Exclusive designs?

Exclusive designs?

From Republika

The mass-media business has recently been highlighted by the presence of Mandarin-language newspapers. Some of them are the Mandarin Post, Suar 168 and He Bing Ribao. I heard that some others will also hit newsstands.

Why are businesspeople of Chinese descent now interested in the mass media business? In fact, they have for quite a long time set their sights on this line of business. Apart from being lucrative, the mass media business is also of strategic significance to them: "Whoever is in control of information will control the world". Unfortunately, during the New Order era, the ethnic Chinese businesspeople found it difficult to run such businesses because of a number of government regulations banning all activities related to their culture. Now that Presidential Decree No. 6/2000 has been issued in the reform era, the ethnic Chinese are free to become involved in all aspects of life in Indonesia.

In the meantime, the disbanding of the information ministry, which used to control press publications in the country, and the doing away with the requirement for press publishing licenses (SIUPP) have allowed ample freedom to anybody to run mass media publications. Or, perhaps, these ethnic Chinese businesspeople have intentionally cashed in on this situation to begin their mission.

Basically, we are not against anybody doing business in this information sector. We regret, however, why they opted for Mandarin for the mass media, and not Indonesian.

We wish, therefore, to appeal to our ethnic Chinese brothers to work together in building Indonesia by avoiding any exclusivity or else suspicion will arise. Don't they say "When in Rome do as the Romans do"? Hopefully, we will consider this matter together.

NUZIRWAN

Jakarta