Howdy,
Hubungan Oz-Ina, tidak pernah atau tidak akan pernah baik:-),
walaupun bertetangga; baik dulu maupun sekarang ...
mungkin keduanya butuh cermin;
atau ke-satu-nya yang lebih membutuhkan:-)
Sejarah rupanya sering berulang
artikel pertama adalah artikel lama dari Ina,
artikel kedua adalah artikel uptodate dari Oz.
Enjoy!
Howgh!
-- Djoko Luknanto-Jack la Motta
Mad Max 1:
CERMIN BUAT TETANGGA
Ketika ditanya wartawan The Age, koran terbesar di Australia
pada tahun 1988, tentang bagaimana hubungan
Indonesia-Australia, Rendra balik bertanya: hubungan yang
mana? Hubungan pemerintah Indonesia dengan pemerintah
Australia, baik. Hubungan masyarakat Indonesia dengan
masyarakat Australia, mulus. Hubungan pers Indonesia dengan
pers Australia, lancar. Yang selalu jadi masalah ialah
hubungan pers Australia dengan pemerintah Indonesia.
Kecuali Australia, Indonesia mempunyai tetangga lain. Dan
para tetangga itu juga memiliki sendiri pers masing-masing.
Mereka juga bisa menulis apa saja soal Indonesia. Tetapi tak
seperti pers Australia, pers para tetangga lain tak begitu
"mengancam" ketenangan pemerintah kita.
Banyak ahli Indonesia di Australia yang mengetahui persoalan
Indonesia secara mendalam, jauh lebih mendalam dari
kebanyakan pemahaman orang Indonesia sendiri atas kondisi
masyarakatnya. Kritik orang-orang seperti itu jelas berguna,
betapapun pahitnya karena mereka mengritik dengan fakta yang
sahih.
Pada awal masa tugasnya di Australia, Duta Besar Rusman
Nuryadin mengunjungi Universitas Monash untuk melakukan
dialog dari hati ke hati dengan para intelektual yang
bercokol di kampus itu. Ada yang memuji tindakan pejabat itu
sebagai terobosan baru, dan mengandung sejenis keberanian
karena konon baru dia pejabat Indonesia yang berani masuk
kandang "macan" itu.
Saya kurang tahu macan jenis apa. Setahu saya biasa-biasa
saja. Mahasiswa Indonesia di sana, yang dikhawatirkan
menjadi "macan" radikal juga, nyatanya tidak. Sebagian dari
mereka bahkan tampak sangat korpri-minded: bisa tersinggung
oleh kritik apa saja yang tertuju pada pemerintah.
Pendeknya, mereka anak-anak yang "saleh". Saya ingat, Dubes
Rusman saat itu bertanya: "Siapa di sini yang masih suka
bicara sumbang tentang Indonesia? Tolong, perkenalkan saya
dengan mereka itu, agar saya bisa memberi mereka penjelasan
yang benar tentang kondisi negeri kami."
Herbert Feith, ahli politik Indonesia yang kondang itu, saat
itu duduk di sebelah saya, dan hanya tersipu-sipu mendengar
pertanyaan itu. Tak seorang pun yang menjawab. Mereka bukan
tidak tahu persoalan.
Di mata orang Australia (para wartawan, para ahli, termasuk
mahasiswa, dan masyarakat awam), daya tarik Indonesia memang
besar. Seminar rutin tiap Kamis yang diadakan oleh Pusat
Studi Asia Tenggara, Universitas Monash, menunjukkan hal
itu. Bila seminarnya mengenai Indonesia, ruangan 505 itu
sering tak mampu menampung peminat. Tapi sebaliknya, bila
seminarnya menyangkut Malaysia, misalnya, ruangan itu begitu
sepi.
Dugaan saya, banyak orang Australia yang membangun persepsi
tentang Indonesia semata berdasarkan informasi pers mereka.
Selama di negeri itu saya bertemu banyak orang, kalangan
muda, yang bersikap "marah" terhadap, pertama, Islam dan
kedua, pemerintah (Indonesia). Kritik mereka terhadap Islam
dan pemerintah begitu khas; ciri orang marah, tanpa memahami
seluk-beluk persoalannya secara memadai. Kesan saya, Islam
dan pemerintah Indonesia merupakan sesuatu yang menakutkan
bagi mereka.
Seminggu sebelum seminar tentang "Agama dan Perdamaian" di
Universitas Monash tahun lalu, ketika Perang Teluk masih
berlangsung, seorang Muslim Indonesia digebuk oleh anak-anak
muda Australia yang marah terhadap Islam. Ini menjadi salah
satu bukti ketakutan, atau mungkin kebencian, itu.
Jumlah ahli Indonesia di berbagai universitas di Australia,
makin lama makin banyak, seiring dengan dibukanya
Pusat-pusat Studi Asia Tenggara di universitas yang dulu
belum memilikinya. Pejuang-pejuang agama, yang berusaha
mengadakan dialog antar-umat beragama berdasarkan kasih dan
saling pengertian, juga ada. Beberapa di antara mereka
sahabat saya. Tetapi suara mereka tampaknya tak cukup keras
untuk didengar. Pengaruh mereka tak tampak sebesar akibat
tulisan seorang wartawan di sebuah media massa.
Saya juga mengenal orang yang dengan tulus berusaha membantu
mencari jalan pemecahan persoalan Timor Timur. Tulisannya di
media massa Australia tampak mencerminkan sikap yang
bijaksana. Tidak ada kutukan terhadap pihak mana pun,
termasuk terhadap pemerintah Indonesia, di dalamnya. Tidak
ada kesan menghardik dan sikap radikal. Tidak ada kebencian.
Mungkin karena itu semua, suara bijak itu justru hilang
seolah tanpa bekas. Orang-orang "romantis", yang bersikap
paling suci itu, sama sekali tak terimbas oleh pemikiran
moderat mereka.
Pemerintah memang bisa salah. Dan ia sah untuk dikritik.
Meskipun pemerintah Indonesia marah dengan kritikan, namun
diam-diam mereka memanfaatkan kritik itu buat perbaikan.
Jadi kritik terhadap pemerintah sehubungan peristiwa 12
November di Dili, yang dilakukan antara lain dengan membakar
Bendera Merah Putih kita, buat saya merupakan persoalan
tersendiri.
Bendera negara bukan hanya milik pemerintah, melainkan juga
milik seluruh rakyat Indonesia. Sikap brutal mereka jadinya,
juga melukai hati masyarakat.
Saya menghargai keluhuran perjuangan mereka. Tapi cara
mereka melihat kita hanya dari sudut-sudut paling dramatis
itu sungguh tidak adil.
Melihat orang Aborigin keleleran di taman-taman di kota
Sydney atau Melbourne, compang-camping, kelaparan, tanpa
pendidikan, tanpa lapangan kerja, mengapa tak pernah
menyentuh keharuan kalbu mereka?
Saya tidak keberatan pemerintah Indonesia dikritik. Tapi
mendengar Bendera kita diinjak-injak, saya merasa perlu
bereaksi. Saya ingin mengirimi tetangga kita itu sebuah
cermin. Siapa tahu, pada saat senggang mereka bisa melihat
wajah sendiri di cermin itu. Siapa tahu, noda yang sudah
jauh terpendam dalam sejarah penindasan kaum Aborigin masih
bisa terlihat.
---------------
Mohammad Sobary, Suara Pembaruan, 6 Desember 1991
Mad Max 2:
Sidney Morning Herald, Saturday, September 11, 1999
The ABC of warmongering By PADRAIC P. McGUINNESS
The most worrying feature of the public response to the
troubles in East Timor is that it raises once again the
question of the role of the media in the promotion of hatred
and violence between, as well as within, nations. The most
knowledgeable of modern critics of the media, both because of
his long experience and his freedom from either ideology or
illusions about its self-importance, is Phillip Knightley.
Author of one of the best books ever written about the press,
The First Casualty (in war, the first casualty is truth),
Knightley asked recently, "Did the media actually cause the
war in the Balkans? Did they prompt the intervention? Did they
make it worse?"
The same might well be asked concerning the East Timor
catastrophe. Did the media, especially the Australian media,
foment the East Timorese independence movement and support it
externally? Did the media, by its campaign of misinformation
about the history of Timor (with ever escalating numbers of
alleged killings by the Indonesian invasion and occupation),
so insult the Indonesian army as to evoke its anger and
hostility? Is the media, or sections of it, trying to force
the hand of the Australian Government into taking military
action against Indonesia? Does it really want to risk plunging
Australia into a war?
There is a certain irony in that I quote Knightley from a
typically nutty piece by John Pilger, who has played a
considerable role in the vilification of both Indonesian and
Australian foreign policy. His latest pilgering of Australia's
treatment of Aborigines is soon to be screened by ABC TV.
The ABC has been by far the leading voice in the war party in
Australia. It has for many years tirelessly propagandised
about Timor and Indonesia, and through Radio Australia and
other means actively tried to foment discontent and violence
in Indonesia. It is continually waging a war of words against
Indonesia, and its partisanship in the current crisis is
almost beyond belief. John Hewson, with whom I rarely agree on
political matters, got it exactly right in yesterday's
Financial Review - the ABC is trying to run Australia's
foreign policy and is prepared to try to hector our Government
into doing any stupid act in the name of morality and
humanitarianism.
Just as the Catholic Church has the blood of its own people on
its hands, including the death of the director of the Catholic
charity Caritas ("such a wonderful little man" as the
Australian head of Caritas extraordinarily described him), so
many other deaths can be ascribed directly to the ABC's
unrelenting provocation. Richard Carleton's offences are
trivial by comparison.
If we are foolish enough to intervene in East Timor against
the Indonesians and the Timorese militia and many of our
soldiers and civilians die, or our country is invaded by an
enraged Indonesia, we can be sure of only one thing: the ABC
will blithely blame anyone but itself.
Linked to this, and not confined to the ABC, is the
ill-concealed glee of the media in having a real live massacre
on our doorstep to report (and exaggerate). There is something
deeply repellent, even obscene, about the delight the media
takes in war and disaster. Every cub reporter wants to be a
war zone reporter, heroically posturing in his/her own mind
and before a supposedly admiring domestic audience. Armed only
with their own prejudices and ignorant of both the politics
and the history of the conflicts, they gloatingly describe the
horrors perpetrated by their chosen villains. There are a few
exceptions to this, such as the Herald's David Jenkins and
Hamish McDonald, who do know what they are talking about. But
such people are rarely found in the ranks of the ABC.
Equally repellent is the way such crises bring out the
deep-seated hatred of Indonesia and Indonesians, and indeed
the repressed war hysteria, rage and racism of so many
Australians. Not the so-called "rednecks" or the suburban
masses, who are among the most generous and tolerant of any
people in the world, but among those who like to think of
themselves as superior to the rednecks, those who are
oh-so-civilised, educated and enlightened. At times like these
the clamour for war emanating from the chattering classes is
both deafening and horrifying. (And do not forget the outburst
of anti-French racism a few years ago.) There is as yet no
evidence that this reflects any genuine feeling in Australia
as a whole. We must wait upon the opinion polls, but it is
very likely that this storm, whipped up by the media,
represents only a small minority of opinion in Australia. The
published letters to the newspapers, which are scrupulously
selected to represent fairly the thousands received, do not
represent the opinion of the general public. That there is an
enormous amount of concern felt by anyone who knows what is
going on is certainly true.
The e-mail messages I received after writing about the Timor
crisis on Thursday are greater in number by far than I have
ever before received as a result of a single piece. Many of
them say, "Thank goodness someone is trying to stay sane";
many others are abusive or condemnatory. Some are critical but
sensible. But people with access to e-mail are not
representative of public opinion. (And I have often wondered
if those who write from government departments, corporations
and universities have any scruples about misusing their
employer's time and resources.)
War fever is running high in the political elites, as are
racism and the humanitarianism of the gun and the bomb. If
they do not get their way, they will take out their anger on
the Government which is saving us from our hysterical selves.
If they do get their way and disaster follows - well, as
somebody remarked the other day, being on the Left means never
having to say you're sorry.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
