As a child, I would see the a Jawi newspaper in our house because the person who cared for me read Jawi. I then went on to school and actually learnt to read Jawi a fleeting moment in our curriculum but I must admit that I would now not be able to tell the difference between the Arabic script used for Malay and that for the Arabic language. Like Tzuo Hann Law , I would probably commit the same misdemeanor: the mis-recognition of Malay for Arabic.

But unlike him, I would have been happy to see the usage of a 'foreign' language on the Malaysian embassy's sign. I would have applauded the ambassador and suggested a range of other international languages that could adorn our mission's walls as a symbol of our putative openness to the world, it's people, cultures and influences.

The curious character of the dispute is that Tzou and Nora Ahmad share the same assumption. That is, the purpose of the signage is as a representation of our national identity. In some sense it is, but that need not be its dominant role. I rather think of signage wherever they maybe placed - in terms of its ability to communicate. And it is this positioning that gives perhaps a different take on the long-standing and somewhat jaded debate on Bahasa Malaysia in the life of the nation.

Tzou is not the only one who stumbles along in his nationalist fervour. Nora herself is prey to a mis-recognition - failing to make a distinction between language as identity and language for communication. More than that, she also implicitly denies in her argument the 'communicative logic' of the national language project. The creation of a shared language for a multi-lingual nation requires that the chosen language be 'open'. A social code which allows all linguistic communities to enter and use it with ease and to claim equal ownership of it. Otherwise it will only be the extension of a single community's cultural identity.

A typical point of contrast is between the evolution of the Malay language as the national languages of Malaysia and Indonesia. The contrasting trajectories of the languages emerge from the different positions of the language in each context. For instance, Malay is the language of a minority community in Indonesia (Javanese being overwhelmingly the larger linguistic group) whereas, Malay is the language of the community that ascended to political dominance. This, however is not the place to go further into this productive contrast.

Suffice to say, in our country Bahasa Malaysia is caught between an identity in the Malay community and that of a fully secular national community. As lamentable as Jawi's disappearance from the public sphere, the script is part of the former; project of a single community's identity celebrated by others as well but not open enough for the present national community. Romanised Malay is only the starting point of a national language and not its end.

The schizophrenic politics of Bahasa Malaysia is the major source of its failure as a national language. Let Malay and Bahasa Malaysia coexist; let us acknowledge Malay's rich history but let us also give Bahasa Malaysia a future by releasing it from its current strictures. One that has been brought about by too close an identification with one community its culture, society and religion.