An Insensitive Advert. A Case Study.
// January 26th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // discourse
Actually my intention is to write this as a comment to a friend’s article rather than posting this as an individual post. However I changed my mind because the comment has been growing longer than expected as a result of expansion of thinking. Together with new year’s celebration, have you noticed the particular advert that had been showed up recently? The advert is about making international call to China, which is told to be very cheap, no higher than 234 IDR per minute (1 US dollar is amount to 11.000 IDR). But the wording doesn’t sound right since the intention of calling is to ask for money from friend in China. So by spending as little as 234 IDR per minute, we can ask for money which would be given or wired to us because of in time of Chinese New Year. Of course it is ridiculous to make a call to friends or relatives abroad just for asking for money, without inquiring about their health and going about. Yet the company went for it and made it published.
These kind of insensitive advertisements are many yet its presence is understandable in the light of sociocultural characteristics in Indonesia. First, Chinese Indonesians are subject to exploitation, discrimination, racism and to some extent, purge ever since the passage in 1967 of a presidential instruction which banning ethnic Chinese from using Chinese language, conducting religious traditional activities in public and adopting Chinese surname throughout the whole country. They are forced to change their name, to refrain from using the language in public, to appear humble and keep their mouth shut in wide areas of life. After former president Abdurrahman Wahid revoking the instruction through a 2000 presidential decree on religion, things are getting better for Chinese Indonesians yet nothing has actually changed, the “Chinese are subject to extortion” stigma remains. It is acceptable to Indonesians to take anything from Chinese without giving something in return. It is natural to ask for protection fee from Chinese owned enterprises. If they refused to give in, the so called “law enforcer” will try by every means to wreak havoc.
Second, Indonesian people are used to demand rather than give. It is common to hear about asking The World Bank for more funds to borrow rather than making the most out of available money, demanding to cut gasoline’s prices rather than reducing individual consumption. It is demanding attitude that prevails rather than focusing attention onto making the world a better place to live. The occurrence of this mindless advertisement is just an example of this social trend. Is it insensitive? Yes. Is it dumb? YES. Is it misplaced? Don’t know.
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