The press faces plethora of challenges, constraints
The press faces plethora of challenges, constraints
Asia Paper No 4; The Press in New Order Indonesia; David T. Hill;
University of Western Australia Press in association with Asia
Research Center on Social, Political and Economic Change;
Nedlands, Western Australia, 1994; Paperback, 185 pages; Aus$18.95
MELBOURNE (JP): One day in 1993 I took a morning stroll with
an Indonesian senior editor in lovely Fremantle, Perth. We were
chatting about the difficulty of having an Indonesian
journalists' association that journalists found dependable,
especially in a crisis.
"How can a journalists' association be dependable when it is
controlled by the government?" my walking companion asked. Being
an optimist, I thought the senior editor's attitude was
particularly pessimistic. A year later, my then employer, Tempo,
was one of the three major publications banned by the government,
and the nation's recognized journalists' association was unable
to prevent the closures, or take up the journalists' stance
against the closures.
David T. Hill highlights the role of the press in influencing
official policies, the power the government exercises over the
press, and in some cases the interdependency between the
Indonesian government and the press. Absent are social attitudes
and who is responsible for initiating those changes.
After reading his book the reader could be forgiven for
forming the impression that there were no significant women's
magazines in which the shifts in social attitudes are visible and
traceable.
The press in general doesn't have any external power exercised
over it. While it is resigned somewhat to an over-regulated
ambience in which to work, the pressure of unpredictability is
the hardest to withstand. Editors and journalists are
continuously aware of the sword of Damocles hanging over their
heads. Reporting events becomes as creative a feat as performing
an arabesque in a business suit.
While the 1966 Act (No.11) on the Basic Principles of the
Press declares that "No censorship or bridling shall be applied
to the National Press (Chapter 2, Article 4), that Freedom of the
Press is guaranteed in accordance with the fundamental rights of
citizens" (Article 5.1) and that "no publication permit is
needed" (Chapter 4, Article 8.2), the government nonetheless has
found ways to keep a rein on the press. In Chapter 9, Article
20.1 the Act requires publishers to obtain two related permits
during the "transitional period": the Permit to Publish (SIT)
from the Department of Information, and the Permit to Print (SIC)
from the military security authority, KOPKAMTIB. The key is the
length of the transitional period is unspecified.
Then, in September 1982, still based on the transitional
period principles, the Permit to Publish was replaced with a
Press Publication Enterprise Permit (SIUPP). This in no way
simplified proceedings. If anything, obtaining a SIUPP was much
more complicated than obtaining a SIT.
Throughout the thirty years of New Order, there have been
temporary and permanent bans on newspapers and magazines which
were regarded as threatening national stability in one way or
another. Even the government-sponsored publications, Hill
observes, are not immune from the occasional editorial error of
judgment. An example given is the stiff warning delivered to
Suara Karya, the Golkar newspaper, by the Department of
Information over an article about the Sultan of Brunei. Obviously
the editor thought it was safe territory, because it was outside
the recognized off-limit area: anything deemed seditious,
insinuating, sensational, speculative, or likely to antagonize
ethnic, religious, racial or class tensions.
The most controversial, surprising and recent censures were
the June 1994 banning of Tempo, DeTIK and Editor. It happened
after the maturing of the press industry, to the extent that it
became an attractive investment for big capital. Hill notes
members of the ruling party and the first family, or close
associates of the above, as investors in many publications. And
in 1994 the Indonesian readers were enjoying what appeared to be
a continuing relaxation of press restrictions. The bans surprised
the public so much that opposition sprung up everywhere, across
the political spectrum. Even senior military officers publicly
distanced themselves from this particular government action,
saying that the bans were "unwanted, regrettable and should not
have happened."
On another level, the trend to invest in the press industry
continues. The concern is whether these big investors will gain
control over editorial content. If that were to become the case,
the losers would be editors and journalists whose jobs would be
like a continuous pas de deux with each partner holding a remote
control to each other's pacemaker.
Hill nonetheless has cautions optimism for the future of the
Indonesian press. He hopes that the popular democratization
movement will make accountability increasingly relevant. This
would undermine any attempt to maintain a blanket control of the
political process and of the media.
-- Dewi Anggraeni