Unspun

why do expats in Indonesia blog anonymously?


Blogger Indonesia A. Fatih Suyud has an interesting observation about bloggers in Indonesia in his posting Why they blog anonymously and we do not:

Non-Indonesian or westerners, however, seems to be satisfied if their blog contents are known more than the persons behind those writings. Just a few examples, almost 80 percent of expat blogs in Indonesia are pseudonymous. Conversely, I hardly found any Indonesian bloggers whose pictures, true full names and CVs are not attached in their blogs.

I guess the reasons are many. Foreigners are guests in this country and have to be sensitive of this status. Foreigners are also very vulnerable if they discuss politics. Politicians can make their lives very difficult through a variety of means. So even though it is best to blog in the open many, like Terbanglah Lebih Tinggi who commented on Fatih’s blog, would understandably choose the safer path.

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17 responses to “why do expats in Indonesia blog anonymously?”

  1. treespotter Avatar
    treespotter

    that piece from yday, that should be the first intro for your spin award.

    LOL

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  2. Qisa'i Avatar
    Qisa’i

    “Foreigners are guests in this country (Indonesia) and have to be sensitive of this status. Foreigners are also very vulnerable if they discuss politics.”

    Being an Indonesian who lives in India and blogs openly, I don’t really see that point valid.

    Because I feel that in a democratic society, and I believe Indonesia is also a democracy, we are free to be or to express ourselves in whichever way we want as long as we play by the rules and regulations.

    Cheers!!

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  3. unspun Avatar
    unspun

    I suppose whose rules and regulations and where do they begin and end is an appropriate question.

    I agree that Indonesia is a ver free and democratic society but it is not absolutely free. I was given a warning by someone working in high office for an article I wrote in the jakarta Post some time ago.

    Later, when the chap met one of my colleagues he asked if the taxman or the immigration officials had visited me. I do not know if he was overzealous or it came from the office, but I’m not willing to take the risk – I have employees who depend on me for their livelihoods.

    There is more leeway if you write in English but there is no absolute freedom – not from the occassional overzealous official anyway.

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  4. Ujang Avatar
    Ujang

    I’m surprised that it’s even an issue. People write anonymously or under pseudonyms all the time. As Unspun said, the reasons are many. From Douwes Dekker (probably one of our most famous expat!) writing Max Havelaar under the pseudonym Multatuli to Joe Klein writing Primary Colors under the pseudonym, er, Anonymous, everyone have their own reasons to blog anonymously. Different folks different strokes, des gustibus non disputandum. From what I’ve seen in the wild wild west that is the blogosphere, many blogs are so embarassingly silly they should’ve been written anonymously for the writers’ own good. But who are we to judge?

    Incidentally, I came across two Indonesian blogs written under pseudonyms (though one could identify the authors if one digs enough) that take issues with this: Muli’s commune and Nad’s Notes. These are blogs of a very high quality* and in my view they have no less credibility or authority than the bare-all blogs. Their views on ghost-blogging are well argued.

    *By quality I’m obviously referring to the substantive contents, not the pageview numbers, technorati ranks, number of links or comments (geez, some blogs have number of comments in the two digits but most of them bordering on juvenile, so what gitu lho).

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  5. Ujang Avatar
    Ujang

    Whoops. Sorry for the sloppy html. I should’ve written that anonymously 😀

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  6. Duncan Graham Avatar
    Duncan Graham

    No name, no credibility

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  7. jesie Avatar
    jesie

    Sorry Mr. OHC for OOT and cross posting, but i read your latest article (SBY & Friendster), and notice that you need screenshot of the SBY FS account.

    You can access the picture in http://flickr.com/photos/jesie/224356667/.

    By the way, the email account that reported at Seputar Indonesia newspaper(Soesilobambang_y@yahoo.com), is different with the one that listed on FS (susilobambang_y@yahoo.com), perhaps if you search FS with the second email address, you’ll find the page.

    PS: nice to know your blog. 😀

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  8. Jakartass Avatar
    Jakartass

    Hi Ujang.
    I totally agree with your ‘review’ of Mull’s Commune and Nad’s Notes ~ high quality thoughts well written. ‘Who’ they are is immaterial. What we say is the key’; however tactful we are in setting out our concerns, there are, as you point out above, risks inherent for all, especially we westerners. Deportation and blacklisting are the ultimate sanctions for us, let alone the brown envelope culture of the immigration and tax departments.

    Duncan Graham, an expat journalist seemingly free to come and go between Perth and Surabaya, blogs his articles already published in the Jakarta Post. I doubt that there is anyone here who earns any income from their blogging, whereas the Post pays for his ‘thoughts’; his sanctimonius attitude therefore somewhat rankles.

    It is this that costs him his credibility, not his public name, so on this basis, I nominate DG for an Unspun Award.

    One other thought. Friends and colleagues know my ‘real’ name, as do those bloggers I’ve entered into correspondence with. But, as Shakespeare didn’t actually ask, what’s in a name? Having a pen name allows writers to practise different styles. For example, a couple of days ago I blogged in the style of Indcoup. The next day he blogged in my ‘style’. We attract readers based on their perceptions of us; few of us, unless we are social animals, gain a readership because of who we think we are.

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  9. Riccardo Avatar
    Riccardo

    Here is how I responded directly to Fatih about his take in this issue:

    I have this “blog” within a community forum and I am only semi-anonymous.
    http://www.jakchat.com/ubb/ultim…?/forum/ 20.html But there are three major things, Fatih, that YOU DO NOT understand.

    1. foreign residents in Indonesia have NO RIGHTS under the constitution or the law. As you should know about RI, if a “foreigner” offends somebody in power, it can quickly mean jail or deportation without due process.

    2..Foreign residents, many of whom have been here for decades, do have a wealth of understanding of many important things in Indonesia, because some of these long-time expats have learned (without the merah-putih propaganda) how to be critical thinkers and have been analyzing the things seen on the ground in RI for many, many years.

    3. FINALLY, your whole reference point here shows your underlying racist attitude. Why can’t you see that all humans, bloggers and/or people with interest in RI are part of the “WE” group and not simply part of the “THEY” group.

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  10. indcoup Avatar
    indcoup

    why blog anonymously?

    Just see this:

    http://www.rsf.org/

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  11. KuKuKaChu Avatar
    KuKuKaChu

    > # indcoup Says:
    > August 29th, 2006 at 7:31 am
    >
    > why blog anonymously?
    >
    > Just see this:
    >
    > http://www.rsf.org/

    188 good reasons to blog anonymously.

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  12. KuKuKaChu Avatar
    KuKuKaChu

    > # Duncan Graham Says:
    > August 25th, 2006 at 7:46 am
    >
    > No name, no credibility

    well, that’s fine if you’re a no-waves sunday feature writer. no so good if you need or want to talk about something that’s actually important.

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  13. Riccardo Avatar
    Riccardo

    I posted this as a comment at indcoup’s blog and thought it might be good here as well.
    ———————————–
    This is one thing that is very crucial to understanding Indonesians (or more specifically Javanese).

    I participated in some RI history/school textbook seminars a couple years ago and presented a paper on this subject to all the top RI academics.

    In Javanese society everybody belongs to a group (Be it NU, the Bantul residents forum, engineering majors at U.I. etc, etc. ad nauseum) and each of these groups are known by their characteristics, beliefs and coordinated groupthink..

    These RI bloggers want to know what group you are in so they can make similar assumptions and stereotype you. Hypothetically speaking, if they knew you or I were Danish Protestants, that would tell them all they need to know (that we draw really silly cartoons), and they can better attack us. Or SMS their relative who’s a BIN functionary to pay you a visit.

    So these RI bloggers use these buzz words like ‘objective, factual, more balanced, and in proportion’ (objektif, wajar, lebih berimbang, dan lebih proporsional), and these terms are common rhetorical markers in Indonesian polemics, having the main function of discrediting one’s opponents.

    The ploy of attacking a writer’s background rather than addressing his or her work is a common one amongst Javanese (and Indonesians who’ve grown up in the Java-style school systems across the archipelago), and has been for decades.

    cheers, keep it up and visit my blog over in Jakchat once in while..

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  14. unspun Avatar
    unspun

    Riccardo: I can see where your argument is heading and there is some truth in it. But on the whole I’d have to disagree. Attacking a writer’s background is nothing exclusive to the Javanese. You only have to look at the comments in the more provocative blogs of, say, Malaysian bloggers to see this goign on.

    Essentially, attacking someone’s background and character is as old as the hills and has been the arsenal of those that lack the skills to put up a good, honest argument. The technique of attacking people’s characters and backgrounds instead of addressing the arguments even has a name, delightfully explained in a book called Straight and Crooked Thinking by Thouless: the ad hominem attack.

    My thoughts on this issue is that it is best and most responsible to blog with your own name. It gives you more credibility as you would be taking full responsibility for what you say. This can be a positive force for discipline and thoughfullness in postings.

    Blogging under one’s real name, of course, also exposes you to greater risks and ad hominem attacks. Personally I think we have to be accountable for what we say, but I’d not be puritanical about bloggers who blog anonymously.

    In the case of foreigners blogging about a country, I think it would be interesting to have thought experiments about the implications of a foreigner blogging about a country if: 1)she’s staying in that country; or 2)if she’s staying in her own country.

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  15. Riccardo Avatar
    Riccardo

    Disagree if you must, but please don’t attribute something to me that I did not write, such as this particular thing being “exclusive to the Javanese.”
    or that this is a new phenomenon. Good gracious sakes. It is a “common ploy amongst” many, nothing about being exclusive to any group or new.

    And I do find it extraordinarily interesting these demands for “accountabilty” “credibility” “full responsibility”, especially from “foreigners”.

    Gosh what a sad, boring, ignorant world this would be if we banned “foreigners” from writing anything about another country. So let’s burn all of Paul Theroux’s books, Hemingway’s books, Maugham’s books, Conrad’s books… OH and while we’re at it we’d better delete all the writings of Cheng Ho (Zheng He) because he was a foreigner in the kingdom of Angkor and in early Java etc…

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  16. KuKuKaChu Avatar
    KuKuKaChu

    this whole “us” “them” dichotomy in indonesia is interesting.

    i’ve been permanently resident in indonesia for 12 years. in any other country, i would have long had the opportunity to become a permanent resident and/or citizen. (Eg, in australia, an indonesian who has had permanent residence for 2 years can become a citizen, and is not compelled to give us their indonesian citizenship by the australian govt.)

    so, for 12 years i have been treated like a non-person with zero rights, whereas in “normal” countries i would have long have been given citizenship rights.

    with citizenship rights, i too would have no problem operating a blog under my own name, like i do i other countries. indonesia is too dangerous for “foreigners” (who like me, should already be considered citizens). most indonesians have no idea at all of the games played in immigration with foreign nationals, and of course this is exactly the way immigration parasites like it.

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  17. Rasyad A. Parinduri Avatar
    Rasyad A. Parinduri

    In my opinion, anonymous blogging is fine. I have no problem with it at all.

    If some people think anonymous bloggers are not credible, hey, it’s their opinion. So, I don’t really see what the fuzz is all about.

    But, if you want Indonesian internet users to be your reader, what perhaps more important is this: Do these Indonesians internet users think that blogging anonymously hurts one’s credibility?

    I don’t know the answer, but it may be worth pondering about.

    Anyway, I don’t think many of you guys are really that anonymous. I mean, most of you are as anonymous as me (I put only my name in my blog, that is my real name, btw).

    That means, if the police wants us, they could always get us. Unless, of course we follow a proper guideline to anonymous blogging like the following: http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/?p=125

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