Social Identities

Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture

ISSN: 1350-4630 (Print) 1363-0296 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/csid20

Liberalism and Cultural Policy in Indonesia

Dr Tod Jones
To cite this article: Dr Tod Jones (2007) Liberalism and Cultural Policy in Indonesia, Social
Identities, 13:4, 441-458, DOI: 10.1080/13504630701459123
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13504630701459123

Published online: 06 Jul 2007.

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Date: 14 August 2016, At: 23:02

Social Identities
Vol. 13, No. 4, July 2007, pp. 441
458

Liberalism and Cultural Policy in

Indonesia
Tod Jones

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.
Cultural policy analysts have most often located the origins of contemporary
cultural policy in the beginnings of liberal rule when the liberal rationality of
government was translated into policies and programs, informed by the emerging
natural and historical sciences. Tony Bennett, in a study of museums in England,
writes:
In the nineteenth century . . . the most ardent advocates of public museums, free
libraries and the like typically spoke of them in connection with courts, prisons,
poorhouses and, more mundanely, the provision of public sanitation and fresh
water. (1998, p. 109)
All translations in this document are by the author. Correspondence to: Dr Tod Jones, Research Associate,
Curtin Sustainable Tourism Centre, Curtin University of Technology, Bentley, Western Australia. Email:
T.Jones@curtin.edu.au
ISSN 1350-4630 (print)/ISSN 1363-0296 (online) # 2007 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13504630701459123

442 T. Jones

Such a connection links the advent of the contemporary mode of cultural policy with
a prominent concern of liberal political theorists and the political elite of the time:
would their newly-enfranchised fellow citizens exercise a responsible and disciplined
freedom (Dean, 1999, p. 116)? From this perspective, cultural policy can be broadly
said to have its origins in the desire to educate citizens to exercise their freedoms in
ways that contribute to both their improvement and the proper functioning
(according to liberal definitions) of society and the state. While the underlying
conception of improvement has been repeatedly demonstrated to be tied to the
values and norms of white, upper-middle class males,1 a goal of these reformers was
to help their fellow citizens attain a higher level of living and experience and in
doing so ensure future prosperity. However, the desire to uplift fellow citizens in the
imperial centre was articulated very differently in colonial cultural policies and
programs, and also often in the postcolonial cultural policies and programs that
followed independence.
In this paper I investigate how the improving imperative of cultural policy in
Western nations has been articulated in Indonesia by exploring the links between
liberal principles of governance and the history of Indonesian cultural policy in five
periods that cover most of the twentieth century. Although such a broad sweep does
not allow for great detail, two factors favour this general approach.
First, a longer time period allows for contrasts between the colonial and postcolonial periods, where there were very different interpretations of the liberal doctrine
both internationally and inside Indonesia, while still including an overview of the
current features of Indonesian cultural policy. Second, Indonesias twentieth century
history can be divided into seven periods that have quite different interpretations of
liberalism and are widely recognised as distinct in Indonesian historiography: the late
colonial period (1900
42), the Japanese Occupation (1942
45), the revolutionary
period (1945
49), the Constitutional Democracy period (1950
57), the Guided
Democracy period (1957
65), the New Order period (1965
98), and the Reform
period (ongoing since 1998).2 In this paper I consider the periods of Constitutional
Democracy and Guided Democracy together, which I label the Early Independence
period, 1950
65. The period of Japanese occupation is not covered here, although
Japanese cultural policy is considered elsewhere,3 and the revolutionary period is also
excluded due to its short length.
In my conclusions I highlight the cultural policy differences between periods,
rather than the similarities, which are caused by the similarity in governance
techniques of modern states. No matter what the political outlook, the state in
Indonesia was focused on shaping productive subjects and considered culture a
suitable field for this task. What I address in this paper is how liberalism informed
cultural policy across the twentieth century despite major differences in state systems
and ideologies, in the features of the productive Indonesian subject, and in the
methods used to disseminate that subject to the Indonesian populace.

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443

Colonial Cultural Policy in the Netherlands East Indies

The beginnings of museums mentioned by Bennett coincided with the beginning of
what Michel Foucault has called biopower or a political technology that brought
life and its mechanisms into the realm of explicit calculations (1990, p. 143).
Biopower allowed government to be thought of as regulating naturally occurring
processes in society through its measurement of populations (such as births, deaths,
employment, etc.) while adjusting policies to vary these rates to accord with statesanctioned norms. Biopower is indispensable to liberal rationalities of government
as it equipped states to influence the practices and behaviours of citizens while not
infringing their political freedoms.4 While not strictly a form of biopower, culture
was used similarly*as a way of shaping conduct that was appropriate for a
government that was committed to securing the freedom of its subjects from state
control while also guiding them to well-being and prosperity.
While freedom was the legitimate state of European citizens, indigenous colonial
subjects were not thought to be in a fit condition for the rights of citizenship. The
liberal scholar John Stuart Mill wrote in relation to the continuation of slavery that:
This mode of government is as legitimate as any other, if it is the one which in the
existing state of civilisation of the subject people most facilitates their transition to
a higher stage of improvement. (1977, pp. 572
73)

Liberal scholars justified authoritarian rule in the case of the colonised as the most
appropriate method to create the social conditions that would instil the capacity for
autonomous conduct (Hindess, 2001, p. 101).
1900 was the beginning of a new era of colonial policy in the Dutch East Indies,
known by historians as the ethical period, where the Netherlands began to pay
increased attention to the education, health and culture of the Dutch colonies
indigenous inhabitants.5 The Dutch colonisers restyled their role as overseeing the
natural course of development of indigenous Indonesians and were proud of their
methods and approach. Johan Christiaan van Eerde, a Professor in the Colonial
Institute in Amsterdam, wrote in 1914 that Dutch leadership provided the best
guarantees that it will implement the appropriate policies in order to administer
the gradual adjustment process and evolutionary development that indigenous
people must go through in order to achieve a higher level of civilisation. (van
Eerde, 1928, p. 54, cited in Gouda, 1995, p. 39)

In the ethical period, cultural research, previously considered the hobby of

oddballs, was harnessed for colonial governance. Research into adat, the range of
indigenous customary and traditional law, furnished the colonial state with natural
discrete categories and knowledge that it put to use within its administration of the
colony. Historian Frances Gouda writes:

444 T. Jones

Since the late nineteenth century, Dutch colonial governance revealed a remarkable
symmetry between the desire for knowledge and the desire for power. . . . In other
words, adat scholarship in colonial Indonesia, which had become deeply
entrenched by the 1920s, was unequivocally beholden to the logic of colonial
rule. (1995, p. 43)

Adat operated at the level of ethnic categories, providing a scale of populations that
was large enough to meet the requirements of colonial administration and could be
used to oppose the unification of potential opposition under the banners of
nationalism or Islam (Boellstorff, 2002, pp. 26
30).
The colonial state also established cultural institutions for contemporary cultural
forms. In 1920 the Office for Literature established its own publishing house, Balai
Pustaka. Balai Pustaka produced subsidised books with high production values and
used a subsidised distribution network to guarantee circulation. A reason for its
establishment was to alter the behaviours and attributes of the indigenous population
through engagement with literature (Furnivall, 1967, p. 422; Ricklefs, 2001, p. 233).
This goal was conceived due to the existence of cheap Malay-language novels that
were circulating early in the twentieth century.6 These novels were often unashamedly
political, linked directly to nationalist movements and written by active nationalists
(Tickell, 1982, p. 11). Balai Pustaka classed political themes as bad literature, as were
novels that contravened the accepted relationship between indigenous and European
subjects, were anti-Dutch or were thought to condone immoral behaviour. Over the
next twenty years, Balai Pustaka developed a near monopoly over defining what
publications qualified as serious literature. Subjects and attitudes the colonial state
thought immoral, politically subversive, or both were labelled inappropriate for
serious literature. Manuscripts with such characteristics were difficult to publish and
suffered from low circulation. The earlier genre of nationalist novels was effectively
wiped out by the 1920s (Tickell, 1982, pp. 16
17). The tastes of indigenous cultural
subjects, even during this liberal moment in colonial rule, were subject to the heavy
guiding hand of the colonial state.

Early Nationalist Cultural Policy, 1949 65: The Brief Adoption, then Rejection, of
a Western Model
Following Japanese occupation during World War II and the battle with the Dutch for
independence between 1945 and 1949, Indonesians took control of government and
began formulating policies and programs for the new nation, including cultural
policy. The years between 1949 and 1965 incorporate an important change in the style
of governance that had corollaries in cultural policy. When the Dutch acknowledged
Indonesian independence the administration was left in the hands of a group of men
who had received a Western education, often to university level, who had
administrative skills and placed a premium on organisation and policy development
(Feith, 1962, p. 24). These leaders followed a model of administration that borrowed
much from liberal orthodoxies of government, such as separation of powers in the

Social Identities

445

constitution and attention to the parliamentary rules of debate. A second style of

governance, which became dominant after 1957 and was marked by President
Sukarnos ascent to national leadership, was characterised by traditional or
charismatic authority, and placed a premium on creating and maintaining unity
behind political mobilisation (Feith, 1962, p. 25). The second group of leaders were
highly critical of their Western-educated counterparts, who they criticised for
adopting Western liberal models that they labelled unsuited to the Indonesian
national character and conditions. Between 1957 and 1965, the word liberal itself
became an insult that was used to denigrate political opponents. Against this
backdrop, cultural workers were engaged in debating and exploring the notion of
national culture in public forums and their works; an exploration that became
increasingly perilous as the period drew closer to its conclusion.
While there was a series of meetings about cultural policy that preceded and
followed the establishment of the Indonesian republic, two meetings in 1950 and
1951 best embody the priorities of these years and informed Indonesian cultural
policys initial direction. The Cultural Conference in August 1950 was organised to
discuss the Cultural Accord that Indonesia had signed with the Dutch in order to end
hostilities. The Accord listed specific measures that both parties had to undertake in
the others territory, guaranteed the free movement of people and materials related to
culture and the arts and safeguarded the Dutch cultural presence in Indonesia. At the
end of the conference, participants overwhelmingly rejected the Accord as limiting
the freedom of Indonesia to engage with other cultures. Following the struggle for
independence, freedom was proclaimed as an essential condition for the creation of
serious art. The Cultural Congress in 19517 focused on developing an infrastructure
for the arts and culture and included a broad ranging discussion of the cultural
policies of other nations and suggestions for national cultural institutions.
Early cultural policy, implemented by the Cultural Office8 of the Department of
Education and Culture, sought to facilitate cultural groups and created a national
cultural body, the Indonesian Cultural Institute, which included representatives from
a number of independent cultural groups. The Cultural Office also took control of
Dutch cultural institutions, such as the national museum, and began to apply new
principles of interpretation whereby museums, instead of representing Indonesians
place in the evolutionary hierarchy (a few steps behind Europeans), displayed objects
as examples of the culture of a civilised and unified people. Thus the early years of
independence embodied a liberal approach that was more respectful of the rights and
capacities of individuals, where Indonesians were addressed and represented as
citizens who were the equal of other nations and whose autonomy to undertake
different cultural practices was protected by the state. The focus at the national level
until 1957 was on the creation of a new national culture through the idea of synthesis
rather than a focus on the ethnic cultures within Indonesia. This focus reflects the
popular enthusiasm for the new nation in the early years of the republic following
success against the Dutch.

446 T. Jones

By 1957, after sustained economic downturn and bickering between political

parties, there was a strong sentiment in Indonesia that the system of constitutional
democracy that had been operating since 1950 was failing the country. Sukarno and
his supporters (including, briefly, the army) were critical of the Western-educated
leadership and made use of political events to place Sukarno at the countrys helm.
Sukarno claimed to be following an indigenous model of governance, although
commentators argue that the use of indigenous labels was more to do with
maintaining control in an increasingly unstable political environment than the
development of a genuinely alternative political system (Legge, 1972, pp. 352
354).
Sukarnos slogans, in particular the notion of national identity and the pursuit of a
socialist society, became central to cultural policy.
The state increasingly attempted to direct cultural activities and assumed a
leadership position where it could inform the public in general and cultural
organisations in particular about preferred cultural activities and goals. For instance,
the Cultural Office issued a directive asserting that crazy-looking Western dances like
rock n roll, cha-cha, samba and the like are not acceptable (Departemen Pendidikan
Pengadjaran dan Kebudajaan, 1960) and instead promoted Indonesian alternatives
(Sedyawati, 1987, p. 248). In a speech to artists and writers in 1963, the Minister for
Education, Training and Culture, Prijono, told his audience to practice realism in
their works as that style was more easily understood by the three groups the
government was trying to mobilise*the working class, farmers and soldiers
(Prijono, 1963). Another change in this period that began in 1957 was that ethnic
cultures were included in cultural policy, but only within the framework of the
nation. Prijonos formulation was that there was a single national culture in essence
(isi) and that this could take different shapes (bentuk) (1960). While cultural policy
during this period was didactic, its goals and methods cannot be described as liberal
and the state justified its increasing level of intervention through the never-ending
pursuit of a socialist society, which had parallels with the colonial states goal of a
responsible indigenous Indonesian subject. Both goals justified state control and
their attainment was constantly deferred.
Non-government cultural organisations were very active across this time period,
although it is important to recognise how political events and cultural policy changed
their goals and practices. Cultural debates across the period were about the
characteristics and dynamics of national culture. While under the influence of a
Western-educated leadership, the state initially attempted to facilitate cultural
organisations and activities following a broadly liberal model of regulating preferred
cultural practices within Indonesian society. After 1957, the state became a
battleground for cultural groups aligned with different political parties that were
engaged in an intensifying competition for political power. Political leaders
increasingly supported affiliated cultural groups positions in cultural debates. The
most heated and significant disagreement was over the Cultural Manifesto, a
document broadly liberal in approach that defended the idea of art for arts sake
as opposed to the slogan of LEKRA, the Indonesia Communist Party (PKI) affiliated

Social Identities

447

cultural organisation, politics is the commander. LEKRA, the PKI, Sukarno and
other affiliated groups attacked the signatories to the Cultural Manifesto who were
vilified and marginalised. This was a symptom of the growing political tension that
boiled over in 1965 in an as yet unclear event where six senior Generals were killed.9
The resulting backlash against the Indonesian Communist Party and its affiliates
shaped politics, policy and public culture, including cultural policy and the arts, in
the following periods.
Development and the Suharto Regime
Suharto took power through a series of moves that marginalised Sukarno and the
political parties, resulting in a resounding victory by the Suharto-affiliated political
party GOLKAR in tightly orchestrated elections in 1971. Suharto and his allies began
searching for a doctrine that would justify their continued rule and they found it in
the panacea of economic development. Following the decolonisation movement after
World War II, economic development was prescribed by international institutions
and political theorists as the road to prosperity and democracy for developing nations
(Williams, 1983, p. 103). Since 1945, numerous development programs have been
implemented in postcolonial countries, often using aid money from Western states,
with the goal of improving the practices and welfare of postcolonial subjects. Barry
Hindess (2001, p. 108) connects this improving function to the features of liberal
colonial administration. Much like the colonial subject, the subject of development
requires capacity building in order to achieve the goal of autonomous action. He
writes:
The aims of the [liberal] project have barely changed, but the end of empire has
transformed the conditions in which it can be pursued . . .the liberal project is now
pursued by significant minorities in non-Western states, many of whom have
adopted some version of the earlier liberal view of the people among whom they
live, and also, more remotely, by western states themselves working through a
different range of indirect means. (2001, p. 108)10

While the central thrust of Hindess argument about the continuities of imperial rule
and development is accepted here,11 I would be more cautious about characterising
development as a liberal project given its varying forms in different nation-states,
many of which were decidedly non-liberal and loudly rejected liberalism. Instead,
development itself can be understood as a form of biopower exercised over and
within non-Western nations in a range of programs including population control,
family size, child rearing and education (DuBois, 1991). Developments importance
in Indonesia is perhaps best demonstrated by the national legislatures decision in
1983 to grant President Suharto the title Father of Development. The Suharto regime
(1965
98), known in Indonesia as the New Order regime, adopted development as
its goal and slogan (Heryanto, 1988).12

448 T. Jones

Before turning to the effects of the development leitmotif on cultural policy, I first
review the context of cultural policy and in particular the effects of repressive
measures on cultural practices. The New Order era began with a slaughter of the
left.13 LEKRA was very active before 1965 in both indigenous community and
contemporary arts. The anti-communist sweep caught up even those artists with
loose affiliations, eliminating the left-wing of the national arts community and
causing a cessation of performances of a number of indigenous art forms previously
affiliated to LEKRA. When these art forms returned in the early 1970s, it was with
military or government protection and limitations on their themes and topics. The
arts and the media throughout the New Order were discouraged (through bans,
prison sentences and the memory of the 1965
66 bloodshed) from discussing certain
topics within the scope of the acronym SARA*suku, agama, ras, antar golongan
(ethnicity, religion, race, class relations). The state and army emphasised national
unity and a conservative nationalism.
The formidable New Order strategist and architect of the New Order regimes early
political, economic and social policies, Ali Moertopo, acknowledged the importance
of cultural change to the New Order regime. In his book Cultural Strategies,
Moertopo expressed his vision for an Indonesian culture that would support the
growth of human capacity and national strength. His aim was to bring Indonesians to
the level of humanity required by the international and domestic climate (1978, pp.
44
45). Like colonial administrators, Moertopo believed Indonesians were backward
and unable to respond to the demands of the times.14 He viewed the primary role of
culture as supporting development in two ways: encouraging Indonesians to expand
their capacity for economic production through adapting to modern technologies;
and protecting society against the negative effects of development (pembangunan).
Cultural policy mirrored these two prerogatives from the mid-1970s. In a sentiment
repeated often in reports written within the Directorate of Culture, the states largest
national cultural institution, Director-General of Culture, Haryati Soebadio wrote in
the 1985 UNESCO publication Cultural Policy in Indonesia:
On one hand, development needs a culturally congruent environment to be
successful, while on the other, it also tends to bring negative side-effects in its wake,
which may only be solved through cultural measures. (1985, p. 12)

Development themes were incorporated into artistic works and efforts were made
to develop indigenous art forms in particular through a narrow framework defined
by the aesthetics of cultural bureaucrats which were often inappropriate for these
forms (Acciaioli, 1985; Yampolsky, 1995).
The Post-Suharto Period: Cultural Policy, Decentralisation, Political Islam and
Authoritarian Legacies
On 21 May 1998, in the midst of a worsening monetary crisis, growing
demonstrations and following a week of rioting and looting in major cities, President

Social Identities

449

Suharto resigned. Following Suhartos resignation, a series of rapid changes redefined

politics in Indonesia. Suhartos successor and protege, Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie,
embarked on a series of policy changes to demonstrate his reformist credentials
before the 1999 election, and to address some of the demands of the many critics.
However, these reforms have been criticised by many observers as broad statements of
principle lacking in substance (Fealy, 2001; Lindsey, 2000). A reform that was not so
much granted as taken then ratified was greater freedom of expression in the press
and cultural practices. The press no longer conformed to the SARA framework and in
urban locations cultural workers stopped seeking permits to perform.15 Simultaneously, ethnic and religious tensions increased in a number of locations around
Indonesia16 and claims for indigenous groups to be granted special privileges over
migrants from other parts of Indonesia became a feature of politics (Aspinall & Fealy,
2003). These tensions are related to the most important pieces of legislation of this
period to date: political and financial decentralisation.
Decentralisation, initiated by the Habibie government and enacted by subsequent
governments, became the centrepiece for a raft of reforms approved and sponsored by
the IMF and the World Bank. Those international institutions, following a neo-liberal
critique of centralised government, held to the precept that decentralisation would
stimulate both the economy and democracy (Schulte Nordholt, 2003, p. 563).
However, in the absence of strong political groups with the will to drive forward a
democratic agenda, the political-business groupings of the Suharto era survived and
even benefited from the reform process in fiscal governance (Robison & Hadiz, 2004).
Regional elites that previously operated within the constraints of Suhartos centralised
cronyism have strengthened their positions through decentralisation and indeed have
greater autonomy (Hadiz, 2003). Henk Schulte Nordholte argues that an effect of the
weakened central state and decentralisation is an increasing mobilisation of ethnic
identity by members of regional aristocracies as part of the competition for
constituencies and the increased pool of resources available at the regional level
(2003, pp. 576
580).
The growth of ethnic identity politics produced a series of large conferences on
local ethnic cultures, often sponsored by local government and international
organisations. These conferences often drew attention to the central states neglect
of an indigenous ethnic culture and are often linked to conservative political
positions that marginalise migrants, both from political and cultural resources (Jones,
2006, pp. 254
255). For instance, Ajip Rosidis opening address at the International
Conference of Sundanese Culture (Konferensi Internasional Budaya Sunda* KIBS) in
Bandung, West Java from 22 to 25 August 2001, stressed the absence of national
government concern for Sundanese culture, a need for government action to address
Sundanese cultural decline due to encroachment from consumer culture and the
cultures of migrants to the region, and the importance of international linkages for
both the recognition of, and research into, Sundanese culture (Rosidi, 2001).
Sundanese are the largest ethnic group in West Java and are indigenous to the region.

450 T. Jones

KIBSs primary sponsor was the Toyota Foundation, followed by the West Java
Provincial Government.
In an environment where national and local agendas compete, where claims are
made in the name of traditional and modern authority, and where there is popular
sentiment for reform but no political movement to drive change, competing
understandings of the liberal subject are present in policy. Since competing agendas
are driving change and greater power has been given to local government, a range
forces are driving cultural policy in a multitude of directions. The resulting cultural
policies reflect at times a respect for free Indonesian subjects and at times a
continued desire to guide and control undeveloped subjects. Cultural policy was one
of the areas decentralised to the regency level.17 At the national level, the cultural
portfolio was divorced from education, where it had been located since its inception,
and joined with the tourism portfolio, reflecting a desire for culture to contribute
more to Indonesias economic growth. The portfolio change was contested both
within the Directorate of Culture and by many cultural observers and academics, who
considered the restructure to stunt cultural growth (NAR, 2003). The culmination
of criticisms of the restructure was the Fifth Cultural Congress held at Padang
Panjang in West Sumatra in October 2003. Ex-Director General Edi Sedyawati was
particularly vocal:
I see those two departments [Education and Culture] together in a single domain
of activities, educating and providing culture. Educating at its base provides
culture, while providing culture is a process of education. There is the connection.
(EH, 2003)

The recommendation for an autonomous Department of Culture was one of the

formal recommendations of the conference (MAM, 2003).
While concerns over the change in national policy dominated the attention of
bureaucrats at the national level, changes were taking place at the lower levels of
government. In West Java, the strategic planning process for 2001 to 2005 continued
to reflect the development approach of the New Order period. West Java regional
culture was defined as the basic capital and the dominant factor in supporting the
success of national development, and therefore in need of close supervision (Dinas
Kebudayaan dan Pariwisata, 2001b, p. 222). However, another planning document,
put together by the United States-educated Head of the West Java Culture and
Tourism Office, advocated the implementation of good governance through a
strategy of customer service couched in terms that reflected a neo-liberal policy
approach that privileges individualism over other concerns (Dinas Kebudayaan dan
Pariwisata, 2001a). An event in West Java that incorporated a variety of (at times
contradictory) approaches was the stakeholder policy-planning process held in
November 2001. While being critical of cultural policy for focusing too much on state
institutions and not enough on public participation, the final report also drew from
New Order era policy discourses (Aritonang et al., 2001). Journalist Abdullah
Mustappa (2001) observed that not many of the suggestions were new and some

Social Identities

451

differed little from present practice. However, the access granted to a broad group of
stakeholders and a broad set of cultural practitioners from across West Java
constitutes a substantial change from the nationally-centralised process of cultural
policy making that prevailed during the New Order era.
Decentralisation brought positive changes to some regions. In the Bantul regency
in the Special Region of Yogyakarta, a group of performers and admirers of the
indigenous popular theatre genre ketoprak established the Bantul Ketoprak Communication Forum (Forum Komunikasi Ketoprak Bantul *FKKB). The FKKB has
drawn its membership from each of the regions within the regency and established a
broad base of public support. Based on the breadth of its membership, it successfully
lobbied the government for public funding to subsidise performances18 and regularly
reports how it uses those funds to the local legislature.19 The relationship between the
FKKB and the Regency reflects a liberal approach to cultural governance where a
group of active cultural workers can lobby for public funding for mutually agreeable
goals and then report outcomes to an elected assembly. This arrangement should be
contrasted with the New Order era where the vast majority of state-funded cultural
activities were implemented by state institutions. In decentralised Indonesia, funding
for cultural policy is, however, reliant on the attitude of the regent.20 FKKB was
fortunate in that the Regent of Bantul was supportive of local culture but members
were concerned about future funding should the regent step down. In other regencies
where Islamic political parties were in the majority, such as Depok and Indramayu,
cultural policy funding had been stopped altogether (Interview, Bantul, 5 January
2006). Conservative Islamic politicians do not view culture as an appropriate
medium for learning the lessons of citizenship, instead preferring Islamic education.
While there are increased opportunities to make claims for resources based on
cultural rights, competition for funding is fierce and many cultural workers I spoke to
reported reductions in public monies for cultural activities.
The final influence on cultural policy discussed here relates to the growing debates
over public morality, largely been driven by Islamic groups. As the Reform period has
progressed, dissatisfaction with the established parties has increased support for
Islamic political parties, who have been particularly vocal regarding a perceived
national decline in morality as state control has relaxed, and has emboldened Islamic
social groups, who have regularly intervened in the activities of other Indonesians,
often with violence, when they perceive that there has been an affront to Islamic
teachings.21 Two events of national importance illustrate the current influence of
public morality debates on cultural practices and its potential to influence cultural
policy.
While concern over the interventions of Islamic groups, like the Islamic Defenders
Front (Front Pembela Islam* FPI) and Laskar Jihad, has an influence on cultural
activities at the local level across Indonesia, the impact of these groups is most clearly
demonstrated through the response to an artwork at the inaugural CP Biennale in
April 2005. Pinkswing Park by Agus Suwage and Davy Linggar, displayed at the Bank
Mandiri Museum, was forced to close following public statements and an attack by

452 T. Jones

FPI members. Pinkswing Park depicted multiple depictions of model Isabel Yahya and
soap opera star Anjasmara naked amongst trees with white dots providing cover to
protect the sensibilities of modest viewers. Following the actions of FPI and the
reaction of public figures in the media, CP Biennales curator, Jim Supangkat, closed
the Biennale permanently (Dirgantoro, 2006).
The second example is anti-pornography legislation that has been before
parliament since 2002. Originally a bill to address the distributors of pornography
and the media, in 2005 the bill was expanded to include porno-action (porno-aksi),
which referred to pornographic or erotic dress or behaviour in public. Under the
draft bill as it stood in late 2005 and early 2006, public kissing, erotic dancing, and
displaying a sensual part of the body were banned. There were exceptions for
(indigenous) cultural performances, sports and arts activities, but these were
restricted to sports buildings and arts spaces, which required government permits.
Early in 2006 there were large protests across Indonesia and debates raged in the
media and parliament over the draft bill. While supporters focused on supposed
moral decline and the welfare of children, opponents of the bill focused on its effects
on women (who were held to be responsible for violence against women due to their
clothing) and its effects on culture.
The cultural arguments against the bill took two forms. First, the draft bill imposed
Saudi (or Wahabi) culture on Indonesians.22 Second, the bill ignored Indonesias
multiculturalism by attempting to homogenise local cultures. This argument was
made by both politically liberal groups (generally in major cities) and by conservative
cultural organisations around Indonesia. In Bali, a number of Defenders of
Tradition (Penjaga Budaya) were appointed to prevent any outsiders interfering
with local ceremonies. The most telling and effective move against the bill was by the
provinces of Nusa Tenggara Timur, Bali and North Sulawesi (Fahmi, 2006), indicating
that the draft bill was unlikely to pass through the Peoples Regional Representative
Council (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah), the regional body at the national level.
Despite the support of Golkar, the largest party in the legislature, the draft bill was
reported as being revised twice in 2006 with the controversial clauses weakened both
times (HAM, 2006), although not sufficiently to address the concerns of critics
(Patung, 2007).
The previous discussion indicates that the centralism of the New Order period in
cultural policy no longer exists. While the decentralisation of governance is not in
itself a hindrance to innovative and inclusive policy, particularly given the features of
New Order centralism, the cultural policies that have emerged do not all have such
features. A way of understanding the current set of influences on cultural policies is to
examine the competing ways that culture is being used (or rejected) as a tool of
governance. Four different understandings of cultural policy are emerging. First,
arguments by certain Islamic groups for a strict control over morality threaten to
cause a closer regulation of cultural activities, and a related rejection of the
importance of culture as a mechanism for altering the conduct of Indonesians. The
preference amongst those Islamic groups is for religious activities and teaching rather

Social Identities

453

than cultural activities. Second, liberal understandings of the role of culture continue
to be evident in cultural policies (for both indigenous and contemporary culture)
that utilise culture for progressive social change and in the arguments for the creation
of a tolerant multiculturalism and cultural activities. In this approach, the states role
is to facilitate and protect contemporary and indigenous cultural practices that
contribute to a tolerant and creative multicultural society.
Third, conservative indigenous elements are making use of local ethnic sentiment
for either their own political goals and/or to strengthen a conservative version of local
indigenous culture. A conservative interpretation of indigenous culture also argues
for state protection of multiculturalism, in order to protect particular indigenous
practices linked to a local ethnic constituency. Four, New Order cultural policy
discourses are still evident, particularly in the cultural bureaucracy and elements of
the cultural establishment prominent during the New Order era. Cultural policy
continues to be justified as a tool of economic development and as a way to offset the
effects of development. Reform era cultural policy thus holds within it earlier versions
of liberal cultural policy and a rejection of the liberal use of cultural policy as a tool to
improve a populace.
Conclusion
The experiences of Indonesia across the twentieth century until the present highlight
that the global effects of liberal governmentalities are far from uniform and do not
always equate to increasing the liberty of subjects or guaranteeing personal freedoms.
Through twentieth century colonial policy and within the development imperative
of the New Order period, Indonesian cultural subjects were not taught how to
exercise freedom responsibly but were expected to be compliant to authoritarian
administrations. These conditions were not contraventions but effects of liberal
thought. The years of Constitutional Democracy between 1950 and 1957 most closely
followed a liberal cultural policy model, where freedom was widely considered an
essential condition of artistic production, and the state attempted to facilitate nongovernment cultural organisations. During the Guided Democracy period, the state
under Sukarnos leadership rejected the liberal orientation of Constitutional
Democracy, instead articulating its preferred features for Indonesian national culture
and attempting to co-opt non-government cultural organisations to implement its
vision. A movement towards greater state control was evident during this period.
Viewing Indonesian cultural policy through the lens of liberalism offers a means of
understanding its continuities with and differences to Western cultural policies and
the changes within Indonesian cultural policy between different political periods. The
underlying similarity is that culture has been used as means of shaping productive
subjects. However, the states desired characteristics of productive subjects has
changed within Indonesia due to shifts in international orthodoxies and internal
political events, leading to wide variations in cultural policy methods and goals.
Postcolonial governments inherited cultural policies that were based on a set of

454 T. Jones

assumptions that although liberal in origin were not democratic. While colonial
cultural policy was critiqued by many postcolonial governments that developed
alternatives, it was still the basis on which postcolonial cultural policy was built. It
also provided a model for authoritarian cultural policy that was supported by
international discourses about development.
The contemporary moment in Indonesian cultural policy is indicative of the
political situation after the fall of Suharto where a number of competing agendas and
approaches are evident in policies. Different elements of cultural policy reflect both
the desire for control that has its origins in colonial cultural policy and was dominant
during the New Order era, and also the desire to facilitate capable subjects that was
present in the constitutional democracy period and has been present amongst critical
groups of artists in Indonesia across its history. It is perhaps fitting to end with a
comparison between the two democratic periods in Indonesias history: the
Constitutional Democracy and the Reform eras. In contrast to the 1950s focus on
creating a new national culture and artistic freedom, cultural policy in the Reform era
is caught between the nation and the acknowledgment of cultural rights, including
implicitly the legitimacy of cultural difference, with some groups rejecting the use of
culture as a tool of governance altogether. Space has opened up in cultural policy
where tradition and locality can now contest nation and modernity, from
conservative and/or progressive positions. However cultural policy outcomes at the
local level vary and protection of cultural diversity is far from enshrined; what the
state has enshrined is a diversity of cultural policy.
Notes
[1]
[2]

[3]

[4]

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

Social Identities

455

governmental rationality itself . (Foucault on 5 April 1978, quoted in Gordon,

1991)
[5]

[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]

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).
Known as bacaan liar, which literally translates as feral readings.
This was the second of three Cultural Congresses between 1949 and 1954.
The Cultural Office (Jawatan Kebudayaan ) was renamed the Directorate of Culture
(Direktorat Kebudayaan ) in 1964.
The facts of this event remain unclear to this day.
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)

[11]

Similarly, H. W. Arndt links the prevailing meaning of development to colonial authority

(1981, p. 462).
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]

[13]

[14]

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).
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.
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 countrys society lives with a culture of work, whatsmore a culture of hard
work. (1978, p. 42)

[15]
[16]

[17]
[18]

There was also a proliferation of media as an unprecedented number of newspaper licences

were granted and the number of television stations expanded rapidly.
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).
The Indonesian equivalent of a shire.
Each region has its own committee and portion of funding.

456 T. Jones

[19]

[20]
[21]

[22]

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

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