New order govt blamed for cultural freeze

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)