Big Brother, once again

Big Brother, once again

It takes a good ear and good counsel, as well as a degree of
intelligence and conscience, for a leader to weigh all sorts of
proposals, with coaxing and cajoling from all sides, and arrive
at the best possible decision.

What kind of counsel President Susilo Bambang Yudhyono is now
getting over proposed amendments to the Criminal Code from his
ministers is not entirely clear. But a draft proposal exposed to
the public not long ago indicates that the President may be in
urgent need of a spin doctor in order to avert a dramatic and
sudden slump in his public support.

As the world commemorates Press Freedom Day each May 3, we are
reminded that no less than freedom of expression and thought are
at stake the minute President Susilo signs his approval to the
government draft of the new Criminal Code. Barely seven years
after strongman Soeharto was pushed out of power, we are again
witnessing crude attempts by those in power to monopolize what is
considered politically and morally correct behavior and thought,
on the pretext that it is for the good of over 200 million
Indonesians, and that it is based on the profound wisdom of an
elite circle of men and women.

Among others, an article in the draft states that promoting
"principles of communism" will be subject to a maximum penalty of
10 years jail, unless you can prove you had no intention "of
changing or replacing the state ideology Pancasila."

Then there's the clause on revealing in public any "sensual"
parts of the body -- with the judge apparently free to determine
whether a bare back or a naked navel would fall into such as
category, before sentencing an offender to ten years behind bars
with a Rp 300 million (almost US$ 32,000) fine. Judges would also
determine whether dangdut performers and millions of their
ecstatic fans will fill the jails, mixing with rapists, murderers
and white-collar criminals for the heinous crime of "dancing
erotically" in public.

In contrast to his support for media freedom, which has been
expressed on more than one occasion, President Susilo is now on
the brink of becoming the enemy of the free media if he signs the
draft that contains a clause that will punish "any person found
to have disseminated uncertain, exaggerated or incomplete news
that could cause social disorder." In total, 49 clauses have been
found in the draft that threaten media freedom. Those who devised
such clauses may like to claim that it stemmed in part from
clumsy reporting on communal conflicts a few years ago; but such
issues are already covered in the Media Law, which media
advocates are still seeking to improve.

In the 20 years that we have been trying to revise the
criminal law inherited from the Dutch, the honor of issuing such
a controversial amendment together with the legislature may
ironically fall on Indonesia's first ever directly elected
president. The voters' act of placing their trust in Susilo will
hopefully lead him be much more questioning about the reason
behind the revision to the Criminal Code. Human rights and civil
liberties protection was supposed to be one of the primary
reasons for this revision. Or so we thought. But it seems that
parts of our colonial legal heritage suits certain of today's
power brokers, as we still find in the draft a ban on "mock(ing)
state authorities and institutions that may result in social
chaos."

Indeed there is now the highly important state recognition of
domestic violence as a crime, with more comprehensive protection
of children from abuse in the proposed amendment. But failing to
differentiate crimes involving minors and "crimes" of offending
prim sensitivities, such as exhibiting a sculpture of a nude man
or woman as the draft implies, further shows a twisted, dim sense
of priorities among the President's advisors, including eminent
professors of law, who drew up this draft.

A presidential approval of the draft would show our leader's
confusion in accommodating concerns of "moral decadence" of vocal
groups waving moralistic and religious flags, along with others
yearning for "the good old days" when the media was easier to
control. A presidential approval would constitute a return to the
bad old days and to the inclinations of the old regime that
Susilo should be distancing himself from; the old regime that
assured us that Big Brother always knows best, even as we
suffocated.