The Indonesian Ambassador, Arizal Effendi, is concerned that the Australian media is threatening Australia-Indonesia relations. He said, “”If the Press, an influential component in public opinion-making continues to engage in mutual incrimination and stereotyped reporting, the inherent complexities in our relations will deepen rather than ameliorate”. He said that Indonesia would resist lecturing and the trend by some nations (like Australia) to use humaitarian considerations as a justification for intervention in other countries.
This approach suffers from several difficulties. First, it assumes that the media in Australia is a single institution with a single voice. In fact, there are numerous media outlets in Australia with many varying voices, some diametrically opposed on many subjects, including Indonesia. Far from there being a sterotypical view, there are many views. Secondly, the approach assumes that the media represents an official Australian view, whether a government view or a synthesis of public opinion. Not so.
If there is anything stereotypical here it is Mr Effendi assuming that the Australia media is like the Indonesian media – controlled. Mr Effendi said that unless the Australian media toned it down, the two nations could live without each other.
That should be put in the context of the recent statement by Indonesian Foreign Minister Shihab last year that Indonesia would strengthen ties with other countries in the region such as China.
In that context Mr Effendi’s statement is another expression of the Asian Way argument. This argument suggests that somehow Asian nations are less concerned about human rights and that the best way to govern is to put collective well-being ahead of individual well-being. Under this view it is unhealthy for independent media organisations to express and report views contrary to the collective government policy. Under this view, people in Asia have no desire for democracy or freedom of the media.
It is a view concocted by authoritarian regimes in Asia to enconse themselves in power. It also has an underlay of racism in that it suggests that the mass of people in Asia are not worthy or mature enough to have democracy because it will cause the economy and even society itself to break down. The Asian-way view of the world is self-contradictory. While those who push the view rile against the “”patronising” western media for attacking Asian regimes over human rights, they are at the same time being patronising to their own people for suggesting that they are not capable of dealing with freedom and democracy.
It is not as if the people of Indonesia has not expressed in the most vehement way their desire for freedom of the media and democracy. Indeed, their expression of those human values – they are are not western values – caused President Suharto to stand down. Events following that looked quite promising until the bloody aftermath of one of the first expressions of democratic will in Indonesia for decades – the independence poll in East Timor.
We can only hope that Mr Effendi’s misapprehension about the role of a free media is not typical of Indonesia’s new semi-democratic government. The new Government and the fledgling democracy it hopes to nuture have enough threats from within – from the Indonesian military – to worry about what the media in another country are doing.