A new political party has just been founded (The Jakarta Post Aug. 4, 2011), named Serikat Rakyat Independen, abbreviated as SRI, which seems to refer to a World Bank managing director and former Indonesian finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati (SMI).
SRI’s mission is very clear: To endorse SMI as a presidential candidate for the 2014 election. Without delay, some circles expressed belief that her nomination could be hindered by the Century case.
Until her last days before leaving Jakarta for Washington, SMI stamped her footprint of resistance with strong remarks, such as the difficulties of collecting tax from rich Indonesian folk (Kompas, May 14, 2010).
She also satirically said, “Leaders should not sacrifice their subordinates” when appointing several Finance Department officials (Kompas, May 7, 2010). Given the situation at that time, it is easy for the public to speculate that those two remarks were tinted with irony.
How could they not? Just one day after the announcement of SMI’s move to the World Bank by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the public was shocked by the news that Aburizal Bakrie, better known as Ical, was appointed vice chairman of the Coalition Parties’ Joint Secretariat.
Tensions between SMI and Ical have long been public knowledge. The Dec. 10, 2009 edition of The Wall Street Journal printed SMI’s grumble about Ical.
She said that investigations on her in the Century Bank case by the legislature were politicians’ efforts, especially from the Golkar Party, to discredit her. In the same article, she even overtly said, “Aburizal Bakrie is not happy with me.” “I’m not expecting anyone in Golkar will be fair or kind to me during the probe.”
SMI reminds me of Rachel Carson (1907-1964), a researcher-cum-environmental activist who bravely fought against the power of the American pesticide industry in the early 1960s. Two years before she died of cancer, Carson published her book, The Silent Spring (TSS).
TSS is the book which inspired the birth of environmental movements in the West. This book is even said to be one of the books that influenced the history of the world. Time magazine also fashions her as among the most influential thinkers of the 20th century.
Carson believed pesticides — particularly DDT — not only endangered wildlife, but also humans — from embryo to death.
Of course, the chemical industry did not accept the criticism. Velsicol, which manufactured two renowned insecticides at that time, threatened to sue the publisher, Houghton Mifflin.
Interestingly, the publisher did not budge — even though they asked for toxicologists’ help to check the facts in the book before copies were sent to bookshops (Alexander, 1962).
Immediately after TSS was published, Carson was attacked insistently by the chemical industry. One company rudely branded Carson a “hysterical woman” (Payton, 2002).
Not only were intimidating remarks made to TSS’ publisher, the industries also used various agriculture and trade journals to attack TSS before it was even displayed in bookshops. They also threatened to withdraw advertisements from magazines and newspapers if they printed good reviews of TSS.
Interestingly, those attacks did not bother the public at all, and they believed TSS instead. The denials just made TSS popular. The attacks on Carson from all sides didn’t result as the attackers hoped.
Thanks to the book, not long after it was published, some US and then global environmental regulations on the chemical trade finally adopted prohibitions on the usage of the 12 “evil” pesticides.
The founding of the Environmental Protection Agency in the US in 1970 was also believed to be one of the fruits of TSS. At least two new laws were triggered by TSS: the Pesticide Control Act (1972) and the Toxic Substance Control Act (1976).
It is interesting to note that Carson, who did not marry, was often rumored to be a lesbian and a communist (Spowers in Rising Tides — The History and Future of The Environmental Movement, 2002). She was also deemed unable to understand the knowledge she wrote herself. Carson was accused as having mystical bonds with nature. She was branded a hysterical moron, an emotional doomsayer and many other sarcastic names.
She consciously fought against some of the most powerful corporations in the world, but she seemed unbending in her stance because of her desire to realize change.
Although in different fields, there are same patterns in SMI and Carson. They are both intelligent. They faced the same enemies: (the political) power of corporations. Their enemies used the media ruthlessly to destroy both of them.
In Carson’s case, the media were “only” threatened in that they were denied advertisements; in SMI’s case it has been more radical — the media unashamedly voiced their owners’ interests.
The changes that Carson and SMI strived for threatened the vital foundations of corporations’ power. Carson fought against lucrative chemical manufacturing,
SMI pioneered policy reformations and acts firmly to deny corporations’ greed. Kompas, in its May 6, 2010 edition, mentioned that on assertiveness and courage in cleaning her corrupt officials, and the speed and accuracy of her decision-making, SMI is unrivalled.
Carson and SMI’s femininity was seen as an easy target for their attackers. Rude names were given to them, including depictions of SMI as a dracula-like figure and other villainous characters on protesters’ posters. Seeing on television how SMI’s “trial” by a bunch of congressmen and imagining that her fate was in the hands of SBY and Ical, it is difficult for me not to see it representing a battle between men and women.
In Carson’s case, the phrase “a woman named Rachel Carson” was clearly a dig toward her gender – or in Spowers’s (2002) words, Carson was attacked because of her “nature of being a woman”.
Indeed, for the moment, the results of those two women’s struggles are different. Not long after TSS, the public and the US government experienced a renaissance of environmental awareness, which resulted in several policy, law and behavioral changes.
The US government at that time was brave enough to oppose the corporations. As time goes by, individuals with environmental ethics eventually pop up in the corporations.
How about SMI? After her move to Washington, DC, will this country wake up and fight against the existing hegemony? The answer remains to be seen.
The writer is a professor at Soegijapranata Catholic University, Semarang
