hmmm....you know back in the mid 80s there were Mandarin speaking
campaigns and the reasons they gave was to make Chinese in
Singapore understand one another better due to the presence of
various Chinese dialects.
I think at the time there was a backlash against the PAP for
destroying chinese schools, so they had to launch a propaganda
campaign as wayang that they care about mandarin. But they still
wanted to use it as a cover to suppress dialects.
The second reason was because China was opening their market and we
need to speak Mandarin if we want to do business with
them.....
This was probably the main reason why.
Basically both mandarin and chinese dialects have been run to
the ground in Singapore by the peranakan Harry Lee Kuan Yew and his
clique.
Malay he also suppressed.
At the same time, Singapore was also the center
of the Malay literary world, and most of the major writers worked
and lived in the island. Strong anti-colonial sentiments among the Malay
intellectuals were fanned by the influential
daily Utusan
Melayu,
then under the charge of Yusof Ishak and Samad Ismail. In the
fifties a major debate arose in the Malay literary world in
Singapore, on the issues as the proper function and responsibility
of the writer, between the proponents of what came to be known as
Art for Society as opposed to Art for Art’s sake. The polemics
which engulfed the Malay literary world in the period led to the
formation of Angkatan Sastrawan 50s (ASAS 50), who argued for and
advocated the view that writers had a clear and obvious social duty
and responsibility. The debate was more than a difference in
literary style or preference. It hinged on the more important issue
at that juncture as to whether the writer should stand aside from
the emerging anti-colonial struggle. Usman was one of a whole
generation of writers including M S Masuri, A Samad Said, Keris
Mas, Arena Wati, who took cudgels on behalf of the cause for a
literature of social concerns and social relevance. Among them were
a group of socially engaged students, including Ali Aziz, Kassim
Ahmad and Syed Hussin Ali who were then studying at the University
of Malaya located in Singapore, who were to pay major roles in
subsequent years in literature and politics.
This debate had its reverberations in the Chinese literary world at
the time, which was embroiled in a similar debate on broadly the
same issues. Accordingly the debate generated considerable interest
in Chinese literary circles, creating an empathy for ASAS 50 among
many Chinese writers.
At the same time, the debate on the issue of the National Language
came to the fore. It is now conceded that the left wing trade
unions under Lim Chin Siong, took a decision early on in support of
Malay as the national language and at the same time arguing for a
reduction in the role of the English language and the elevation of
the languages of the local communities, principally Chinese and
Tamil. Lim’s role in this has been acknowledged by Usman and Samad
Ismail and others.
The left wing support for the use of Malay as the national language
and the common lingua franca, created a strong surge of interest
for the learning of Malay. This momentum was accelerated after
1959, when widespread classes for Malay in night schools, adult
education centres and private tuition was widespread and
extensive.
This movement for the study of Malay declined
after Singapore left Malaysia after 1965.
Since then, the island republic had
gone on to embrace the English language with a new fervour and
intensity, bringing in its wake the widespread dissemination of
western values, culture and mores...
http://s-pores.com/2008/01/Usman/