ONE-WAY TRAFFIC
The history of the development of the mass communication media in Indonesia is a story of the ongoing efforts by the authorities to use the media as an instrument of state development, and to rein in the press each time it reflected or articulated popular dissent. As with the rest of Southeast Asia, the idea of mass media was a ‘tool, born, bred and developed in the West, transplanted to Indonesia’ (Anwar 1978, p. 261). Similar to the expe- rience of its neighbours on the Malay Peninsula, the introduction of the printing press and the creation of newspapers was a radical departure from the communication processes of traditional rulers. They expanded the public sphere, often encouraging thought and debate as the newspaper, like the novel, provided the ‘technical means for re-presenting the kind of imagined community that is the nation’ (Anderson 2000, p. 422).
Radio, in the early days of its development, was a government informa- tion service. Equally significantly, it was often linked not only with inde- pendence from colonial rule, but also the attempt by central government in Jakarta to reach across difficult geographies and cultural divisions. The world’s largest archipelago, Indonesia achieved independence from the Netherlands in 1949. By the turn of the century, Indonesia’s 238.5 million people (July 2004 estimate), made it the world’s fourth most populous nation, and the largest Muslim nation. A vast polyglot community, Indonesia’s population was spread over an area comprising 17 508 islands and islets, of which 6000 are inhabited, and stretching 5000 kilometres east to west and 1750 kilometres north to south, with 100 ethnic groups. Despite this, 87 per cent of Indonesians were Muslims, and the island of Java (home to Indonesia’s largest ethnic group, the Javanese), was one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with more than 107 million people
living in an area the size of New York State. Indonesia also sits in a strate- gic location astride or along major sea lanes from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.
The political system was a modern construct and the political culture had a modern veneer laid by early nationalist movements in the 1920s, but only really gaining roots after the Second World War and the creation of the modern independent state (Steinberg 1987). Naturally, the modern politi- cal culture had a more traditional context. Kingsbury, for example, used Wittfogel’s (1957) idea of hydraulic cultures to explain Indonesia’s inward looking and politically autocratic nature, as well as the domination by a military elite (Kingsbury and Aveling 2003, p. 114).
What was clear was that the impact of structural considerations – social and physical factors: geography, economic and sociological structure – informed the institutional basis for the development of Indonesia’s mass media of communication and combined with the other objective elements that can be seen as having inhibited political participation, including cul- tural variables such as the traditional Javanese concept of self, ideal social behaviour, patronship and power (Jackson 1978, p. 23).
Further, these were mingled with a strange cultural laminate of tradi- tional, Islamic and modern ideas, all combining within a state ideology instituted at the time of independence – pancasila. In its preamble, the 1945 constitution set forth pancasilaas the embodiment of basic principles of an independent Indonesian state. In brief, and in the order given in the con- stitution, the pancasilaprinciples comprised a number of elements: a belief in one supreme God; humanitarianism; nationalism expressed in the unity of Indonesia; consultative democracy; and social justice. Designed by modern Indonesia’s founding father Sukarno, pancasilasought to meet the ideological needs of the new nation and, as with the adoption of Bahasaas the national language, represented part of the effort to build a unified state.
These elements existed in an ‘incongruous harmony’ (Lubis 1983, p. 7):
a syncretic melange imposed on society where power is still informed by a feudal past where the King’s power was an extension of the power of the Gods, at the centre of society, like the head of the family. Criticism of those in power was not tolerated, and the ruling elite traditionally had very little communication with the common people – where they did, communication was always from the top downward, never the other way around: ‘the traffic [was] strictly one-way’ (ibid., p. 23).
The birth of television in Southeast Asia coincided with the creation of the new post-colonial political state, and it quickly took radio’s place in building the Indonesian nation, as communications played a central role in government efforts to forge a national identity. The widely held view that the media was influential meant it became caught between different and
competing interests – religious, political, ethnic – reflecting the complex structure of Indonesian society, the multi-layered nature of Indonesian identity and an ‘overvalued’ medium (Anwar 1978, p. 265).
But, in Indonesia, the close connection between the media and the birth of nationalism – both modern ideas, transplanted from the West – created a tradition of freedom fighters who were also writers who understood the power of media to spread the message of independence and national iden- tity. These thorns in the side of the Dutch administration soon began to prick their post-colonial successors, with journalists like Mochtar Lubis and Pramoedya Ananta Toer banned and imprisoned by the post-independence regimes.
Similar to Malaysia and, as we will see in later chapters, Singapore, the Indonesian post-colonial elite drew upon the illiberal legislation of colo- nialism for their own purpose. The post-colonial authorities were equipped with the tools of control set out by the Dutch, in particular a law introduced in 1931 (Pressbreidel Ordonantie), allowing the Governor General to ban a publication for up to eight days for ‘disrupting public order’, with a second ban of 30 days that could then be implemented. There was also the ‘noto- rious’ hate-sowing articles (Haatzaai Artikelen) of the Dutch Criminal Code which were regularly used to silence journalists. Indonesia’s first post- independence President, Sukarno, and his successor, President Suharto, made some modifications in the language, but in effect they were the same laws used widely in post-independence Indonesia, particularly by Suharto (Harsono 2000, pp. 79–80).
Thus, control by the central government was a characteristic even of the early days of the development of the press in Indonesia. While the first printed news in Indonesia, what was then known as the Dutch East Indies, was a bulletin for employees of the Dutch East India Company, Memorie Dex Nouvelles, published in 1615, the first newspaper of general interest was the Bataviase Nouvelles, published in 1744 by a Dutch national in Batavia (Jakarta). It was closed by the Dutch administration concerned that it would provide space for criticism of the colonial administration.
As a result, strict censorship was put in place and new publications were discouraged, ensuring that the country failed to possess newspapers with a
‘substantial history’ (Gunaratne 2000b, p. 268). This was reinforced during Japanese occupation (1942–1945), when the media was under the control of the Japanese, and used for propaganda purposes. No Dutch media were allowed. The Japanese closed all publications, allowing only a few to reopen. They introduced publishing licence procedures to control the media which were also ‘incorporated into the armoury of the independent Indonesian government’, and used particularly vigorously by Suharto (Harsono 2000, p. 80). This close control was continued by the Dutch,
when they were uncertainly restored to Southeast Asia by the British after the surrender of the Japanese. In 1945, a third of Indonesia’s press disap- peared.
Early independence brought some freedoms: under the 1945 constitu- tion, freedom of speech and of the press was guaranteed. When indepen- dence was granted in 1949, commentators suggested it ushered in ‘an era of press freedom plus western liberal democracy’ (Sinaga 1989, p. 30).
However, this era of openness drew to a close in 1959, when indepen- dent Indonesia’s founding father, President Sukarno, introduced ‘Guided Democracy’, requiring publication permits under which the press was required to sign an agreement tying them to the government, the opposi- tion press was banned and ANTARA, Indonesia’s wire news service, became government-controlled. This was an important move – under Suharto’s New Order, ANTARA became an official mouthpiece for gov- ernment activities, since all other media quoted ANTARA regarding public events and other official activities. The use of ANTARA news meant that other Indonesian media could rely upon ANTARA’s accounts and so could also play it safe in not being critical toward the government (Haryanto 2006).
The controls were part of Sukarno’s effort to shore up power. Sukarno defined the mass communication media as a vehicle for the creation of a
‘national culture’ (Sen and Hill 2000, p. 11). When television was first intro- duced in 1962, in order to showcase the 4th Asian Games that year, it was clearly an arm of the government. Taking over where radio left off, Televesi Republik Indonesia(TVRI), was used to communicate government policies and build society (Gunaratne 2000b, p. 270).
But, this period of ‘Guided Democracy’ was ‘characterized by . . . intense ideological debates’ (Sen and Hill 2000, p. 3). There were heated dis- cussions, particularly in the Jakarta press, reflecting the growing divisions in society and Sukarno’s dwindling influence. Debate intensified until 1965, when the army seized power, finally replacing Sukarno with military general Suharto in March 1966, and communist papers, Chinese language papers (except one official Chinese daily ‘Herian Indonesia’) and left-wing papers were banned (Gunaratne 2000b, p. 268).