Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 47

Balinese Artists and Suharto’s Regime

43

and corrupt were fundamentally true. In such circumstances, authoritarian
governments are very likely to react harshly to critical cartoons.
Even foreign cartoonists had to be careful about how they criticized the Suharto
government if they wanted to avoid serious consequences. Peter Nicholson made
the mistake of drawing Suharto as an orangutan in a cartoon published in The
A ustra lian newspaper on October 20, 1997. The Suharto-faced ape was swinging
on a vine (underneath an “Endangered Species” caption) to escape the raging flames
of a forest fire that was labeled “Corrupt Economics.” The F ar E astern E conom ic
R eview reported that “senior Indonesian officials were so furious” that it was
doubtful “whether a tepid one-paragraph apology on the letters page would save
the Australian newspaper’s Jakarta bureau.”"^
When I wrote Nicholson to purchase a copy of the offending cartoon, I inquired
about the incident. He replied that after he submitted his Suharto as an orangutan
cartoon along with some others for consideration, he was told only that one of his
other cartoons had been selected for publication. Nicholson was not told that the
Chief-of-Staff of the paper’s Sydney office (who knew Indonesia well) had pointed
out at the staff meeting that the orangutan idea would be deeply offensive because
the Dutch colonialists used to call Indonesians “monkeys”. In short, Indonesians
would view the cartoon as racist. “Blissfully unaware” of this racism factor and
because he drew “politicians as monkeys all the time”, Nicholson submitted his
orangutan cartoon again several days later. This time the Chief-of-Staff was out of
town but the Editor-in-Chief (who had been overseas at the time of the earlier
rejection meeting) had returned and was back in charge of all editorial decisions.
He saw the cartoon on his desk, liked it, and—unaware of its racist overtones—
approved it for publication.
The Indonesian government reacted vigorously, Nicholson continued, and was
“going to close down our very important bureau in Jakarta and expel our
correspondent (and my close friend), Patrick Walten.” Australia’s Foreign Minister
tried to cool the wrath of Suharto’s officials by assuring them that Australian
cartoonists draw politicians as monkeys all the time. Also, the Editor-in-Chief had
to fly to Jakarta to meet with Indonesia’s Foreign Minister.
Finally, things calmed down and The A ustra lian was allowed to keep its Jakarta
bureau.
Nicholson explained that he was embarrassed about his cartoon’s racist
overtones and would not have resubmitted it had he been aware of this problem.
He was further embarrassed when he was praised on a TV. program as a “brave
hero fighting the good fight against totalitarianism.”'^
Nicholson’s embarrassment over his cartoon’s unintended racist overtones is
Justified, but his modesty about fighting the good fight is not. His numerous cartoon
attacks on Suharto’s corrupt and brutally repressive government are more impressive