Politics of literary translation in plurilingual Malaysia and Singapore

Why is there a need to translate within if it is accepted that there is one common language that everyone can read and converse in (i.e., English for Singapore and Malay for Malaysia)? In Malaysia, Malay, as the sole national and official language, should theoretically be the language for all Malaysians; however, in reality this is not the case, at least not in literature. Those who admire the function of Bahasa Indonesia blame non-Malays for not speaking and writing “well enough” in the national language and even attribute the lack of success to the existence of Chinese and Tamil vernacular schools. Thus, a paradox emerges in which people celebrate the greatness of “rojak” culture, multiculturalism and multilingualism, but are reluctant to translate within because of the desperation for there to be one language that unites all. As historian Rachel Leow indicates, language diversity is seen by the Malaysian state as a “source of crisis” that needs to be managed instead of a source of “connection, human creativity, and alternative modes of being national.”