Ryan and the Political Incorrectness of Indonesian Media

When I was browsing for an article today, I found this little great article on the arrest of a murderer. It's an acceptable article, brief yet informative, and one sentence in the end of the article ruined it all. Here goes: "Other than that, the police found a few pornographic CDs with homosexual genre."

Another story, when I was on the airport waiting for a plane to Bali, I watched on the TV a news story titled "the number of gays in Jakarta is increasing due to environmental influence." Or somewhere along the line.

An even bigger story, the story of Ryan the mass murderer. It has become a great commodity for various medias all over the country. From newspapers to infotainment. What worse is that media treats the news as an infotainment. The big highlight wasn't that he's a mass murderer and how it affects the society, but the fact that he was gay and one of his victim was Rima Melati's grandson. Two thumbs up, people!

Indonesia was once called a democratic country. Shouldn't it mean that the people are free to have any sexual orientation? Shouldn't it mean that someone's religious preferences, skin color, age, gender, nationality, race, and sexual orientation HAVE NO PLACE in our newspaper? Shouldn't it mean that those cultural backgrounds have no say in defining people? Shouldn't it mean that there's no different in the merit of news stories on heterosexual murderer or homosexual murderer?

Ask yourself that, and ,oh please please please, let the answer be, YES.

Otherwise, the reformation has no meaning. Those fights for equal treatments and respect were just bullshits. Otherwise, the pluralism that Indonesia has and so proud of is just another unpreserved promotion tool.

Please stand up for tolerance in our land.

-me