Artists call for freedom, reject bureaucrats
Artists call for freedom, reject bureaucrats
JAKARTA (JP): Several prominent artists and art students
demanded yesterday the immediate dismissal of Salim Said and
other members of the Jakarta Arts Council (DKJ), as well as the
Jakarta Academy of Arts and Culture (AJ), the board which elects
DKJ members.
They made the demand in a meeting organized by DKJ at Taman
Ismail Marzuki art center in Central Jakarta, to discuss reforms
within the arts and cultural community.
Poet and writer Sitok Srengenge read the written statements
which contained demands for reform at local and national levels.
"Free the arts from licenses to perform, bureaucracy,
censorship and banning of plays, exhibitions and general
performances," Sitok said.
This included the freeing of art centers from bureaucratic red
tape and the rebuilding of art councils and cultural centers in
all provinces.
At a local level, artists and students "advised with full
respect for the recently elected DKJ board for the 1998/1999
period to declare its self-dismissal."
They demanded a new electoral voting system to select members
of the DKJ board that required the city's artists to vote and was
free of the governor's influence.
DKJ head Salim Said, recently reappointed for a third three-
year term, faced most of the heat in silence.
The observer of military affairs told The Jakarta Post that
the board members just happened to be in the wrong place at the
wrong time.
"They (the artists and students) were holding a monolog,"
Salim said.
"It was useless for us to tell them that we were the ones who
allocated funds outside the meager funding of Rp 1 billion
(US$85,500) for DKJ's six arts and culture committees by the
National Development Planning Board and the city administration,"
he said.
"They are just excited about the downfall of Soeharto ... they
don't realize that without us, neither Ratna Sarumpaet's play nor
Emha Ainun Najib's show would have been staged here."
Ratna Sarumpaet's play Marsinah Menggugat (Marsinah Accuses)
was staged at TIM and several other places before it was banned
in some cities.
Salim said that a general meeting of the DKJ board members
would be held Friday to discuss further the possibilities of
reform within the arts community and dismissal of the DKJ board.
Salim added that the dismissal of the board was a matter to be
decided by the board members themselves.
"They talked. We respected them and kept silent. But the
dismissal of the board will be done on our terms and our's
alone," Salim said.
Ratna Riantiarno, organizer of Teater Koma and DKJ member,
stressed that despite a 1970 gubernatorial decree making the AJ
appointees lifetime members of the body that elects the DKJ, the
dismissal of the AJ board was only a matter of time. (ylt)