Garin says govt leaves artistes in cold

JP/20/GARIN

Garin: Govt leaves artistes out in cold

The Jakarta Post Jakarta Irked by the government's lack of attention toward culture and the arts, noted filmmaker Garin Nugroho has lambasted the country's leaders by labeling them as culture-blind people who have never acquired a taste for even the simplest of the refined arts.

Speaking during a discussion organized by the National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM) last Saturday, Garin said that the leaders' lack of exposure to the arts had resulted in their inability to devise a comprehensive culture strategy to stave off the onslaught of globalization.

"The most obvious indication is that none of the country's leaders seems ever to have been to Taman Ismail Marzuki," Garin said, referring to the city's largest cultural center.

Garin said that as a result of such ignorance, the country's artists were unable to speak on equal terms with fellow artists from neighboring countries.

"In places like Thailand, the government uses the tax on screenings of Hollywood films to develop its local film industry," he said.

The filmmaker compared the current leaders with founding fathers like the country's first president, Sukarno, his deputy Mohammad Hatta or prime minister Sutan Syahrir, who were known to be serious arts aficionados.

Garin recently felt the effect of the government's ignorance of the arts, he said, when he was left alone to confront a firebrand Hindu group that accused him of blasphemy.

No one from the government has yet made any comment on the incident.