Censorship in Ubud:
Raising the red peril and the ‘Streisand effect’
Julia Suryakusuma ; The author of Julia’s Jihad
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JAKARTA
POST, 04 November 2015
Who doesn’t know
Barbra Streisand, the super talented singer, songwriter, actress, filmmaker
and icon, one of the best-selling artists of all time, known for her songs
like Hello Dolly, Send in the Clowns, The Way We Were and many others.
But did you know she
also gave rise to the term “the Streisand effect”? In 2003 Streisand
attempted to suppress photographs of her residence in Malibu, which
inadvertently drew further public attention to it.
Since then, “the
Streisand effect” refers to the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide
something, remove or censor it, has the unintended effect of publicizing the
phenomenon even more. In these days of the internet, something can easily go
viral within a very short time.
Even before it was
named “the Streisand effect”, the phenomenon often occurred in Indonesia,
especially during the New Order (1966-1998) when the censor-happy government
routinely suppressed information and quashed dissent.
Recently the Streisand
effect reappeared in Bali, at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF),
with the forced cancellation of sessions related to events that occurred in
1965.
Known as the G30S
Movement, it was triggered by the kidnapping of seven Army officers by a unit
of the presidential guard on the night of Sept. 30, 1965, an event that the
military blamed on the now defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).
This incident led to
one of the biggest massacres since the Holocaust, resulting in the deaths of
between 500,000 to 1 million people.
This year marks 50
years since 1965. At the recent Frankfurt Book Fair (FBF) held between Oct.
14-18, where Indonesia was guest of honor, 1965 was a prominent theme.
In some ways, this
year’s 12th UWRF was an echo of the Frankfurt fair. As an act of solidarity
with Indonesia’s theme in Frankfurt, the Ubud organizers adopted the same
“17,000 islands of imagination” theme.
They also featured
sessions on 1965: three panel discussions, a book launch, an art exhibition
and a screening of Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary film The Look of Silence.
As the biggest
literary festival in Southeast Asia, the UWRF had no difficulty bringing in
more than 165 authors, artists and performers from some 30 countries this
year.
Even after the New
Order officially ended in 1998, there are still elements of the power elite
who are unhappy with the way some Indonesians have commemorated the killings
of 50 years ago last October.
A critical flaw of the
Reform Movement in 1998 was that it retained many figures of the New Order,
who are still alive and in power to today. The New Order’s state version of
the events of 1965 provided the rationale for their rule, and was the basis
for their security and law-and-order approach. Obviously a re-examination and
questioning of these events — even today — threaten the status quo and the
still deeply entrenched belief within the general public of the New Order
version of 1965.
If the FBF was out of
reach — and out of the jurisdiction of the Gianyar Police — Ubud, a
well-known center for art and tourism in the regency of Gianyar, was not.
They pressured the
organizing committee to cancel events in the UWRF related to 1965.
There was no letter
issued by the police instructing the festival organizers to cancel these
events, therefore it’s not surprising that the organizers were criticized for
capitulating too quickly.
With the festival just
about to kick off and under the threat of not being given a permit for the
following year’s festival, the organizers took the path of least resistance:
they gave in to police pressure.
Witnessing the police
slowly but surely dismantling the power of the Corruption Eradication
Commission (KPK) in the past few years, what chance does a literary festival
have? Perhaps this was what the Ubud organizers thought, forgetting that they
have access to lawyers who could possibly have sorted things out, as the
police had no legal injunction anyway.
It’s difficult to
judge: it’s simply a moral and political decision that the UWRF organizers
had to make on the spot, as they felt too much was at stake.
Where does the
Streisand effect come in? Not from “bringing in the clowns” (the police), or
“the way we were” (how the remaining New Order people want to be).
I would say there are
two ways the Streisand effect works. One is that by raising the red peril and
the specter of communism, it brings the issue to the fore, exposing it more
to public scrutiny.
But what is even more
important, is the issue of censorship. Besides the sessions on 1965, the
police also demanded that a session protesting land reclamation in Benoa Bay
be cancelled. Clearly, what the authorities really want to do is to suppress
public dissent in general.
After 17 years of the
Reform Era, and a year of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s people politics in
which they have slowly but steadily lost control, the remaining elements of
the New Order as well as the power elite in general, are fighting tooth and
nail to maintain their power and resorting to raising the specter of the red
peril .
Freedom of expression
is one of the bastions of democracy. The increasingly sharpened polarization
between the pro-democracy forces and the anti-democracy forces in Indonesia
today is being played out in many arenas.
The URWF was just one
such arena. It should raise our awareness of the peril of New Order style
censorship and the clamping down of freedom of expression in Indonesia, which
we’ve fought so hard for. ●
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