An editor’s farewell to the year of living restlessly Meidyatama Suryodiningrat  ;  Chief editor of The Jakarta Post

JAKARTA POST, 28 Desember 2014

                                                

                                                                                                                       

Four decades ago in the face of the rising leviathan of Soeharto’s New Order regime, a restless young poet asked his generation, “There are the triumphant, there are the humiliated/There are those with guns, there are those with wounds/There are those who sit, there are those who are sat upon/There are those with abundance, those with nothing left [...] And on whose side do you stand?” WS Rendra’s moral judgment has transcended time. In 2014 Indonesians again had to undergo an uncomfortable examination of their conscience to ask on “which side do you stand?” It was a question that split the nation. For some it was a clear choice of black and white. Yet for most, it seemed more oblique. The wilted shades of a tantalizing contingency of history between dawn’s early light and the dusk’s last rays before dark. In the end, malevolence was deflected. Yet naysayers will remind us that the path toward the dark side is often precursed by detours along the way. As journalists, as editors, it was a privilege to be on the frontline of this moral choice. The privilege to stand on ground zero to report and opine brought a burden of responsibility: objectivity and choice clashed between the weight of professional journalistic integrity and personal moral accountability. As a whole journalism arguably failed, or at least did not pass cum laude, in this unique test. A test Indonesian journalism had never really faced since the nation had its first election in 1955 when contestants were not just differentiated by shades, but diametrical contrasts. For many of its admirers, even The Jakarta Post plunged into political submission as it opted to break ranks and openly endorse one candidate over another in its editorial. Perhaps the distinction of objectivity and neutrality was lost on most readers. Be that as it may, the Post chose to be censured yet honest with itself, rather than loved for being editorial hypocrites. It was a distinction that brought some praise and no small amount of condemnation. It was a choice that brought about political reprisals and internal division. Yet it was also a most painful intellectual process needed to allow both the Post and the nation to become more mature. In the same way, we are encouraged not to handicap our children by making their lives easy. Those challenges may come from natural disasters, such as the volcanic eruptions of Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra and Mount Kelud in East Java in the first two months of 2014, which reminded how our blessed soils are spoils of a violent earth. Or the mutation and spread of the Ebola virus, which prompts us to push science further. Then there are the human and technical errors that have claimed hundreds of lives. In a world we thought was shrinking, it remains too large to know the final resting place of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 and the 239 people on board. The negligence that claimed 290 lives in the Korean ferry tragedy of MV Sewol in April is a further warning of how fragile life can be. As painful the turbulence of nature or human negligence may be, the most horrifying aspects of 2014 were the rise of violence and bigotry we perpetuated on each other. In April, 200 women were abducted by militants in Nigeria. Their fate remains unknown. Then in early May, Boko Haram militants in Nigeria killed over 300 people in a night attack in Gamboru Ngala, and a fortnight later a bomb exploded in the town of Jos, killing 118. By the middle of the year, the world began to recognize a series of acronyms that became a scourge to humanity and as terrifying as al-Qaeda. A militant group called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS, now IS) began an offensive in northern Iraq. Its ideology is being fought throughout the world, including Indonesia, and a bane of religious tolerance here. The past election cycle and the weak governance of the past administration were fertile ground for conservatism, intolerance and the vigilantism of “heresy hunters” in this country. We used to brush the rise of intolerance to a question of ignorance. But that is too easy an excuse. The very fact these acts took place is an indication of “ruthless intelligence”. The kind of intelligence that gave rise to fascists. This is the fight that we must take on come the New Year. A fight in which journalism must be at the forefront. The quiet acquiescence so common among Indonesia’s moderate majority must be galvanized to directly oppose those who think themselves pious by calling others deviant and the imposition of any single institution as a sole authority of religious interpretation. Some of us will be singled out as targets, some will become victims. But if there is anything we have learned from 2014 is that a plural community bonds together. Many stood voluntarily in the ranks out of conviction to fight what they believed would be a reprise of political dogmatism. Even more will come to the fore when persecution arises. That spirit will serve all of us well in 2015. The sociopolitical restlessness of 2014 has evolved into action. As those before us have shown, whatever the pains felt this past 12 months, it was all worth it in the end. ●