About Basis

Basis

Basis is an Indonesian cultural magazine published in Yogyakarta in Indonesian, first issued on 1 October 1951 and recognised as the longest-running magazine of its kind in Indonesia. It is a bimonthly magazine of culture, philosophy, literature and social reflection, founded by Jesuit priests at Ignatius College in Yogyakarta and led in its first years by the philosopher N. Drijarkara. Its motto is "Jurnalisme Seribu Mata: Basis Menembus Fakta" — journalism of a thousand eyes: Basis penetrates the facts. The literary critic H.B. Jassin called it a "Benteng Pikiran Sehat", a fortress of healthy thought, and through its pages emerged or appeared writers such as Rendra, Goenawan Mohamad, Sapardi Djoko Damono, Bakdi Sumanto and Linus Suryadi. More than seven decades after its founding, Basis remains in publication, edited in recent years under editor-in-chief A. Setyo Wibowo with Sindhunata as its general leader.

Founding at Ignatius College in 1951

Basis was born from a meeting on 29 March 1951 at Ignatius College (Kolese Ignatius) in Yogyakarta, where a group of Jesuit priests — J.W.M. Bakker, A. Djajasepoetra, J. Dijkstra, R. Soekarta, G. Vriens and P.J. Zoetmulder — acted on the initiative of R.P. G de Quay and decided to publish a socio-cultural magazine dealing with thought in sociology, economics, education, family and other fields of society. The planned magazine was to be 48 pages thick, sold by subscription at Rp7.5 per quarter or Rp2.5 per month, with an expected 1,200 to 1,500 subscribers. A trial number appeared on 15 August 1951, and the first regular issue followed on 1 October 1951, from an address on Jalan Jajuli in Yogyakarta, carrying the slogan "Basis: Madjalah Kebudajaan Umum" — Basis: a magazine of general culture. The publishing body, Badan Penerbit Basis, was formed on 14 May 1951, chaired by A. Djajasepoetra with R. Soekarta as treasurer and P.J. Zoetmulder as member and editorial handler; its statutes were ratified on 2 October 1952 by notarial deed in Semarang.

Why the name Basis

The founders wanted a name that would remind readers of psyche — the soul. A magazine called Djiwa Baru (New Soul) was already circulating, so instead of the word jiwa they chose Basis. The word means "base" or "foundation", but for the founders it carried more: depth, inwardness, life principle and spirituality. They also insisted the magazine not be exclusive to one group: it was founded on "de Indonesische grondslag", an Indonesian foundation, addressed to society at large rather than to Catholics alone, and an Indonesian was appointed to lead it. Because N. Drijarkara, the chosen editor, was still in Rome, R. Soekarta acted in the post temporarily, with G. Vriens handling administration. Drijarkara became the magazine's first editor-in-chief, with an editorial board including R. Soekadija, R. Sukarta and P.J. Zoetmulder and Th. Geldorp as editorial secretary. Zoetmulder himself was one of the twentieth century's great scholars of Old Javanese literature, and his presence on the founding board set the magazine's intellectual level from the start.

Purpose: reflection on humanity and justice

The magazine's stated basic purpose is to contribute reflection on problems of humanity and justice. To do that, Basis chose to orient itself as a general magazine that reflects, rather than as a scientific journal; its articles are therefore written in a mass-media style rather than an academic one, even when their subjects are philosophy, theology or social theory. Its intended readers are intellectuals, cultural figures, artists, community leaders, decision-makers and young thinkers. In pursuit of that purpose the magazine sought the widest possible cooperation with others who shared its concerns — through forums for exchanging ideas, joint development of ideas in writing, and other collaboration based on high idealism. This self-definition explains Basis's longevity of form: it never tried to be a news magazine, a literary magazine only, or a church bulletin, but a general cultural forum in which Indonesian society could think about itself in print.

Leadership and editorial succession

Basis kept unusually stable leadership for a small cultural magazine. Drijarkara led it through its first decade and more; in January 1964 he remained editor-in-chief, with Zoetmulder and Kaptin Adisumarta on the board and Dick Hartoko, P. Swantoro and Andre Hardjana as editorial secretaries. In October 1964 Drijarkara moved to a director's role and Drs. Th. Koendjono became editor-in-chief, with Zoetmulder, P. Swantoro and Kaptin Adisumarta on the editorial board. In 1965 Koendjono became the responsible head, Dick Hartoko deputy editor, and the young poet Sapardi Djoko Damono managed the poetry rubric — an early sign of the magazine's role as a nursery of Indonesian literary talent. By 1994 the magazine was led by Sindhunata, the Jesuit priest and writer who became its defining modern editor, with an editorial board including Frans Magnis-Suseno, P. Swantoro and J.B. Banawiratma. In the magazine's recent masthead Sindhunata serves as general leader (Pemimpin Umum), with A. Setyo Wibowo as editor-in-chief, A. Sudiarja as deputy, and A. Bagus Laksana as managing editor.

Contents and cultural role

Basis publishes essays and reflections on culture, philosophy, literature, religion and society. Historians of the Indonesian press credit it with an important role in growing a culture of critical and open thinking about nationhood; the Keio University historian Nobuto Yamamoto observed that the magazine's editorial, though brief, succeeded in showing the problems within Indonesian culture, and Mochtar Lubis valued its achievement in keeping itself alive. Its pages hosted significant exchanges in Indonesian intellectual life: scholarly studies of the magazine record, for example, its 1950s exchanges on Catholic life in Flores with the Jakarta cultural magazine Mimbar Indonesia, and its 1998 to 2000 engagement with Islamic discourse and social reality after the fall of the New Order. Studies comparing Basis and Mimbar Indonesia in 1950 to 1965 describe Basis's cultural discourse as marked by Catholic spiritualism, humanism and anti-communism, while stressing that its pages were open well beyond a single confession — by the 1970s it was publishing religious poetry of a universal character, not only Christian work.

Survival economics of a cultural magazine

When The Jakarta Post marked fifty years of Basis in 2001, editor Sindhunata called it amazing that the magazine could survive in a country where people lacked passion for cultural discourse, noting that only a few of the socio-cultural magazines and scientific journals published in Indonesia had stayed in business — the Jakarta journal Prisma had ceased, while Horison and Kalam survived only irregularly. He explained that such magazines fail because readers prefer instant information on economics and politics to reflective discourse on culture, the arts, theology and philosophy, and they end when their funds run out. Basis, by contrast, had always made a profit, even if small, from sales and advertising since its Jesuit founding, despite limited capital: in 1955 more than 3,000 copies of each edition were sold, and in the years around its fiftieth anniversary it printed 5,000 copies of each bimonthly edition of 48 to 100 pages, sold at Rp 7,500, with readers in Java the largest group. "We don't want any permanent sponsors," Sindhunata said. "Let Basis earn money" — an independence doctrine that kept the magazine beholden to no patron.

Basis and Indonesian literature

The magazine's literary importance is concrete. Indonesian literary histories record that writers including Rendra, Goenawan Mohamad, Sapardi Djoko Damono, Andre Hardjana, Bakdi Sumanto and Linus Suryadi emerged through Basis — a remarkable roster for a bimonthly cultural magazine from Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta literary histories also record its polemics, including a 1959 exchange on the teaching of literature and a 1963 exchange between Sitor Situmorang and Nugroho Notosusanto on the existence of Indonesian and Malay literature. Its poetry rubric, managed in the mid-1960s by Sapardi himself, made the magazine a venue where new Indonesian poetry could appear outside Jakarta. For scholars, Basis is consequently a primary source: academic journals have analysed its cultural discourse across the 1950s and 1960s, its treatment of Islam at the end of the New Order, and its place in the history of the national press, including a dedicated chapter, "Basis: Jurnalisme Seribu Mata", in the centenary history of the Indonesian national press, Seabad Pers Kebangsaan (2007).

Yogyakarta, the permanent home

Basis has always been a Yogyakarta magazine. Founded at Ignatius College on what is now Jalan Abu Bakar Ali, it belongs to the city's distinctive intellectual culture — court city, student city and home of Gadjah Mada University — rather than to Jakarta's commercial media industry. Its endurance there, under Jesuit stewardship but addressed to the general Indonesian reader, makes it a counterpart to the city's universities and religious colleges: a slow, reflective institution in print form. Its website, majalahbasis.com, carries the magazine into digital distribution, but its identity remains that established in 1951: a bimonthly Indonesian-language cultural magazine, edited from Yogyakarta, asking its readers to think.

Basis at more than seventy years

Encyclopaedia and reference works describe Basis as, so far, the longest-running cultural magazine in Indonesia. That record rests on choices made at its founding and kept ever since: a general rather than sectarian address, an Indonesian editor from the first day, a refusal of permanent sponsors, modest but real commercial discipline, and a subject — Indonesian culture reflecting on itself — that never expires. H.B. Jassin's description of it as a fortress of healthy thought captures the reputation it built in the republic's first decades; its continued publication under a new generation of editors, with Sindhunata as general leader, shows the fortress still garrisoned. For a directory of Indonesian magazines, Basis is the benchmark of longevity against which all other Indonesian cultural magazines are measured.