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Web-only Exclusives
November 30, 2000

From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War
A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix

From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead
Bad news for the Philippines - and some others

From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies
Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights?

AsiaweekTimeAsia NowAsiaweek

MARCH 24, 2000 VOL. 26 NO. 11

The Cartoon Network
Why Malaysian media targeted Gus Dur
By SANTHA OORJITHAM Kuala Lumpur

 
  ALSO IN ASIAWEEK
Cover: Creative Destruction City
The choice is tough: should Singapore jettison its safe old ways in order to prosper in the age of globalization?
• Report Card: What Singapore is doing right
• The Press: How free - and on what topics?
• Society: The highs and the lows of being Singaporean

Editorial: U.S. President Bill Clinton can help defuse tensions between India and Pakistan - but not much
Editorial: Manila must clean up its stock-market mess

THE NATIONS
China: What the NPC yielded
• Security: Why Beijing is getting deeper into blue water
Malaysia: Behind the attacks on Astro
India/Pakistan: Clinton is going to South Asia. Is that a good idea?
• Interview: Cohen says the U.S. will not mediate Kashmir
Thailand: The central bank's burden - prevent another Crisis
Indonesia: How Wahid became his country's strongest power
• Military: Call it "de-Wiranto-ization"
• Prejudice: Why Malaysia's media are tough on Gus Dur
Viewpoint: False fears about globalization

ARTS & SCIENCES
Education: A child's murder rouses a debate about parenting
Burdened: Japanese moms on the frontlines
• Movie: Beating the exam odds in reel life
• Dream School: Innovations in Okinawa
Design: Activists' fashion statement in the Philippines
Newsmakers: Courtside scorecard for Malaysia

TECHNOLOGY
The Net: South Korea's online stock-trading mania
Cutting Edge: IBM enters a new eon

BUSINESS
Investing: The power of brokers on the Manila bourse
IPO Watch: Sunevision will begin life at a premium stock price
Business Buzz: All is not well in Dotcomland

The last time Malaysia's pro-establishment newspaper New Straits Times lampooned an ASEAN leader was in 1997, after Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew said Malaysia's southern Johor state was "notorious for shootings, muggings and carjackings." The Kuala Lumpur broadsheet published a couple of cartoons of Lee, including one of him handing out condoms to Singapore travelers headed for Thailand instead of Johor.


Kemal Jufri for Asiaweek
Wahid (right) gave Mahathir (center) a proper reception

Recently, the NST was at it again. Up till a week before Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad's March 9 visit to Jakarta, the daily targeted Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, running several unsophisticated but mocking cartoons. One showed Wahid agonizing helplessly over a list of troublesome issues: Wiranto, East Timor, Aceh, the economy. Another showed him listening attentively to former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger, whom Wahid has named an informal adviser. Yet another portrayed the president as afraid of his own shadow. Malay daily Utusan Malaysia also published a cartoon in which two characters remark that only international financier George Soros (no friend of K.L.'s) would have been a more surprising choice than Kissinger.

Why the negative press? The shadow cartoon, says a senior NST source, was intended to show that the U.S. was the "big shadow: [Wahid] is afraid to anger [the Americans], unlike Mahathir who takes them on. The implication is that [U.S. President Bill] Clinton forced [Wahid] to take Kissinger as an adviser." Says Zainuddin Maidin, deputy chairman of Utusan Melayu, which publishes Utusan Malaysia: "Malaysians see Indonesia playing a part in the American agenda in Asia."

There may also be a perception in K.L. that Jakarta will now, in the post-Suharto era, lobby for more democracy not only at home but abroad. Moreover, Wahid once remarked that in order to see Malaysian ministers, one had to go to a golf course as that was the best place to find them. It's the sort of thing to raise the hackles of Malaysians, says Prof. Baladas Ghoshal of the National University of Malaysia. But Ghoshal disputes the analysis that Wahid is under Washington's thumb: "Malaysians are very naïve in their political understanding. Wahid is not at all pro-U.S. He's trying to lessen Indonesia's dependence on the West for financial help through strategic partnerships with China, India and ASEAN."

Despite bilateral hiccups, Mahathir got a proper enough reception in Jakarta. Wahid met him at the airport (this was made much of by Malaysian media). They witnessed the signing of eight commercial memorandums of understanding. And they held a joint press conference. Mahathir pledged not to interfere in Aceh's separatist movement (some of whose leaders reside in Malaysia), but added that he was willing to mediate if Jakarta wanted him to. He said Malaysia has learned from Indonesia that "the world is not a friendly place." Wahid said, in turn, that Jakarta appreciated K.L.'s "independent stance." So while the two leaders were not exactly slapping each other on the back, they seemed committed to a new beginning between their governments. And that is certainly no laughing matter.

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