Indonesia: from censorship to unprecedented freedom

Journalist/writer Goenawan Mohamad on his fight for the freedom of speech in Indonesia, and Dirk Vlasblom talks about his experiences as a newspaper correspondent with the Indonesian censor. Paul van der Gaag chairs the discussion. English spoken.

20060123221804

Information

Date and time Friday 20 January 2006 20:15 tot 21:10 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - kleine zaal

For years journalist/writer Goenawan Mohamad fought for the freedom of speech in Indonesia. There are no better witnessess of the history of censorship in Indonesia. Also former NRC correspondent Dirk Vlasblom talks about his experiences with the Indonesian censor. Paul van der Gaag chairs the discussion. Writer and journalist Goenawan Mohamad is the founder of the leading newsmagazine Tempo . For his pugnaciousness Mohamad received several awards, amongst others the first Professor Teeuw Award from the University of Leiden. Mohamad received the Wertheim award in December 2005. For this programme we earlier announced teh participation of Joesoef Isak, journalist and publisher from Indonesië. For reasons of ill health he cannot make the trip to the Netherlands. He is replaced by A. Munandar, an Indonesian exile living in The Netherlands. English spoken.

Paul van der Gaag

(Netherlands, 1958) has produced and presented the VPRO radio programme OVT since 2002, a two-hour show about the historical roots of current events as well as newly released historical books, films, commemorations, and anything else related to history. The show features live interviews, reportage, columns and a weekly documentary during the last half hour. He was already linked to OVT since 1992 as a programmer and previously freelanced for other national Dutch broadcasters such as VARA and IKON.
20120204162040

Goenawan Mohamad

(Java, Indonesia, 1941) isn't only is a famous poet, he's also a journalist, essayist, editor and columnist. Mohamad contributed to the creation of the Indonesian language, Bahasa Indonesia. He took part in the struggle against Suharto's regime in many ways. He founded the succesful critical literary magazine Tempo, which was banned twice by the government. In 1995 Mohamad initiated the Institute for the Study of Free Information Flow. After Suharto's resignation in 1998, Tempo started publishing again. Mohamad has received various international awards for his readiness to resist. Several of his poetry collections were republished around his 70th birthday. His most recent collections are Don Quixote (2011) and 70 Puisi (70 Poems). In 1995, Mohamad was one of the participants of the first Winternachten festival, and has since returned to The Hague several times for the same purpose.
20191119094707 1

A. Munandar

leeft sinds 1965 in ballangschap. Toen hij dat jaar voor studie van zijn geboorteland Indonesië naar de DDR vertrok, en dat najaar Soeharto de macht greep, kon hij niet meer terug. Munandar sympathiseerde met de communistische partij PKI. De Culturele Revolutie was voor hem en meer Indonesische ballingen reden om China te ontvluchten. Zo kwam hij in 1985 in Nederland terecht. Hij was een van de makers van een krantje met Indonesisch nieuws, dat de ballingen overal in Europa ontvingen. Na een scheiding van bijna dertig jaar van vrouw en kinderen, reisde Munandar in 1994 voor het eerst naar Indonesië, maar hij besloot om in Nederland te blijven wonen.
20060123220225

Dirk Vlasblom

(Rotterdam, 1952) studied anthropology, planning and management at Utrecht University. Since then he works mainly as a journalist and writer. In 1990 he became NRC Handelsblad’s foreign correspondent in Jakarta. In 1997 he was awarded the Prize for Daily Paper Journalism for his articles on the Papua’s in Irian Jaya. In 2004 his book Papoea, een geschiedenis (Papua, a history) was published, the first integral historical look at West New Guinea. Other books that Vlasblom has had published about Indonesia are Jakarta, Jakarta – Reportages uit Indonesië (1993) (Jakarta, Jakarta - reports form Indonesia) and In een warung aan de Zuidzee – Verhalen uit Indonesië (In a snackstall by the South Sea, stories from Indonesia) (1998). In these books he describes his experiences of everyday life there, and especially the last book gives a glimpse behind the scenes of being a foreign correspondent. In 2005 he returned to The Netherlands, and now works as a journalist for NRC Handelsblad.
20050302123804

Discover

20 May 2026

Get your 2027 tickets!

Get your Early Bird tickets for the big festival nights, Friday & Saturday Night Unlimited!