This Friday (yesterday in local Indonesia time), Asia's second edition of Playboy was launched with Andhara Early, a covergirl-turned-presenter, on its cover. This is one of only two Asian editions of the adult men's magazine ever since the Turkish edition was closed down. What makes it interesting is that Indonesia is the country with the most Muslim population (the country itself is secular) and thus this is the only Playboy in the world that will not have any nudity content. The magazine featured Pramoedya Ananta Toer, the world-known Indonesian auteur, the progress of East Timor post-independence, and of course scantily-clad beautiful women. Well what do you expect, it is still a men's magazine and all of the other adult men's magazine in Indonesia do publish sexy pictures albeit non-nude. One interesting side-effect was that some readers already complained about the lack of nudity saying that they actually felt cheated since the magazine didn't really give them what they had expected.

Obviously, the news of Hugh Hefner's publication entering this archipelago was met with numerous demonstrations and protests by the Islamic hardliners and extremists, plus conservative politicians & celebrities. To be honest, I'm not so sure about the latter part, they seem to think that rejecting Playboy would elevate their moral status. But the real truth is, most Indonesians could hardly care about the whole thing. One thing that's very characteristic of Indonesians is the "live and let live" principle that everybody holds on to. It's true that lately extremists seem to be very vocal, but they are the fringes of society, most Indonesians are moderate in their actions. And an adult magazine is hardly newsworthy with FHM and Maxim already in publication plus the countless hardcore porn dvd and magazines in circulation.

In less than 24 hours of publication, the leader of the Anti Piracy and Pornography Society already filed a lawsuit against the editors and the two models (not nude, mind you) of the magazine citing indecent photographs that they considered pornographic in nature. Another radical Islamic group, the Islamic Defenders Front, seemed to be unfazed by the fact that Playboy Indonesia had been true to its words that they will publish a magazine with journalistic content and no nudity. In what can only be classified as aggresively whining, a spokeman of the group, Tubagus Muhamad Sidik said, "The first edition might be tame, but it will get more vulgar." He also added another mindboggling statement, "Even if it had no pictures of women in it, we would still protest it because of the name." (Feel free to re-read the last sentence a few times, but what you have just read was not mistyped and no negation was missed) One Muslim leader even went further by saying that the magazine posed more threat to Indonesia than terrorism from al-Qaeda-linked militants.

At first glance, all these news might make Indonesia looked like a country run by a bunch of prude, conservative, hardline Islamic militants. But that can't be farther from the truth. Amazed is too weak of a word to express what I'm feeling as I read the ongoing news about all this hullabaloo. Yes, there are some people making protests, slapping lawsuits, taking the streets, making threats, but there has been no violence, no illegal actions by the authorities, and the media has been quite balanced in reporting people's opinion from the Mujaheedins to our very own Playboy Spain model, Tiara Lestari. In fact, the way our nation (meaning both the people and the country) is reacting to this is very democratic indeed. Everybody can voice their opinion and at the end it is the law that holds the supreme power.

The Indonesian press is arguably one of the most free in the world. Especially since the end of Soeharto's New Order where the government frequently arrested journalists and closed down publications due to what they deemed to be subversive materials. The current reformed Indonesian government seem to value free speech as one of the country's valuable assets. The past few years have seen the proliferation of the mass media market, dozens of new magazines are published every year. It is thus a relief that the government nor the authority is not taking any actions against Playboy Indonesia because they don't violate any existing law. Just seven years ago, this wouldn't mean anything and the government could just closed down the magazine or put the editors in jail with whatever reason they could come up with.

Well, all this seem to bode well for my country in its path towards a better law-conscious, secular, modern democracy. But we're definitely not clear of the woods just yet. An anti pornography and pornoaction law is being drafted by the parliament (with much controversy since who will draw the line between decency and indecency) and the Islamic Defender Front have given Plaboy Indonesia seven days to withdraw the magazines from the shelves before they do it forcefully. We'll just have to wait & see and hope that better minds will prevail.