Javanese-language mag takes on tough odds

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.