Javanese-language mag takes on tough odds

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The difficulty in tracking down suitably qualified journalists was indicative of the tough operating environment in which a new Jakarta-based Javanese-language magazine has found itself.

After an arduous search that resembled looking for a needle in a haystack, the executives managed to put together a small editorial team consisting of three senior editors and three young reporters who had mastered the art of writing in proper Javanese.

Against all the odds, the small team assembled Damar Jati, a new Javanese-language twice-monthly magazine, which hit newsstands in the capital on July 24.

Although Javanese is spoken by over 83 million people (about 41 percent of the Indonesian population), publishing a Javanese magazine was no easy affair, and might be viewed as financial suicide in the light of the demise that befell similar publications in the past.

From dozens of Javanese-language publications that came to life in the early 1930s, only three magazines currently survive: Penyebar Semangat, Joyo Boyo and Joko Lodang.

In Jakarta, there used to be five Javanese language publications but copies of these can only be found at the National Archives.

The publications have blamed the diminishing appeal of Javanese, as a language used by young people, as the primary cause of their decline.

Javanese schoolchildren these days prefer to speak Bahasa Indonesia with their peers as they believe that Javanese is redundant and undemocratic.

Whereas Bahasa Indonesia enables its users to speak on equal terms, Javanese language promotes the opposite tendency by adopting strict rules on how it should be spoken in specific circumstances.

Young Javanese speakers, for instance, are required to use the refined version of the language when they talk with elderly people.

Champions of Javanese language also blame a political decision by the country's founding fathers -- to adopt Bahasa Indonesia as the lingua franca -- as the principal reason for the decline in the appeal of their language.

Learning from past shortcomings, Damar Jati has adopted a pragmatic approach in marketing the magazine by incorporating some of the best elements from the now-defunct publications while keeping abreast of new trends in society.

In its first issue, Damar Jati has run several reports on hit TV programs, the Internet, gossip and stories that offer sexual titillation, albeit subtlely.

However, Damar Jati has not gone as far as putting a raunchy picture of a female model on its front cover, as some Javanese- language publications did in their attempts to appear relevant.

It also runs stories about figures that can be considered celebrities in the Javanese world: the likes of renowned puppeteer Ki Manteb Sudarsono, as well as campur sari (a subgenre in Javanese music that blends traditional tunes with modern arrangements) and singer Ani Sunyahni.

Aware of the fact that most of its readers will come from working-class Javanese backgrounds and retain a fixation with royal affairs, Damar Jati has run in its first edition the power struggle that has gripped the Surakarta sultanate palace, under the heading Sapa Satriya Piningit Kraton Surakarta (who is the chosen one for the Surakarta palace throne?).

In addition, Damar Jati aims to become a community newspaper for Javanese here and abroad.

"We aim to cater for the needs of the Javanese community in the capital, which reaches millions. Within Jakarta, Javanese group themselves according to the kabupaten (regency) from which they hail; there are hundreds of such communities here," Damar Jati chief editor Gunarso Tjokrosutikno told The Jakarta Post in his spacious office in Rawamangun, East Jakarta.

Gunarso said that for future publications, Damar Jati would run stories on the regular gatherings of such communities, hoping that they would either post ads or start subscribing for their own copies.

Javanese in the capital are not the only Damar Jati targets. Of 10,000 copies printed for the first edition, 500 were sent to Suriname, a Latin American country that hosts a substantial number of Javanese.

They are descendants of people who migrated in the mid-19th century as contract workers for Dutch plantation companies there. Javanese make up 15 percent of Suriname's 436,000 population.

Another lucrative market for Damar Jati is New Caledonia, a country in the South Pacific that was once a French colony and also hosts a large number of Javanese emigres.

Despite the downturn in Javanese-language publications, Gunarso was upbeat about the future of his new magazine.

"We believe that with strong financial backing, Damar Jati will somehow have a bright future," he said. Damar Jati is a subsidiary publication of Pos Kota, the largest city daily in the capital.

Despite strong support, members of the editorial team were still unsure about their financial security, for although the magazine paid them a higher salary than they received in their previous employment it was barely enough to make ends meet.

Apart from the six members of the editorial team, the magazine also relies on a network of Javanese-speaking journalists who are dispersed in Javanese cities such as Tulung Agung, Purworejo and Semarang.

"We write in Javanese out of our sheer love for the language. However, we have to write in Bahasa Indonesia for other publications to supplement our income," editor Sumono Sandy Asmoro told the Post.