Freedom of speech, social media and multiculturalism

Freedom of speech, social media and multiculturalism Dewi Anggraeni ;  A Journalist and Adjunct Research Associate at the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Melbourne

JAKARTA POST, 22 Oktober 2012

  

A few days ago, a woman fled Singapore after posting some emotion-charged remarks on Facebook to which she received a stream of hostile feedback.  The bone of her contention was what she deemed as noise coming from wedding parties held in public spaces, known in Singapore as “void decks”, under housing blocks.  The noise, she claimed, prevented her from being able to rest. Frustrated, she apparently went straight to her Facebook wall and lashed out. She may have caused less damage had she omitted to name the ethnic group of the people who were the subjects of her anger; interestingly, not her own.  In a multi-racial Singapore, her comments roused considerable ire, not only on the part of the aggrieved people but also reportedly that of no less than the nation state’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who condemned the comments as unacceptable and offensive to that particular race of people. In my early teenage years a hundred years ago — give or take several decades — I lived with my parents and siblings in a Jakartan suburb, next door to a gregarious family, without doubt aficionados of Betawi entertainment culture.  And much to the delight (or horror) of those in the neighborhood, being also very well-off, at least once a month, sometimes more often, this family would throw a party, complete with a live kroncong band and ronggeng (dance performers who woo the audience to join in).  These parties, which ostensibly celebrated some family event or other, would go on from the early afternoon till the small hours of the following morning. In fact, that was how my West Javanese-born mother and I (probably surreptitiously, my brothers as well) became hooked on Betawi tunes like “Kicir-kicir”, “Kroncong Kemayoran” and “Soleram”. We’d move around the house carrying out our respective tasks wriggling, shimmying and singing along, ignoring our bemused father.  I wouldn’t mind betting that karaoke actually germinated in Jakarta. On those occasions, we stopped listening to music on our own radio since our house was drowned in loud, free music.  Years later, bringing up my family in Melbourne, I forced those tunes on my children whenever I had a nostalgic turn, to the extent that they knew when to yell “hey” during my renditions of “Jali-jali” or “Soleram”. I admit that these events did not necessarily affect everyone in the neighborhood back then in the same way, as not everyone was native Jakartan and submerged in Betawi culture.  However, those who preferred to listen to their own music or merely enjoy a little peace and quiet, either complained in private, or resorted to accommodating and accepting to keep the peace in the  neighborhood.  I recall a throw-away line from an obviously exasperated neighbor — in private, of course — “Man, if they ever run out of birthdays, engagements, weddings and deaths, I wonder if they would kill one of their older relatives for an excuse for a party?” Multiculturalism did not start when the media began to use the term in earnest in the 1960s. A multicultural mode of living had begun long before that, each community negotiating its way in a manner suitable and appropriate for itself.  Language is often a cultural marker. In dominantly German-speaking Switzerland, for example, a confederation incorporating French-speaking and Italian-speaking cantons instituted a federal constitution in 1848, naming German, French, Italian and Romansh as the national languages. Despite the wide disparity in the number of speakers of each of those languages (German 64 percent, French 20 percent, Italian 6.5 percent and Romansh 0.5 percent), all four languages are accorded equal importance, used both in business as well as intimate family situations. Most Swiss people speak three languages as well as English.  In officially bilingual Canada, people move from English-speaking to French-speaking regions, and vice-versa, seamlessly as people are fluent in both languages. In Belgium, Flemish, Dutch and French speakers also speak at least one of the other tongues.  There are also de facto markers, such as religion and ethnicity. Each of these countries has its own legal infrastructure that serves to guarantee everybody’s rights. Indonesia has not instituted a specifically multicultural policy and has only one official national language, but in reality people live in pockets of multicultural communities. And every day these people negotiate their way around and across the markers. However, there are two elements that are essential in the continuous negotiations: respect and tolerance, which can be processed into a built-in sense of what remarks are appropriate for public consumption and what are not. Considering the much larger population and wider variety of subcultures, each with its own language and customs, in Indonesia compared to Singapore, dare I say that Indonesia is not doing badly?  Altercations of a similar kind do happen, but are relatively few in number. It would be interesting to observe, however, if increasing access to Facebook and other social media sites will change this situation. Even in countries where social media has been widely used for a decade or so, many users don’t seem to realize that they are posting private thoughts onto a public space. Or they may think they are merely exercising free speech.  Unfortunately, many do that without consciously according the objects of their potentially insulting remarks the same rights to free speech; or they simply appear completely unaware that their comments may offend anyone. Should something like “insult-handling management” be included in the school curriculum? Or is it enough to instill respect and tolerance when bringing up our children? After all, in our increasingly multi-glott and multicultural (albeit unofficial) society, these will become absolutely necessary if we want things to run relatively smoothly. ●