JAKARTA – Many Westerners may consider Playboy Magazine to be charmingly softcore entertainment for men, but when it’s discussed in the world’s most heavily Islamic nation, it’s treated as though it were the hardest of the hardcore.Indonesians are facing the possibility of a local version of the venerable men’s magazine becoming available to the republic’s populace, and that knowledge has activated an opposition whose arguments sound familiar to those used within the United States of America — but this time it’s not right wing Christians fretting about moral values and the safety of children. With “Unity in Diversity” as its national motto, Indonesia is the most populous Muslim-majority nation on the planet and its representatives are deeply concerned about the implications that easy access to a domestic Playboy might have upon the country’s citizens, especially minors.
So pervasive is the belief that youths are substantially harmed by exposure to erotic material that even Tarman Azzam, the chairman of the Indonesian Journalists Association, proposes that “the producers as well as the sellers should be arrested and taken to court” in cases where anyone underage comes into contact with such media. Azzam is determined to keep Playboy from seeing daylight in Indonesia. In order to assure that nobody at all sees it, he suggests that “aside from using the legal clause in criminal law, the law on the children protection could be used.”
Although Azzam correctly points out that a number of tabloids and magazines have been categorized as pornographic, Indonesia’s legal position on the issue is still under development. The nation’s parliament is currently studying the issue with the intention of releasing legislative guidelines to assist authorities in knowing what publications are allowed and which are forbidden.
Azzam was not the only person to condemn plans to release the magazine in Indonesia. Youth and Sports Minister Adhyaksa Dault was joined by two major Muslim organizations to vow resistance to the publication of an Indonesian version of Playboy, which Dault concluded “can destroy younger generation’s morals,” before stating that the magazine “is very dangerous and we must prevent its circulation.”
Claims that the Indonesian version of Playboy would cover “lifestyle, conventional issues, culture and politics” without the inclusion of nude photos have met with great skepticism, especially from the Association of Muhammadiyah Students, which is convinced that the magazine risks destroying the morality of the nation. Nonetheless, Ponti Carrolus, director of PT Velvet Silver Media, which holds the Indonesian license for Playboy and plans to begin publication in March, insists that his company’s version would not include the magazine’s trademark nude photos.
Hasyim Muzadi, the chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization, has called for the revocation of the magazine’s license, while his organization has threatened to lead an anti-pornography movement, if necessary to halt the planned publication. Muzadi does not expect the battle to be an easy one due to the industrialization of pornography, and likened it to being “almost as difficult as fighting corruption.”
Further providing support to the anti-pornography contingent was the Indonesian Ulamas Council (MUI), whose chairman, Ma’ruf Amir firmly stated that “the government should forbid this kind of media, as it will cause a strong reaction from people and tend to bring anarchy among people who are against this magazine.” He called for the government to ban all pornographic publications and announced that the MUI had issued a “fatwa” condemning the distribution of pornography.
