Popular Culture Review Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2003 | Page 104

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Popular Culture Review

Figure 4.
Indonesia’s Reform Era
The process of transforming the authoritarian political system of President
Suharto’s New Order regime (1966-1998) to a more democratic one has been pain
fully slow for the voters who brought a fragile alliance of reform parties to power
as a result of the 1999 elections, an event that most Indonesians hoped would
prove to be a watershed in their political history. I'hree of Gun Gun’s cartoons that
draw attention to situations that need to be changed if the country is to progress
will be presented and interpreted in this section.
Two Wrong-Sized Shoes Impair Progress
Gun Gun’s Figure 5 cartoon communicates why the reform (reformasi) gov
ernment produced by Indonesia’s 1999 elections has not yet achieved much politi
cal or economic progress. The man (who symbolizes Indonesia’s new govern
ment) has not made much forward progress because one of his shoes is so much
larger than the other that he is limping badly and even needs a cane to stabilize
himself. The boy dressed in tattered clothes (who symbolizes the impoverished
Indonesian people) that the government man is trying to carry forward on his back
is asking, “Why are you limping. Mister?’’
The fact that the big shoe is labeled OBRA means that it symbolizes Suharto’s
New Order regime. The reason this OBRA shoe is so much bigger than the one