Articles - Inside Indonesia: The peoples and cultures of Indonesia

Reformasi Killed the Poetry Superstars

Two poets tour Australia Marshall Clark and Giora Eliraz It seems that the days of superstar poets - who bravely spoke up for the common people and criticised the Indonesian state, in front of large audiences in between being banned - have passed. When Rendra, who was Indonesia's leading poet throughout the New Order era, toured Yogyakarta several years ago, one writer in the letters page of Bernas suggested that Rendra had become like an old pillow - nostalgic and comfortable yes, useful and relevant no. Since the fall of Suharto, Emha Ainun Nadjib, another of Indonesia's more oppositional cultural activists, has also kept out of the public spotlight. For several years, Emha hosted Gardu, a popular talk-show. However, TV audiences soon tired of the incredible over-abundance of talk shows following Suharto's resignation. When Emha himself grew tired of all the 'collusion' associated with organizing and rewarding guests, he pulled the plug. Besides, Emha has never been able to shrug off his close association with Suharto. It is common knowledge that Emha, together with several other Muslim leaders, met with Suharto several times in the days before 20 May. It was at this point that Emha publicly transformed himself from an oppositional figure to something quite different. Some would say that his decline in popularity has mirrored Suharto's fall from grace. Long considered as one of Indonesia's foremost poets, these days Emha barely rates a mention. It was as enjoyable as it was nostalgic, therefore, to see Emha reading poetry and dazzling audiences with his unique wit and political insight in Australia for several weeks in May and June. Invited by the Australia Indonesia Arts Alliance, and supported by the Australia Indonesia Institute and Garuda Indonesia, Emha gave lively poetry-readings in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. Like Rendra in the 1990s, Emha was able to draw enthusiastic audiences, consisting of as many Indonesians as Australians. Accompanying Emha was another Indonesian poet, Fathyen Hamama Handry, also known as Fatin. Born in Padang in 1967, Fatin grew up in West Sumatra and has spent over a decade in Cairo, where she has studied theology at the Women's Faculty of al-Azhar University. Her poetry is not quite as sensational as Emha's, yet it contains its own fair share of social criticism. Fatin writes of riots and military violence in Semanggi and elsewhere in Jakarta, as well as the problems faced by Indonesian women, farmers fighting against poverty, women suffering in Aceh, and the struggles of the urban poor. Like Emha, Fatin does not consider herself as one of Indonesia's more popular poets. In terms of literary figures, Fatin is no trendy Sitot Srengenge, nor a young and sensational Ayu Utami, or even a marketable 'woman poet' in the mould of Dorothea Rosa Herliany. Yet like Emha, in the midst of disappointment and frustration, Fatin continues to imagine a better Indonesia. It is for this reason that her poetry is worth examining, at the very least for the buffer it provides for the harsh coldness of Indonesia's post-New Order, and perhaps even post-reformasi, reality. Fatin's latest collection, Papyrus (2002), exhibits the strong Islamic slant of her poetry. The opening poem, 'Al Fatihah', is the same name given to the opening sura or chapter of the Koran. Like the first chapter of the Koran, this poem is merely a few lines long: Segala puji bagi-Mu/ Tuhan/ lempangkan bagiku/ jalan/ amin [All praise to You/ God/ straighten out for me/ a path/ amen]. These poems - and their titles - are an indication of Fatin's position within a global Islamic historical consciousness. Her allusion to Islam is based on an effort to verbalise the thoughts and emotions arising from her deeply personal Islamic faith. The distinctive Egyptian context of Fatin's poetry is also important. Many of the poems were written in Cairo, where Fatin leads the Cairo-based literary group, Komunitas Sastra Indonesia [Indonesian Literature Community]. Thus we see poems such as 'Samira dan Sariyem', a poignant tale of the sad life of an Eqyptian belly-dancer. Fatin's poetry also includes many references to the pre-Islamic era of Egypt. The title of the collection Papyrus refers us back to another world, the world of ancient Egypt and the dawn of civilisation. Elsewhere, by arranging a set of poems under the title 'Cleopatra', Fatin alludes to a fascinating and defiant Egyptian woman and queen, who was, of course, from a non-Islamic context. This engaging combination of the worlds of Indonesia, Egypt, Islam and pre-Islam makes Fatin's poetry fascinating and rich, speaking to us from both a global and local perspective. Besides placing Fatin's name on the map of Indonesian literary studies, Papyrus also suggests that Fatin's poetry can be seen as a representation of a deep pluralist view that has come to take hold amongst many contemporary Muslim intellectuals in Indonesia. Marshall Clark (Marshall.Clark@anu.edu.au) is a lecturer at the Australian National University, on leave from University of Tasmania. Giora Eliraz (Giora.Eliraz@anu.edu.au) is a Visiting Fellow at the Southeast Asia Centre, Australian National University. Inside Indonesia 72: Oct - Dec 2002

A Love of Language

Unable to pay for formal lessons, many poor Indonesians have mastered English through radio, TV and film. Like Rizza of Surabaya. Duncan Graham Half way along Jalan Joko Dolog, opposite a high fence shielding a building site, is a small shop. Well, really just a glass counter facing the dusty street and more often behind shutters than exposed. For few people now livein the area, and the lane has become a short cut, a speed track between Basuki Rakhmad and Pemuda, the two great bitumen rivers trisecting the centre of East Java's capital Surabaya. Apart from the spray-painted number on a battered iron gate, there's only a small chromed dome squatting unhappily on the pavement to catch the eyes of the Grand Prix wannabees. Should the sun ever penetrate the smog this artefact might glitter and mesmerise like a spinning night-club globe. Once Nyonya Rizza's shop sold domes to the faithful for their personal mushollas. Then came the monetary crisis, and demand tumbled along with the rupiah. Now she markets half litres of lamp oil decanted from backyard drums into stained plastic bottles; tiny packets of washing powder, needles, thread, batteries pulled from under the splintering shelves, single cigarettes. Also on the counter is a dictionary and a monster exercise book buffed brown, rusting staples losing grip against a stuffing of clippings, brochures and postcards. Most show distant lands and cities shimmering in the gloss of sunrise, the promise of heavenly locations free of crime and grime. 'Of course I'll never visit these places,' Rizza sings in rapid and sometimes scrambled English. 'No money. What does it matter? I can see what they are like, and people tell me. I can imagine. It's my vision.' There are also photos of tiny Rizza standing alongside hulking Australians, broad as their accents. Her face is always open and laughing, theirs bemused. Only their mouths smile. No pictures show plump white male arms around her slender and inviting olive shoulders, her fine 44 kilo frame. Although a mother, grandmother and widow, Rizza gets angry when addressed as Ibu, the standard Indonesian honorific for women of her status. She is 56, and claims a unique name, though Germany has a Rizza ice cream, which she thinks a hoot. She has John Howard's eyebrows, wears no make up but dyes her manic hair in copper tones. Her dress is mainly a torn skirt and marquee-size T-shirt. She could pass for 40 despite a doctor misdiagnosing a heart attack in 2001 and prescribing treatment which put her in hospital with a serious illness. Her appearance, a voice which could stir possums, and up-front approach make her a stand-out among conservative customers and coy neighbours. But it is her skill with English which provides the extra dazzle, for the nimble-minded and effervescent Rizza is one of the numerically large, but proportionately small number of poor Indonesians who have taught themselves our complex tongue. Born in Malang of Madurese parents, Rizza was the fifth of nine children. Like his daughter, her businessman father was clearly smart and different, covertly listening to broadcasts from Australia and Malaysia during the dark days of Sukarno, when such behaviour was suspect. Rizza loved the foreign voices, did well at school and left at 17 to work in a bookshop in Surabaya. Even now many Indonesian bookstores are sad affairs. Dominated by religious texts, comics and dictionaries, most volumes are bound in plastic to stop browsing and keep covers clean. In the dangerous days of Suharto's rise, when even the mildest comment could be interpreted as radical dissent, bookshops must have been even more sterile. Unable to make such comparisons, the teenage Rizza found herself in Aladdin's Cave. She didn't just dust the wares, she hoovered them whole, particularly those in English. The occasional foreign buyer was quickly sucked into conversation. Their requests were taken seriously. 'I remember everyone wanted The Happy Hooker-r-r,' she said rolling the final syllables like a Scot. 'Very nice book. I think the publisher Macmillan.' The shop used her sparkling personality and lovely voice to spruik the wares. Customers were not the only ones seduced. At 18 she married the manager, and sadly her love affair with language came to a shuddering halt. 'He did not like me always talking to the customers,' Rizza recalled. 'He very jealous. One day he threw a book at me. For ten years I did not practice English.' One daughter was born. Twenty years ago her husband died from 'post-power syndrome', Rizza's label for inactivity after retirement. Photos show a small, neat Javanese with regulation moustache nonplussed besides his volatile wife with wild hair and giant spectacles: 'Jacqueline Onassis, ya?' 'Of course I was not sad. He was a good man, but why should I be sad? If I am, I will lose myself.' So despite the many lustful overtures from Indonesians and foreigners drawn by her magnetic personality, Rizza is determined to stay single and independent. 'If I married again I become sad, difficult with life,' she says. 'I must honour husband, smile-smile. It is a must in Indonesia as a wife, or it is a sin.' 'It is easy to fall in love, I have to strive to be strong. I say to men: 'Don't touch me. I am afraid of myself. This is very heavy for me, it is a danger for me. I don't want someone pity for me. I am a strong woman.' Twice a week she goes to the mosque wearing a bonnet or scarf. Conscious of Western hang-ups about Islam, she stresses 'pure religion - no ideology'. At other times she meditates, listens to short-wave, translates English into Indonesian and vice versa. 'I love English,' she says and means it. 'Writing in English is a beautiful and profound experience. If I have troubles I write them down in English. Then they get better.' Occasionally she spots a foreigner and cheekily calls: 'Welcome to my country', a greeting which takes many aback, particularly those who anticipate a con artist though her motives are altruistic. 'I want harmony everywhere,' she says earnestly, 'between friends, families, nations. Otherwise we are finished.' At times her enthusiasm and humour overtakes itself. After hearing a German tourist recite the many marvels of his country she asked with feigned naivety: 'And how is Mr Hitler?' As a conversation stopper you don't get much better than that. For Rizza the idle gossip which fuels Indonesian life is a waste of time. 'I don't like talk meaningless,' she says, famished for facts to be transcribed into the Big Book. 'What is the point? There are so many things to learn. I want to know about other countries, everything.' In exchange she offers fierce condemnations of her nation's leaders and their penchant for corruption. She says she was equally fearless during the days of Suharto when criticism was equated with communism. If so, then the authorities must have overlooked the transgressions, for Rizza behind bars would have been more of a headache than behind the counter. There is no chance Rizza's skills with English will be put to good use. Her vocabulary is vast and her ear sharp. Conversationally she can out-run many university English teachers and out-wit the rest, but her grammar is a dog's breakfast. Indonesian schools teach tense to the point where enthusiasm is anaesthetised, so a poor self-educated woman who is a wiz with words will never get the opportunity to galvanise the next generation with her unquenchable lust for language. Which is Indonesia's great loss and no-one's gain. Perth journalist Duncan Graham (wordstars@hotmail.com) slumps in awe of all self-taught linguists. Inside Indonesia 72: Oct - Dec 2002

Peace for Poso

Highlighting the state's role may help stop the Poso conflict Syamsul Alam Agus The conflict in Poso was initially triggered by local elite political skirmishes. Over the last four years, however, it has transformed into a conflict between grass-roots communities. Hatred and suspicion have spread among a society that previously co-existed peacefully. The bloody conflict between the 'red group' (Christians) and the 'white group' (Muslims) remains a daily topic of conversation. A string of horror stories have graced the front pages of the local media, making it difficult to differentiate between information and rumour. The Malino Declaration was a government initiative to initiate reconciliation in Poso. The ten-point accord, subsequently known as Malino 1 after a similar agreement was drafted for Ambon, was signed on 20 December 2001. Poso's inhabitants hoped that the declaration could be implemented successfully, to end the conflict that has resulted in riots on 25-30 December 1998, 16-19 April 2000, 23 May-10 June 2000, 26 November - 2 December 2001 and most recently 12 - 16 August 2002. Sadly, the Malino Declaration now faces utter failure. Between the declaration's signing and 12 August 2002, there were 30 violations. These violations involved both parties to the conflict as well as incidents triggered by the security forces. These incidents became increasingly common towards the end of the period set down by the accord for the restoration of security. They have included mysterious shootings, bomb blasts and inflammatory graffiti. These various incidents have rekindled trauma, mutual suspicion and sensitivity amongst society in Poso. The security forces have also contributed to the situation by making statements to the community that have implied that the end of the security restoration period would signal the end of security itself. Predictably, following the escalation of these incidents, the police and military have requested more operational funds from the Central Sulawesi government to restore security. The tension that had subsided is again rising and could lead to further large-scale conflict. The failure of the Malino Declaration can be traced to several factors. The declaration is elitist, relies on quantitative measures of success, and is laden with opportunities for profitable 'projects'. For example, in the period to June 2002, the Poso Regency Working Group spent 2.2 billion rupiah (roughly A$450,000) just on disseminating information about the Malino Declaration. The accord also separates social rehabilitation, reconstruction of facilities and security, as if these three concerns were not related. As a result, facilities have been constructed without regard for the prevailing security situation or whether inhabitants feel safe, and social rehabilitation has not been supported by affirmative policies towards various flare-ups and incidents. Efforts to restore security, which have focused on placing large numbers of security personnel in Poso, have been easily undermined by disquieting acts of terror. Security has become the monopoly of the security forces, who treat it like a tradeable commodity. At a community level, there is still a genuine desire to live peacefully. Behind the conflict, the community still remembers a time when living with different religious groups didn't mean living with war. However, the trauma caused by various conflicts has unfortunately created a fear of attempting any reconciliation or rehabilitation that might succeed where the government has failed. Nevertheless, an awareness has started to emerge in Poso that the community has the right to feel safe and have their socio-economic needs fulfilled things they have lost during the conflict. For instance, after an Omega bus was bombed on 12 July 2002, the Poso Pesisir Subdistrict Inter-religious Congregation Communication Forum issued a statement demanding that the security forces work harder to prove that they are trying to resolve the conflict. This statement is also an example of efforts to shift the perception of the conflict away from conflict between grass-roots communities to the role of the state. However, such efforts are still a minority in the midst of media statements by religious figures and political parties that simply blame the other side. The severance of lines of communication at a grass-roots level has made the community more easily influenced by divisive statements by members of the elite. The media, with its focus on circulation, is more likely to publish these statements. When signatories of the Malino Declaration expressed their disappointment with the security forces for failing to take serious steps to follow up violations of the declaration, the press packaged the statement in such a way that it provoked a negative reaction from one religious community. Terror after terror, issue after issue, statement after statement - this has been the pattern following the Malino Declaration. If society again takes the bait and participates in violence, this pattern could result in further large-scale conflict. As such, the awareness that has been developed thus far must be guarded and continually consolidated. A broader alliance with a common perception must be established at the most legitimate level, namely between the communities that have directly suffered from the conflict. Of course this will not be easy. Society has several vulnerable points that will need to be monitored, so that they do not influence the community's capacity to keep each problem in proportion. In Poso, there can be no separation between rehabilitating these vulnerabilities and placing the conflict in the framework of state accountability. These two matters must be worked on together, with the aim to muster a critical force in society aware of its rights and the practices that are weakening its former capacity to manage conflict and difference. Syamsul Alam Agus (duael@telkom.net) is an activist at the Institute for the Development of Legal Studies and Human Rights Advocacy, Central Sulawesi (LPS-HAM) Inside Indonesia 72: Oct - Dec 2002

Who is calling for Islamic Law?

The struggle to implement Islamic Law in South Sulawesi Dias Pradadimara and Burhaman Junedding In mid-March this year, Philippines authorities arrested Agus Dwikarna for possession of C4 explosives. Ironically, Dwikarna's arrest has elevated the name of his Makassar-based Preparatory Committee for the Implementation of Islamic Law (Komite Persiapan Penegakan Syariat Islam or KPPSI) to national and even international attention, something he and his colleagues previously desperately tried to do but failed. Moreover, the arrest of Tamsil Linrung and Abdul Jamal Balfas - also from South Sulawesi - in the same incident has created an image of South Sulawesi as the hotbed of Islamic radicalism. Allegations in the western press that Agus Dwikarna is somehow connected with Al Qaeda strengthen this image. Is this image justified? Who is actually pushing for the implementation of Islamic Law in South Sulawesi? Islamic Law KPPSI was formed after a series of meetings and conferences starting in 2000. Initially, in August 2000, the first Mujahidin (Arabic for 'Fighter of Jihad') congress was held in Yogyakarta. The congress aimed to 'integrate the aims and actions of all Mujahidin to implement Islamic Law'. Hundreds of activists from Islamic organisations and parties attended, along with scholars from all over Indonesia. The participants from South Sulawesi included Abdurahman A. Basalamah, former rector of the Indonesian Muslim University in Makassar, and Agus Dwikarna, who were each elected to positions on the Mujahidin Council. In October 2000, a three-day Islamic Congress was held in Makassar, following on from an informal meeting at the Hotel Berlian in May that year. The congress was convened to discuss 'Special Autonomy for the Implementation of Islamic Law in South Sulawesi'. Jakarta politicians such as A. M. Fatwa attended the congress, which was opened by the Deputy Governor of South Sulawesi. Diverse groups attended, including student activists, quasi paramilitary groups from all over South Sulawesi, and romantics from the Kahar Muzakkar era, along with active participants from the Yogyakarta congress, like Habib Husain Al-Habsyi and Abubakar Baasyir. Hundreds more participated from all over South Sulawesi. Abdul Hadi Awang, a charismatic figure from the Malaysian opposition Islamic party PAS, also attended. The congress was tightly guarded, not by the police or the army, but by a paramilitary security team known as the Lasykar Jundullah (The Army of God), allegedly to prevent 'infiltration'. The Lasykar not only guarded the toilets, they even limited access to the musholla (small mosque/ praying space) during the supposedly open and public Friday noon prayers. No wonder some participants later professed that the tight security made them feel awkward and 'controlled'. After the first Makassar congress, several results were announced. A formal body, the KPPSI was formed and authorised to pursue the final goal of implementing Islamic Law (Syariat Islam) in South Sulawesi. The Lasykar Jundullah (not yet led by Agus Dwikarna) was to become an integrated part of the KPPSI. The KPPSI itself was comprised of two main bodies, the Majelis Syuro (a largely advisory council) and the Majelis Lajnah (the Executive Council). Members of Majelis Syuro were mostly university intellectuals and ulama (religious teachers) and included not only Achmad Ali and Abdurrahman Basalamah, but also Sanusi Baco, the chair of the local branch of the New Order-created Majelis Ulama Indonesia (Indonesian Council of Islamic Scholars). The executive council was led by Abdul Aziz Kahar Muzakkar, one of the many sons of the legendary Kahar Muzakkar, who led a loosely organised rebellion in South Sulawesi in the 1950s. No wonder the movement found it hard to deflect accusations of 'nostalgia'. More than a year later, a second Islamic Congress was held in Makassar in December 2001. The organisers of this congress claimed wider support both for their congress and hence for the struggle. The list of members of the various committees for the congress read like a (male) Who's Who of South Sulawesi. The governor of South Sulawesi, chair of the local parliament, and mayor of Makassar were all members of the Advisory Committee for the second congress, as were M. Yusuf Kalla (a coordinating minister in the Megawati cabinet) and Tamsil Linrung, who was later arrested together with Agus Dwikarna in the Philippines. The Steering Committee included all the rectors of Makassar's major universities, as well as the chairpersons of the local Muhammadiyah and NU branches. It is not clear to what extent these notables shared KPPSI's ideology or political agendas. As at most public events in South Sulawesi, many of these identities appeared at the congress only long enough to present a speech during the time allotted to them. Some, like the governor, sent a representative; others did not bother to show up. Nonetheless, this list of notables presented a conservative image of the movement, as the congress was organised in accordance with the existing political scene in South Sulawesi. The organiser claimed on several occasions that Indonesian Vice President Hamzah Haz, known to be sympathetic to Islamic militant groups, would personally open the congress. The dates for the congress itself were repeatedly changed to adjust to the tight schedule of the vice president. The congress commenced on the same day that Hamzah Haz had a state visit to Makassar. Although the opening session was delayed for several hours, Haz failed to show up and instead sent M. Yusuf Kalla to open the congress. A disappointed crowd booed him. Hamzah Haz briefly visited the congress in a 'personal capacity' several hours later, but took a moderate stance towards the political agenda of KPPSI. As Fatwa had at the first congress, Haz remained non-committal about the inclusion of Islamic Law in the constitution. Meanwhile, Kalla emphasised the need to start from oneself and one's family in implementing Islamic Law, rather than asking the state to adopt it. This is popularly known as the 'cultural' as opposed to the 'legal' approach to Syariat Islam. Haz' moderate position did not deter KPPSI from announcing a pre-prepared draft of a law which would grant special status to South Sulawesi and allow the local government to impose Islamic Law. The draft law was clearly inspired by similar legislation enacted in Aceh. However, this announcement was overshadowed by a bomb blast on the third day of the congress. The organisers accused a 'third party' of trying to disrupt the congress. Police, however, suspected the incident was a cheap self-publicity stunt. The second congress is now remembered primarily by this incident. Who is in KPPSI Since the 1970s, graduates from pesantren (Islamic schools) and regular schools from all over South Sulawesi have flocked to Makassar for higher education. They go to universities in the city, join Islamic student associations, and many become staunch supporters of the Suharto-era state party Golkar. Most students enroll at either the state-owned Hasanuddin University or the private Muslim University of Indonesia (UMI). These educational processes have created a social class that is quite religious in character, yet without a group consciousness oriented around an ulama (in contrast to East Java). This social class, instead, enthusiastically embraces the New Order's image of modernity. It is from within this class that KPPSI draws most of its supporters. KPPSI's support comes mostly from urban-based university-educated males. Most KPPSI activists and hardliners come from UMI, where Abdurrahman Basalamah was once rector. Agus Dwikarna attended UMI, but never graduated. KPPSI ideologues, who generally have more moderate stands, are mostly lecturers at the State Institute of Islam (IAIN) in Makassar. Chairs of KPPSI branches in the regions in the interior are mostly university graduates with engineering, medical, or social science degrees. Although KPPSI uses an image of intellectualism, there has been very little open and intellectual debate on what Islamic Law means and implies. Most statements in local newspapers regarding Islamic Law have been dogmatic. The same phenomenon is evident at the national level. While there is wide support for the implementation of Islamic Law in general, there is sharp disagreement over what it means. The implicit statement in this lack of debate is that every good Muslim should know what Syariat Islam means and implies, and thus, like KPPSI, should support its implementation whole-heartedly. Hence there is little need for them to explain what they mean by it, or for others, they assume, to ask them what it means. KPPSI also has a close connection with various anti-maksiat or anti-kejahatan ('anti-immorality' or 'anti-crime') groups. These are basically all-male vigilante/ paramilitary bands, usually armed with sticks and machetes. These groups have mushroomed in various regions in the interior areas of South Sulawesi since 1999, and the KPPSI's Lasykar Jundullah seems to have become an umbrella organisation for these bands. A reading of the KPPSI and its activism over the last year or so gives us a picture of a male urban-based elite playing the image of religious intellectualism to mobilise support from youthful males in both the cities and rural areas of South Sulawesi. The question of Syariat Islam is likely to linger without being satisfactorily resolved for either its supporters, like KPPSI, or its antagonists. While the arrest of Agus Dwikarna has elevated the name of KPPSI, it has also hampered the movement. Those notables who previously openly supported KPPSI, when interviewed, have become more subdued in their comments. KPPSI itself is now busy trying to free Agus from jail, pushing its main agenda into the background. This article is a part of a longer report of preliminary research on Islamic movements outside Java conducted by the Centre for Eastern Indonesian Studies, Universitas Hasanuddin (PusKIT UNHAS) in Makassar. The two authors are research associates at the centre and can be contacted via puskit@lycos.com Inside Indonesia 72: Oct - Dec 2002

Law, globalisation and the cControl of Southeast Asian military terror

Civil cases are combatting corporate impunity Richard Tanter Three civil cases currently before United States courts represent a promising new challenge to the longstanding impunity that military regimes in Southeast Asia have felt when using terror to control politics in their countries. In each case, local citizens have linked up with US non-government organizations to bring cases for damages against either powerful US-based companies operating under the umbrella of military terror, or against individual military officers who carried out the terror. How successful each case will ultimately be is not yet clear. What is quite clear is that initial successes in each case have been sufficiently threatening to the corporations and governments involved in the terror to respond to a threat they had initially dismissed as beneath their contempt. A California judge has allowed a civil case brought by Burmese citizens against Unocal, one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world, to proceed to trial. A US district court judge in 2001 ruled that Unocal knew that the Burmese military was using forced labour and carried out torture and extra-legal executions to facilitate the construction of Unocal's Yadana natural gas pipeline. The judge also ruled that Unocal did not control the Burmese army, and hence under US federal law had no direct legal responsibility for the terror from which it benefited. The California case, however, is proceeding on a different issue: under California law, a partner in a business enterprise shares vicarious responsibility for the actions of its partners. This marks the first occasion on which a major US corporation has been brought to trial for its part in gross human rights violations perpetrated by a joint venture partner. The case will go to trial in September. Citizens of Aceh are suing ExxonMobil for financially supporting elements of the Indonesian armed forces that employed extreme and illegal violence to protect Sumatra's Arun gas field and LNG production facilities. Exxon is presently attempting to prevent the case coming to trial, most recently by claiming that the US 'war against terror' would be impeded if the case against them proceeds. (See box) In September 2001, a US district court awarded East Timorese plaintiffs damages amounting to US$66 million against TNI Lt-Gen. Johny Lumintang for his role in East Timor in 1999. After more than a year of demonstrating contempt for the US court proceedings, the Indonesian government and Lumintang, realising the wider implications of the ruling, have appealed, principally on technical grounds of jurisdiction. The appeal is proceeding. (See John Miller's article in the Inside Indonesia no 71). These cases share a number of common elements: Each relies on two pieces of US legislation: the Alien Tort Claims Act 1789 and the Torture Victim Protection Act (1991). These laws allow foreigners to sue individuals and corporations in US courts for damages resulting from actions outside the US, so long as the defendant has some substantive connection to the US. Each case has resulted from a transnational political coalition of local citizens in Southeast Asian countries and North American activists and civil rights NGOs. Even though each case may ultimately be lost at any point of the complex US court system, each has already succeeded to a considerable degree. The Indonesian government has realised that unless it can win an appeal on technical grounds on Doe v. Lumintang, not only is it liable for a large damages payout, but Lumintang and other senior officials cannot visit the US without settling accounts. Moreover, as implied in the whole concept of punitive damages, the Doe v. Lumintang process will be repeated for others involved the Timor crimes or elsewhere in Indonesia. The Unocal and Exxon cases have received wide publicity in the international business press. Shareholders and business journalists are unlikely to respond to calls for a shared humanity with the victims of Indonesian and Burmese army brutality, but they will respond quickly to avoidable threats to profitability and share price stability. As the Bloomberg News put it, 'Exxon Mobil's less-than-arm's length detachment from the military must be judged a short-term gain and a long-term miscalculation.' The Exxon and Unocal cases are especially important because they demonstrate both the negative and positive aspects of globalisation. The Indonesian state continues to depend utterly for its survival on the political, economic and financial backing of the US and Japan and the major corporations of those countries. The fig leaf of demokrasi apart, Indonesian patronage politics is still hugely dependent on revenues from oil and gas exports and foreign aid. Indonesia is the world's largest liquid natural gas (LNG) exporter, supplying a third of global LNG trade - almost all of which is sent to Japan and South Korea. Aceh's gas and oil is vital to the Indonesian state. Serious environmental problems have been a continuous feature of Exxon's Arun natural gas field since production began in 1978. Peaceful protests were from the beginning dealt with violently, fuelling local sympathies for autonomy or independence. Producing gas in Aceh at an acceptable price for the people and companies of Osaka and Seoul - and vast profits for Exxon Mobil's mainly US shareholders - has for more than two decades depended upon military terror, as the corporation has long known. Foreign oil and gas companies subcontracting terror to the military is an aspect of globalisation that is neither unusual nor new. What is new is the willingness of citizens and organizations in the countries that supposedly benefit from this coercive flow of resources arguing through law that the standards of justice that apply in their own countries should be applied to the countries from which these resources are taken. If globalisation is at root about the transnationalisation of capital, then the Exxon and Unocal cases mark a small step in the transnationalisation of universal legal standards of justice. The legal framework within which global politics and commerce is conducted is in transition. Although nation-states remain the dominant political form of organisation, their domestic legal systems cannot cope with the realities of transnational business. International law is expanding very rapidly to fill this gap - particularly in trade and the environment - where borders are relatively insignificant. Effective international law on human rights and crimes against humanity is still weak, and the unilateral resistance of the Bush administration to the newly constituted International Criminal Court weakens it further. Under the ICC, member countries that discover those suspected of crimes against humanity in their countries, irrespective of where the crime was committed, must either prosecute them under their domestic laws, or extradite them to the ICC. It is not yet known how effective the ICC will be. In the meantime, lawyers, prosecutors and citizens in a number of countries are applying existing national law to crimes of universal significance committed outside their own territory. The two most important cases to date have been the attempts by government prosecutors in Spain and Belgium to bring the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and the present Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon, respectively, to trial. Although neither has succeeded to date, both cases have brought the issue of universal jurisdiction for certain heinous crimes to the forefront. The current US cases are taking another approach. Instead of government prosecutors utilising a criminal code, private citizens brought these cases to civil trial for damages. Although imperfect and limited, they are an extremely important part of the slow but consistent pressure to establish universal standards of justice and universal jurisdiction. Unfortunately, the Bush administration is the most unilateralist and brazenly pro-business (especially pro-mining) government for many decades in the US, and is highly likely to intervene politically to obviate any positive legal developments. US vice-president Dick Cheney, presently under suspicion for illegal activities as head of energy industry services company Halliburton, was involved in Halliburton's work on the Unocal Yadana pipeline. Exxon, the most rogue-like of the big oil companies, has been particularly active in sabotaging the Kyoto protocol. Moreover, there are more fundamental problems in this otherwise commendable legal approach based on US law. If a future truly democratic Indonesian government passed laws that permitted the indictment of Henry Kissinger for his role in facilitating crimes against humanity in Cambodia, Angola, Indonesia and East Timor, is it imaginable that the US would allow his extradition for trial? The long-drawn-out resistance of the Libyan government to the trial of the Lockerbie aircraft bombing suspects would be nothing by comparison. This makes the case for a multilateral global legal institution such as the ICC all the more compelling, and in time, another US administration will come in from the cold. In the meantime, we must rely on the opportunities provided by imperfect national legal systems to bring a measure of justice against the criminal officers and the companies who pay them. Richard Tanter (rtanter@hotmail.com) teaches at Kyoto Seika University in Japan. Inside Indonesia 72: Oct - Dec 2002

Power to the People

Indonesians are seeking a public voice through radio Rebecca Henschke Community radio in Yogyakarta and Java is in a period of exciting change. Radio has emerged from the New Order with a legal and economic framework that is resistant to monopoly control of large capital and to the centralized control of Jakarta. Radio, being a verbal medium and relatively cheap to run, is blossoming as a communication tool at a grass roots level. In Yogyakarta, there are currently twenty-six community radio stations. These radio stations range from student university non-profit radio stations; community radio stations established by farmers, art communities, the Malioboro street community; and a station broadcasting local government talk shows during local elections. The frequency band in Yogyakarta is almost full. There are currently fifty-nine radio stations broadcasting in Yogyakarta and the surrounding area. Community radio stations merely select a frequency that they find free and broadcast on it, using a home made low transmitter and basic broadcasting equipment. Community stations Radio Panagati is one radio station in Yogyakarta that acts as a tool of empowerment for the local community. This radio station is located in the Terban sub-district office, and broadcasts to the community living on the banks of the major river that runs through Yogyakarta. Radio Panagati broadcasts every night from 7 - 10 on 92.2 FM. Using a 10 watt transmitter, it can be heard by 2,847 families. During the elections for members of the city parliament in November 2001, Radio Panagati broadcast a talk show over five nights on which all five local candidates could explain their plans and policies. The community joined in the debate by phoning in and speaking with each candidate or visiting the station. 'The station was needed because there was a major problem with information getting through to the community. There was not enough information, so the community was powerless and confused. People always said, 'Oh I didn't know about that' 'I didn't hear about that!' This radio station acts as one tool to give information so the community can take control of its own destiny. Through the talk shows this station is working to create greater transparency in the political system,' said Pak Jarwono from Radio Panagati. Pak Jarwono explained that for the next election talk shows the station plans to broadcast through the loudspeakers of three mosques in the area, to reach those in the community who don't own a radio. Radio Suara Malioboro is different once again. A group of artists, activists, and human right workers, street kids, students and music lovers from around Malioboro road, the central street in Yogyakarta, created the station. This community radio station was established from very basic beginnings in March this year and first broadcast in April. Radio Suara Malioboro now broadcasts from Monday to Sunday 11.00 am to 11.00 pm, using a 100 watt transmitter. It can be heard in the area around Bantul, south of the Kraton and the area surrounding Malioboro Road. The station has links with the NGO Yayasan Lembaga Pengkajian Sosial Humana, which is a NGO that aims to integrate street kids into the broader community. A group of 10 street kids produce and present a one hour, daily talk show, in which they discuss conflicts with police, daily struggles and express themselves through music and drama. The station provides local street kids with a public voice. Radio Suara Malioboro also broadcasts local un-recorded music. It records street musicians and underground artists and gives them airplay. It also gives wider exposure to local theatrical and musical events. For instance, on 23 July, the station recorded a local performance of an adaptation of Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Nights Dream', produced in collaboration by dance companies from Yogyakarta, Bali and Japan. Aris, 24, a technical assistant and broadcaster at Radio Suara Malioboro, explained, 'Radio Malioboro is radio for everyone. The station increases the sense of community in Malioboro. It acts as a voice that I think in the future will help to define that community and give it a sense of identity. It's a way that street kids can express themselves, so the rest of society is not blind to what they are about. It will hopefully act as a way to break down stereotypes about street kids, people listening can see, oh street kids can be creative too!' Radio Petani Klaten is another community station. It was created earlier this year by a group of five farmers in the Klaten area, who were concerned with issues ranging from the political status of farmers to environmental issues and the over use of pesticides and chemicals. Radio Petani Klaten provides information to the farming community in Klaten, which is currently under constant pressure from the expansion of corporate farming interests. Their community radio strengthens the farmers' bargaining position. Radio Petani Klaten plans to devote 40 per cent of broadcasts to information and the remainder to entertainment. It broadcasts talk back programs about organic farming and current political issues of concern to farmers. Its motto is 'close to society, caring about farmers'. Government Regulation However, all community radio stations throughout Indonesia are illegal. To gain a license to broadcast, a station must apply to the Departmen t of Communication in Jakarta and pay a 300 million rupiah license fee up front. This is a long and costly process that usually requires a legal firm. Consequently, stations go ahead and broadcast until the authorities enforce the law through a 'sweeping' of the station. Police have shut down numerous community radio stations in Yogyakarta and Bandung over the last six months. Radio Budaya Minomartani in Sleman Yogyakarta, and Radio Petani (Farmers Radio) in Yogyakarta were shut down in 2002, after broadcasting for three months. A producer at Radio Minomartani explained, 'The police came here and wanted to take all the equipment, and I said the equipment does not belong to me, before you take it you need to ask all the members, all the people living in this area, they own this equipment, it is community property! So the police just left a letter and left.' Prof Widhiatnyana, from the Department of Communications, told a community radio meeting in Bandung in March 2002, that community radio could ignite conflict between religious and racial groups in Indonesia. He stated, 'After the mosque community asks, the church community asks and so on, and then we have a problem.' The government also cites issues relating to the allocation of frequencies for its clamp down on community radio. Not surprisingly, those involved with community radio in Yogyakarta strongly dispute the government's claims. 'Community radio does not promote disintegration in society. It is about unity and giving a voice to society, thus creating an open and intelligent society. A society that deals with conflict and issues in a verbal intelligent way. This concept has to enter the minds of the government,' said Pak Sukion from Radio Suara Petani Klaten. In May 2002, Yogyakarta's community radio stations formed the Jaringan Radio Kommunitas Yogyakarta (Yogyakarta Community Radio Network - JKRY) to fight for the right for community radio to exist in Indonesia. This followed the formation of similar unions in Bandung and Jakarta. 'Because of the constant sweeping we have to be stubborn, persistent and obstinate, fight for the organization of community broadcasting to enter into the proposed DPR broadcasting law,' stated Dadang from Radio Warga Pasirluryu in Bandung. Community radio in Indonesia is blossoming as a communications tool at the grass roots level. Community radio's fight to gain legal status mirrors society's growing wish to gain a political voice and to take control of their destiny. Rebecca Henschke (becstar@muchomail.com) was an ACICIS student in 2002. Inside Indonesia 72: Oct - Dec 2002

A Town like Malang

A new local press must struggle to survive when the novelty of autonomy wanes Kirrilee Hughes Malang, like other regional towns of Indonesia, is changing, and a market for new local newspapers is emerging. 'Local' no longer denotes the newspapers produced in the provincial capital, and sold in outlying towns, but rather an industry based in these towns. Interest in local government and local issues has skyrocketed, and is the driving force behind the papers, generating both subject matter and readership. Unlike the 'local rags' of Australia, which are published weekly and delivered free of charge, these local newspapers are produced daily and constitute a commercially viable and increasingly read media. Since 1998, the Malang Post and Memo Arema have both emerged in Malang, while the market leader, Jawa Pos, has increased sales through the inclusion of a locally managed supplement, Radar Malang. Circulation may not be sky high, with the Malang Post selling between four and five thousand copies a day (though sales reportedly increase during the soccer season) and Memo Arema, a local edition of the Surabaya based Memorandum, around 5500 copies a day. These local papers are still surpassed by the Surabaya Post and the Jawa Pos, which sell 17,000 and 36,000 copies respectively in Malang each day, but they are taking on the nation wide Kompas, which has an average daily circulation in Malang of around 8,000 copies. These fledgling local papers have not emerged of their own accord. They are owned by large media conglomerates, which provide editorial, managerial and financial expertise. In Malang, the Jawa Pos Group is the only player. This group dominates the market with their flagship paper, Jawa Pos, and owns both the Malang Post and Memo Arema. More than half of East Java's local and regional publications come under the Jawa Pos umbrella. As one Malang Post editor puts it, 'Only one big shot has come to town.' A perusal of these papers proves that they are not merely an edition of the Jawa Pos with a Malang masthead. Local news dominates the front pages of both Memo Arema and the Malang Post, and the Radar Malang supplement dedicates its entire eight pages to local events, issues and personalities. Memo Arema and the Malang Post do carry national and international news, but these articles are normally restricted to page two, unless they can be slanted towards Malang through consequence or effect. Like its parent publication, Memorandum, Memo Arema angles itself towards criminal news, and the vast majority of its reporters are posted in Malang's courts, police stations and jails. The Malang Post on the other hand, covers news of a more general nature, and posts reporters in all districts of Malang, including the nearby city of Batu. Local issues are aired through entire pages dedicated to local politics, education, sport and entertainment. News of a national and international flavour is lifted from the Jawa Pos New Network, a restricted network to which all subsidiary newspapers have access. This network is the only way through which the Jawa Pos directly contributes to the content of local newspapers. The emerging local press is difficult to pin down and describe. Circulation figures are hard to trust. Indonesia has no autonomous body auditing newspaper circulation, and the papers themselves cite figures triple their actual sales to reel in all-important advertising revenue. The figures quoted above were obtained from the manager of Karah Agung printing press in Surabaya. As he handles all printing orders for Jawa Pos owned papers, he knows precisely how many copies of each paper go on sale each day. Indeed, it seems the only way to find out more about this emerging local press is to talk to the people who make it all happen - the editors, the reporters, printing press staff and the advertising and marketing reps. They're a mix of bright eyed and underpaid university graduates on their first post, and weather beaten senior employees who have worked in nearly every newspaper bureau in town. These people are the key to the future prosperity and quality of the local newspapers they work for - a fact that they are only too aware of. When asked of the greatest obstacle to the future of the local press, one astute cadet replied, 'The journos themselves' With only a brief history of a free and uncensored press, these new local papers cannot escape the issues that have affected the industry in the past. The community still harbours deep-rooted suspicions as to the actual truth of what they read. Local media practitioners recognise that not only is it their job to inform their audience, but also to educate them about the function of an uncensored and non-partisan media, and what the term 'free press' actually means. This of course entails a disengagement of past practices, including the 'envelope culture' in which sources offer money to journalists. Whilst reporters from national papers have comparatively large salaries to rely on, in some cases up to three or four times that of their local counterparts, local journalists must learn to strike a balance between long hours, low wages and the temptation to take envelopes. At one local paper in Malang, senior reporters are paid approximately 350,000 rupiah a month, plus bonuses of up to another 300,000 rupiah based on the quality and quantity of their articles. With one day off in every seven, no half day on a Friday, no afternoon siestas and deadlines that do not allow for 'rubber time', that's a big ask. One cadet reporter confided that she earned a training wage of 150,000 rupiah a month with no opportunity for bonuses, which was barely enough to cover her board, let alone food and petrol. When a source offers her an envelope, she often has no choice but to take it. These envelopes, always plain white and small, are never opened until the two parties are far apart. They often contain no more than 15,000 to 25,000 rupiah. The reasons for giving this money are not always clear-cut. A reporter assigned to a business post may receive envelopes as a thank you for anticipated favourable promotion of a particular company or product. Yet one reporter told me, 'I just write the article, its my editor who chooses whether it actually gets carried. If they're paying me to get the story published, then they're paying the wrong person'. Often, sympathetic sources give envelopes to cover petrol money and other 'expenses', and these gifts seem to be a sincere helping hand from those who know how little journalists are paid for their long hours. On the two occasions that I accompanied reporters who were offered and accepted envelopes, the money was once used to buy petrol and the other time to pay for lunch. It is tempting to place too much emphasis on these envelopes when examining the local press. 'They make me so confused,' a young reporter confessed. 'Whenever I'm offered one, its always a struggle to know what to do. To take it, or not to take it. I need the money, but I don't want to encourage it. People find out, and that affects what they think of the papers. But to tell you the truth, they are a minute part of my job. I'm more concerned about writing quality articles.' In any case, these envelopes are not thick and fast between often this depends on a reporter's post and who their sources actually are. A court or criminal reporter will almost never be offered an envelope, though lawyers, police officers and detectives will buy them lunch on a daily basis. It seems a fine line between bribery and corruption, and friendly gestures. All local papers in Malang now carry disclaimers that their staff are not to receive 'any money or other gifts from sources', and strict in-house policies forbid employees from accepting envelopes. The issue has become a contentious one. And while salaries remain low, it's also an issue that won't disappear quickly. Yet although wages may be low, job satisfaction levels are high. It's simple - if it was about the money, I wouldn't be working at the Malang Post, one senior reporter explained. 'With these new papers I can work in my hometown, and the increasing interest in local issues is visible. I can actually see people realising that it is not just what happens in Jakarta or Surabaya that is important. There are events and issues in their own kampung that are newsworthy. But if we are going to survive past the otonomi' (regional autonomy) era, we need to be a quality publication that the community is interested in, and that people can trust. That is the challenge for this emerging local press in a town like Malang - to survive the euphoria of free press legislation and to persevere as interest in regional autonomy inevitably wanes. With editorial and managerial expertise on loan from the Jawa Pos, these Malang newspapers have the potential to become fertile ground for the development of new talent and experienced local media practitioners. Kirrilee Hughes (kik_h@hotmail.com) is an ANU student who completed work experience with the Malang Post in 2001. Inside Indonesia 72: Oct - Dec 2002

Eliana Eliana: Independent Cinema, Indonesian Cinema

A new wave of Indonesian films Joanne Sharpe For a brief period in July this year, shoppers and cinemagoers at Blok M Plaza in Jakarta might have noticed something quite unusual. Strung up on the outside of the building, large hand-painted banners usually advertise the latest American blockbusters to reach Indonesian theatres. However, for a day or so, the lineup included three Indonesian films: Eliana Eliana by Riri Riza, Bendera by Nan T Achnas, and Marsinah by Slamet Rahardjo. In recent years it has often been said that Indonesian film is dead. Bearing in mind that just 16 feature films were produced between 1999 and 2001, to have three Indonesian films playing simultaneously was quite remarkable. Unfortunately, Bendera quickly disappeared from cinema screens, and when I went to see Marsinah at Blok M three days after its release, the session was almost cancelled because only four people turned up. There were about 12 people in the theatre for Eliana Eliana, however, and it ran in Jakarta for several weeks. For a low-budget Indonesian film, preceded by minimal hype, this was nothing short of a triumph. Eliana Eliana, which picked up the Best Young Cinema and Critics prizes at the Singapore International Film Festival, tells of Eliana (Rachel Sayidina), a young woman brought up by her single mother in West Sumatra. Her mother, Bunda (Jajang C Noer), has severed all contact and vowed never to speak to her again after she fled to Jakarta to escape an arranged marriage. The film opens in Jakarta five years later. Eliana, who has just lost her job and is facing eviction, arrives home to find Bunda waiting for her. Bunda has come to take Eliana back to Sumatra, but Eliana is predictably resistant to the idea. The story unfolds on the streets of Jakarta in the space of one night, as the pair charter a taxi and go in search of Heni, Eliana's housemate, who has been missing for several days. Heralding the expanding role for digital technology in low budget film, Eliana was shot using a single hand held digital camera and mostly incidental lighting, evoking the neon and grit of Jakarta at night. One of the strengths of the film is that it is rarely judgmental of the city's seedier side, or of the characters that inhabit it. Eliana may have fallen in with a morally ambiguous crowd, but she has retained her own sense of values - a credit, in fact, to her self-possessed mother. Much of the humor and pathos in this film comes from the obvious similarities between Eliana and Bunda, each as uncompromising and iron willed as the other. In one scene, their taxi driver stops briefly for an herbal tonic from a stall by the side of the road. The woman serving asks why he doesn't invite his passengers to join him. He replies in a tone heavy with resignation, 'Those two? They don't need tonic. They're tough enough already. The publicity for Eliana quotes US film critic Chuck Stevens, who raves, 'On a variety of visceral and aesthetic levels, Riza's tightly-budgeted, fourteen-day, one-camera production elegantly out-maneuvers anything going on in American independent cinema today.' Certainly, in comparison with the polished American productions that are dominant in Indonesian theatres and even recent blockbusters like Ada apa dengan Cinta? (What's up with Love?), this film conforms to the way you might expect an independent production to look. Yet calling Eliana and its director Riri Reza independent causes a few raised eyebrows in Indonesian independent film circles. Riri established his independent credentials in 1998 with the release of Kuldesak, a film he co-wrote, produced and directed with Mira Lesmana, Nan T Achnas and Rizal Mantovani, who are some of the biggest names in Indonesian film today. Kuldesak is widely hailed as the first in the recent wave of independent productions, which are self-funded and filmed on the sly guerilla style without the necessary state permits. Since then, however, Riri has been involved with two of the most successful Indonesian films of recent years. He directed Petualangan Sherina (The Adventures of Sherina) and co-produced Ada apa dengan Cinta?, both big budget productions supported by canny marketing and promotion strategies. The production company behind both these films, Miles Productions, was also involved with Eliana Eliana. As Riri and his generation of filmmakers are some of the most successful and active in Indonesia today, some might call them the closest thing the industry has to an Establishment. Riri laughs this off. 'As far as I'm concerned, there just aren't any conditions under which we could become established. You can call me an established filmmaker, I don't mind, you can call me an independent filmmaker and that's okay too, whatever.' He speaks pragmatically about his alliance with giant television production company Prima Entertainment, which co-funded the production, while waxing enthusiastically about experimenting with new genres and alternative modes of production. The main thing, he says, is just to tell stories about Indonesia and Indonesians. 'About us and our dreams.' In Eliana, the story is essentially about the vulnerability of relationships and people, and the difficulties they have communicating with one another. It may be a universal theme, but Eliana is most definitely an Indonesian film. Interestingly, it is also a film about women, although Riri has in the past stated that he does not set out to comment specifically on women's issues. Rather, he speaks of his great respect for women in Indonesia, who in his opinion face difficulties far greater than those faced by men. Eliana is a subtle portrait of some of these challenges, such as the problems of living on the mean streets of Jakarta, or bringing up a child as a single mother, as well as some that are even more fundamental. In one scene, Bunda goes into a filthy public toilet, the floor muddy and wet. Encumbered by her large handbag, she struggles keep her long skirt and shawl out of the mess. As she goes to leave, she looks at her reflection in the grimy mirror and suddenly starts to sob. Clearly the stress of her reunion with her daughter and the events of the evening would be enough to make anyone cry, but her problems with her dress add an extra poignancy. Says Riri, tongue in cheek, 'You can see this scene as Bunda thinking, "All I want to do is help my daughter, take her home, and even peeing is difficult"' The growing overlap between 'independent' and 'mainstream' film in Indonesian is manifest in 'i-sinema', a movement based on a manifesto signed by thirteen contemporary filmmakers. Both Eliana Eliana and Bendera are i-sinema films. The meaning of 'i' in 'i-sinema' is ambiguous - it stands for the word 'Indonesian' as much as it does for 'Independent', as well as other terms like 'eye' or even the English 'I'. I-sinema films are made in the spirit of independence and even individualism, but they are also national in character. Riri is adamant that his films should not alienate people. 'It seems that alternative film movements in other countries just don't care much about their audience. For us, the audience is still very important.' Of primary concern is that the Indonesian audience has been starved of Indonesian film, and this is the first thing these filmmakers seek to redress. The first line of the manifesto states that 'Stagnation in the Indonesian film industry means that we must find new ways of making feature films, and much of the short document relates to what these new ways might be. The use of digital technology is mentioned specifically as giving us the opportunity to work more freely and independently'. The members of 'i-sinema' emphasise the importance of film as a form of freedom of expression and pledge to create films of artistic and personal credibility, but they remain aware of the practicalities of production. Essentially, if Indonesian film is dead, filmmakers are being forced to be alternative in the way they produce and distribute their films. As a result, Independent film has become National film, and the independent voice has become a national voice on the big screen, not just due to natural progression but almost by default. For Riri Reza and those of his generation, whether people regard these films as being independent or not are not a matter for concern, as long as the films are being made and filling the vacuum in Indonesian cinema. 'The next film I make might be commercial, it might be more art house, it might even be a documentary. I'm not a jukebox. I'll make whatever films I want.' Joanne Sharpe (polymorph2@hotmail.com) is a student at the University of New South Wales. She was recently in Indonesia on the ACICIS program, researching Indonesian Independent Film for her Honours thesis. Inside Indonesia 72: Oct - Dec 2002

Getting Connected

The struggle to get Indonesia online Onno Purbo There is now a movement to develop self-financed bottom-up internet infrastructure in Indonesia, using high-speed wireless internet technology. Money, technology and government help are not the keys. The dedication of many Indonesian volunteers to community education processes is the most important factor in developing this infrastructure. Copyleft Free education on various aspects of the internet is the key to help Indonesian society become receptive to this technology. Indonesians can then invest and build their own infrastructure at virtually no cost to the government or donor agencies. For free education to succeed, information must circulate quickly. Internet based media disseminate information and knowledge far more quickly than conventional media. CD-ROM and web servers are typical methods to disseminate knowledge in electronic form in the public domain. The faster knowledge circulates, the greater its audience and as a consequence, the greater the value of the distributed knowledge. The ultimate goal is to transform communities into knowledge producers and writers through abundant freely available knowledge provided online. Copyright inhibits the accelerated flow of knowledge and thus reduces the value of the information distributed. Not surprisingly, most Indonesian internet activists prefer to disseminate their knowledge free of copyright. This material, distributed free of copyright, is called 'copyleft' or 'copywrong'. Indonesian internet activists such as I Made Wiryana, Michael Sunggiardi, Adi Nugroho, Irwin Day and Ismail Fahmi publish freely on the internet. Their work is available at the Indonesian Digital Knowledge Foundation (IDKF) http://www.bogor.net/idkf or from the Pandu Team Website http://www.pandu.org/. These websites contain more than five thousand articles and references on various aspects of the Internet. Putting copylefted knowledge into the public domain can attract a surprising amount of funding and sponsorship. Depending on audience size, this sponsorship may surpass the salary of a professional executive with a permanent job in Jakarta. The free distribution of this knowledge to the public creates demand for certain technologies and services. The private sector or other entrepreneurs can then profit by providing the required technologies and services to the public. The private sector views this process pragmatically; they support the person who created the market demand so as to continue to maintain and expand their market. Sponsors also arrange seminars, roadshows and talkshows. The door price for a one-day seminar is only US$3 per person and includes snacks, Linux CDs and a magazine. It is normal for more than 300 people to attend each seminar, and this audience is multiplied through radio talkshows and various other programs in each city. This enables knowledge producers to continue to distribute their knowledge freely to the public. The activists involved in these roadshows also provide free seminars in many schools. This program is arranged by the Indonesian School Information Network. Internet mailing lists also assist the interaction and dissemination of knowledge. A few examples include genetika@yahoogroups.com (more on information technology (IT) politics), majalahneotek@yahoogroups.com (IT beginners), linux-admin@linux.or.id, linus-setup@linux.or.id. Since the necessary knowledge is freely available, the public has started to invest their own money in infrastructure. Small to medium entrepreneurs are putting their money into IT businesses and re-investing their profits as their businesses go well. This cycle of business and investment may gradually accumulate the public's money in IT businesses and enable them to build their own internet infrastructure. This process has left the grassroots movement with much stronger roots in society than government initiatives. Government Initiatives Although the Indonesian government has invested a lot of money to shift the Indonesian people into cyberspace, it has been private sector investment and various sponsorships that have sustained the Indonesian internet. Successive Indonesian governments have actually been a stumbling block for internet development. These governments have stifled creativity, as they require everything to be registered and licensed. Government policy lags behind developments and fails to provide the industry with a competitive safeguard. The government will not issue licenses for internet service providers (ISPs) using newer technologies for their connection. Small to medium enterprises, such as internet cafes, must also bear unofficial government taxes. The Indonesian government has established several national teams to assist internet development. The National Development Coordination Body (BAPPENAS) used the concepts produced by these teams to obtain a World Bank loan in 1998. The loan was approximately a couple of hundred billion rupiah, and is known as the Information Infrastructure Development Program (IIDP). Some IIDP projects are still on-going in 2002. However, as the loan has been used to pay international consultants to write concept papers, and has not been invested in infrastructure to help people access the internet, these hundreds of billions of rupiah have had negligible direct impact on the Indonesian people. In 2001, the Ministry of Research and Technology launched Internet Cafe Technology and Science Technology CDs. Because the government's budget is limited, the onus for these activities has fallen on the private sector. The Internet Cafe Technology program aims to build 9000 Internet cafes through private sector investment. The investment will then be returned by the Internet cafe users though an access fee. The Science Technology CD contains research done for the Ministry of Research and Technology. It is distributed freely to the public. The Sekolah 2000 foundation and Master Data, with a lot of private sector sponsorship, supports the production and distribution of the CDs. The only government initiative that has significantly benefited the Indonesian internet community is the vocational schools Internet movement (dikmenjur@yahoogroups.com). Dr. Gatot H.P., the director of vocational schools at the Ministry of Education, is the driving force behind the movement. In 2001, he worked closely with other Indonesian Internet communities and managed to push over 1000 (out of 4000) Indonesian vocational schools onto the Internet, a commendable accomplishment. There is still a long way before Indonesia's 1300 tertiary institutions, 10,000 high schools, 10,000 Islamic schools and 4000 vocational schools are all online. Currently only about 1200 schools and 200 universities are on the Internet. Wireless Internet The most convenient gauge of the development of Indonesian internet infrastructure is the expansion of Indonesian internet service providers (ISPs). IndoNet - Indonesia's first commercial ISP - was started by IndoInternet in 1994. Currently, over 160 ISP licenses have been granted, and about 60 ISPs are operational. Current large ISPs include IndosatNet, LinkNet, CBN, RadNet, Centrin and Indonet. In early 2002, the Association of Indonesian Internet Service Providers (APJII) estimated that around four million Indonesians use the internet. Each year, the number of Internet users in Indonesia doubles. APJII claims that the majority of users are male, young (25-35 years old) and educated. About two-thirds of Indonesian users access the internet at various internet cafes (known as warnet in short for warung internet). Aside from the commercial and legal ISPs, there are significant grassroots movements behind most of Indonesia's internet activities. These movements involve internet cafes using high-speed (11-54Mbps) wireless internet technology. There are over 2000 internet cafes in Indonesia, most of which are self-financed. The Indonesian Internet Cafe Association (AWARI) was founded in May 2000. Its current heads are Judith M.S, Michael Suggiardi and Abdullah Koro. AWARI is fighting to expand our own network and implement a self-financed community based network to reduce dependence on Indonesian telecommunications provider services. Most of the cash flow of these internet cafes actually goes into the coffers of the Indonesian telecommunications providers for line rental. The incumbent operators, Telkom and Indosat, have tried to use their power to distort the industry. They have also overcharged ISPs for incoming call lines and frequently rejected applications for lines. This has driven the community to seek alternatives to build our own independent network. The easiest way is the wireless LAN [Local Area Network] technology. At a cost of approximately US$150 / unit, anyone with a strong Linux background can easily integrate a LAN or a community to the Internet at a speed of 11Mbps, provided they have an external antenna with sufficient gain to reach the access point. Using such an antenna, I have integrated my LAN at home as well as my surrounding neighbourhood to the Internet for 24 hour access at 11Mbps for Rp 330.000 / month. Building a low cost home-made antenna is not that difficult. A tincan with a 90 mm diameter and 215 mm length can serve as a 2.4GHz antenna with a range of three to four kilometres. It costs approximately US$5 to US$10 per antenna. Many internet cafes in Yogyakarta use this type of antenna to reduce their investment. They can also use old 486 [forerunner of the pentium chip] terminals running Linux to allow low cost investments and avoid copyright problems. The software drivers and information needed to set up wireless internet are easily found on the Internet. The cost of satellite access for each cafe can be reduced to US$250-500 per month by sharing the connection between 10 to 20 internet cafes. These internet cafes use high-speed wireless technology to share the bandwidth. Considering some of these cafes take in US$50-100 per day from their customers, US$500 per month is affordable. Based on the technology and business plan described freely at http://www.bogor.net/idkf, various internet cafe's have reduced the cost for public users to access the internet to Rp 5000 per hour. In Indonesian schools, the cost of accessing the Internet can be brutally reduced to Rp 5000 per month per student. This makes the internet accessible to a much wider range of people than simply those who can afford a personal computer. Many small to medium businesses and schools are now investing their money to build their own internet infrastructure. If a conducive policy is implemented, over 20 million Indonesians could access the internet with 4-5 years, without any loans from the World Bank, IMF and ADB. Internet telephony (also called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)) is another emerging controversial technology that can be used to build a community based telephone network at very low cost. Government officials and the police are currently conducting unlawful sweepings to seize 'illegal' VoIP and Wireless Internet equipments. These solutions may not be appropriate for some countries, especially those with tight rules on frequency usage. Most, if not all, the time, we run the equipments without any license. The government would like to protect the interest of incumbent telecommunication operators, which are paranoid about this new technology. Fortunately, the Indonesian media helps keep us from being jailed. We only hope to provide the best,low cost solutions for Indonesians to be integrated into the Internet and to reduce the existence of a digital divide. High-speed wireless Internet is the necessary technology to build community based internet infrastructure without telecommunications providers. At the moment, there are more than 1000 corporate users or wireless internet and some residential users, like me at home. Most of the wireless internet operators hang out at indowli@yahoogroups.com and are fighting for low cost, if not free, frequency licenses. We hope that people will not have to pay to use the air. Educated, dedicated and militant people are the key to this community initiative to deploy infrastructure. It shows clearly the strength of community education in attempting to transform Indonesia into knowledge-based society. Onno W. Purbo [onno@indo.net.id] is an independent IT writer, a former lecturer at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and a former Indonesian civil servant. Most of the copylefted reference and technical materials mentioned in this article can be freely downloaded from http://www.bogor.net/idkf, http://bebas.vlsm.org, http://free.vlsm.org and http://www.pandu.org/. Inside Indonesia 72: Oct - Dec 2002

Exchanging News, Bridging Isolation

The 68H network brings people closer together Santoso It's evening in Jayapura. We have just finished installing a parabolic antenna and digital receiver, and have connected them to studio Radio Suara Kasih Agung. We hurried out into the front yard of the radio station with a small radio. Together with eight radio workers from the city, we gathered together, hearts pounding waiting for a signal. Suddenly the broadcasters voice sprung forth from the small radio. 'This is the latest news from Radio 68H News Office.' We were all surprised, but also relieved. There was good reception for radio broadcasts from Jakarta, which can be re-broadcast by local radio. Our Papuan friends were even happier that one of the news sources in the broadcast was Tom Beanal, the Vice President of the Papua Council Presidium. This Papuan identity explained the situation, and the Papuan people's desire for independence. Our friends who were huddled around had certainly rarely or never before heard their idol speak on the radio. And on that day, Tom Beanal's voice was not only heard in Jayapura, but throughout Indonesia. Through Radio 68H, the voice of a person in Jayapura is heard in Banda Aceh, Manado, Kupang and other cities. The exchange of information between regions is one of the strong points of Radio 68 News Office. In previous times, radio was very local, but broadcasts now reach a national, even international audience. This news radio office has bridged the isolation between regions in Indonesia. A friend who recently visited North Maluku spoke of the importance of this news office. In this new province, there are two radio stations that are members of the 68H network, namely Gema Hikmah in Ternate and Gema Pertiwi on Bacan Island. Of course, the signal from these stations doesn't reach all of North Maluku. However, because people who live a fair way away also want to hear 68H news broadcasts, a number of police rebroadcast the signal over their shortwave radios. A survey of radio listener behaviour in East Java found that when listeners wanted news, they would first tune in to Buletin. This is a 30 minute Radio 68H program broadcast twice daily in the morning and evening. This is the most popular of Radio 68H's programs, not just in East Java, but also throughout Indonesia. With 230 member stations broadcasting it, it is estimated to reach an audience of 20 million people. Radio 68H started operations in April 1999. Initially, it was a program of the Institute for the Study for the Free Flow of Information (ISAI), an NGO struggling for the free flow of information. This program aimed to provide independent news for radio. A limited number of news items were produced, digitised (MP3 files) and sent to member stations over the internet. At the outset only 14 stations, mainly in large cities, used the news items. ISAI itself was founded in 1995, shortly after the Detik tabloid, Editor and Tempo magazines were banned. ISAI initially focussed on print media, as many of its activists were from the print media. However, when the Suharto regime toppled, its activists felt they needed to contribute something to radio journalism, because during the New Order, radio was subject to the tightest repression. Aiming to facilitate information exchange between the regions and improve the quality of radio journalism, Radio 68H was always intended to incorporate two-way communication. Although the idea was conceived and its studio was established in Jakarta, the contribution of the regions has been very important to the advancement of the organisation. The network members are not just radio stations to relay 68H programs, but are also a source of information ad important contributors that sustain the programs. We encourage every network member to become a correspondent, and routinely report interesting news from their region. As its regional correspondents are so important, 68H has actively organised radio journalism training in various regions. Usually, a local network member hosts the session. About 12 participants are invited to each five-day training session. The training material is elementary; namely the basics of radio journalism and necessary technical skills, such as using the Cool Edit Pro software to process voices. Training participants become potential 68H correspondents. In three years, we have organised around 25 training sessions with over 300 participants. Fifty of these participants have become routine contributors to 68H. Over time, the 68H network has continually expanded. At the end of 1999, there were around 60 stations broadcasting 68H programs. Word of mouth recommendations from our network members assist the expansion of the network. Because 68H news is perceived to be independent, easy to understand and reliable, many radio stations want to join the network. As its network has expanded, the 68H crew has learnt to produce more varied programs. In the beginning, we only produced one-minute dispatches; in August 1999, we plucked up the courage to produce a 24 minute Buletin Sore (Afternoon Bulletin). This program was split into four files, and sent by email to the network affiliates. It was hoped they would download the program before 4pm, and broadcast it simultaneously. However, by the end of 1999 it was clear that it took too long to download broadcasts off the internet. Our friends at Radio Suara Padang in Padang, West Sumatra, explained that they needed 8 hours to download a 24 minute broadcast. Radio Nebula in Palu, Central Sulawesi needed 6 hours, as did Radio DMWS in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara. As a result, the programs were not broadcast simultaneously, and the telephone bills of member stations blew out. The slow speed of internet access, particularly outside Java, forced us to find an alternative technology to distribute the program. In 2000, Radio 68H News Agency started to use a satellite to distribute its programs. This is far more effective, easy and cheap for our network members. They just need a parabolic antenna and a digital receiver to access all 68H programs, then broadcast those that they are interested in. Our target is for the 68H network to reach all regencies in Indonesia before the 2004 general election. Through this network, we plan to publicise and monitor the implementation of the forthcoming election. This is very important, as the next election will have different features. For the first time in Indonesia, the president will be directly elected. Another advantage of the satellite is the opportunity for listener interaction. We have subsequently set up an Indonesia-wide toll-free number. The talkshow that we broadcast each day from 09.00-09.30 has become a favourite with listeners. The listeners always run out of time to participate in the daily thematic discussion. We choose topics like law reform, human rights, regional autonomy, the environment and the economy. Most recently, we have added a talkshow about religion and tolerance, as a cooperative program between 68H and the Liberal Islam Network. This has attracted attention from society in general, and the transcripts of the discussions are published in dozens of Indonesian newspapers. The biggest problem for the network is now self-sustainability. We have been lucky enough to receive strong support for the initial stages of the program from institutions such as the Asia Foundation, Media Development Loan Fund, the Dutch Embassy and CAF. However, from the outset we have also realised that this assistance cannot continue indefinitely. We are determined to enter the market, and seek funding through the market. For that reason, 68H programs are designed with part of their duration allocated for advertisements. This news agency also accommodates the needs of various institutions that want to arrange sponsored programs. This extensive network is of course a strong drawcard to attract sponsors. Apart from social institutions, such as the UNHCR, UNDP, Health Department and NGOs, the network has also attracted commercial sponsors, such as the food supplement industry, insurance companies, Pertamina and other mass products. We stipulate that the maximum time that can be allocated to advertisements is fifteen per cent of broadcasts. At present there are eighteen hours of broadcasts daily. As such, 68H still prioritises its listeners' interests over other interests. We believe that 68H News Agency is first and foremost a public service. So it has been from the outset, and so it will continue to be, even when it is market funded. Foreign broadcast institutions are another source of funding. At present, 68H provides news for Radio SBS in Australia, and Radio Hilversum in the Netherlands. In the near future, Deutche Welle in Germany and the Voice of America will use news produced by 68H. Apart from generating income, cooperation with foreign radio is a new phenomenon. Usually, Indonesian radio just relays foreign radio; now we can provide news for them too. Radio 68H News Agency also cooperates with Radiq.com in Malaysia to produce the Nada Nasional (National Tone) program. This program is produced in Kuala Lumpur, and broadcast by 68H in several areas that border on Malaysia. This program helps to foster mutual understanding between inhabitants along the Indonesia-Malaysia border. And listeners in Malaysia receive an alternative to official government news broadcasts. This is one of the results of reformasi in 1998: the freedom the media now enjoys has opened up many possibilities that could not even be imagined previously. Santoso (tosca@isai.or.id) is the director of radio 68H News Agency. Inside Indonesia 72: Oct - Dec 2002

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