When a caricaturist tells his story

Karikatur dan Politik (Caricature and Politics); Agustin Sibarani, Introduction by Dr. Benedict R.O.G. Anderson Garba Budaya, ISAI, Media Lintas Inti Nusantara, July 2001; xii + 422 pp; Rp 65,000

JAKARTA (JP): Agustin Sibarani -- better known as A. Sibarani in the years before the New Order, the regime that came to power in Indonesia after the so-called abortive coup by the Indonesian Communist Party in September 1965 -- may not be a name that rings familiar today.

Sibarani became well-known in the pre-New Order era for his caricatures in Bintang Timur, a daily whose literature page was edited by noted author Pramoedya Ananta Toer.

It was this relationship with Bintang Timur that led to Sibarani's disappearance from Indonesia's art scene, because of his suspected leftist leanings.

In fact, in the years before Soeharto came to power, Sibarani was the chairman of the Indonesian Cultural and Arts Institute, which was affiliated with the Indonesian Party, a nationalist party led by Asmara Hadi.

The book is divided into two parts. The first dwells on caricatures and politics. The second part is a small collection of Sibarani's caricatures.

The first part of the book begins with a general discussion of what caricatures are and what position caricatures take in everyday life. Sibarani briefly explores the origin of caricatures and their development up to the present day. Caricatures and caricature-style paintings by world-noted caricaturists and artists like Picasso, Henry Lamb, Kukriniksi, Toulouse Lautrec, Plantu and Paul Rubens are used to illustrate the development of this art throughout the world.

One chapter of the book is devoted to a discussion on caricatures during the Dutch, Japanese and Indonesian revolutionary periods. It is interesting to learn that in the decade before the Dutch colonial rulers were ousted by the Japanese in 1942, a number of caricatures were published in Fikiran Rakyat (Thoughts of the People), a daily voicing resistance to Dutch colonialism in Indonesia. These caricatures were drawn by Soemini, who, as Sibarani later learned, was none other than Sukarno, Indonesia's first president.

Sibarani also writes about his struggle to make himself a successful caricaturist. This section is interesting as it shows how Sibarani became involved with a number of publications, like the dailies Merdeka and Bintang Timur. He also talks about his relationships with many important people in Indonesia's press and film circles, like Mochtar Lubis, Hasyim Rachman, Basuki Resobowo, Suryosumanto, GM Sudarta and Surya Paloh.

Sibarani writes about some of the fascinating experiences he had in his career. He tells how the United States, through an envoy in Jakarta, once tried to "buy" him by offering him a lot of money, at the same time advising him not to provide Bintang Timur with anymore caricatures. He says he refused the offer because his nationalism was wounded.

In another story, he writes about being approached by an American who was interested in his caricatures. Their relationship became closer and the American showed his great appreciation for Sibarani's work and purchased some of his caricatures. Later, Sibarani happened to read INSIDE CIA and found a name very closely resembling the name of this gentleman among the group of CIA men assigned to Jakarta.

Sibarani relates his friendship with the children in his neighborhood. They came to his house to look at naked figures in some of the art books in his collection, watch him work or just to talk. One of these children is now the senior economics minister in President Megawati Soekarnoputri's Cabinet.

A moving story is found in the last section of the first part of the book. GM Sudarta and the late Arwah Setiawan, chairman of the Indonesian Humor Institute, asked Sibarani to participate in a grand caricature exhibition in Ancol, Jakarta. He accepted the offer only to be told that Harmoko, then the information minister, refused to open the exhibition if Sibarani was part of the event.

Then he writes about his experience with Prioritas, one of the newspapers banned by the Soeharto regime. Surya Paloh, the owner of the newspaper, asked him to contribute one caricature every day to the newspaper. When his second caricature was published, the paper got a call from the information ministry telling the management to stop publishing the caricatures. Paloh was upset by the demand and asked Sibarani to keep coming to Prioritas. So he continued to be paid for sitting in the office reading an encyclopedia.

The second part of the book contains over 100 caricatures by Sibarani. These caricatures are related to events in the later years of the New Order regime. Each caricature is accompanied by a poignantly critical piece of poetry.

Take, for example, the caricature about the replacement of Soeharto by B.J. Habibie. It shows the head of Habibie between two bottles of wine. The bottle on the left has a picture of Soeharto on the label with the inscription Order Baru (New Order), while the other bottle has a picture of Habibie on the label with the word Reformasi (Reform) and another smaller label reading Terbaru 1998 (The latest, 1998). The poem accompanying this caricature reads: "New wine/new bottle/old content." Biting, indeed.

What characterizes Sibarani's caricatures is that he draws them in strong and deep lines. The figures he represents are funnily distorted but retain their original characteristics, so anybody looking at his caricatures will immediately recognize the figures being satirized. He uses a minimum of words because, as he writes, a good caricature must speak to anybody who sees it.

Words only spoil a caricature because, as Sibarani's own caricatures testify, the pictures themselves get across the situation the caricaturist has chosen as his subject.

This book is worth reading on the whole but it would have been better if the caricatures, especially in the second part of the book, were given chronologically so the reader could see the country's development through the eyes of a caricaturist.

-- Lie Hua

The reviewer teaches at the Department of English in the School of Letters of the National Unversity in Jakarta.