Date: 27 November 2006 3:13:26 AM
A great day to all of you,
To Mr. Ken, first of all, I would like to thank you for sharing your ideas with me and with all of the friends in theses forums. I believe that via this debate, I have learnt a lot of things from you. At the following I`ll try to respond your writing systematically according to the context of the paragraphs.
Firstly, do you know me? Where did we meet and where? In the UK? In
Ireland? In Portugal? In Australia?
In this first words of yours, I don´t understand what was and what is the reason did you write them? As far as I know, the internet forum is the place for a direct meeting of ideas. It is a place for exchanging and sharing ideas indirectly. So we don´t need to ask whether this person has met us already or not? What we really need to ask is whether his or her arguments or statements correspond to mine or not, whether his or her arguments are correct or incorrect? If they correspond and are correct, we just simple say thanks to his or her sharing that we have got and if they don´t correspond and are incorrect, we just simple argue them back to make it clear to them or to the adversary. That is we call healthy debate.
At the other hand, it might be because I call you "friend". If you don´t like to call you friend because we have never met each other, please just tell me, I`ll follow it wholeheartedly and fully respect it. I always respect the right and freedom of the others, I don´t want to impose what is mine to them. If it was a problem of misunderstanding at the part of mine, please just argue and point it out as you have described at the second paragraph of your writing. By the way, it is not a problem for me, living is learning, so lets just simple take it as a lesson to learn, so that we could increase more our knowledge about the way of living.
Secondly, you have misunderstood the point of what I was saying. I
did not say that 'complaining' about the difficulty of Portuguese was
an insult to the intelligence of East Timorese, I said that
the 'argument' that Portuguese (or any other language for that
matter) is too difficult to learn is an insult to the intelligence of
people who are pretty good at learning languages.
You are right in your writing that not the complaining about the difficulty of Portuguese was an insult to the intelligence of East Timorese, but the argument that Portuguese is too difficult to learn is an insult to the intelligence of East Timorese, but your forget that this argument is based on the complaining of the East Timorese themselves of the difficulty of Portuguese. So the argument is the product of the complaining.
I am not 'campaigning' or even 'encouraging' East Timorese to learn
Portuguese, I am simply challenging myths and prejudices about
learning languages. English is difficult too, it's just that people
don't realise that the English they speak is full of mistakes. Your
English is full of mistakes - no offence, you write it better than
many other East Timorese I know, but it's not quite correct. In fact,
some of your sentence structure is similar to Portuguese, as are some
of the words you use 'costume' in English doesn't mean 'custom', it
means a kind of clothing.
So, why did you go to the trouble to learn Portuguese, and why have
you written in it, at length, very eloquently, in the
timorcrocodilovoado r forum? It would be more honest of you never to
have bothered, just as most Timorese living in the UK have never
bothered.
I respect their right not to learn it, it is not their fault that
they never had the chance to learn it, and they should not be
punished or disadvantage because of it, but that does not mean that
they should discourage other people, particularly future generations,
from learning it.
What is wrong with learning other languages? What is wrong with
encouraging people to be multilingual? I think it is healthy. I do
not feel any less English because I speak languages other than
English, least of all Tetum.
First of all, I would like to inform or tell you that I don´t have any objective to discourage East Timorese to learn the foreign languages such as the Portuguese, English, etc. For me, it would be really great when the East Timorese can learn all of the languages of every people and nation in the world. What I really against is the choice of Portuguese as East Timor national identity and official language, because we are East Timorese as a people and a nation, we have our own cultures and languages that can be chosen and nominated as our national identity.
And about the mistake in writing and speaking a foreign language is very normal, even the owner of this language also can make mistakes just like you wrote "realize" with "REALISE" and "colonized" with "COLONISED". So it just simple shows that we are as human beings are not perfect. It is really normal to commit mistakes. I always make mistakes when I talk with other East Timorese from other territories of the country in Tetun, sometimes I mix it with my own dialect "Tokodede". I am very lucky because they don´t know it, so they don´t notice that I make a mistake.
In this forum I have also had disagreements with people who think
that the role of Portuguese in East Timor is like that of Portuguese
in Brazil, or English in Australia. I think this is a ridiculous
comparison, because indigenous people in those countries are
outnumbered by Europeans and others, and many of their languages have
been driven to extinction.
The indigenous people in those countries are outnumbered by Europeans and others because of the genocide practiced by the colonialists. Like in Canada, United States, etc. with the American Indian, in Australia with the aboriginals and in New Zealand with the amoris. Their principal objectives were to finish with the indigenous people so that they could freely dominate and habitat those lands. They feared that if they let those indigenous people alive, it would be very dangerous, because one day these peoples will rise and fight against them and expel them from those lands. So thanks to God for East Timor was colonized by Portugal if not the East Timorese would be outnumbered by the Europeans like in Australia, USA, Canada, etc. So when they killed the people, the languages also died with the people.
After practicing genocide and dominating the lands of the others, they declared themselves as the defenders of human rights and criticized the others for practicing the same things as they did. What an injustice and shameful practices.
Did I say that Portuguese should be East Timor's sole official
language? No. That is why I think at all official documents should be
available in Tetum as well, from both a cultural and practical point
of view. I think that Mari Alkatiri was paranoid about Tetum, and Ana
Pessoa still is, while all the stuff about how Tetum is not yet
developed enough to be an official language is crap. Even if the
words used are similar to Portuguese words, it still raises the
status of the language to its rightful place. However, I think
Indonesian-educated people can be just as guilty of not showing
enough pride in Tetum, because they don't think it's good enough to
be written in, like an Indonesian 'bahasa daerah'.
Did I say that Portuguese should be East Timor's only means of
communication with the outside world, least of all its nearest
neighbours? No, and nor do I advocate that East Timor turn back the
clock forty years, when it was isolated from Southeast Asia, when
schools taught French but not Indonesian, and children were punished
from speaking Tetum or other languages.
At this point, I have no doubt and no contradiction with you.
Geographically, Portugal is far away from East Timor - so what? The
UK is far away from East Timor too, but thousands of East Timorese
live and work here. Even in Portugal they can make more money than
Indonesians and Filipinos do working in Malaysia or Hong Kong, where
they are paid next to nothing treated like slaves.
I think it is not about the economic or commercial trade, but it is about the emigration, the migrant workers. It is about the individuals who want to look for a better life in the other countries. Like in Portugal there are also many Portuguese who went to seek for better jobs and gain in French, South Africa, Venezuela, etc.
When we are talking about the commercial trade, we are talking about the cost and profit. A trade would be more profitable when the cost would be lower than the profit. The geographical and cultural distance will determine the cost and profit of the trade. The closer would it be, the more profitable would be the trade. There lesser would be the cost of transportation and culture adaptation.
Of course, trade with one's neighbours is important, but how many of
the people involved in it are indigenous East Timorese? They are as
much a minority as Portuguese speakers, and probably even smaller.
Most trade is controlled by ethnic Chinese and Arab Muslims (as it
was in Portuguese times) and Indonesian traders.
For me those people who live legally as citizens of East Timor they are East Timorese, there is no discrimination.
Isn't this an injustice? Why do people not complain about it more? It
doesn't matter if the language of trade is spoken by 100% of the
population if 99% have no opportunity to trade? In Macau, most people
don't speak Portuguese, but they don't mind that it's still an
official language because they are too busy running businesses and
making money. I wish more East Timorese could do the same, and stop
wasting time and energy on politics. I hope that the migrant workers
here will be able to pass on skills as well as capital if and when
they return.
When you forget about politics it is just like you forget or loose your car or train that can help you effectively to go to your destination. The important is to have a good driver to drive you to a good and right direction so that you can arrive safety at your destination.
East Timor should not copy and paste anything from ANY country, be it
Portugal, Australia, Indonesia, or anywhere else. Learn from their
successes and failures, but don't blindly copy them. That is laziness
of the worst kind. And the only thing worse than someone who pretends
to be like his colonial master, is someone who pretends that he was
colonised by someone else.
East Timor could copy from any country but only the good and better things. What East Timor should not do is to copy it blindly. When we learn their successes and failures, then we take some lessons from their successes, that is a copy that we take from them.
A great hug
Lelobere
