Where were you when your heard Elvis died? I was in a Brisbane car park and my mate’s car had just been backed into. The news came on the radio just as we were contemplating what to do.
Where were you when you first heard about the tsunami that hit Aceh? I was, again, in a car and heard about it there. The first reports were that it was not too bad. As more reports came in they started describing the devastation.
Where were you as Exxon-Mobil, if not encouraged at least turned a blind eye to the Indonesian military atrocities in Aceh? I can’t recall but I guess I was just getting on with my life.
What is the common thread flowing through these three questions? Media complicity and political apathy!
Elvis was, at best, a mediocre performer in his later years. There is no denying his charisma as a young performer. However the toll of fame, drugs, drink and excess became too great for his body and his ballooning figure and increasingly erratic behaviour turned him from hero to laughing stock.
The memory of Elvis and his energy is perpetuated even as his body and increasing reclusiveness demonstrated his failing health and mortality. Our memories of him are shaped, in some part, by the way the media present him as an historical figure. Furthermore, the huge business his death spawned requires that the myth outgrows the reality and that any negative aspects fade into "innuendo" or "rumour". We cant have the "great" man’s reputation sullied by the truth now can we?
The tsunami that devastated the Indian Ocean coast line was a totally unpredictable and natural disaster. Even as the clean up continues today more bodies are being unearthed. Aceh, the small nation at the northern end of Sumatra, bore the brunt of not only the huge surge of water, but prior to it the earthquake that triggered it. The media focus on this has studiously avoided the question of what opportunities the earthquake provides for the multinational reconstruction industry to move in and take over large parts of the national infrastructure. While we continue to see images of the homeless and the poverty and hear the "good news stories" of a lost relative being found or another "miracle" survival tale, we hear little in the media of the social devastation that will be caused by the rebuilding of the nation.
Exxon-Mobil, you may remember them as owning the Exxon Valdez that in 1989 ran aground on the Alaska coast triggering the largest and most destructive ocean oil spill of the 20th century. Well it turns out that this rapacious company has been hiring Indonesian soldiers to "guard" their facilities in Aceh. While it is fact that the company has funded the building of social infrastructure (schools, mosques, hospitals etc) it is also true that they have colluded in providing the political conditions under which the central government has not only suppressed the independence movement there, but perhaps even lost control of sections of their own military.
The Acehenese have always considered themselves a separate nation. It was colonialism that forced them to submit to a central government that, initially, cared little about them other than to ensure their subjectivity. It wasn’t until the riches that lay beneath their feet were discovered and began to be developed that the real battle for the province began. Mobil was the first in and as history demonstrates, were prepared to do anything it takes to secure their wealth potential. Exxon-Mobil has not shown any inclination to deviate from this course and hand in glove with the central government worked to close the nation to outside scrutiny from the media, human rights advocates and others concerned about the abuses carried out in the name of profits.
The Indonesian government has not been sufficiently questioned as to why they ordered all foreigners out of the country in the late 1990’s even while these very human right abuses were being reported. The corporate media has again not offered a strong resistance to the demand by the Indonesian government that they leave by the end of March. Our own government has not resisted this call either and one can only speculate but I would assume that it will not resist beyond some whimpy call for "cooperation with our northern neighbour".
It is clear that Aceh is under siege. The military is out of the control of the central government. Or perhaps not so much as out of control as given free reign to kill, rape, torture and destroy anyone who may resist their internal imperial demands.
What the corporate media do not report in depth are the connections between the corrupt central government, and lets be up front about it and admit that nothing has changed except the gender of the president, and the creation of "the conditions" for continued and expanding "business opportunities" for multinationals right across the archipelago.
Less than two days after the tsunami wiped Banda Aceh from the map, the government announced that the gas shipments coming from the Acehenese gas field would resume shortly. On January 26, only a month after the tsunami has ripped the life from Aceh, Exxon announced it had made a global profit of US$25 billion. Part of that obscene amount could be traced to the extraction of 1.6 billion cubic feet per day of liquid natural gas (LNG) from the Arun field in Aceh. What the corporate media don’t tell us is that the gas fields in Aceh are the second largest in Indonesia and that if pumping is halted, the government must pay compensation to Exxon, a clear example of corporate welfare. One can see quite clearly that it is in the government’s financial interest to ensure any resistance is quelled as swiftly and forcefully as possible.
Elvis, the tsunami and Aceh. Three media "creations" if you like. One dead and buried but continuously recreated in the image of profit. Another long past but also being recreated in the media, this time as a "human tragedy" that has passed. The final one is only just being recreated in the western psyche and should be one of our focus points as the rebuilding continues.
Elvis is never coming back, no matter how many conventions, channellings or séances are held. It is hoped that the next time a tsunami is detected the information will be shared to prevent the scale of death seen this last time. However, there is a great opportunity for us in Aceh, one that we should and must take responsibility for. That is, we can do something to assist in the recreation of a sovereign and independent nation in the wake of the ruins.
Aceh cannot be ignored. The torture, murder, rape and carnage wrought by the Indonesian government and astoundingly under reported by the corporate media in cooperation with the freewheeling capitalist bosses there, must be stopped.
If our government, no matter who is in power, wants to be able to crow on the world stage about their international achievements, we must force them into resisting the Indonesian government’s demands that we withdraw our troops and aid workers. We must demand that this small nation, so long repressed by colonialism be given the same chance East Timor has been given. That is to create itself in the image of its own culture and people. To do anything less makes us collude with the common enemy of the people.
Perhaps, like the creation of the Elvis myth we all want to stay young and live free forever. Maybe the people of Aceh want to be given the chance to do that too.