Kita kami
The inclusive vs exclusive 'we' in Bahasa Indonesia and how this relates to expanding hand counts
During the last ice age, part of Indonesia was connected to the rest of Southeast Asia, part to Australia—now it is an island archipelago of perhaps 17,000 islands. At high tide, fewer.
My grandmother is from here and my dad was also born in Indonesia. It was really neat to live there from age 9-15 (so in a way I’m also from here/there), although I visited a tiny number of those islands. I still love the ocean. The salt water, the constant movement, brimming with life.
It’s nice to now be in Minnesota where water is also plentiful—swimming is one of my favorite activities and it’s great to be able to jog ten minutes to the lake nearby.
There’s a lot of interesting things about Indonesia—the people, the cultures, the topography—but for now we’ll look at the language…
While Bahasa Indonesia became the official language, it isn’t necessarily the first language for many, with over 800 languages spoken throughout the country.
Bahasa Indonesia was the language I learned—sedikit saja!—there while living in the capital, Jakarta.
There are some great aspects of the language… it pretty much sounds how it’s written, for one.
For another, to make something plural, just say it twice… Bapak bapak dan ibu ibu (gentlemen and ladies)—heard this many times on airplanes!
Also, for another example, I was early on introduced to the difference between the inclusive and exclusive form of the word ‘we’.
Kita memilih (rhymes with Emily) = we vote (includes the person/people being spoken to)
Kami memilih = we vote (excludes the person/people being spoken to)
I found this interesting, because in English ‘we’ can be used ambiguously, for instance in to attempt to persuade the reader/listener who may not identify with a group or an idea to imagine themselves being a part of that group or sharing an idea with the writer/speaker.
So, we can use ‘we’ as a rhetorical device. (Who is the first ‘we’ in that sentence?)
We also see that Indonesia also has a lot of volcanic activity. (Werner Herzog’s Into the Inferno has some nice footage from Indonesian volcanoes.)
The image above is sometimes how I feel when trying to explain about election computers, because it’s amazing that we are still using them.
In Minnesota, we use a lot of election computers…
We’d really prefer NOT to use them anymore.
(Maybe we should contact those areas that hand count and ask how on Earth they do it?)
If you want to help, go to https://projectminnesota.com/local/ - I’m currently spending most of my time on #1 (expanding post election review hand counts, which includes hand counting mail-in ballots, the processing of which is usually outsourced from towns and cities to counties—last night before the city council I spoke about how Dakota County’s precinct 4950 in the 2020 PER was missing 800 ballots, more than 60%).
I recommend #1 to everyone (you don’t need permission to go on a PER mission), but if you’re in a rural area that can only sadly vote by mail, then maybe we spend time on #2 (renewing in-person in-precinct voting option) because voting by mail is unsafe, kind of like walking on a rumbling volcano that could erupt at any moment.
Maybe that’s why we banned mail-in voting in so many countries?
And probably why we will ban it here, too.