Chapter 5 Government and Non- Governmental Involvement in Literature

Cover Page The handle https://hdl.handle.net/1887/3179457 holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation. Author: Sudarmoko, S. Title: Literary infrastructure in West Sumatra, Indonesia Issue Date: 2021-05-26 CHAPTER 5 GOVERNMENT AND NON- GOVERNMENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN LITERATURE IN THIS chapter, I examine the role of the government, private companies, and individuals (patrons), in the literary field of West Sumatra. These institutions have contributed to the literary field by providing necessary assistance for literary practitioners. Government and patronage involvement includes financial aid, literature-related programmes (for example publication and event), full or part time jobs, and other forms which will be discussed below. The primary aim of this chapter is to investigate how the support takes place and what is the impact in the literary field especially in writing, publishing, and reception of the literary works from the provided support. The motivation behind the support provided by the government and patronage is not only caused by the responsibility to run the programmes but also influenced by personal and communal reasons. The government’s support as well as from private organisations, companies and patrons in literature mainly take the forms of fund for literary publication, establishing literary event, writing workshop, prizes, and travel grant to participate in a literary event outside the province. The support can, in many ways, facilitate or help the literary activities and the literary production. The form of support coming from the government and public discussed in this chapter differs from the literary club as presented in Chapter 3. The key difference lies in the fact that literary club’s involvement and support come from problems found in the literary field (as established and managed mostly by writers), whereas the government and private companies involvement explored in the current chapter comes as re- sponses of the problems from issues beyond the literary field. I begin my discussion with a brief look at the regional and national practices regarding the involvement of the government toward literature. This is followed by my investigation on the government agencies working on the arts and culture in West Sumatra. There are some government agencies which have programmes in these fields. For the purpose of this 143 study, I select representative examples and divide them into centralised government agencies, local or provincial agencies and government funded institutions. Furthermore, I discuss the involvement of the private companies or organisations and individuals, such as Maecenas who contrib- ute, both financially and in-kind, to literature in West Sumatra. In the discussion, I explore how the support for literature is provided and imple- mented by the government as well as non-government institutions and individuals. I also look at the influences from the provided support such as from the literary publication, events, and programmes held by those institutions and patrons. Support for Literature in Indonesia’s National Context The involvement of the government in the field of literature, arts and culture more generally, is a manifestation of a state’s responsibility to develop and protect the fields of national or public importance. DiMaggio and Useem (1978: 357) in their study on the establishment of the Na- tional Endowment for the Arts in the United States of America since 1965 state that “the rationale of providing funding for art is based on the un- derstanding that art is a public, or at least a mixed, good that, like high- ways and education, benefits everyone and is unlikely to be adequately supplied unless partially supported by the state”. A similar case of the Australian state’s involvement in the arts, in particular for the literary field, is provided by Katherine Bode. According to Bode (2010), the support or funding from the Australian government to literature has helped to increase the number of published literary works. Bode shows that in Australia, “growth in the proportion of literary (or non-genre) novels at the beginning of the 1970s suggests the impact of increased government funding for, and protection of, such writing at this time” (Bode 2010: 39). The official involvement from the government takes in the form of regulation, which in Indonesian context is stated in the law No 5/2017 on Pemajuan Kebudayaan (Advancement of Culture) and the Ministerial Regulation of the Ministry of Education and Culture No. 11 of/in the year 2015 on the main duties and responsibilities of its department. Other forms include a budget allocation for art institutions and artists, and au- diences of arts as well. In studying Indonesian cultural policy, Tod Jones (2013) shows that the Indonesian national cultural policy, especially dur- 144 ing the New Order, was run under a direct command from central government, in which it only had a limited budget to promote arts and culture, and established uniform arts and cultural institutions to control artists and their activities. The cultural fields are exposed by the government in the national programmes, among other aims, to control the national sta- bility. Jennifer Lindsay states that in Southeast Asian countries’ cultural policies, the connection between the arts and cultures with the govern- ments in the region is more than just a duty from the government to manage these fields. She provides a comparative discussion of the cultural policy in Southeast Asian countries after their independences. Prin- cipally, each government in the region has positioned the culture to be supported by the government from ministerial into local levels, according to its importance from the view of society and state and its relation with other fields. She states that: Governmental administrative structures for culture and statements of national cultural policy indicate both the social approach to culture and the cultural role of the state. The prominence given to culture in Southeast Asia both socially and in terms of national policy is demonstrated by the fact that all of the countries in the region name culture within a government ministry (or the equivalent of a ministry), and most of them established a government portfolio for culture very soon after independence (Lindsay, 1995: 658). However, the government’s subsidy for culture in Southeast Asian countries is different from western countries. In contrast to the western countries, in which the subsidy from the government to the cultural fields is based on the concept of the culture as containing educative, moral, heritage, aesthetic, and moral value to the society. With this concept, the public money should be used for the public interest in the mentioned cultural forms. Whereas in the Southeast Asian concept, “a government subsidy for the arts functions differently because the socio-political context of the arts is different.” The need to support the arts and culture has broader purpose for the nations, “subsidy is for reasons of establishing national identity, protection of moral and religious values, or protection of indig- enous cultural heritage (material and expressive)” (Lindsay, 1995: 668). 145 After Indonesia gained independence, the Ministry of Education and Culture was formed. This institution would be responsible for subsidising literature and the arts. The support is provided in various ways, depend- ing on the coverage field of programmes of each ministry. Even though in local government, provincial and regency levels, there are some offices of those ministries and also local provincial and regencies’ unit working in this field. The government has more attention to the traditional arts than to modern arts, particularly on modern literature. Local cultural authori- ties try to protect or preserve traditional arts. There is a West Sumatran local regulation (peraturan daerah) No 6 Year 2014 on the empowering of customary institutions and preservation of Minangkabau cultural values. However, the support in literature is not only in the form of direct subsidy for writers, which is occasionally available for a number of writers but also in the form of other literary activities that help literature keep develop. The government’s support is mostly provided in the form of activities, such as a literary festival, competition, workshop or seminar which can be mea- sured based on its target, participants, impact, and budget. During the New Order, according to an executive summary docu- ment prepared by the Directorate-General of Culture, Ministry of Educa- tion and Culture and submitted to the UNESCO (Unesco, 1973: 12-13), the government’s cultural policy was aimed at providing a harmonious cultural life. Its cultural programmes were directed at stimulating cre- ativity in traditional and temporary forms and raising the community’s appreciation of art and beauty, and its capacity to enjoy and benefit from it. The programmes were realised in establishing cultural centres, arts educational institutions, and initiating arts and cultural offices at provincial levels. Whereas the literary activities were closely linked with the Language Centre’s programmes, especially in the connection to the study and publication of Malay manuscripts and folktales documentation projects (Soebadio, 1985: 53-55). In the later periods, the government improved its cultural programmes through various institutions, in which some of them will be discussed in this study. The Indonesian government has another national programme based on book publishing. This programme is intended to provide reading materials for students in elementary and middle schools. This programme is usually a part of the programmes in developing educational infrastructure, including building new buildings, classrooms, official houses for prin- cipals, rehabilitation of buildings, developing school libraries, and the afore- 146 mentioned programme on providing reading materials. In 1980, as stated in the presidential instruction No. 6 the Year 1980, the government provided 250.8 billion rupiah (out of 5.24 trillion of the total annual budget for the education sector in 1980).

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