In 1971, with a small group of writers and journalists I founded Tempo, the first magazine in Indonesia modeled after weeklies like Time, l’Express, and Der Spiegel.  There were many reasons why we did it, but one of them had something to do with language.

The Indonesian language, of which the base is Malay,  is unique in its political  history. Since previous centuries, it has been adopted, albeit inconsistently, as a lingua franca by the Patanis in South Thailand, people of Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Southern part of the Philippines and Timor Leste.

In other words, Indonesians’ national language  is not an  infixed legacy of colonialism — Dutch colonialism that is.  Neither it is an expanded medium of communication generated by a majority culture.  In fact, the beginning of Indonesian print-capitalism that spread the use of the language was led among others by the so-called “non-indigenous”  minorities, the ethnic Chinese.  In addition to that, Indonesian has never had an established centre of excellence preserved by a ruling class. The attempt to create a hierarchical standardization has never been a success.

In short, it is a democratic language par excellence, created by different paroles.  It is no surprise that it becomes a natural part of the political.  Hence, as early as 1920s,  the language was not merely a medium of nationalist, or anti-colonialist, ideas; it was, in itself, a nationalist expression. It was chosen as an act  against the residue of the colonial language policy and simultaneously  a break-away from local forms of orality and literacy nurtured by  provincial (“feudal”) aristocracies.   In other words, it is part of the process of internalizing the idea of “Indonesia” which, as Benedict Anderson famously puts, is an “imagined community”.

The link between the Indonesian language and the political is, however, not always in a placid state. Especially when the political —  or la politique, in Ranciere’s use of the word — is submerged by the need to stabilize political groupings and identities. This leads to the production of a reiterative (and persistent) lexicon, articulated in slogans, catchphrases, and empathic acronyms.

The decade between the 1950s and the 1960s saw such a trend in the Indonesian language  — especially during the period of the “Guided Democracy” with its “Third-World” revolutionary fervor.

Sukarno, a charismatic orator    addressed as “the Great Leader of the Revolution”,  charged the language with words like “Manipol” (Manifesto Politik or “Political Manifesto”, the name of one of  Sukarno’s doctrines), “Resopim” (Revolusi-Sosialisme-Pimpinan or “Revolution-Socialism-Leadership”), “kontrev” (kontra-revolusi or “counterrevolutionary’), “nekolim” (neocolonialism),  “plintat-plintut“, a Javanese mocking phrase for an ambivalent political position — later to be abbreviated into a popular acronym, plin-plan..

The spread of such a wordlist, rather belligerent and Orwellian in its temper, was wall-to-wall.  Sukarno’s “Guided Democracy” organized days of “indoctrination” for all levels of the society.   State-controlled radio and television were used for a state-controlled mass-communication. The printed media were required to publish, on a regular basis, Sukarno’s “teachings”.

In 1966, Sukarno was dethroned. The “New Order”, under the leadership of  Suharto, a former Army general,  began. This regime  that replaced the “Guided Democracy” was basically a bureaucratic-authoritarian administration, forged by the military and propelled by the idea of “development” (pembangunan). The social engineering was less to create a sense of solidarity among citizens than to control life.  The political format was shaped not as a rostrum of   communication but a schema of  manageability. Hence the predominant use of the language was not to spark political passion like it was during Sukarno’s rule, but to put people and ideas in line. It was the language of the Police.

Of course, there were  carry-overs from the repressive system of the “Guided Democracy” — the mass-media, for one, remained under the scrutiny of the government. But  a crucial difference marked the role of language:  the New Order’s official speeches and statements were largely  an extension of  bureaucratese. Even the Presidential address on the National Day, true to Suharto’s reserved and taciturn bearing, was not meant to inspire; it was prosaic and toneless, like an annual CEO’s report in a public company meeting.

In day to day communication, new acronyms were introduced. Unabashedly they were shadows of words picked from coded military glossary — inflexible in their constructs and largely  unpronounceable.  The Minister of Culture and Education, or Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, for example, was acronymed  “Mendikbud“;  The Commander of the Security and Order Branch, or Panglima Komando Keamanan dan Ketertiban, became “Pangkopkamtib“;  cases of  thefts of motor-bikes, in the police parlance became  “curanmor“,  a cut-out of pencurian sepeda motor:

Having a language with thousands of polysyllabic words, Indonesians are prone to truncate utterance.  The hidden power of acronyms is, however, not always recognized. During the revolutionary, semi-totalitarian, atmosphere of the “Guided Democracy”, acronyms were created in aggressive and emotive modes, as language was the regime’s  primary political weapons.  Accordingly,  they often had a stupefying, and sometimes intimidating, impact. When words like “nekolim” or “kontrev” were pronounced, a sense of danger and hostility loomed in the verbal sphere.  Phrases could come and go unquestioned.  Lucidity was not the drift of the day.

In contrast, the “New Order” body of acronyms had less aggressive or emotive intent, except for a few when the regime adopted the polemical  style   of the previous era. Suharto’s rule denied the political as dissensus or  antagonism; meanwhile, being persuasive — or having an emotional appeal — was not his forte.   Despite its monotony,  the New Order’s language was no less corrosive in its impact.  Words like  “Repelita” (Rencana Pembangunan Lima Tahun, or Five Years Development Plan), “litbang” (penelitian dan pengembangan, or research and development), “poleksos” (politik, sosial, ekonomi or political, social, economic affairs), and  “koramil” (komando rayon militer, or “sub-district military command) were all over the place.  Their real meaning disappeared.    As their connotative contents changed, in their  place emerged a blurred concept of power. The inquiring mind of the interlocutors stayed timid, or even stifled, in the margin.

In the 1960s and the 1970s,  the story of  the Bahasa Indonesia  was not exactly  a case of a “lost language” like the German in the wake of Hitler’s fall as described by Hans Magnus Enzensberger   — when words like Raum and Blut were so corrupted that they were no longer usable for poetry.  Still, there is a parallel: the trend  to promote abstract nouns in daily discourse.  In Hitler’s lexicon,  Raum and Blut were no longer  sensuous, particular, “things”; they became concepts on par  with Plicht and Zucht. In the Indonesian case,  perjuangan and pembangunan (abstract nouns derived from verbs berjuang dan membangun)  became regular substantives even in the colloquial speech.  Over time, Indonesian media tend to use phrases like  “mengalami kenaikan ” (literally “experiencing a rise”) instead of “naik” (as a verb, “to rise”).  The trend remains visible even today: the depreciation of verbs. Action and performance  are becoming unrecognized phenomena.

Such was the linguistic context when we published Tempo.  We chose it to be a news magazine, implying our preference for events, happenings, action, and movements in concreto.   Like  other magazines of  this kind, Tempo produces reports of events in a narrative form or as a  “news story”.    The “who”, the “what”, the “where”, and the “how”,  are  to be described in details. The “when” is to be recounted as processes, with their implicit suspense- in-time.

It was no coincidence that  the first batch of Tempo’s editorial team was a group of writers, including three novelists and one playwright.  I started a “language policy” by  banning official acronyms from the magazine’s pages.  When necessary, we created our own abbreviations, less militaristic in their tone and their form.  What is important is to make the word more pronounceable and open for analysis.

Hence spelling is treated with care, not only to follow the correct linguistic rule but also to induce  what may be called “lexical alertness.”  In Tempo, no writers writes “dirubah” but “diubah” since she or he, trained to analyze morphological construction, will notice that  the  base of the word  is “ubah” (meaning transform) and not “rubah” (meaning “fox”).  In the same  vein, a writer is expected to avoid common mistakes; she or he shall not write  “di langgar” (to be in a rural prayer house) when what she or he means   is “dilanggar” (to be trespassed); she or he should be aware that the  signan  can be similar but the signatum  has two entirely different meanings.

Clichés, which gave the regime the power of repetition, are our main anathema. Therefore verbal innovativeness to expand the list of synonyms is an important part of Tempo’s policy.  A good thesaurus is a bulwark against the onslaught of the language of the Police — the language of inflexible phraseology.  We also believe that journalistic writing is a way to produce novelty.

The word “santai“, for instance,  is Tempo’s successful neologism of the late 1970s.  Its history is typical. We wanted to have an Indonesian  equivalent of “relax“, a word borrowed  from the English vocabulary; we wanted the synonym to be  more phonetically at home with the world  of Indonesian orality.  During  an editorial meeting we happily learned that there was such a word in the Komering tongue, a South Sumatranese dialect: “santai“.   We put it in our writings. In no time, it has been part of everybody’s vernacular.

Next to maintain its link with the vernaculars, Tempo’s language made a  deliberate attempt to revitalize old, forgotten phrases and proverbs.    “Konon“,  used in the old Malay story telling, was transformed into a succinct   translation of a journalistic lingo “it is reported that…”.  When a reportage is treated like a story, konon goes well with the flow.

Tempo hit the market for the first time when the state-run television began to dominate Indonesian source of information.  As follows, it was imperative to create an alternative medium;  Tempo’s style of news story was geared to meet the purpose. Basically our lingual strategy was (and still is) to present  interesting, concise and informative pieces of writing,  imbued with a bit of humor and playfulness, with the aid of attractive visual packaging.

It is commonly recognized that the key to Tempo’s survival under the repressive watchfulness  of the New Order was its skill in saying things “between-the-lines”.  Sometimes I joke that between the lines there is an empty space.  But I think there is a bit of truth in the description:  censors are fundamentally dour people with one-track mind who are prone to miss the play of variance in a good prose.

Of course, at the end of the day, a good prose is never  a safe place to deal with the brutal machine of power.  In 1994, the magazine was banned for the second time by Suharto.  The dictator wanted us to write servilely constructed stories.  We refused.

Goenawan Mohamad