Page 64 - SCANDAL AND DEMOCRACY

Delegitimating Authoritarianism 49

must obtain a permit for a public gathering, police began raiding seminars, religious
events, lawyer-client conferences, and even a poetry reading. Surveillance cameras
124
and undercover officers kept track of who was attending potentially subversive events.
In one instance, police jailed a pregnant woman simply for speaking up about a police
assault on another woman at an earlier rally. Intelligence officers also arrested a
125
British schoolteacher for attending a discussion on the bans, subjected her to a harsh
three-day interrogation, and eventually deported her. “Although I didn’t utter a word
during the meeting,” she said, “my attendance seemed . . . sufficient evidence that I
was a ‘subversive.’”
126

Challenging “Unity and Stability”
With this heightened repression, anger over the bans faded from public view,
challenging the proposition that history had begun to change. Yet there were several
indications that the new “determination” Mohamad described did not fade but grew
stronger, at least among a subset of journalists. One was ongoing defi ance despite
127
repercussions. The renegade journalists’ association, AJI, continued its activities
even after the government outlawed Independen and sent three members to prison for
involvement in its publication. Among these activities was the unrepentant launch of
Suara Independen , which, like its predecessor, was unlicensed and critical of the govern-
ment. Former Tempo staff also revived an old magazine, D&R ( Detektif & Romantika ),

owned by Tempo ’s parent company, and turned it into a critical political weekly.
Other journalists started producing unlicensed opposition publications on the
internet, while email-based news networks kept activists informed and in contact.
128
Mohamad directed his attention to new projects, including establishing the election
watchdog the Independent Election Monitoring Committee, which arguably posed a
greater threat to Suharto than the suppressed magazine, Tempo . Finally, Tempo itself
stubbornly persevered online through Tempo Interaktif , which was not only more
openly critical of the regime than its print version but also an important information
source for its audience of students and other activists.
Wimar Witoelar exercised similar defiance. With its cancelation, Perspektif was
effectively banned as a television show. But it gained new life elsewhere as outraged
fans convinced Witoelar to take it on the road, hosting live shows in cities across
the archipelago. Witoelar also syndicated a radio talk show, Perspektif Baru , carried
by stations nationwide, and published in more than two dozen regional newspapers.
Producers were pressured to stop broadcasting the new program, demonstrating
Suharto’s continued control.
More significantly, Perspektif ’s influence continued to expand through imitation as
similar talk shows on radio and television survived and new ones were launched, gain-
ing in number and popularity even on stations owned by Suharto’s family. When
129
the regime forced stations to pull interviews or even, as with Perspektif , cancel entire
programs, these decisions simply blocked one broadcast or ended a single show.
130
They could not reduce the appeal of the format or effectively discourage other produc-
ers from launching similar shows. In effect, profit repeatedly trumped fear.
With continued resistance, a new rhetoric of opposition emerged, tying together
a growing activist movement committed to long-term change. The lawsuit itself set in
motion an educational process within the media and among the public by widening
knowledge of the law and its manipulation by Suharto, inspiring discussions of the
bans’ legal basis. For example, the plaintiffs’ charges of arbitrariness called attention