54 different from Indonesia language. Historically Indonesia language was formed
from many mother tongues from all over ethnic in Indonesia. In this case mother tongues enrich Indonesia language.
Alwasilah’s idea that mother tongue especially Sunda should be revitalized is a fair matter. What I don’t agree is when the writer equalized Sunda with the Dutch
language. Although the speakers of Sunda are much more than the Dutch, but the level of languages are different. The Dutch is a national language, but Sunda is just
an ethnic language in Indonesia. In other word we can say that a mother tongue should have vitality in its speaker or in the area where the ethnic lives, because the
revitalization of a language should be under its low and destiny.
The number of the origins who speak Sunda based on the data given by Alwasilah is more than 20 million. This number is more or less the same with the
number of Malaysia or Australia population. Alwasilah believes that the number of speakers show the vitality of Sunda language. Actually I have a contrary opinion
about this. Although the number of speakers is much more adequate, but it is not a guaranty that Sunda is save from destruction. The main problem is that the location
of Sundanese is near the capital city of Jakarta. This condition make Sunda face different challenging to preserve comparing with other mother tongue in Indonesia.
The influence of Indonesian Language to Sundaneses seems stronger than to other ethnic in Indonesia.
Discussing the seven strategies to prevent the destruction of Sunda is also interesting. Ideally if the strategies could be implemented collectively, Sunda
language would never totally disappear. The problem is that not all Sundaneses have the same perception about this problem. I believe that Java language has more
vitality than Sunda. Sundaneses view about their mother tongue is different from Javanese. Culturally, Javanese are loyal to speak using their mother tongue. There is
an example that in Suriname where the origins were from Java, but still they speak Java until now. It means that the vitality of a mother tongue does not only depend on
the number of the speakers but also on the perception of the speaker toward the language.
D. Writing Activity in Civil Society
One of the characteristics of civil society is when the civilians are developed with the culture of reading and writing. The writing activity plays an important role
to develop the quality of society. It can be the indicator of an educated people. It means that the tradition of educated people is to communicate and to interact by
using the media of writing. The activity of reading and writing becomes a culture in their life. The civilians promote their life style through the quantity and quality of
reading and writing. The fact shows that when someone is writing means he has read first.
In Indonesia the ability writing are not developed well. As a matter of fact, the writing activities at school are not fully appreciated. The students or even the
teachers are reluctant to write. For most of people in Indonesia, writing is not an easy thing to do. When it is compared with the culture of western countries, the
quantity and the quality of Indonesian in writing is still left behind.
Apart from what has been happened, Alwasilah claims that New Order Regime plays an important role in causing to this phenomenon. I do not think that
what Alwasilah claims is completely true. The lack ability of Indonesian in writing
55 is a glimpse from failing of education in new order era. It seems that the curriculum
at school in new order era was disregarding the ability of writing. Back to our discussion in the previous part, a mother tongue may not be
evanescent, if its speakers are active to use the media of writing. As what Alwasilah claims that everything in this world will not be endless except when they are
documented in the form of writing. What to do with writing, Alwasilah 2006 proposed one thing that is
reorient of writing subject at school. He proposed some strategies or approaches to enhance the quality of writing at school:
1. The curricular approach, “forcing” the learners to Indonesia or English. 2. The extra-curricular approach, writing promotes out of school.
3. The cultural approach, promoting writing as a means of appreciating culture and civilization.
4. The efficiency approach, demanding the relevancy and advantages of pragmatic text “is matched” to the students’ level of knowledge.
Based on the strategies proposed by Alwasilah above, its will be meaningless if the policy makers, in this case the department of National education,
do not consider the strategies, at least, to be the alternative philosophy in the curriculum. In this case, a serious attention and commitment from the government is
needed.
Another way to develop the culture of writing in the civil society is the appreciation to the ethic literatures. Students learn not only how to write, but also
how to appreciate their ethnic literature. The essence of cultural revitalization is preserving the essential of culture, which is basically an act of documenting cultural
fact in the future. The teaching of ethnic literature, in itself is valuable and constitutes a practical way of preserving the local wisdom. Our national education
system should be redesigned to make the society appreciate to the ethic literatures into the critical literacy culture. In one occasion, the ethic literatures can change our
attitude and develop the critical thinking. The following is the ways proposed by Alwasilah to do it:
1. We must reinvigorate local wisdom, long buried due to the government’s
negligence of ethnic literature. 2. There is a need to sensitize the students about the esthetic value of ethnic
literacy pieces. 3. It is necessary to offer alternative material that will trigger better writing.
4. The theory underpinning this model is reader responses to literature, namely writing in response to reading literature
Concerning to what Alwasilah proposed above, at school we have limited human resources in teaching writing ad the literature appreciation. Not all teachers
from Indonesia Language program are having adequate capabilities in writing. Writing activities are not only becoming burden for students but also for teachers.
As a matter of fact, most of teachers who teach Indonesian subject are not interested in teaching literature.
In addition, there is a less attention from government toward the literature, generally arts. The governments do not seriously pay more attention in advancing
the literature especially ethnic literature and arts. Educational systems in Indonesia do not give the students much appreciation to the local arts and literatures. When I
was student at SMU, I got nothing about local arts especially literatures. I agree with Alwasilah, that at least there four mistaken in educate local arts and literatures at
56 school. They are 1 miss perception about arts that is art involves music and dancing
only; 2 the assumption that a language teacher is able to teach literature; 3 mostly the teachers teach the theory rather than the practice; 4 the assumption that western
arts are better than ethnic arts.
As long these misassumptions still available in our educational systems, it is hard for our community to meet a civil society. A civil society is a community that
respect to the values, norms and low, sustained by the quality of belief and the mastery of science and technology. We hope we can meet such a civil society in the
future by preserving our identity and culture and revitalizing our way of thinking.
E. Mass Media and Culture
