I refer to the Bernama report where Tourism Minister Azalina Othman Said said that all road signs should be in the national language. I quote:

"All official signs, therefore, should be in Malay. This is part of the social contract agreed upon by our forefathers and I hope no one will try to challenge that," Azalina told Bernama when contacted.

As a tourism minister, Azalina seems to take a very myopic view. I am disappointed that instead of playing her role as tourism minister, she is making comments in the context of narrow communal politics.

Earlier she cancelled the ministry’s MOU's to the five states ruled by Pakatan. She must be the only tourism minister in the history to take such actions.

Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said there was no reason for anyone to politicise the road name issue. He likened the need to have multilingual road signs to the multilingual announcements at airports which were a necessity.

I agree with the Penang chief minister. The purpose is functional, besides they did not take down the old road signs - the new signs are supplementary.

To make matters worse, Tanjung Umno Youth division chief Shaharrudin Hassan was quoted as saying: "If the Malays can compromise with not having road signs in Jawi or Arabic, we do not see why the other races cannot practice a similar thing".

Besides totally missing the point, is he saying that if there is proven potential to tap the Middle Eastern tourist market , we should not use Arabic? Azalina said several historical mosques in Kelantan and Penang had been upgraded and promoted to attract tourists from Middle East.

So go ahead and put up signs in Arabic on the roads leading up to those mosques, and if those same mosques attract Chinese tourists, then what’s the harm in putting up signs in Chinese as well?

If the response from German tourists is encouraging, we could then put up signs in German as well.

Should we then emulate Mozambique where everything is in Portuguese while its neighboring countries are largely English speaking? This will surely not be conducive to attract tourists.

Back to Azalina's statement on the federal constitution, the national language and road names.

Article 152 states that the national language is Malay. However, the constitution guarantees the freedom of learning and using of other languages, except on official purposes.

Official purposes here means any purpose of the government, whether federal or state, and includes any purpose of a public authority. To this effect, all court proceedings and parliamentary documents and meetings are conducted in Malay.

The official script for the Malay language is also stated in Article 152 as rumi or the Latin script. However, use of Jawi is not prohibited.

For public authority, let us look at Article 8 by clause (1) which provides that all persons are equal before the law and entitled to its equal protection.

Clause 2 states: ‘Except as expressly authorised by this constitution, there shall be no discrimination against citizens on the ground only of religion, race, descent, gender or place of birth in any law or in the appointment to any office or employment under a public authority or in the administration of any law relating to the acquisition, holding or disposition of property or the establishing or carrying on of any trade, business, profession, vocation or employment."

There is no reference whatsoever to road names but if we read article 152 in the context of article 8 clause 2, the intent is clear

‘Except as expressly authorised by this constitution, there shall be no discrimination against citizens on the ground only of religion, race, descent, gender or place of birth’.

Azalina should consult somebody who is familiar enough with the workings of the constitution before making sweeping statements.

Nobody is questioning the national language. It is entrenched in our constitution and to amend this would require not only agreement from two thirds of parliament but also from the Conference of Rulers.

Let us not confuse the role of the national language and the utility of road names.