Letter: Standing up against injustice

Fri, 04/18/2008 10:04 AM | Reader's Forum

Rizal Sukma's article with regard to courage (The Jakarta Post, March 31) reflects the song "Gossip Jalanan" (Street Gossip) by Indonesia's favorite band Slank.

The Dutch proverb wie de schoen past trekke hem aan caused some legislators who intended to bring Slank to court to drop the case.

Credit should be given to Slank for performing near the Indonesian Corruption Watch building as this takes guts -- encouraging ICW activists never to give up their mission to bring blue-collar and other criminals to court.

Needless to say Slank's "Gossip jalanan" CD has broken all sales records.

In the 1970s, I was at Taman Ismail Marzuki to see the performance of Sekda (literally translated as the Regional Secretary) by W.S. Rendra and his group of Yogyakarta artists.

Sekda portrays corrupt government officials so this performance was of course suspended by Soeharto's government. Artists have always been on the front line protesting injustice.

Iwan Fals has been singing about injustice for years. Credit should be given to these artists as they also have put their lives on the line in the past.

The armed forces, i.e. chief of the Indonesian police, should investigate countless cases where arrested persons, whether innocent or guilty, are always severely beaten up first before thorough investigations have even commenced. But we should recognize that change always takes time. We are, however, in the right direction thanks to ICW, Kontras and Slank.

LYNNA VAN DER ZEE-OEHMKE
Bogor, West Java

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