Blogging and the Political Authority: Case of Nila Tanzil and Tengku Adnan

On January 25th to 30th 2007, a freelance journalist, Nila Tanzil along with her reporting team from SCTV (Surya Citra Televisi, an Indonesian TV station) was called to represent Indonesian’s 17-member of media delegations. These media delegations were invited by the Malaysian Tourism Board to cover Visit Malaysia Year, specifically during Floral Fest. They were asked on a reporting mission, and it turned out that the task wasn’t as glittery as the tourism board’s commercials; something came up with the MTB’s bureaucracy, and the team couldn’t get their job done.

Feeling disappointed, Miss Nila Tanzil wrote about it on her blog (nilatanzil.blogspot.com). Maybe due to her own ‘blog-ism’ naivety, she didn’t see it as something that could be perceived as a political judgment or if it would’ve had further implications in the future. She was, afterall, writing a blog like the rest of us.
Then, at 7th March 2007, the Malaysians’ minister of tourism, Tengku Adnan was reported to have said:

Bloggers are liars. They use all sort of ways to cheat others. From what I know, out of 10,000 unemployed bloggers, 8,000 are women.

Bloggers like to spread rumours, they don’t like national unity. Today our country has achievements because we are tolerant and compromising. Otherwise we will have civil war. Malays will kill Chinese, Chinese will kill Malays, Indians will kill everybody else.

Source: Sin Chew, a Chinese language newspaper and translated by Jeremiah Foo.

He asked people not to believe bloggers and gamble away Malaysia’s future because 50 years of their Independence takes a lot to achieve it. According to other media, similar statements also made by Zainuddin Maidin, Malaysia’s information minister. Soon after, he was critized by the Malaysian bloggers for his remarks. Then he made another claim, apologizing by correcting his statements:

I didn’t mean all women. I was referring to Indon journalists.

Quoted from The Star and broadcasted by Malaysiakini TV [Watch footage].

Oh right, why didn’t he just say so? He wasn’t intentionally offending the Malaysians, he was just offending the Indonesians! Happy ending.

Nila Tanzil, one the other hand wasn’t so much living a happy ending fairytale, she was suspended from her contract with SCTV; in addition, not all Indonesians internet active users are fully informed about this case, so they haven’t been given the chance to state opinions. Neither the government nor the conventional media seemed eager to put this matter on to surface; maybe fearing that the issue will be confused as political agenda and ruin bilateral deals Indonesia and Malaysia has made especially concerning tourism and information departments.

The blogosphere and the all-seeing world

The term ‘web log‘ itself first introduced on year 1997 by Jorn Barger. Then on early 1999, Peter Merholz announced that he was going to pronounce web blogs as ‘wee-blog’, which was shortened to ‘blog’. Finally, at August 1999, Pyra released Blogger which becomes the most popular web based blogging tool to date, and popularizes blogging with mainstream internet users. According to David Siffry’s Technorati, a blog-tracking device, there has been 70 million weblogs published worldwide and around 120.000 new blogs launched each day. Amongst the total number of blogs worldwide, there are around 30.000 Indonesian-owned blogs due to May 2007, as predicted by Budi Putra, a local journalist and writer specified on internet lifestyle.

Although the numbers are quite stunning, Indonesians are still fresh newcomers in the technology. Of course, there are several aspects to theorize being ‘fresh newcomers’: social, technical, commercial, educational, and so forth. In this case, we’re going to focus on its social aspects and how our social eyes perceive the blogging technology. We are newcomers as we are not yet accustomed to its social consequences.

The local netizens’ necessity to be personalised and individualised over the internet is much stronger than its knowledge on the possibility of creating communal and social impacts. In terms of professionality, Friendster -yes, Friendster- has experience in firing its employee, Joyce Park, for revealing confidential information. The Delta Airlines fired its flight attendant,Ellen Simonetti, for displaying sexy pictures wearing Delta Airline’s uniforms. Those people have learned their lessons few years back.

Presently in Indonesia, SCTV may have dispatched Nila Tanzil for the same reason, eventhough like in most cases, there were no clear-cut policies or regulations given by the company. Hence, we have to rely on our own social discipline.

The emerging nationalism
If being an Indonesian is what this is all about, that means we are going to elaborate on nationalism. Eventhough we cannot roughly proclaim Miss Nila Tanzil as a political critical citizen just because she complained something at work, but one thing for sure, she faced her own nationalism at question; her name is mentioned in blogs or other media, and for each time it did, people remarked her as an Indonesian to state her citizenship. How does that build her confidence as a part of our citizen, particularly in facing the international world - the global internet environment?

There’s a great chance that it’s because we’re not used to it. We are now forgetting how to actually be an Indonesian and saying it like it is: “We, Indonesians, are offended by your remarks.”. No one has made the effort to say it to Mr. Tengku Adnan. No ‘ganyang’ anybody this time. Just save us all from the embarassment.

Metro TV, an Indonesian TV station, put this issue into discussion on its talk show programme: “e-Lifestyle” on April 1st 2007; the show’s theme: “Blogger Indonesia versus Menteri Malaysia” or translated as “Indonesian Blogger versus Malaysian Minister”. Budi Putra, Wimar Witoelar, and Nukma Luthfie were the sources (experts) presented along with Meutya Hafid as its host. There are two versions of the show: the pre-recorded (live) and the recorded show. The recorded show had censored these following statements:

• Budi Putra: “Karena sudah dua orang menteri yang mengecam para blogger jadi sudah bisa dianggap mewakili atau sikap pemerintah Malaysia. Saya menyarankan agar kedua Menteri Malaysia tersebut meminta maaf kepada semua blogger, khususnya blogger perempuan dan blogger Indonesia.” Or as translated: “Because there have been two ministers offending the bloggers, then it is considered as a representation or the Malaysian government’s action. I suggest that the two ministers apologize to all bloggers, especially female bloggers and Indonesian bloggers.”
• Wimar Witoelar: “Sebaiknya kedua menteri tersebut mengundurkan diri karena sudah menjadi liability untuk pemerintahnya.” Or as translated: “It would be wise that the two ministers resign because it has been a liability to their government.”
• Nukman Luthfie: “Kesalahan Menteri itu sudah sulit diatasi. Meski sudah minta maaf, bisa jadi masih banyak blogger yang tidak tahu, dan isu ini terus merebak melalui tautan antarblogger.” Or as translated: “The minister’s mistake is hard to handle. Eventhough (he had) apologized, lots of bloggers may have not figured that out and the issue keeps rolling through connection amongst bloggers.”

Quoted from thegadget by Budi Putra (www.thegadgetnet.com)

We all may have wondered, what precisely has to be censored from those statements?
To question such reasons is just as baffling as to question how our defense in terms of being an Indonesian. Our nationalism is indeed in doubt. Hypothetically, nationalism -as we know it- is simply a tool to compromise, or to de-compromise; but never as an globally accepted idea. In de facto view, it isn’t based on tolerance or unity, it is based more on power and pseudo monarchy; then it wouldn’t be any surprise if the international world constantly doubted our intentions. This is why we, Indonesians, are still steps behind from emerging ourselves to the global society: the world.

There will be more and more people like Nila Tanzil in Indonesia, maybe in the future it wouldn’t be a woman, a liar, a racist, anyone unemployed or necessarily has any blog. Whoever the next person is, we all deserve to hold our pride as much as we deserve our citizenship.

Are we ready?

References

• IWD: Tengku Adnan whacks women blogger, Tengku Adnan - “I love women” choke by Elizabeth Wong
• Lying Women Boggers by Nuraina A. Samad
• Tanggapi Tuduhan Menteri Malaysia. Nila Tanzil: Mana Yang Tak Benar? by Ni Ketut Susrini - detikInet
• Adnan: I was referring to Indon journalist - The Star Online

Related Issue

• When You Attack the Blogosphere, Please Turn On Your Brain First by Eric Berlin
• WordPress Stands for Open Source, Morals, Democracy by Tyler Callister
• Malaysia-Indonesia Relationship by Yein Jee

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