When a caricaturist tells his story

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.