Mass media must be color-blind

By Michael Kibaara Muchiri

YOGYAKARTA (JP): It is a Monday afternoon, and the TVRI state television network is airing Irianese, or Papuan, dances. This is odd as Papuans rarely appear in the Indonesian media, and this showing happens to be on the state airwaves. Apparently, it seems the right thing to do as the state is campaigning for greater national integration.

Indonesia is known as an archipelago full of human diversity. If harnessed well this could lead to a great nation. The United States for example, has thrived to become a superpower despite her diverse cultures.

Yet with the West setting standards on what is the "in" thing, it is not surprising that the Indonesian mass media, especially television, has alienated the "easterners of Indonesia".

"White" in developing countries seems the proper skin color to wear even though the notion no longer works in the West. Driven by money and profits, some private television channels have aired some very racial advertisements, most notably the many skin whitener commercials. They not only dubiously glorify white; they do not respect the Asian skin color.

The few comments they make about black are not very pleasant. It is not in so many words, but there is undoubtedly a heavy lack of sensitivity for an advert to glorify the white skin color, deceiving in extolling its capabilities to turn an Indonesian into white.

The advertising world on television seems to be focusing on the "real Indonesian". The adverts only focus on those mostly found in Jakarta, the sawo matang (light complected) Indonesians while making no effort to assimilate the eastern Indonesian in their adverts.

It is thus not surprising when, for instance, Javanese in the Yogyakarta community seem surprised to see black African students. The experience for the Africans can be unnerving, almost bordering on racism.

The students have had to bear a lot: unending stares at the malls, an obvious fear to sit next to these blacks on public buses and the failed relationships between African male students with Javanese women as a result of "people talking".

It can obviously be blamed on the lack of proper integration of all the country's people. Few mass media have covered the easterners, the darker Indonesians. On the rare occasions it does happen it involves the grainy documentaries the colonialists used to depict, for example, Papuans, living in a citadel of barbarism and a wilderness only fit for animals.

There is nothing as important as cultural pride. Adverts that prick this pride may boomerang on what they purport to sell. Someone out there -- either a self responsible party among the product sellers, or among the government -- has to act to help start portraying these easterners in a better way, in a more considerate light, because what is at stake is dozens of ignored and often ridiculed tribes and their cultures.

It means diversity in adverts, hence minimizing the unspoken feeling that adverts will not sell products unless they use "white" looking models.

Television here often depict Papuans as almost naked, hostile tribesman. The stations may have been trying to emphasize the diversity that can only be explained through actual footage of Papuans in action, which they would argue to be the reality on the ground.

Again this only gives credence to the claim that they only find something interesting in the Papuans when it is "bizarre".

While it may be fun to watch the globalization-induced gap between the Papuans and the "real" Indonesians on television, it may be another matter altogether for educated Papuans who are constantly reminded of the lack of education among their people and a government almost indifferent to their plight.

Papuans and eastern Indonesians have been portrayed as static, fixed, national museum attractions. The educated in such ethnic groups may feel that they are a creation of a system that degrades them.

Slowly hate takes center stage as Papuans are reminded of their exploitation, hardening their hearts when it comes to national unity. Token television does not help.

Lack of coverage of unequal societies is similarly found regarding Africa.

The other day TVRI news focused on the famine now ravaging the continent. This writer happens to come from Nairobi, a relatively metropolitan center compared to northeastern Kenya that is dry and semiarid.

Friends in Nairobi have never mentioned the looming famine that is threatening 16 million people in 10 nations, with 2.4 million of them in Kenya.

Here were two Kenyan worlds: one where the average Nairobian is ignorant of the famine; the other, the dying Kenyan Turkana women and children who have resorted to selling their animals to live.

To the writer, the news seemed like it did not come from Kenya. Sadly, years of prejudice and deception had taught the writer only to see Kenya as the authorities want it seen abroad -- the tall skyscrapers and green gardens that make part of the city-in-the-sun Nairobi. Beneath this is the test of real Kenyan integration.

When these northeasterners are covered it is on some relatively bizarre occasion or as a tourist attraction, part of the zoo.

Thanks to a private newspaper and television channel, The Daily Nation and Nation News Television, respectively, the world had a chance to glare at northeastern Kenya and provoke world interest to save these marginalized tribes, besides making elaborate coverage on their predicaments.

The road ahead for the mass media in national integration is still tough. Variety in adverts and programs has potential to unify diverse countries such as Indonesia.

The television channels could at least avoid screening skin- color biased adverts that seem to promote the colonial notion of "black at the bottom, white on top" mentality as Indonesia tries to woo its marginalized but proud easterners.

The media should take a leap forward and highlight more of the marginalized areas because it will eventually pay off not only in extra viewers, but in building coverage which is more representative of the nation as a whole.

The writer, studying for his master's in psychology at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, works for the Kenyan Ministry of Education in Nairobi.