitled “Accelerating the Global Hydrogen Economy: The Sarawakian Way” on May 9, 2022 during the three days World Hydrogen 2022 Summit and Exhibition hosted by Rotterdam from May 9 to May 11, 2022. His speech was on point and well received by all international communities and industry players immediately. We continue to remind ourselves that we are not abandoning Bahasa Malaysia but embracing both English and Bahasa Malaysia.

Ting encouraged all Sarawakians to master the English language as we definitely want to be one of the leaders in digital economy and renewable energy as thousands of research papers, findings and new technology are being discovered and researched on everyday and majority of them are published in English. “We would take pride of our students, researchers, government officers and decision-makers to be able to read immediately, plan and decide for Sarawak without the need to wait for someone to translate into Bahasa Malaysia.

We are truly blessed 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 many more,” he added.

SUPP supports the comments by Minister of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Dato’ Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah that PAS President is indeed shallow minded and ignorant to the importance of mastering English language for advancement in science and technology.

He opinioned that if 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 as Sarawak shall not follow them. For Sarawak, we always think of our children, their future and our people in Sarawak as a whole as we want the best for them.