Timor Leste now has two official languages: Portuguese and Tetun

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Monday, 3 April 2006, 7:57 pm

Timor Leste Press Essential In Building National Identity
By Janet Steele

Fulbright Lecturer, Dr. Soetomo Press Institute
Column: Di-Tetun-kan

JAKARTA: (MEAA/Pacific Media Watch): A visitor to Dili who picked up Suara
Timor Timur during Indonesian times would have found a solid 12-page
newspaper published in one language: Indonesian. Like other Indonesian
papers, STT was obliged to publish stories based on the statements of
public officials. But STT usually managed to include other points of view
as well, sometimes based on interviews with Dili's Bishop Carlos Filipe
Ximenes Belo, reports from human rights activists, or comments from
faculty at University of East Timor. It also published articles on
sensitive topics such as poverty, joblessness, prostitution, and disease,
stories that often resulted in phone calls or worse --from the military
authorities.

After the fall of President Suharto, Suara Timor Timur became more
outspoken. In September 1998, it published an interview with Falintil
Commander Taur Matan Ruak that sold over 10,000 copies and broke all
records for newspaper circulation in East Timor. In the months leading up
to the referendum, the paper was independent enough to ignite the fury of
pro-Indonesia militias, and in April 1999 its office was ransacked.
Reopening a few weeks later, STT was more cautious and, according to some,
more in line with the pro-Jakarta views of its editor-in-chief, Salvador
J. Ximenes Soares. The last edition of STT was published on September 3,
1999. The situation in Timor Leste is very different today. Dili now has
three dailies: Dirio Nacional, Timor Post, and Suara Timor Lorosae-the
reincarnation of STT, which Salvador Soares brought back to publication in
2000 at the invitation of Xanana Gusmao. Although Suara Timor Lorosae is
still a 12-page paper, it now contains four different languages:
Portuguese, Tetun, Indonesian, and English. Like the other papers, its
circulation rarely tops 1,000.

Today many Timorese officials express disappointment with the quality and
performance of the press, saying that it lacks professionalism. Prime
Minister Mari Alkatiri said "Our main problem is that media are trying to
cover issues that they don't understand. They don't even read the official
documents. This is a completely open governmentthey can have whatever
information theyy like. But they don't. They are always spreading rumors,
and making news and information based on rumors." Taur Matan Ruak, now the
Commander of the Timor Leste Armed Forces, said "When I make an interview
and the next day I read it in the newspaper, I sometimes ask, 'is it true,
did I say that?'"

But are these problems really the sign of a lack of professionalism, or
are they the result of a problem with language? Timor Leste now has two
official languages: Portuguese and Tetun. The vast majority of Timorese
journalists can't understand Portuguese. Although they speak Tetun
day-to-day, they say that they prefer to write in Indonesian. Why? In
addition to having been trained in the Indonesian language, they point out
that there are no written rules of grammar for Tetun, and no consistent
spelling. Moreover, there are different regional dialects. As Prime
Minister Mari Alkatiri said, when journalists write in Tetun, it is as if
"each one is pronouncing it for himself."

Many of Timor Leste's public officials prefer to use Portuguese,
especially those who left the country after 1975. Taur Matan Ruak, who
spent 24 years in the jungle and speaks no Indonesian, said "My mother
language is Tetun, but Portuguese is more rich. Tetun is okay, but
sometimes where you say one word in Portuguese, in Tetun you need ten."
When the government issues a press release in Portuguese, journalists
can't read it. At the Timor Post, there is only one journalist who can
understand Portuguese. At Suara Timor Lorosae there are two, and at Dirio
Nacional there is not even one. Domingos Saldanha, the deputy publisher
and editor-in-chief of STL, said that when the President makes an
important speech in Portuguese, before it can be published it has to be
"di-Tetun-kan."

Language, like culture, is essential to national identity. If you ask a
person to change his language, you are asking him to change his identity.
Journalists who once wrote stories that, in the words of STL managing
editor Metha Guterres, helped to "give the Timorese people a sense of
self-worth", are now being asked to write in languages that are at best
awkward and at worst unfamiliar. Everyone in Timor Leste agrees that
independent media are essential to the development of the new nation. But
exactly what forms will that media take? And in what language? Although no
one in Timor Leste has intentionally marginalized Timorese journalists,
this is exactly what has happened. It would be a tragedy if the
journalists who helped to build a sense of Timorese national identity were
shut out by the language policy of the very nation they helped create.


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