Why my arespect for Rano has gone up in smoke

Santi Soekanto, Contributor, Jakarta

Dear Rano Karno, I am writing to tell you that you were my childhood hero.

Years ago, when you starred in Si Doel Anak Betawi, I waged a prolonged battle of wills with my poor, writers parents to convince them that I needed to see that movie, or die. So they churned out stories and sold them to publishers to make enough money to pay for the tickets for their children.

Through that film, Rano, you convinced me that it was "cool" to be poor, and that it only took courage and some brains for one to overcome hardship. Later I found your address in a kids' magazine, and walked up to 10 kilometers under the hot sun to find your home. I had to see you and shake your hand, if possible.

But I was disillusioned, less because I found out that your actual dwelling was not so poor, but because somebody told me you were napping and there was no way they would wake you up for me, a poor girl from a poor neighborhood.

I grew up a bit that day, but you remained my hero. I spent some of my teenage years dreaming of your Romeo when you starred in Romi dan Yuli with Yessi Gusman. I became rabidly jealous when a classmate told me she had gone and watched the movie three times because she adored you so.

I realized then that being poor wasn't so cool after all, especially when that prevented me from watching my hero perform as many times as I would like to.

Then, of course, I grew up completely, learned that poverty was "uncool" and was weaned off you. When you came back, Rano, and made Si Doel Anak Sekolahan for TV, I applauded your efforts to give a voice to poor kids striving to make a better lot for themselves through hard work at school.

My nieces and nephews hero-worshiped you, and I indulged them by not telling them how much money you were actually making through that series.

After all, you deserved every cent for your hard work portraying the livelihood of the poor.

But Rano, after years of success and fame, Si Doel Anak Sekolahan finally got its curtain call when the hero, whom you played, overcame poverty and had to make the hard decision of choosing between Sarah and Zaenab after dithering for so long between the two pretty girls. The TV series had run its course.

You needed a new vehicle to earn money portraying the plight of the poor, and you have recently found it in Geng Hijau (The Green Gang), a group of five young men whose antics in commercials for HM Sampoerna have turned them into a popular icon for the cigarette firm.

Their catchy tag line Asyiknya rame-rame (It's cool being part of the crowd) became the title of your new sitcom, Asyiknya Geng Hijau, to be broadcast by private TV station Indosiar.

"These young men have become an icon for the young people of the middle class," you have said.

Certainly. Unlike the approach of many other cigarette firms whose commercials use glamorous, beautiful people, the Green Gang commercials are directed toward Sampoerna's main market, namely those in the lower income brackets.

You have been quick to point out that, although the series was developed from the cigarette commercials, no cigarette or even anything about the main sponsor will appear in the show.

Of course, that isn't necessary. Most TV viewers have been brainwashed into recognizing the Green Gang for what they are: the frontmen of the cigarette firm. By turning them into TV series stars, you are shaping them into heroes for the man, woman an child in the street -- as you once were.

I wonder if you are aware that by doing so you are helping to perpetuate the vicious cycle of poverty and ill health among your audience. That every day, 1,100 Indonesians die of tobacco- related diseases, while 5.5 million others become sick and unproductive.

Do you know that most victims of tobacco come mostly from among the poor, your very audience? Why? Because every puff of cigarette smoke delivers as many as 4,000 kinds of toxic chemicals, including some 43 carcinogens, down the throats of the smokers and the passive smokers surrounding them.

When these poor people get sick, they become really, really sick because adequate health care eludes those without enough financial resources.

The biggest irony of all, however, is the fact that while you are creating new heroes for the poor, you are doing it for the benefit of a gigantic money-making machinery owned by one of the richest families in the world. You are helping them become even richer, while pushing the poor deeper into the abyss of poverty and ill health.

Although there are between 155 and 363 tobacco companies in Indonesia, four major companies -- Gudang Garam, Djarum, Sampoerna, and Bentoel -- dominate approximately 85 percent of the market share (the remaining 15 percent being controlled by multinationals such as Philip Morris).

To give you an idea of exactly how profitable the Indonesian market is for these companies, of the seven known Indonesian billionaires in 1997, three were tobacco barons.

It was at a time when millions of Indonesians were too poor to buy rice. So what did the hungry do then? They went out and bought a cigarette, enriching the rich even more.

Like their Western counterparts, Indonesian tobacco companies are, without compunction, using advertising to encourage younger people to smoke. Unlike their Western counterparts, however, Indonesian tobacco companies are still operating in a largely unrestricted environment.

Cigarette advertising visibly saturates Indonesia. Take a look around you, and witness the enormous amount of billboard and point-of-sale advertising, indigenous and multinational, so prolific it has almost become a "natural" part of the Indonesian landscape, of the Indonesian people's subconsciousness.

Advertising is having a very real impact on increasing the number of Indonesians who smoke -- especially those in younger age groups who are still so focused on identity formation and who are being targeted as key contributors to Indonesian tobacco companies' future profits.

More significantly, because of the lack of health information and the Indonesian government's support for the tobacco industry, there is little alternative discourse about smoking. This might otherwise challenge the image fostered by tobacco companies, with their sustained blitzkrieg of advertising showing smoking to be cool, the "in-thing".

You, dear Rano, are contributing to this by creating an even more potent influence through your new TV series.

Today, I would not like to shake your hand. Instead, I'd like to shake you until your teeth rattle, because you have crossed the line from being a hero for the poor to becoming a villain. Someday, somebody will hold you morally responsible for many more deaths due to tobacco-related diseases.