New order govt blamed for cultural freeze

JAKARTA (JP): Amien Rais, reformist leader and chairman of the National Mandate Party (PAN), delivered Culture and Power, a speech criticizing the impact of an authoritarian vision on culture and the arts.

As a consequence of the old regime's tendency to classify culture and art as part of "the national assets and identity", the government brought the development of what is supposed to be an innovative process to a halt, Amien said.

The speech was delivered on Tuesday at the opening of the one- month November Festival, held to mark the 30th anniversary of Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center in Central Jakarta.

While art is actually the result of a continuous creative process, the authority has seen it as a territory that needs to be defended from various "negative impacts of globalization" and "unsuitable foreign values". Viewed more as a threat to security and even national sovereignty, cultural activities were subjected to bureaucratic regulations, he said.

As a result, theater performances were highly regulated, just like street demonstrations.

"Art should be an arena where we can study and change our views, where a willingness to hear new and different perspectives is emphasized," said Amien.

According to Amien, banning culturally related works such as books is an ineffective effort at restriction by the regime, since such actions only increase the work's popularity.

On the other hand, artists were forced to create works for government propaganda.

"Wayang puppet masters were given messages to endorse government programs and to campaign for (ruling party) Golkar, while a song titled Bapak Pembangunan (Father of Development) was composed for Soeharto," he said.

By disregarding the people's natural ability to criticize and understand artwork, suppression has conditioned people to read between the lines to find messages. (46)