Popular Culture Review Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2003 | Page 110

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tion, undue preferential treatment, concealment, bribery and corruption.” Finally,
Landler quotes Indonesian economist Rizal Ramli’s conclusion that the officials
who are responsible for implementing the government’s bank bailout program “are
themselves robbing the bank” and the result is “a white-collar robbery by all the
President’s men.”
The poor fellow in the fourth hospital bed is I Brewok, and the sign tells us
that he is a victim of the country’s monetary crisis. Before the crisis struck, only an
estimated 15% of Indonesia’s people were trying to exist on incomes below the
official poverty line, compared to about 65% who were below it when Suharto
became president in 1966. Some observers have estimated that the post-1997 cri
sis would cause the percentage of people under the poverty line to go back up to as
much as 50%. Appropriately, poor I Brewok is being given an interveinous trans
fusion of food.
The humorous touch in this cartoon is being provided by I Brewok’s wife. In
a nagging manner she is scolding him by pointing out that if he had known the
monetary crisis was coming he could have prevented the suffering it would cause,
e.g. by finding a job. The fault with her logic is that the monetary crisis caused
millions of Indonesians to lose their jobs. And literate but unskilled transitional
people like I Brewok, of course, are the last to get jobs when times are good and
the first to lose them when times are bad.
Conclusion
Indonesia’s people are suffering under a great weight of poverty and corrup
tion that will require years to overcome even if the current reform movement is
eventually successful. Gun Gun’s cartoons cleverly draw attention to his country’s
problems and their causes and imply what must be done to overcome them in an
entertaining manner. The relief that humor can provide in even the most difficult
times is greatly appreciated in Indonesia. Clearly, Wayan Gunasta Pendet has earned
the honor of having his I Brewok character featured on the Rp 500 stamp most
commonly used in Indonesia. His permission to reproduce his work in this article
is greatly appreciated.
California State University, Chico

Richard Ostrom

Notes
1.

2.
3.

Richard Ostrom, “Adapting a Popular Culture Genre to Criticize an Authoritarian Government:
Balinese Artists Attack Suharto’s Repressive Indonesian Regime. ” Popular Culture Review.
Volume 12, Number 1 (February 2001), pp. 41-52.
Putu Wirata, “Prostitution spoils tourists' image of paradise Bali", The Jakarta Post, January 31,
1999, p. 9.
Ibid.