Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 53

Balinese Artists and Suharto’s Regime

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A second cartoon by the same artist (Appendix C) indicates a specific reason
why the “Big Man from Jakarta” type of investor is so disliked by Balinese. Such
outsiders are perceived as benefiting far more than Balinese people do from the
huge revenues Bali’s popularity as a world class tourism destination generates.

Appendix C

Appendix D

The cartoon communicates this in two frames. The upper one pictures two
men happily clinking their glasses together to toast the benefits each anticipates
from the business deal they have negotiated. That the big investor is indeed from
Jakarta is confirmed by the fact that his tie stripes are the Indonesian national
colors of red and white. The lower frame takes place sometime later. This time the
glass of the “Big Man from Jakarta” investor is filled up to the rim, implying that
he has profited greatly from the deal. In contrast, the glass of the Balinese man in
completely empty, implying that he has gained virtually nothing. It is noteworthy
that the cartoonist uses his somewhat naive but perceptive I BREWOK character
to communicate that the Balinese people are being exploited by the economically
and politically powerful elites in Jakarta that dominate all of the over seventeen
thousand other islands that constitute the country of Indonesia.