Staff Papers

Current publishing and information trends in the Southeast Asian region: Indonesia

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

A paper presented by Oliver Mann, National Library of Australia Regional Officer Asia, at the 65th IFLA Council and General Conference, Bangkok, 20-28 August 1999


CONTENTS

  1. Newspapers and Serials
  2. Books
  3. Challenges in Acquisitions in Indonesia
  4. The Web

1. Newspapers and Serials

I live in Jakarta, so it has been interesting to witness the rapid development of a free press since May last year. And it continues to unfold in this transition period in Indonesian politics and government.

In the days immediately following the resignation of President Soeharto in May 1998 there was a feeling of great uncertainty in Indonesia with regard to the currency of official regulations and unwritten restrictions which had characterised the 32 years of Soeharto’s New Order. In fact the last six weeks of Soeharto’s rule were frequently criticised in an unprecedented fashion by a press emboldened by the rising tide of popular resentment. After the resignation, and in the current transition phase, the press has capitalised on its interpretation of what it can get away with, and has continued on its crusading path.

1999 is regarded as the second year of true press freedom after the first in 1945 when Indonesia declared its independence.

The press is openly critical of the government, the President, and his Ministers, in a daring style that would have been met with a severe official response a year ago. It is making the most of what was initially feared to be a “Prague Spring” in Indonesia but has thus far survived and flowered.

At the beginning of last June, two of Indonesia’s best-known news weeklies, Tempo and De Tik, which were banned in 1994, took advantage of the current climate of freedom to announce that they planned to resume publication despite the fact that they were still officially banned. They have reappeared and remained, despite apprehension that the economic crisis in Indonesia would curtail their activities, because this economic crisis in Indonesia has affected newspaper, magazine and book production.

Last year we were frequently told that two-third’s of the country’s 286 newspapers and magazines were on the brink of bankruptcy, victims of the high price of newsprint, the plunge in the value of the Rupiah, scant advertising and falling circulation. In fact, not many titles have folded, and the market has been flooded with new titles – many of them being sensational topical weeklies which may not endure - for times are tough in a tight market. And the number of titles may well dwindle after this election year.

Currently there are about 77 daily newspapers in Indonesia, with 1 newspaper sold per 42 people in the population.

Nonetheless, despite the pessimistic predictions, since May 1998 the Department of Information has issued more than 1200 new press licenses (SIUPPs). At the time President Soeharto resigned there were only 321 press licences in operation for all the time he had been in power. Now they are being issued at the rate of 5 or more each day! What we are witnessing in Indonesia today is a huge increase in the number of publications, and an unfettered freedom in their content.

This proliferation is taking place both in Jakarta and the provinces – there is a noticeable shift away from the previous concentration of publications sourced mainly in the capital and on the island of Java.

A milestone in press publishing was reached on 5 June 1998 when Minister of Information Yunus Yosfiah removed a controversial press regulation enacted 14 years ago which gave the Minister the right to revoke publishers’ licences.

The Soeharto government’s tight control over the issuance of press licences and its power to revoke licences was widely acknowledged as a major obstacle to freedom of the press in Indonesia. A press licence was a tool for the government to control, intimidate and gag the press. And although there was no official censorship, publishers frequently had to suppress or alter news and exercise self-censorship in order to avoid censure and closure.

Following his appointment as Minister of Information by President Habibie, Pak Yunus undertook to champion freedom of the press which he views as crucial to democracy, and an important instrument in bringing an end to Corruption, Collusion, and Nepotism – which are now regarded as hallmarks of the Soeharto regime.

Pak Yunus has honoured his word by easing restrictions and simplifying licensing procedures for the press, eliminating all fees to obtain licences, deregulating radio news broadcasting, easing controls on the private television stations, and pledging that the state-run television network TVRI will become more independent and less prone to government interference.

The Minister believes that freedom of the press is essential for the nurturing of democracy in Indonesia, and that the quality of the national press will improve with increased competition.

Within days of these reforms President Habibie had a taste of what freedom of the press can mean when he was strongly criticised in an editorial in The Jakarta Post for his decision to give interviews to two American journalists ahead of the local media. The newspaper accused the President of pretension, lamentable manners, and a reluctance to listen to others - words which no publisher would have been foolish enough to print in Soeharto’s days. To his credit, President Habibie subsequently met with the local press, and The Jakarta Post remains unfettered.

Indeed, every new policy and every statement the President has made since he came to power last May has been subject to scrutiny and criticism - and this is something that just did not happen to Soeharto. Taboo subjects under the former regime, such as cronyism and collusion are now reported openly, bluntly and frequently. Ministers, the armed forces, and government departments are all similarly subjected to close scrutiny and vehement criticism.

And it’s not only the government that comes under the microscope, but a whole range of societal issues – individuals’ rights, inter-ethnic differences, corruption in business - to name a few.

Opinion polls are openly conducted and published in the leading weeklies on such sensitive issues as President Habibie’s popularity, East Timor, and the possibility of Indonesia fragmenting.

The Minister of Information has not wavered in his enthusiasm for press freedom, nor in his determination to see it developed and sustained. And he is not the only government minister who supports this ideal.

Some legislators are critical of the press for being too free, too liberal in its reports. But the Minister believes the press has not over-stepped its boundaries, and he has frequently used the Thomas Jefferson adage of preferring “newspapers without a government to a government without newspapers”.

But there is an undercurrent of uncertainty in all this, despite the positive rhetoric. In the absence of press laws or a code of ethics there are differing views on the meaning of a responsible press. For freedom does bring with it the need for responsibility and press ethics.

And there are some powerful opponents of a free press – their interests are best served by a press that is passive and non-confrontational.

Having the freedom to report everything also makes some elements of the press nervous. They don’t want to be blamed for stirring up tensions within society by their reporting, and this leads to self-censorship. Of course, the Indonesian press is very skilled at self censorship after 3 decades of practice under Soeharto.

Inevitably, the press does exhibit traces of partisanship, as was the case between 1955 and 1965. One example is the resentment expressed towards the long-established government party Golkar.

And in East Timor, the Dili daily newspaper Suara Timor Timur had its offices ransacked and machinery destroyed by pro-integrationist elements who resented the paper’s support for independence.

Freedom of the press has not only been an issue of politics. In the interminably long weeks which followed the Indonesian elections with no clear results to hand, a sense of fatigue and boredom could be felt in Jakarta. This no doubt manifested itself in a drop in circulation for the many publishers who had benefited from the first flush of enthusiasm for the reform era.

Relaxed publishing rules combined with falling circulation led to an increase in the publication of risque magazines. This was followed by debate and protests on the issue of “art versus pornography”, the charging of editors with indecency, and questioning again as to whether the press was too free – but this time for a non-political reason!

There is a draft press law in circulation. It seeks to protect and promote press freedom rather than restrict it. Instead of obligations, the law sets out the rights of the press, including the right to seek and obtain information, to be free of censorship, banning and oppressive regulations. The draft law seeks to establish an independent Press Council, with members selected by media organisations rather than the government. Sanctions are directed at those who interfere with press freedom rather than at journalists and editors. Foreign investment in national press media will be permitted, and the requirement to obtain a press publishing licence will be abolished.

But it seems that until the political situation stabilises, and until there is a press law, a cloud of uncertainty will continue to hover over the press in Indonesia. Yes, at the moment it is free, but there is nothing to guarantee it in the form of legislation – it currently enjoys an existence that is de facto, not de jure.

There is an ironic twist to all the new-found freedom: with the easing of restrictions, some publications found that they had to redefine their identity.

The weekly news magazine D&R is the best case in point: it was one of very few publications that dared to be a frequent critic of Soeharto, always pushing the limits of official tolerance. Now its solo voice is merely part of a chorus. Articles that until recently D&R would have been usually alone in featuring about corruption and the abuse of power are now regular fare in many publications. The challenge for the likes of D&R then is to seek out issues that the establishment doesn’t want investigated, for there is still the lingering feeling that the government has changed but not the regime.

Nonetheless, by the time President Soeharto resigned, the Indonesian press had started to rediscover its freedom and its power to influence change.

President Habibie might want to control the press to serve the interests of the government, but the political and economic environment has changed dramatically - on both fronts the government lost an enormous amount of credibility in the months following President Soeharto’s resignation.

Society’s attitudes have changed and are continuing to do so. When the student reform movement called for Soeharto’s resignation they broke a long-standing taboo which was worth a jail sentence.

At first the press was too timid to report these demands. But the demonstrations and the demands grew to such an extent that they had to be reported, and since then the press has never looked back.

The reform movement broke the mental barrier against the freedom of expression, and with it came freedom of the press.

Some have observed that freedom of expression is one of the most tangible positive changes to have occurred in post-Soeharto Indonesia - And that Pak Yunus is one of the best things to emerge from the Cabinet of President Habibie.

Now there is prominent and blunt reporting on many of the darker aspects of the Soeharto regime, such as the abduction of student activists, murders in Aceh, the shooting of the Trisakti University students, and the wealth and collusion of the Soeharto family and its cronies. Things that would never have been published in the last three decades are all coming out into the open now - and not only in the press but also in books. Today in bookshops you can find works by Pramoedya Ananta Toer - and other previously banned critics - both Indonesian and overseas.

Another development in the lead-up to the Indonesian elections in June 1999 was that politicians seized the opportunity to have their own party newspapers to promote their political agendas. Thus Amien Rais’ National Mandate Party has the tabloid Amanat, and Megawati Sukarnoputri’s husband publishes the Demokrat newspaper for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle.


2. Books

The more liberal attitude towards the press has also manifested itself in the book publishing world, though of course it has been just as exposed to the economic crisis, and in a sense even more so, because of the higher costs associated with books. Production costs rose while peoples’ buying power plummeted.

However, following President Soeharto’s resignation the Attorney General’s Department swiftly revoked its ban on seven book titles which were critical of the former President and his regime. These titles are now readily available in bookshops. Bans continue to be gradually revoked (not unlike the steady release of political prisoners that we have seen in Indonesia since May 1998). In the last 3 years of Soeharto’s rule 21 books were banned.

One interesting trend that emerged in 1998 was the publication of a steady stream of slim monographs, known as “buku cepat” or quick books, most of which were critical of the current or previous regime. Books of this nature and on the topic of reform do sell well - particularly now that they can be sold openly.

There were a few reasons for this trend to slim publications:

1. the high cost of producing more substantial works in difficult economic circumstances - for example, the cost of printing paper rose three fold in 1997-1998, but at least the business of importing this paper is no longer a monopoly.

2. cheaper publications are likely to sell in larger numbers,

3. the initial rush of enthusiasm to publish associated with freedom of expression after three decades of control.

But it is still a challenge for publishers to survive in the tough economic circumstances that beset Indonesia at present. IKAPI, the Indonesian publishers’ association, has 600 members, only 10% of whom are said to be currently producing new books. Approximately 20% of its members have suspended operations, and many others are only reprinting titles that were successful sellers in the past.

I should mention in this regard that the Ford Foundation in Indonesia has been working closely with the publishers’ association in providing financial assistance to book publishers struggling to bring out new titles under the continuing effects of the economic crisis.

Other publishers have responded in different ways. Mizan is a publisher which in the past had mainly concentrated on Islamic publications. It has now broadened its field, and very successfully, into the reform area. It sponsors seminars of this nature, and publishes the papers and proceedings.

Comic books with a political theme have also sold very well – the first being one on Amien Rais.


3. Challenges in Acquisitions in Indonesia

The ramifications of these new era developments have presented new challenges to the National Library of Australia’s Indonesian Acquisitions Program.

1. The impact of the economic crisis on the publishing industry means that it is more difficult to publish books, and those titles that do succeed are appearing in smaller print runs. Consequently, despite greater freedom it has been more of a challenge to acquire Indonesian imprints, both from the government and commercial sectors.

I will digress for a moment to briefly outline the nature of the National Library of Australia’s Indonesian Acquisitions Program which has its office in the Australian Embassy, Jakarta.

Apart from representing the National Library, my principal function is to manage the acquisition of Indonesian publications (books, serials, newspapers, and maps) for the Library, and for five other libraries in Australia and Singapore which participate in our acquisitions program.

There is a staff of three in the Regional Office - myself and two Indonesians - and we acquire in every way we can: from bookshops, publishers, suppliers with market contacts, contacts in Government Departments, travel to the provinces - even street sellers at traffic lights! Unlike Australia, you can’t just sit back and order a book - you have to pursue publications in Indonesia.

We acquire about half of what’s published commercially in Indonesia each year - guided by a profile of what type of material the libraries in our Program are seeking. There are between 4 and 5,000 books published commercially each year in Indonesia. The big challenge is acquiring government, NGO and other non-commercial publications.

Other challenges in acquisitions include:

2. The structure, or rather the lack of structure, of the Indonesian publishing industry. For the National Library to acquire a consistent flow of quality Indonesian publications it needs to have a representative in Indonesia to actively identify, pursue and coordinate their acquisition.

3. The National Bibliography is out of date by the time it appears, so it does not really assist in acquiring publications. Because of small print runs, particularly at the moment, acquiring a title that is more than 6 months old can be very difficult.

4. New publications are erratically announced or advertised, if at all – especially government publications.

5. Newspapers, serials and books published in the provinces are very difficult if not impossible to obtain in Jakarta, thus necessitating travel to acquire regional publications, where a surprising amount is published. Thus, the industry is characterised by small, localised print runs across an expansive archipelago of 6,000 kilometres.

6. Serial titles that come and go - particularly in recent times with the flush of enthusiasm for “reformasi.” Pursuing missing issues of serial titles is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks in Indonesian acquisitions.

7. The importance of contacts when acquiring government publications. The first challenge is to find out what is being published, and then a reliable supplier with initiative is needed.


4. The Web

Indonesia has one of the lowest Internet penetration rates in Asia, with 1.2% of the population having access. Access is mostly gained at work, and it is principally used for email.

But there are numerous web sites and email lists in Indonesia. In 1996, two years after the weekly news magazine Tempo was banned, its now very popular web site was launched. Press freedom activists had found a new outlet through which to channel their views.

More recently, in May last year, university students used email to help organise the mass protests that eventually culminated in President Soeharto’s resignation.

Due to the different socio-economic structure in Malaysia the Internet has even more recently proved to be a powerful tool in shaping public opinion there.

How to control “dissent in cyberspace” is a real challenge to any government that has problems with free speech and the free flow of information.

But at the moment we can say that the press in Indonesia, in its current transition phase, is on a par with Thailand and The Philippines in being amongst the freest in Southeast Asia.

Oliver Mann
National Library of Australia Regional Officer Asia
Jakarta Indonesia
July 1999

omann@indo.net.id

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