Dudy Soed's The Gado-Gado Notes

I didn’t realize we were on a banning season.

I wrote about the website ban, but it turns out we might also have a book ban, did have a film shooting ban and a religious near-ban.

Bummer.

While we’re at it, we might as well summon Suharto, Ali Moertopo and Benny Moerdani back from the dead and go back to 1984 so we can ban non-Pancasila organizations, re-annex East Timor, revoke Islamic law in Aceh and reenact martial law there, and most importantly we also need to get the entire media back in the whitewash mode.

And lest we forget, we should also reinstate Petrus, the notorious covert sniper operation that aimed at criminals, and we need to extend the target to cover overly creative people who make even the slightest mention of the “c” word, non-majority groups, and authors-who-wrote-that-a-former-vice-president-might-be-a-local-CIA-operative.

Indonesia, wake up.

I realize we’ve only had time for democratic baby steps after the Reformasi–what with the big tasks of reversing the course of the ‘98 financial crises, revamping the executive, legislative and judicial branches, and now tackling the imported crisis, we’ve barely had time to do anything major. But the ban-now-and-let’s-get-on-with-life mentality you’re showing is really disturbing.

This mentality doesn’t always mean you abhor the truth, but it’s pretty close. And it’s absolutely indicative that you do not like differing perspectives.

And why do we need to have different perspectives when only one will do?

Because the other perspective might work, if not for you then for others. If no one benefits from the other perspective, then let it die a natural death so it pleases no one else.

Take lesson from some of the responses to the Bali bombers’ execution. You kill someone by force, some others will sympathize.

What happens then when you kill an idea? You are giving it more exposure, more fuel to the flame, and you end up getting even worse aftertaste.

But then again, if banning season is indeed on and will be so for many years to come, everyone might as well lay low and resist any penchant for intellectual vigor. After all, we probably could use some more idle time in our hands to beef up our skills for real street fighting, which is probably our national pastime, instead of the wordy ones, which are not.

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