Can we ever be mates?
It all started so well.
In 1945 and during the following four-year struggle for independence
against the Dutch, Australians were mainly on the revolutionaries’ side.
That was largely through sympathetic reporting by the small
number of Jakarta-based foreign correspondents. British and Dutch newsmen [it took many years before women got
overseas postings] were regarded with suspicion, but Australians were seen to
be friends.
No longer. What’s
gone wrong? Long before President Joko Widodo stopped taking phone calls from
Prime Minister Tony Abbott and went ahead with the judicial killing of two
Australian drug traffickers, there had been missteps, stumbles and tumbles.
After the fall of first president Soekarno in 1965 it seemed
that relationships between the neighbors would improve. The stridently anti-communist Soeharto took
control, Konfrontasi was cancelled
and fears of a Red Invasion vanished.
But ten years later Indonesian troops killed five Australian
media workers at the East Timor town of Balibo, a story pursued since ‘with
vigorous determination’ though no one has been convicted for what Australians
see as murder.
It’s likely few Indonesians have heard of the event because
books and a feature film have been banned – but the people next door have not
forgotten.
‘For many Australian journalists the deaths of their
colleagues were a rallying point for exposing Australian government complicity
in covering up inconvenient details of the event in order to maintain positive
relations with Indonesia,’ writes Ross
Tapsell in By-Lines, Balibo, Bali Bombings, a history of the way
Australian reporters have covered the Republic.
Don’t be discouraged by the silly alliterative title. The author is an academic at the Australian
National University and has based his research on interviews with those who
were there.
After Balibo the Indonesian government started expelling
foreign journalists. That didn’t stop
reporting or commentary. A 1986 Sydney Morning Herald [SMH] story about
corruption in the President’s family gave heart to Indonesians who hated the
repression and graft of the New Order government, but infuriated an
administration that had long conflated reporting with promotion of national
development. The slogan was ‘free but
responsible’, with the government determining the definition.
Five years later came the Santa Cruz massacre when
Indonesian troops gunned down at least 250 protestors in Dili. The tragedy was widely reported in Australia
where sympathies were with the Timorese who had helped Australian troops in the
war against Japan.
The 1999 Referendum which gave the Timorese their
independence marked another low point, now used as the gauge to measure the
current anguish following Indonesia’s use of the death penalty against drug
traffickers.
Tapsell doesn’t just focus on the difficulties faced by
Australian journalists trying to understand the complexities of Indonesia while
satisfying the simplistic analyses of their bosses; he also recognises the work
of the Indonesian support staff and the problems they faced.
The camera operators, translators, advisors and fixers have
seldom been acknowledged, though Yenny Wahid, daughter of the late President
Gus Dur who worked for the SMH, did
win a Walkley Award. She was nominated
for Australia’s top prize not by her employer but her Australian colleague,
Louise Williams.
The foreign correspondents agree that they would have
struggled without the help of Indonesian staff who were crushed between two
loyalties. Indonesian bureaucrats and
army generals demanded the Indonesians curb their Australian bosses’ interest
in stories that might show the Republic in a bad light.
The answer to the question: ‘Whose side are you on?’ had to
be: ’The Truth’ – but that was of no interest to partisan officials who
believed ‘my country, right or wrong.’
When things went bad the foreigners could jet out of the country; the
locals had to stay put and take the blame.
Strident nationalism isn’t exclusive to Indonesia. Australian correspondents have also faced
hostility from their own nation’s diplomats and leaders who believe reporters
aggravate situations that could be handled better without public scrutiny.
Having media organizations send extra staff to Indonesia to
cover big stories like the Schapelle Corby case can cause friction with
correspondents who live in the country and understand the subtleties.
The megaspectacles [like the recent executions] draw
interest away from other issues and paint everything about this complex country
in black or white.
Several Australian journalists, frustrated by an inability
to get the big story published have written books about their experiences. Though quickly out-of-date because events
move so fast they provide insights into the making of history.
The job can lead to serious damage. The ABC’s Peter Lloyd suffered so much
stress after covering the Bali bombing in 2002 that he turned to drugs. Two
Australian journalists died in the 2007 Garuda crash in Yogyakarta and one
suffered horrific burns and lost both her legs
Cynthia Banham’s extraordinary recovery and return to the
media says much about personal courage and commitment to journalism. It’s curious that her story is not in the
book.
Also absent is any mention of Michael Bachelard who reported
for Fairfax Media till early this year and did far more than just cover Jakarta
politics. His long pieces on life
outside the capital, including West Papua, filled the gaps in Australians’
knowledge of their neighbor.
Tapsell’s book is a reworking of an earlier doctoral thesis,
but it should have been updated.
Apart from these omissions, a few mistakes and occasional
sloppy sub-editing this useful book helps explain why Australians and
Indonesians see the world so differently.
Why bother? The pay is lousy, the work intense and the risks
great. Peter Lloyd said: ‘Ours is the high minded vocational pursuit of truth
and meaning. We’re in it to shine light
where others would prefer it to remain dark… Even the most hard-faced, cynical
old hack secretly believes it to be true.
Otherwise they wouldn’t still be doing the job.’
And if they didn’t democracy would be a hollow concept.
By-lines, Balibo, Bali Bombings
by Ross Tapsell
Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2014
First published in The Jakarta Post 29 June 2015)
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