“Why should the army fear us when they are the ones with the guns?”
For a long time I kept the paper napkin on which I had scribbled Goenawan Mohamad’s words. Like many Americans, I had first heard of Tempo magazine when it was banned along with Detik and Editor in June 1994, presumably because of a cover story on a dispute within the Soeharto regime over a plan to buy thirty-nine used war ships from the former East Germany. During the summer of 1997, just a few weeks before leaving the U.S. to begin a year as a Fulbright professor at the University of Indonesia, I heard Goenawan speak at an awards luncheon at the Freedom Forum in Arlington, Virginia. After receiving the Louis M. Lyons award for conscience and integrity in journalism, Goenawan described the demonstrations that had greeted the banning of his magazine, and the violent response from the police. He spoke of Tempo Interaktif, the website that was read and downloaded and photocopied and sold to those who didn’t have access to the internet. When someone in the audience asked whether Tempo was concerned about copyright violations, Goenawan just laughed. Tempo wanted the website to be read. “We don’t care,” he said. “They can have it for free.”

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