Liberalism and Cultural Policy in Indonesia

Abstract

The beginning of contemporary cultural policy in the West is tied to the emergence of liberalism and its formulation of the subjects of governance as free individuals. Culture was judged a field where the state could teach its subjects to exercise a ‘responsible and disciplined’ freedom without impinging on that freedom. In colonial contexts, indigenous subjects were judged incapable of exercising freedom responsibly and the state considered them to require a degree of state control thought inappropriate for Western subjects. In this paper, I explore how cultural policy in Indonesia has been influenced by engagement with these two applications of liberalism from the late colonial period until the present, against the background of a changing international climate and political events in Indonesia. I also address the post-Suharto period where, due to the absence of a strong political movement for reform to drive change and the decentralisation of a number of policy areas including culture, a variety of cultural policies reflecting a variety of engagements with these interpretations exist together. I demonstrate that understanding the complexity of the application of liberal methods of governance in a colonial and postcolonial context is central to appreciating the cultural policy of that location.

All translations in this document are by the author.

All translations in this document are by the author.

Notes

All translations in this document are by the author.

1. See, for a feminist perspective, Pateman (1988). Foucault links sexuality to the middle classes (1990). For colonial Indonesia, see Gouda (1995) and Stoler (1996).

2. This is the conventional periodisation employed by most historians (Cribb & Brown, 1995; Ricklefs, 2001), excluding the Japanese Occupation (1942–45) and the Revolutionary Period (1945–49), which I address later in this paragraph.

3. The Japanese occupying administration introduced new cultural institutions and policies, as it also did in other areas under Japanese control, as part of its wartime propaganda. I do not explore Japanese cultural policy here due to the shortness of the occupation (three years) and the ease with which Indonesians moved away from Japanese policies, although it did have an important catalysing effect in its promotion of nationalism and Indonesian themes and artists (Kurasawa, 1987). See Goodman (1991) and Narangoa and Cribb (2003) for accounts of Japanese cultural policy in East and Southeast Asia.

4. Foucault writes about liberal governmentality:

The setting in place of … mechanisms or modes of state intervention whose function is to assure the security of those natural phenomena, economic processes and the intrinsic processes of population: this is what becomes the basic objective of governmental rationality. Hence liberty is registered not only as the right of individuals legitimately to oppose the power, the abuses and usurpations of the sovereign, but also now as an indispensable element of governmental rationality itself’. (Foucault on 5 April 1978, quoted in Gordon, 1991)

5. While there were marked increases in resources committed to these areas, they were still much too small to have anything more than a minor impact on the well-being of indigenous inhabitants (Wertheim & The, 1962).

6. Known as bacaan liar, which literally translates as ‘feral readings’.

7. This was the second of three Cultural Congresses between 1949 and 1954.

8. The Cultural Office (Jawatan Kebudayaan) was renamed the Directorate of Culture (Direktorat Kebudayaan) in 1964.

9. The facts of this event remain unclear to this day.

10. Hindess continues:

They operate, in effect, through national and international aid programs that assist, advise and constrain the conduct of postcolonial states, through international financial institutions and also, of course, through that fundamental liberal instrument of civilisation, the market. (2001, p. 108)

Similarly, H. W. Arndt links the prevailing meaning of development to colonial authority (1981, p. 462).

11. The existence of a form of continuity is also suggested by the emergence of the contemporary meaning of development in 1945 when many colonies became nation-states. Syed Alatas, in his book The Myth of the Lazy Native, provides an interesting and relevant exploration of the historical links between colonial and developmental discourses. He writes regarding the representation of indigenous Southeast Asians:

The image of the indolent, dull, backward and treacherous native has changed into that of a dependent native requiring assistance to climb the ladder of progress. (1977, p. 8)

12. The form of development practiced in Indonesia has been critiqued by economists (such as Amartya Sen, 1999) but also admired before the Asian financial crisis as a remarkable economic achievement with the prospect of strong future growth (Hill, 1996).

13. In 1965 and 1966 between 300,000 and 500,000 communists and people affiliated with communists were killed and as many as 100,000 were imprisoned without trial for the next decade.

14. Moertopo writes that Indonesians suffer from

a relaxed cultural style that has visibly become the main source of various mental barriers that we are experiencing now, even though the current situation asks that the country's society lives with a culture of work, whatsmore a culture of hard work. (1978, p. 42)

15. There was also a proliferation of media as an unprecedented number of newspaper licences were granted and the number of television stations expanded rapidly.

16. Rising ethnic tensions regularly resulting in violent conflict, the most notable being Ambon (van Klinken, 2000) and the ethnic conflict in Kalimantan where indigenous Dayak groups murdered migrant Madurese (van Klinken, 2001).

17. The Indonesian equivalent of a shire.

18. Each region has its own committee and portion of funding.

19. Ketoprak is expensive to produce due to the large scale of its productions (some involving hundreds of people) and its elaborate costumes. The FKKP organised two large ketoprak festivals in 2005, one of which was broadcast on local television, and a popular local radio show.

20. The regent (bupati) is the head of a regency (kabupaten) and holds a position equivalent to a mayor.

21. While it should be noted that Suharto made concessions to Islamic demands, particularly in the 1990s, he generally took a nationalist position and would not tolerate actions by Islamic groups without state approval.

22. The public statement by Aliansi Bhinneka Tunggal Ika incorporates both of these arguments (http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-jakarta/2006-April/0418-sd.html).