#SaveSangiheIsland as a Counterhegemony
![Picture](/uploads/1/3/9/6/139679323/published/4dm8yxh8-400x400.jpg?1638756340)
During summer of this year, the #SaveSangiheIsland movement appeared on my social media, both Twitter and Instagram. This movement is started to raise awareness for the indigenous people who live on a small island called Sangihe, the northside of Indonesia, close to the Philippines. Until today, the indigenous people in Sangihe are currently fighting against a gold mining concession, held by PT Tambang Mas Sangihe, that covers nearly three-fifths of Sangihe island’s total land area. Helmud Hontong, the deputy head of the Sangihe district, died on his flight from Bali to Makassar on June 9, 2021. His death had sparked the assumption that it may have been linked to his strong disagreement in this case since a couple of days before, he wrote a cancellation letter for a mining operation permit in Sangihe island. Unfortunately, after his death, nothing was changed. Although this movement may be challenging to understand by people outside of Indonesia, I try to analyze this movement from public modalities and advocacy perspectives to raise awareness since this movement is still ongoing.
In the introduction of Public Modalities, Brouwer and Asen identify five metaphors that scholars who study the public use, such as a sphere, publicity, and screen (3). Sphere, or what Jurgen Habermas refers to as Public Sphere, is a social space where there is a process of exchanging information regarding various topics that are currently being discussed until public opinion is created or until solutions to such problems occur (Fraser 110). However, not everyone can participate in this conversation because of the inequality and exclusion in the public sphere. Later, the excluded people will form their own public sphere, known as counterpublics (Asen 138). Counterpublic offers a modality for negated people to gain access to get attention to address their needs and concerns (Brouwer and Asen 135).
Related to the #SaveSangiheIsland movement, this particular movement occurs as an online counterpublic to challenge the government authority on the mining permit of PT Tambang Mas. To categorize this movement as counterpublic is in line with Rita Felski’s explanation about counterpublic as a “parallel discursive arena” where excluded people create and circulate counter-discourse to challenge people who have power (Asen 138). This counterpublic exists because the indigenous people do not have access to challenge the authority above them. Besides engaging in social media, Sangihe indigenous people with other people who cared about this issue, conducted several demonstrations, filed lawsuits in court, created petitions, and even launched the documentary Sangihe Not for Sale to draw attention to challenge the authority.
On the other hand, their work in media can be categorized as publicity-as-activity because this movement gathers and encourages people to work together to fight this issue, not just the indigenous people who lived in Sangihe Island (Brouwer and Asen 9). The use of social media and documentary movies can also be identified as screen since it shows the semiotic condition of this movement (11).
The #SaveSangiheIsland gained attention from several Indonesian or international non-governmental organizations working on human rights, indigenous people, and social justice related to the environment; however, less news can be found related to this topic. To understand how media portray the issue, Cloud offers her “frame-checking” as an alternative tool that goes beyond fact-checking in journalism (9). In this case, we need to examine who has the power and control to decide the boundaries from the news (74). Using the example from Cloud (53), frame-checking is necessary because sometimes audiences believe false information or fake news in media. For instance, on the #SaveSangiheIsland Instagram account, they once corrected wrong information that circulated in online news. The incorrect information was related to the support from the indigenous people to PT Tambang Mas Sangihe to continue the mining process. The truth was these people still fought juridically and non-juridically for their land. Similar to Planned Parenthood’s video, the misinformation in the #SaveSangiheIsland account can be classified as “deliberate, internet-based, and therefore distorted” (57) since this news occurs during the conflict between the indigenous people and PT Tambang Mas Sangihe. There was no information about who created this news, but it suddenly appeared in online group messengers, like WhatsApp Group (WAG). This false information was also distorted because the audiences thought that the problem was over, although it was not.
On the other hand, since this movement occupies social media to raise awareness, it would be best if we examine their social media accounts based on the “big five” strategies by Cloud, which are narrative, myth, affect, embodiment, and spectacle (38). A narrative is a story that we tell people to achieve mutual identification, beliefs, and directions to perform something. However, a narrative would be considered a myth if it is included a fictitious story (43). Affect is an inchoate feeling before emotions occur (41). Embodiment is the power of the message that is closely connected to affect: I would argue it is a process of making sense in our body to incorporate in our society’s regulations and stories (42). The spectacle is the visual or artistic display that can be seen to capture attention (46).
Until Monday, the #SaveSangiheIsland (@save.sangihe) has more than 6.5k followers on their Instagram account. The Instagram admin creates a narrative or provides a story behind all photos. The use of narrative to challenge oppression is also used by African American women to “navigate, circumvent, and transcend the dynamics of dominance and change” (Davis 43). Moreover, some of the posts in @save.sangihe use English and Indonesian languages, perhaps to attract people outside of Indonesia to bring their attention to help this movement. These posts also affect the audience since they desire to be part of the movement. As a long-time follower, I noticed that the account made progress in the quality of the picture and the increasing number of followers.
As I stated earlier, I acknowledge that it may be hard for people outside of Indonesia to understand this problem. Thus, having conversations regarding this issue is important to introduce and raise awareness. Through this work, I hope I will be able to raise awareness to challenge this issue and bring more attention to the need of Indonesian indigenous people and their community since they are often negated in public realm discourse.
In the introduction of Public Modalities, Brouwer and Asen identify five metaphors that scholars who study the public use, such as a sphere, publicity, and screen (3). Sphere, or what Jurgen Habermas refers to as Public Sphere, is a social space where there is a process of exchanging information regarding various topics that are currently being discussed until public opinion is created or until solutions to such problems occur (Fraser 110). However, not everyone can participate in this conversation because of the inequality and exclusion in the public sphere. Later, the excluded people will form their own public sphere, known as counterpublics (Asen 138). Counterpublic offers a modality for negated people to gain access to get attention to address their needs and concerns (Brouwer and Asen 135).
Related to the #SaveSangiheIsland movement, this particular movement occurs as an online counterpublic to challenge the government authority on the mining permit of PT Tambang Mas. To categorize this movement as counterpublic is in line with Rita Felski’s explanation about counterpublic as a “parallel discursive arena” where excluded people create and circulate counter-discourse to challenge people who have power (Asen 138). This counterpublic exists because the indigenous people do not have access to challenge the authority above them. Besides engaging in social media, Sangihe indigenous people with other people who cared about this issue, conducted several demonstrations, filed lawsuits in court, created petitions, and even launched the documentary Sangihe Not for Sale to draw attention to challenge the authority.
On the other hand, their work in media can be categorized as publicity-as-activity because this movement gathers and encourages people to work together to fight this issue, not just the indigenous people who lived in Sangihe Island (Brouwer and Asen 9). The use of social media and documentary movies can also be identified as screen since it shows the semiotic condition of this movement (11).
The #SaveSangiheIsland gained attention from several Indonesian or international non-governmental organizations working on human rights, indigenous people, and social justice related to the environment; however, less news can be found related to this topic. To understand how media portray the issue, Cloud offers her “frame-checking” as an alternative tool that goes beyond fact-checking in journalism (9). In this case, we need to examine who has the power and control to decide the boundaries from the news (74). Using the example from Cloud (53), frame-checking is necessary because sometimes audiences believe false information or fake news in media. For instance, on the #SaveSangiheIsland Instagram account, they once corrected wrong information that circulated in online news. The incorrect information was related to the support from the indigenous people to PT Tambang Mas Sangihe to continue the mining process. The truth was these people still fought juridically and non-juridically for their land. Similar to Planned Parenthood’s video, the misinformation in the #SaveSangiheIsland account can be classified as “deliberate, internet-based, and therefore distorted” (57) since this news occurs during the conflict between the indigenous people and PT Tambang Mas Sangihe. There was no information about who created this news, but it suddenly appeared in online group messengers, like WhatsApp Group (WAG). This false information was also distorted because the audiences thought that the problem was over, although it was not.
On the other hand, since this movement occupies social media to raise awareness, it would be best if we examine their social media accounts based on the “big five” strategies by Cloud, which are narrative, myth, affect, embodiment, and spectacle (38). A narrative is a story that we tell people to achieve mutual identification, beliefs, and directions to perform something. However, a narrative would be considered a myth if it is included a fictitious story (43). Affect is an inchoate feeling before emotions occur (41). Embodiment is the power of the message that is closely connected to affect: I would argue it is a process of making sense in our body to incorporate in our society’s regulations and stories (42). The spectacle is the visual or artistic display that can be seen to capture attention (46).
Until Monday, the #SaveSangiheIsland (@save.sangihe) has more than 6.5k followers on their Instagram account. The Instagram admin creates a narrative or provides a story behind all photos. The use of narrative to challenge oppression is also used by African American women to “navigate, circumvent, and transcend the dynamics of dominance and change” (Davis 43). Moreover, some of the posts in @save.sangihe use English and Indonesian languages, perhaps to attract people outside of Indonesia to bring their attention to help this movement. These posts also affect the audience since they desire to be part of the movement. As a long-time follower, I noticed that the account made progress in the quality of the picture and the increasing number of followers.
As I stated earlier, I acknowledge that it may be hard for people outside of Indonesia to understand this problem. Thus, having conversations regarding this issue is important to introduce and raise awareness. Through this work, I hope I will be able to raise awareness to challenge this issue and bring more attention to the need of Indonesian indigenous people and their community since they are often negated in public realm discourse.
References:
Asen, Robert. "Critical engagement through public sphere scholarship." Quarterly Journal of Speech 101.1 (2015): 132-144.
Brouwer, Daniel, and Robert Asen. Public modalities: Rhetoric, culture, media, and the shape of public life. University of Alabama Press, 2010.
Cloud, Dana. Reality bites. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2018.
Davis, Olga Idriss. "Theorizing African American women’s discourse: The public and private spheres of experience." Centering ourselves: African American feminist and womanist studies of discourse (2002): 35-51.
Fraser, Nancy. "Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy." Social text 25/26 (1990): 109-142.
Brouwer, Daniel, and Robert Asen. Public modalities: Rhetoric, culture, media, and the shape of public life. University of Alabama Press, 2010.
Cloud, Dana. Reality bites. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2018.
Davis, Olga Idriss. "Theorizing African American women’s discourse: The public and private spheres of experience." Centering ourselves: African American feminist and womanist studies of discourse (2002): 35-51.
Fraser, Nancy. "Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy." Social text 25/26 (1990): 109-142.