Only Bahasa to be used at official functions abroad, says PM

Menurut artikel ini, our PM cadangkan penggunaan "Bahasa Malaysia" sebagai Bahasa Asean sebab mempunyai terbanyak penutur di Asia Tenggara. I kinda get it sebab Bahasa Melayu was the old lingua franca tapi kalau anda merujuk kepada data populasi ASEAN, penduduk negara yang berbahasa Melayu kurang berbanding penduduk negara yang berbahasa lain(For sake of argument, let's compare Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Singapore vs Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam)

Agak-agak 315 juta penutur BM vs 360 juta penutur bahasa lain.

So it's a wee bit unfair I guess to the non Malay/Nusantara countries. That was the reason why English was chosen as the working language, or the current Lingua Franca if you would.

Is Sabri saying this because he's trying to stoke up nationalistic fervour and highlight Malaysia and the Malay speaking world's importance? Is this posturing? Is there any other hidden meaning behind this message of his or am I reading a bit too much into it?

Tapi in the end, saya tak kisah pun. Guna BM, BI atau apa sahaja bahasa. Sama peranan je untuk fungsi rasmi. Kebanyakan rakyat Malaysia pun faham kedua-dua bahasa. Whatever is more convenient for us I suppose.

/r/malaysia Thread Link - freemalaysiatoday.com