Page 53 - SCANDAL AND DEMOCRACY

38 Chapter 2

Apart from the specific ideas the columns carried, their essay form, marked by
wandering ruminations and resistance to resolution, posed its own challenge to the
Suharto regime, or at least its authoritarian certainties. More broadly, the columns
began questioning New Order controls on public discourse justified by both integral-
ist rhetoric and the regime’s construction of the nation as inherently unstable.

Interview Talk Shows
A related trend was developing in broadcasting during this period, as commer-
cialized television popularized a diff erent array of news and entertainment genres.
Imported primarily from the West, the programs expanded the range of fare avail-
able to viewers and the boundaries of shared culture. Several also posed potentially
subversive challenges, through both form and content, to the Suharto regime’s inte-
gralist discursive norms and their legitimating logic. Foremost among these was the
political talk show, pioneered on television by Wimar Witoelar’s Perspektif , which, like
Sidelines, attempted to cultivate the critical thought stigmatized under authoritarian-
ism. In the rise of the talk show, we see again the intentional use of a generic form to
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perform political resistance. But we also see a genre taking on a life of its own, as Per-
spektif inspired imitators—shows that risked regime backlash but, bolstered by their
profi tability, continued multiplying long after Perspektif’s cancelation, even, in some
cases, contrary to the pro-regime biases of the broadcasters airing them.
Prior to commercialization, the state-controlled network, Televisi Republik Indo-
nesia (TVRI), had been the sole provider of television fare, functioning primarily, in
the words of Philip Kitley, as a site for manufacturing “consensus and convergence
through corporatist structures and policies.” In its promotional literature, Kitley
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notes, the network emphasized “the spirit of unity” and rejected “sensationalism and
exploitation of violent, destructive or negative incidents.” Consequently, state news
under Suharto, as under many authoritarian regimes, became little more than cover-
age of ribbon-cutting ceremonies marking the inauguration of various development
projects, delivered by anchors sitting woodenly against a monochromatic backdrop.
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More broadly, Kitley explains, news programs became rituals for the promotion of an
idealized order, a veritable “container for human action,” supportive of the regime.
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In the late 1980s, TVRI’s monopoly ended as citizens gained access to foreign
television through cross-border satellite transmissions. The foreign fare, Kitley notes,
troubled Suharto early on for its potential to undermine New Order values. Children’s
animated films were seen to reflect Western values by downplaying the collective,
assigning higher value to “aspects of individualism.” Commercials, designed specifi-
cally to “ differentiate between individuals and groups,” worked against the integralist

imperative to merge all individual identity into a cohesive collective identity. Finally,
increasingly popular Western soap operas were problematic both in form and content.
With their ceaseless churn of conflicts and family infighting, the shows presented
portraits of domestic interaction radically divergent from state-promoted images of
the harmonious family. Their recurrent cliffhangers, holding audiences through com-
mercials and from one episode to the next, deferred the expected narrative closure of
state-sponsored dramas and instead normalized conflict without end.
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Suharto, wary of commercial television from the beginning, banned its entry into
Indonesia for most of his reign. But with parabolic antennas multiplying on roof-
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tops, blocking access to foreign programming proved increasingly difficult, politically
and logistically. The regime first tried, with little success, to counter the influence of