Indonesian Publishing: New Freedoms, Old Worries, and Unfinished Democratic Reform

Abstract

Indonesia is in the midst of a publishing renaissance. The number of published titles doubled in 2003 to a sum greater than any year under Suharto. Titles unimaginable 10 years ago now line bookstore shelves: books about Marx, books by and about ethnic Chinese, and books with the words 'sex' or 'homosexual' and 'Islam' in the same title. In 2000, the publisher of Nobel Prize-nominated author Pramoedya Ananta Toer released a special Emancipation Edition of the previously banned Burn Quartet, named after the island on which the Suharto regime had imprisoned the writer for almost 14 years. Oblivious to the efflorescence of publishing in the world's fourth most populous nation, few outside the country have read a single Indonesian book. Unlike well-known works by Indian, Colombian, Russian, and Chinese authors, most people in the world are not likely to come across a book by an Indone sian writer in their own language at the local bookstore, in the library, or even online. Better known for its volcanoes, island paradises, shadow puppets, and world's largest population of Muslims, Indonesia's books remain largely untranslated, a secret library ringed by fire and water. Sadly, Indonesians are not reading Indonesian books either. Reading culture is low. Libraries are few, their books dusty and mildewed. The 98 percent literacy rate1 among younger Indonesians does not tell the whole story. The overall lit eracy rate is much lower, 84 percent.2 And half the population drops out of school between the ages of 15 and 19 (BPS 2002: 103). Forty-five percent of the titles pub lished in 2004 came from a single publishing conglomerate, Gramedia. Another 55 percent were translations (Suwarni 2004; Y09 2005). Nevertheless, reading culture is on the rise, in large part because Indonesian publishing is freer than it was under Suharto's New Order. But freedom of the press is still under threat. Current publish ing freedoms are largely an outgrowth of the more passive role taken by a recently decentralized government, a political restructuring that also diminishes the capacity