Also can. Please give suggestions if you have any.
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 dailyUtusan 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/
so u would rather have one of the other 3 official languages as
main language than English?
