Of course Im going to try to save my citizens from execution Inside Story

CORRESPONDENTS

13/07/2015 3:37 am

2426 words

Of course Im going to try to save my

citizens from execution
31 MARCH 2015

In Indonesia, executions are

less about effective policy and
more about feelings of
nationalism and sovereignty,
writes Ross Tapsell in Jakarta
Right:
Does a strong leader stick with a decision even if
it is misguided? Indonesias president Joko Widodo,
known as Jokowi, after his inauguration last
October. ahmad syauki/Flickr

ell your government to stop intervening, a senior executive of one of Indonesias biggest

media companies told me in Jakarta earlier this month. It was the day Australians Myuran
Sukumaran and Andrew Chan were moved from Bali to the Javanese island of Nusakambangan, the
nal destination for prisoners on death row. Governments whose nationals were next in the ring
line had been pleading with Indonesia to stop the executions, and the most vocal of all was
Australias.
The media executives response that these pleas from foreign governments are an unwelcome
intervention in Indonesian affairs matches the line pushed by many Indonesian ofcials and
citizens in recent months. Their sensitivity about national sovereignty originates in the hundreds
of years of colonial rule Indonesia experienced, rst under the Dutch and then briey under the
Japanese, and in memories of the ght for independence against Dutch and British forces after the
second world war. In 1958, as major powers pressured the new country to form cold war
allegiances, the Sydney Morning Heralds James Mossman reported the words of one Indonesian
ofcial: We have suffered too much. All we want is to be left alone, but foreign powers use us as
pawns in their game.

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Since January Ive been spending time in Indonesias main newsrooms as part of a larger research
project, and my visit happened to coincide with another bad moment for AustraliaIndonesia
relations. Indonesias media is largely very free, and since the countrys transition to democracy
began in 1998 journalists have been able to comment on and criticise government policies. Yet
there were very few newsroom staff critical of the Indonesian governments new hardline approach
to executing drug trafckers. There was also only mild interest in uncovering stories of the
individuals due to be executed, including the Indonesian nationals among them. While Australias
media saw the looming deaths as a major news story, Indonesian media organisations have
generally ranked the story well down on their list of priorities, or treated it as a contest between
national sovereignty and the calls for the executions to be abandoned.
The issue certainly gained traction once foreign countries publicly opposed the punishment. But
the big story was the hyper-nationalist posturing on both sides, and especially any incidents that
supported the view that this was yet another AustraliaIndonesia ashpoint. Tony Abbotts
unnecessary and unhelpful reminder of Australian aid during the 2004 tsunami played a key role in
shifting the conversation away from the death penalty and led to a highly defensive response in
Indonesia. His comments were considered emotive and unnecessary a point made to me by
everyone from university professors to ojek (motorcycle taxi) drivers who had never nished high
school.
Further fuelled by the social mediadriven Coins for Australia campaign, Indonesias media
jumped on Abbotts comments. There was even a collection box at the entrance to the press room
in Indonesias parliament. Local media reported that a protest outside the Indonesian consulate in
Sydney had terrorised its occupants, and asked experts whether Indonesians in Australia were
safe. Many Indonesians began dening the campaign against the death penalty as the Australian
position, rather than more accurately attributing it to the United Nations and many other
countries around the world.
While some reports provided information about the individuals on death row, there was little
investigation of the effectiveness of the death penalty. The dubious but much-quoted gure of fty
Indonesian drug-related deaths each day (later reduced to thirty-three) was largely unscrutinised.
When I asked one television reporter why there was not more discussion about the death penalty
policy in the news, she responded, We are just waiting to see whether Jokowi can really commit to
what he said [executing the people on death row]. As Jokowi as president Joko Widodo is
popularly called knows all too well, a leader who changes his mind about a previously declared
policy is considered weak (and it is usually his, highlighting the stereotypically masculine
content of what is considered strong leadership). In the eyes of many, a strong leader follows
through with his decisions even if they are misguided. Should Jokowi halt the executions, much of
the Indonesian media will report: President backs down due to pressure from other countries.
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But not all Indonesian media outlets would take this line. Executives from Indonesias most widely
circulated newspaper, Kompas, have been lobbying the government to hold off on the second round
of executions. Its not related to sovereignty, its about humanity, Kompas chief editor Rikard
Bagun told me. The widely respected writer Goenawan Mohamad told Jokowi during a private
meeting that he is against the death penalty. In 1946, when Goenawan was only six years old, his
father was taken from his home by the Dutch and shot as a suspected member of the guerilla
movement. It leaves a trauma that only those who have had that experience know, says
Goenawan. You are edgy, particularly about guns, blood and violence.
Rikard Bagun and many others have little faith in the Indonesian legal system. If we execute we
cannot correct errors, he says. We are trying to oppose this [the death penalty]. We give a space
for criticism, but we dont want to exploit the victims. Goenawan says it is understandable that
many news organisations dont cover the issue at any great length, and that many Indonesians
dont oppose the death penalty. We see so many deaths in our lives, he says. Disease. Famine.
Natural disasters. Terrorism. Even death by trafc accidents is very common here. Death is nothing
unusual here, nor is violence. When the police shoot a terrorist suspect without a trial there is
usually applauding, even in the media. In contrast, Australia is less exposed to death.
A select few Indonesian scholars, journalists and activists advance other reasons for Indonesia to
rethink the policy of the death penalty. Shouldnt those who have reformed while on death row be
granted clemency? Is there really a drug emergency? Even if there is, does executing mules solve
the problem? All deserve more weight in the mainstream media in Indonesia. But media coverage,
particularly content encouraging interaction via social media, is often based on what will raise
emotions. And national pride is at heart, irrational: as George Bernard Shaw once said, it is
fundamentally a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were
born in it.

n the Australian media, the story largely revolved around the circumstances of Andrew Chan

and Myuran Sukumaran their lives in the prison system, their stories of reform and what they
and their families were going through. Few Australians would have been left unsure about the
transformation these two individuals had undergone. (One documentary was entitled The Painter
and the Pastor.) In Indonesia, meanwhile, Chan and Sukumaran were often described as
kingpins, masterminds and ringleaders.
In the contemporary news media, events are subject to instantaneous, rolling coverage, and
Australians have certainly been avid viewers and readers of the unfolding courtroom dramas of
Schapelle Corby, Michelle Leslie and the Bali Nine. If news is supposed to be the what, why,
where, when and how, the salient feature of the rolling coverage of Chan and Sukumaran has been
the when. When are they on the list for executions? When would they be transferred from Bali?
When would they be given seventy-two hours notice? When are they likely to be shot? Others on
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death row in Indonesia, particularly the African nationals, have not had their story told. Was this
another form of nationalist posturing through the media, with only Australian lives seen to
matter?
In the eyes of many Indonesians, yes. You have your hypocrisy, Goenawan says. When the Bali
bombers were on death row many Australian people wanted them to be executed. But the views of
other non-Australian journalists varied. While many commented that the Australian media was
reporting only on Chan and Sukumaran, they also pointed out that the Australian journalists job is
to report whats valuable to your local audience, and you cant fault them for that. While the
Australian coverage of the death penalty may have assisted in turning the story into a bilateral
relations rift, it also seems to have encouraged more coverage of the issue in the newsrooms of
Indonesia.
While nothing compares precisely to the extremity and nality of state-sanctioned murder,
Australian governments have not been above introducing extreme laws to counter what is
presented in the media or by politicians as extreme problems: terrorism, metadata and bikie
laws, for example, or offshore detention camps. Indonesians are not as hyper-sensitive about drugs
as Australians are about irregular migration, but many support the death penalty, partly because
information about its effectiveness tends to be one-sided. In fact, a fair number of Indonesians see
the death penalty, as punishment and deterrent, as a possible solution to rampant corruption.
Australias stop the boats policy and Indonesias executions are similar because they are
unilateral, tough-yet-effective answers to a problem (asylum seeker deaths at sea, or deaths caused
by drugs), even if they ignore larger, longer-term regional and humanitarian issues and are
criticised by the United Nations and neighbouring countries. In stopping the boats or executing
drug mules, politicians tap into nationalist rhetoric and fears about a loss of sovereignty. The
Australian government made this abundantly clear by naming the policy Operation Sovereign
Borders. Abbotts recent declaration that Australians are sick of being lectured to by the UN
echoed exactly how many Indonesian politicians feel about foreign interventions regarding the
death penalty. It would not have been surprising to hear Indonesian ofcials, adapting former
prime minister John Howards infamous line, declaring, We will decide who is executed in this
country, and the circumstances in which this is done.
That Indonesia has prioritised the execution of foreigners (fourteen among the sixteen prisoners
already executed or due to be executed) while lobbying for its own citizens on death row in other
countries shows just how nationalistic this policy has become. In an interview with Al Jazeera,
Jokowi said he didnt see the two parts of the policy as contradictory: As a head of state, of course
Im going to try to save my citizens from execution. What kind of system have we invented, where
national leaders (not only Indonesia) feel it perfectly natural to execute citizens in their country
while trying to save their own nationals from a similar fate overseas?
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he hardline approach to executions is a victory for nationalist chest-beating over human

compassion. The proposed executions will understandably leave many disappointed with the
Indonesian government, and unlikely to seek out information about the countrys culture and
politics. In Australia in particular, surveys show a poor understanding of Indonesia and its
democracy. Former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was right when he told the Australian
parliament in 2010, There are Australians who still see Indonesia as an authoritarian country or a
military dictatorship or as a hotbed of Islamic extremism, or even as an expansionist power. The
disagreement over the death penalty will reinforce the stereotypes.
Indonesias military-style transfer of Chan and Sukumaran to Nusakambangan made a bad
situation worse. When the Indonesian police chief was revealed to have taken a photo of Chan with
a planeload full of commandos, it didnt take long for racism and bigotry in Australia to spread
online and via social media. In the short term at least, while Australians are unlikely to boycott
cheap holidays to Bali, it will certainly be harder to convince parents in Australia that their
children should learn Indonesian or convince principals that their school should undertake a study
tour of Indonesia. The stereotypes will persist.
Jokowis victory last year was reported by many as a dramatic vanquishing of former general
Prabowo Subianto, who had used his campaign speeches to whip up the crowd with ultranationalist lines such as Indonesia cannot be bought! and Beware all you foreign stooges!
Jokowis campaign was supported by Indonesian human rights activists, idealistic young volunteers
and hip musical groups. In these early days of his presidency, hes already losing supporters
domestically, largely because of his inability to pull the police force into line in its battle with the
anti-corruption commission. In just a few short months, many of the same human rights activists,
musicians and volunteers have jumped ship.
In his political career to date, Jokowi seemed to represent what foreigners who have spent time in
Indonesia recognise as its most endearing traits openness, warmth, humour, humility and
placidity. These traits could have opened a window for outsiders into these aspects of Indonesian
culture and society. But as Jakarta Post editor Endy Bayuni writes:
Gone is the humble, all-ears and soft-spoken Javanese man who captured the imagination
of voters at last years elections. In his place, we have a president who is projecting a tough
and uncompromising image, and one that has little or no compassion so that he readily
signs the death warrants of dozens of people on death row, without looking at their
individual cases.
Should the executions go ahead, the death penalty will create negative headlines about Indonesia,
overshadowing the vibrancy and warmth that the country offers Australians and others around the
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world. Disappointingly, judging by comments reported in the media, many Indonesian government
ofcials seem to prefer insularity. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyonos foreign policy of 1000 friends, 0
enemies seems a distant memory. Once again, it will be left to Indonesias civil society to
represent optimism and change in this magnicent, diverse and resilient archipelago. Otherwise,
Mossmans ofcial will just get his wish, and Indonesia will be increasingly left alone.

ROSS TAPSELL
Ross Tapsell is a Lecturer in Asian Studies at the Australian
National University. He researches the media in Indonesia.

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