About Abadi

Abadi

Abadi was a daily Indonesian-language newspaper based in Jakarta. It was published in two distinct lives, from 1951 to 1960 and again from 1968 to 1974, and it was affiliated with the Masyumi political party, the Council of Indonesian Muslim Associations. It was described as a famous Muslim reformist daily and as one of the largest newspapers in the Sukarno period until its ban in 1960. After the fall of Sukarno it resumed publication in 1968, only to be banned for a second time in 1974 following the Malari incident in the Suharto period. Its motto was Untuk Bangsa, Untuk Negara, Untuk Agama, meaning for the nation, for the state and for religion. Few Indonesian newspapers illustrated the fate of the party press as completely as Abadi did: it was created to give a political movement a daily voice, it closed when that movement was destroyed, it returned when politics changed, and it was closed again when it reported on unrest under a second regime.

Origins in the Masyumi movement

The editorial team of Abadi was first formed in 1947, with the aim of voicing the aspirations of Indonesian Muslims, the majority of whom were gathered in the Masyumi Party. Masyumi itself had been formed as a party in 1945, on the basis of the pre-war federation known as MIAI. The newspaper therefore began as a project of the organised Islamic political movement in the first years of the Indonesian republic, before it existed as a printed daily. Its purpose, as later descriptions summarised it, was to voice the views of Masyumi on social and state life in Indonesia. That party-press relationship shaped everything that followed: Abadi's readership, its editorial allies, its opponents and, ultimately, the manner of both of its closures.

First publication in Jakarta in 1951

Abadi began its first publication in Jakarta in 1951, with its first edition dated 2 January 1951. Its editorial team was led by Suardi Tasrif, who became chief editor of the newspaper in that year. The paper was a broadsheet daily in the Indonesian language. Its editorial office was at first at Jalan Blora numbers 36-37 in Jakarta, and the office was later moved to Jalan Kramat Raya number 45. Publication was carried out by PT Kramat Empat Lima, a company whose name reflected the Kramat address. Tasrif himself had come to the paper after work in literature, in magazines, in radio during the Indonesian National Revolution and on the army-established Berita Indonesia newspaper in Yogyakarta, and he later contributed significantly to the Indonesian journalism code of ethics published in 1954. Under his leadership Abadi took its place among the capital's leading dailies of the parliamentary period.

Place among the party newspapers of the 1950s

In the 1950s most major Indonesian political parties had an affiliated newspaper, and Abadi was Masyumi's place in that system, alongside the Indonesian Communist Party's Harian Rakjat, the Indonesian Socialist Party's Pedoman and the Indonesian National Party's Suluh Indonesia. Tasrif developed good relationships with other newspaper heads such as Mochtar Lubis of Indonesia Raya and Rosihan Anwar of Pedoman, and their papers generally adopted a similar political position in opposition to heavily nationalist publications such as Harian Rakjat and Suluh Indonesia. Tasrif, Lubis and Anwar, along with B. M. Diah, were founding members of the Indonesian branch of the International Press Institute. In scholarly accounts, Abadi could not be separated from Masyumi figures such as Mohammad Natsir, Sjafruddin Prawiranegara, Burhanuddin Harahap and Mohamad Roem, men who since the revolution had been close to Sutan Sjahrir and were known as the religious socialism group within Masyumi. One account placed the paper in the 1950s among the ten largest national newspapers, and its distribution was national in scale.

Contents, sections and literary pages

The paper's sections were varied. They included the editorial column, sports news, readers' letters, and sections on history, philosophy, literature and the arts, as well as commercial advertising. The philosophy, literature and arts pages appeared on Saturdays, under Bahrum Rangkuti, M. Saribi and Susanto Dwijodjuwono, and the paper became well known in literary circles for presenting prominent authors and their works. Its pages carried poems, short stories and serialised stories, including translated work, and its contributors included writers who became known in Indonesian literature. Islamic values were a hallmark of its contents, and its principal readers were drawn from Muslim intellectual circles. Surviving sheets of the paper were preserved in archives, including holdings associated with the National Press Monument in Surakarta, and the paper was classed in one study of endangered newspapers in the National Library as a highly endangered title, a sign of how incompletely its run survived outside major collections.

Confrontation, reporting and the first ban in 1957

Abadi was remembered for reporting that challenged those in power. One account recorded that it was first banned on 13 to 14 September 1957 for publishing news outside the official sources of the National Conference, and that it had raised sensitive issues including President Sukarno's polygamy with Hartini, covert prostitution around the Asian-African Conference of 1955, and corruption and collusion in the bureaucracy and the military in 1956. The late 1950s were a period of mounting regional tension, with councils in Sumatra opposing the central government in Jakarta, and the press reminded the government of the importance of democratic and fair life. The 1955 general election had produced no dominant party, President Sukarno moved toward Guided Democracy in place of liberal parliamentary democracy, and Vice President Mohammad Hatta resigned at the end of 1956. Abadi, as the voice of a party that steadfastly opposed Guided Democracy, stood directly in the path of that political change.

The farewell of October 1960

The end of the first life of Abadi came with the destruction of Masyumi itself. After the PRRI rebellion, in which Masyumi figures were implicated, President Sukarno banned the party; the Masyumi Party was banned on 13 September 1960 for supporting the PRRI rebellion. In 1960 the government required the press to support its policies through a loyalty mechanism remembered as the 19 Statements: a printing licence depended on signing declarations of loyalty, support and obedience to the Guided Democracy programme. Suardi Tasrif refused to sign the document that would have required the newspaper to support the Sukarno government's policies, and Abadi was shut down in 1960. In its editorial entitled Pamitan, meaning Farewell, on 31 October 1960, Abadi stated its decision to say goodbye to its readers, given that the climate for expressing opinions in Indonesia, a fundamental aspect of human rights, had been lost. By then Nahdlatul Ulama and Syarikat Islam had already left Masyumi over political differences and founded their own newspapers, Duta Masyarakat and Nusa Putera, so the coalition the paper had spoken for had already narrowed. When it stopped circulating in 1960 the paper was led by, among others, Burhanuddin Harahap and Suardi Tasrif.

Revival under the New Order in 1968

After the fall of Sukarno, Abadi was among the formerly banned anti-communist newspapers permitted to revive in 1968, alongside Mochtar Lubis's Indonesia Raya and the former PSI paper Pedoman, after the New Order enacted the Basic Press Law of 1966. It returned on 7 December 1968, under Burhanuddin Harahap as general leader with Soemarso Soemarsono as the person responsible, and other leaders in its second period included Sumarso Sumarsono, Hutasuhut and Yusuf Abdullah Puar. Development issues became a mainstay of its reporting, although criticism remained slipped in among praise for New Order programmes. From 2 August 1970 a Sunday edition was officially published. A surviving issue of 6 January 1970 showed the range of the revived paper: it reported the Bogor Botanical Gardens tragedy, a government decision to raise the salaries of civil servants and members of the armed forces by fifty percent, the newly passed Election Law, and calls for Muslims to celebrate Idul Adha simultaneously to avoid differences in determining the feast day.

The Malari ban of January 1974

The second life of Abadi ended, as the first had, in a government crackdown after unrest. In January 1974 street battles took place in the capital on the occasion of a visit by the Japanese prime minister, after months of press and public debate on foreign investment and allegations of illegal payments from Japanese investors to high-ranking government officials. The protests became known as the Malari incident, Malapetaka 15 Januari, the Disaster of 15 January. The government took advantage of the incident to crack down on the national press, and Abadi's permits were revoked on 21 and 23 January 1974 after its coverage of Malari. It was banned together with seven other newspapers, and some of its journalists were afterwards accommodated at the newspaper Pelita. No Muslim daily ever emerged to take the place of Harian Abadi as a national voice for Masyumi Muslims, a judgement made in studies of the Muslim press that underlined the paper's singular position.

Legacy and historical significance

Abadi was remembered in Indonesian press history as both a party organ and a measure of press freedom. Its history was told as the price of a free press in Indonesia: it was published twice and silenced twice, under two different regimes, the Old Order of Sukarno and the New Order of Suharto. Scholars of print Islam treated its 1974 banning as part of a deliberate pressure on the Muslim media and on Masyumi supporters in particular, while also noting that secular democratic activists suffered in the same crackdown. At the same time, the paper was remembered not only as a political mouthpiece but as a space for literature, social criticism and intellectual courage, whose Saturday pages gave authors a national platform. Its archives, its farewell editorial of 1960 and its two closures made it a standard reference point in accounts of how Indonesia's party press of the 1950s was dismantled first by Guided Democracy and then, after a brief revival, by the New Order.