Janet Steel tells the tale of 'Tempo'

Janet Steel tells the tale of 'Tempo'

Emmy Fitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

She was the last to know that there would be a surprise on that day, June 8. Everything went on as usual until her class was dismissed for lunch.

A birthday cake was brought in to the birthday lecturer, Janet E. Steele. From her look, she seemed genuinely bewildered.

"Thank you so much. I don't expect this, really. Thanks again," she told her well-wishers, 14 journalists and activists coming from throughout the country.

Several days later, the 48-year-old professor confessed that she was surprised with the impromptu celebration held for her as she was not born on that date. Her birthday was on June 16.

She did not protest though. That's her tactful way "not to disappoint people".

That's Janet. And she prefers to have her private life sealed as she said, "If you ask me about my love life, there is nothing tragic so it's better not to discuss it."

To her students -- grouped in a literary journalism class organized by Pantau -- Janet is a warm and empathetic teacher. Very generous with encouraging remarks for even the worst homework ever presented by one or two of her students, Janet does her best to lecture in Bahasa Indonesia which usually only runs for one or two hours. "I've run out of my Bahasa Indonesia battery" is her famous line whenever her speech has already started to lapse into English interchanged with Bahasa Indonesia.

The professor from George Washington University is no stranger to the country's journalists. Janet shows a certain degree of compassion for journalism -- not directly connected to the fact that both her father and brother are journalists.

She has her reasons for saying that "History and journalism have a lot of similarities".

"We look at evidence, tell stories and look at a lot of pieces that enable us to tell a bigger picture."

This month has been bustling with activity as her new book Wars Within, The Story of Tempo, an Independent Magazine in Soeharto's Indonesia has been finished. Her six years of tedious research on the leading news magazine culminates on Monday when the book, published by Equinox, is launched.

The book, chronicling the struggle of Tempo to survive the New Order or Orde Baru, is proof of the long love affair the Florida- born historian has with Tempo and Indonesia.

" I was invited to a upacara (ceremony) where Tempo founder Goenawan Mohammad was going to receive an award, I think, the 1997 Louis M. Lyons award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism. I thought, well, I am going to Indonesia and it would be very interesting to hear him speak."

"I was so impressed as I remembered him saying why the army was afraid of us while they are the ones who have the guns. I wrote it down on a napkin and thought about it a lot and then when I came to Indonesia, it seemed like I met so many people who had been connected with Tempo, which at that time was still banned," she said.

The magazine was ordered closed on June 21, 1994 by the Soeharto government after publishing details of a markup in the purchase of 39 aging East German navy vessels by the government. It was the second closure of the publication.

"I thought this is really interesting for a magazine that the government tried to kill. It is still living, it's still alive. And it seems to me that in some way the magazine might be even more powerful as a symbol of freedom of expression after it was banned that it became a kind of a legend."

She started her research as soon as she returned to the country as a Fullbright professor teaching at the University of Indonesia's American Studies program in 1997.

"At that time I interviewed a lot of people I was interested in writing about the magazine that doesn't exist. The more I found out the more interesting it was."

When Soeharto eventually bowed down to the demands of his people to resign, Janet considered herself lucky to be here.

"I could never believe that Soeharto would ever resign. It was just terribly exciting. Then of course after Soeharto resigned, then Tempo got its license back so I could not write about the magazine that didn't exist because it came back."

Two years later she came back to the country and started studying Indonesian at Atma Jaya University.

"..and to resume my research, the history of Tempo and not just the history of the ban."

The first edition of Tempo was published on March 6, 1971. The weekly news magazine was founded by enthusiastic journalists and pro-democracy activists, Goenawan Mohammad, Fikri Jufri, Lukman Setiawan, Harjoko Tresnadi, Christianto Wibisono and Bastani Asnin, who aspired for a higher standard of democracy and freedom of expression.

"The history of Tempo was very very closely connected with the history of Orde Baru. Anthropologist Clifford Geertz inspired me by saying to understand a culture then one had to be able to explain one important symbol within the culture. So if I could explain the history of Tempo, if I could nearly explain it, I could explain something important about the history of Orde Baru," she said.

"That's my goal. I don't know if I achieved that, probably not," she swiftly added.

The book is entitled Wars Within, a phrase taking from the Bhagavad Gita about the idea of a civil war and in her words "It is the perang saudara (civil war) within Orde Baru," she said.

The founders of Tempo were, to some extent, the founders of Orde Baru but the Orde Baru changed quite quickly with the Malari incident (in 1974), Janet said.

Malari is short for Lima Belas Januari or Jan. 15. The incident became a landmark in New Order politics when student demonstrations against the visit of the Japanese prime minister led to anti-Chinese rioting and looting in Jakarta.

Student activists were arrested and jailed and some 13 magazines and newspapers were banned following the incident.

Tempo then had to be very careful in order to survive. One of the then magazine writers, Susanto Pudjomartono, now the Indonesian Ambassador to Russia, shared with Janet the strategy that they used.

"Tempo always presented an alternative view of an event that was different from the government version but they did it very carefully."

"I was very lucky to have Fikri Jufri, Goenawan Mohammad and Susanto and many more from Tempo as my sources because they are incredible speakers. I use the narrative approach in writing my interviews so it's kind of letting the people speak for themselves," she said.

While many people romanticized the old Tempo for always delivering easy-reading news eloquently and tastefully, Janet begged to differ, as she saw the new Tempo offered more than the old one.

"The old Tempo had limitations in running news stories because of the political restriction back then. The new Tempo appears to be the real news magazine. But they are from a different time. People might forget that fact," she said. "Above all, Tempo has greatly influenced the development of local media."

The New Order finished with the demise of its leader, Soeharto. The period in 1997 also marked the new era in the media industry, where the media started to enjoy a perceived freedom of expression.

And in one of her meetings with Goenawan Mohammad at Utan Kayu in East Jakarta, only days after a decision was made to republish Tempo, what the prolific poet spoke again impressed Janet.

"He said something like Soeharto left too soon ..."