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