▲ 39 points
back
1 comments
Scary. Not only have I personally met the organizers of the festival that was muzzled last year, but I have also filmed in Indonesia which could have resulted in a nominal 'visa violation'. Of course, the latter example was clearly politically motivated: it's widely held that the Indonesian military authorities profit handsomely from and even help to organize piracy. On the other hand, in my experience Indonesia is pretty decentralized, somewhat like the 1990s internet. People in many areas hold much more affinity for their island or regional identity than that of the nation, and significant animosity is held against the politically dominant Javanese. In fact, people on some islands even said "we like you guys, you can stay here as long as you like, fear not central government visa issues". Back on the political side, I once attended a Wikimedia event at the National University of Jakarta, where it seemed that the main bureaucratic function was the decision on whether or not to approve additional 'minority' language Wikipedias. A young man from the Minangkabau region of Sumatra had endured a ridiculous amount of bureaucracy to reach this point, and I argued heavily in favor of adding the language since in my view it cost so little to maintain and Wikipedia has no business politicizing language availability and should equally support all linguistic communities who adhere to the general format, regardless of size. Unfortunately, the Minangkabau Wikipedia seems to have entirely stagnated in growth over the last three years, which while sad does not devalue its >220,000 articles: https://min.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laman_Utamo