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(The Asia Sentinel) The Discovery Channel inadvertently kicks off a two-country flap with Malaysia
Indonesia and Malaysia have stopped short of swords' points yet again over issues of national pride, this time over a cultural question that turned out not to exist. A firestorm of Internet outrage over the supposed theft of the Balinese pendet dance for a Malaysian tourism ad turned out to be just hot air when the Discovery TV network owned up and said that the dancers had appeared in one of its own TV promotions, and it was all a mistake anyway. But not before Indonesia's government, unaware of Discovery's action, had already made an official protest to Malaysia. The two countries, which share the same Malay culture, have been squabbling for years and while some of the squabbling appears petty, as over the pendet dance, that masks some deep problems. Malaysia, with a per-capital gross domestic product of US$15,300 in purchasing power parity, outranks Indonesia significantly, at only US$3,900 according to the CIA World Factbook. That has resulted in hundreds of thousands of Indonesians crossing over into Malaysia to seek work, causing strains between the two countries, with Indonesians charging Malaysians with physical abuse of illegal entrants and Malaysians charging Indonesians were taking their jobs. Earlier this year, Indonesians were transfixed when a teen model, Manohara Odelia Pinot, 18, alleged she had been kidnapped and abused by her Kelantan prince husband, Tengku Muhammad Fakhry. She escaped from the prince and Kelantan bodyguards in Singapore and flew to Jakarta, where she held a marathon round of televised press conferences to detail the allegations of abuse. The press conferences ran on most stations in what seemed to be a continuous loop. The two have threatened to countersue each other for millions in damages. In 2007, Indonesians were outraged when they learned the Malaysia Tourism Board's advertisements featured the old love song "Rasa Saying," the title of which means "Feeling of Love." Indonesians have also accused Malaysians of outright theft of batik, the colorful fabric made by covering part of the cloth with removable wax and dyeing it. Men and women of both countries wear – or did in earlier times sarongs made of the material. Similarly, the two countries share waying kulit, the famed shadow play using puppets and, perhaps less attractively, an ineradicable attraction among their politicians for corruption. In 2007, unknown Indonesians took apart a Malaysian tourism promotion ad and converted Malaysia's name to Malingsia. In Bahasa Indonesia, the word maling means "thief." The current kerfuffle over pendet began late last week, as rumors about the ad and reactions shot to the top of the social microblogging Web site Twitter's hot topics list. "Pendet is ours! Noordin M. Top is yours!" said one popular Twitter message, referring to the Malaysia-born terrorist suspect wanted in connection with the July 17 bombings in Jakarta. Over the weekend, news stories reported erroneously that the image of a traditional Balinese pendet dancer was used in an official Malaysia Tourism ad. That ignited the long-standing antagonism between the two countries over the heritage of traditional songs and dances, and further stoked the furor on Twitter and Facebook. The problem was, it was all wrong — and perhaps a lesson in the myth-making power of the Internet — as an apology statement by Discovery made clear: "Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific regrets that the image of a Balinese dancer, sourced from an independent third party, was used in the promotion of the series 'Enigmatic Malaysia.' The promotional clip has been removed from all feeds. "The Balinese dancer was not featured in any way in the program. Discovery has the deepest respect for the traditions, cultures and practices of all races and nations, and it is not our intention to cause any misunderstanding or distress to any party." Widyarka Ryananta, a senior diplomat at the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, confirmed that the Malaysian government had never made an ad featuring pendet. "It was all a misunderstanding. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing," he told local media. By the time Discovery's apology had been issued, Minister of Culture and Tourism Jero Wacik had already sent a letter to his Malaysian counterpart, demanding the ad campaign be removed. "It happened two years ago with Reog Ponorogo. We don't want it to happen again to us," he said. He said a bilateral pact signed in 2007 stated that if both countries wanted to publicize a culture in a "grey area," they had to consult with each other first. But pendet was a different story: "People around the world would recognize in a glance that pendet is a Balinese dance. There's nothing grey about it." After the error had been explained, Jero called on Indonesians to quickly register all forms of Indonesian cultural heritage to prevent such misunderstandings from reoccurring. "We have so much cultural heritage," he said. "We may accidentally neglect some of them." Parts of this article appeared in the Jakarta Globe.
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