Keynote Address by H.E. DR. N. Hassan Wirajuda, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Republic of Indonesia at the Third Global Inter-Media Dialogue, Nusa Dua, Bali, 7 May 2008
10/06/2008 :: It’s a great pleasure to welcome all of you, especially our friends from overseas. I welcome you to Bali, Indonesia’s island paradise, where dialogue is a way of life. And on behalf of the Norwegian and Indonesian Governments, I welcome you to this third Global Inter-Media Dialogue.
We do appreciate your presence here. Your participation will add depth and breadth to the dialogue.
Let me also take this opportunity to thank the Government of Norway for once again co-hosting this Dialogue, and for being such an effective and committed partner. I wish also to thank the Government of New Zealand for supporting and contributing to this endeavor.
After two Global Inter-Media dialogue, the first in Bali in September 2006, and the second in Oslo last year, we can confidently say that there has always been a need for a dialogue like this. But the need for it was felt only because of a controversy that erupted in early 2006.
The controversy was over the publication of cartoons that depicted the Prophet Muhammad in an extremely irreverent way, and the highly emotional reaction that day triggered all over the Moslem world. In the violent incidents that ensued, 139 individuals lost their lives.
Through this process of dialogue, we have since then vigorously affirmed a few fundamental truths. There is no denying that freedom of expression is a basic human right. Curtailing that right through violence is a crime against human nature. And since all human beings are endowed with that right, it is an essential component of any democratic system.
That is way freedom of expression and freedom of press were the first civic freedoms that we restored in Indonesia when we launched our democratic transition.
Without freedom of the press, without the freedom to speak and write against corruption and the abuse of power, the pervasive reform of Indonesian society would not have been possible.
Since our recovery from the Asian crisis and our recent economic achievements are the fruits of reform, and reform was greatly helped along by the press in its role as gadfly to society, the Indonesian people therefore owe a debt of gratitude to the ladies and gentlemen of the Indonesian press. By exercising their freedom of expression with courage and devotion, they helped in the shaping of the new Indonesia.
Freedom of expression is a political, social and economic imperative—but it is not an absolute freedom. No freedom is absolute. More than once have we affirmed that in this dialogue. Freedom of expression is limited by, among other things, the rights of others to a good name. That is why there are laws on libel and slander.
It is limited by the right of society to public order. That is why there are laws against inciting a crowd to riot.
It is limited by the right of communities to the dignity of their beliefs and their cultural ways. Hence, no group or individual should be allowed to make an object of ridicule anything that is sacred to a community’s religion. That would be an act of reckless malice.
But that act of reckless malice, though condemnable, is no warrant for retaliation by massive violence. It is even more condemnable to commit murder and mayhem in reaction to an abuse of the freedom of expression.
The only lesson that we can and should derive from that experience is that extremes should never be restored to. They always lead to disaster. We must strive for judicious balance between the right of free expression and the demands of cultural sensitivity. For that matter, we must balance every right that we enjoy with a matching right to which others are entitled.
But the light of that lesson has not spread out far and wide enough. An utter disregard for the sensitivities of religious communities is still very much in evidence in the recent production and dissemination of the film “Fitna”. On the other hand, militant circles, in a knee-jerk reaction, have threatened violent reprisal to its producers and disseminators.
Advocates of freedom of expression need not shed tears when measures are taken to prevent the reckless dissemination of “Fitna” on the internet. As Un Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon so rightly observed about such measures, “The right of free expression is not at stake here”.
On our part, we have only this to say: the dialogue must go on. We have to keep on spreading the light. We have to continue looking for ways of living together in spite of our differences.
And in any case, with or without such controversies, the Global Inter-Media Dialogue must be sustained in the face of many challenges that mass media practitioners all over the world must confront in our time.
These concerns are well reflected in the board agenda of this meeting. They include the changing media landscape, much of it the result of cutting edge information and communication technology; reporting minorities; and inconvenient truths like poverty, the war on terror and climate change.
One inconvenient truth that cries out for concerted action is the fact that too many journalists are being killed in the line of duty, often in areas that are free of armed conflict. I trust you will find time to take up this challenge in this dialogue.
Ours is a world full of challenges to journalists and mass media practitioners. And I salute you for addressing as many of them as you can.
On the other side of the ledger, there are also significant opportunities. One splendid opportunity can be discerned from the mass media phenomenon that political scientists have termed the “CNN effect.”
The term actually refers to role not only of the CNN and the BBC but also of all media with wide coverage, including print media and the internet, in pushing otherwise reluctant governments to act on a crisis. In this regard, Kosovo, Rwanda, Somalia, and lately Darfur instantly come to mind.
The outpouring of sympathy from the international community and the massive relief effort for the victims of the tsunami in our province of Aceh in 2004 was largely the spontaneous response of many actors: governments, NGOs, and individuals. I have no doubt, however, that it was also helped along by the enormous coverage by international media.
I therefore believe that the CNN effect is real and that at its best it can be a tremendous instrument of human compassion and solidarity among nations and civilizations. Of course, it has its limitations and its downside.
When media coverage is too focused on one crisis, the tendency is that crises in the other places get forgotten. And when media coverage gets overly crisis-oriented, the tendency is to neglect the post-crisis phase, which may be less urgent but is no less important.
There isn’t too much media coverage today on what has been accomplished in the rehabilitation and rebuilding of tsunami-devastated Aceh. That is lamentable but it proves my point.
Still, I have no doubt that the so-called CNN effect can be deliberately harnessed so that it can operate in the context not only of a crisis but of an effort at world community building.
There are many actors in the world today that are contributing as much as they can and according to their best lights to causes that would make life a little more tolerable to many others. Or to causes that would make this world a better place to live in. as the political scientist Paul Kennedy has pointed out, these have the makings of a truly global civil society.
These include governments and, of course, NGOs. They include intergovernmental organizations at the global and regional levels, international institutions, foundations, religious communities, eminent individuals and celebrities from the world of show business. Some of them are linked and are working with one another.
But it is often the case that these actors duplicate one another and, worse, there are times when they compete for turf and resources instead of cooperating with one another.
It can happen that when two or more of them are addressing the same problem, they have different perceptions of what they are trying to solve. And they may have incompatible approaches to a solution. As they are today, it will take a long time before they can constitute a global civil society.
This state of affairs poignantly reminds me of another global failure: the inability of the international community to form a global partnership that can effectively address the central issues of our time. These are the systemic issues that are the subjects of various international conferences organized by the United Nations during the past two decades—including the inconvenient truth of climate change that you are taking up in this session of the Global Inter-Media Dialogue.
Thus, what we have in the world today is a huge orchestra of noble intentions in search of a conductor. And I firmly believe that mass media can assume the role of that conductor. You can make use of your capability to draw the concentrated attention of your audiences not only to crises at hand, not only to neglected problems but also to synergistic ways of dealing with these problems.
To some extent, the media are already playing that role. But the role is being played only to the extent of producing a CNN effect. And that you will rise to a more exalted mission.
That will require a great deal of planning, consultations, and pooling of capabilities and resources. It will require many sessions of Global Inter-Media Dialogue.
That is why I am so glad that we have launched this dialogue and that we are all committed to sustaining it—because dialogue and consultation must lead to goodwill and cooperation. And when goodwill is robust and cooperation has become a habit, these will lead to a sense of responsibility to and for one another. It will lead to our genuine caring for one another. That is how communities are built.
And that, I think is what we are ultimately aiming at. I like to think that you are carrying out this Dialogue, and the Governments of Norway and Indonesia are supporting and facilitating it so that one day within our lifetime ours will be a decidedly better world.
And that better world will come about when we all have learned to accept and appreciate the immense variety of the human race. And we all have learned to exercise our rights and freedoms, including the right of free expression, while still caring for the feelings and sensitivities of others.
And, at last, we all have learned to work in perfect concert with one another in addressing the challenges and inconvenient truths of our time, like poverty, armed conflicts and climate change.
To attain that, humankind will have to undergo an immense and profound learning process. It is a huge challenge but I am unfazed. I am optimistic.
I believe in the power of mass media not only to draw focus on issues but also to educate, to enlighten and to unite perceptions. I believe in the capacity of mass media to ennoble their audiences.
And I believe that on the whole the mass media of the world have the credibility to rally and to inspire diverse communities, organizations, groups and individuals to take collective and concerted action for good causes and for good fights.
And, finally, I like to think that this meeting of yours today is one of the first steps in a mission well beyond the CNN effect toward the shaping of a global community that can solve its systemic problems.
I therefore pray that your deliberations will be fruitful.
I thank you.