Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 48

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Popular Culture Review

than those of any other cartoonist whose work I know. Indeed, his cartoon depicting
Suharto crooning “I Did It My Way” (published in The A ustra lian on May 18,
1998) is the most powerful cartoon argument against an authoritarian leader I have
ever seen.
Now that the context has been set, four specific cartoons will be presented
and analyzed. Because the Balinese cartoonists who drew them were subjects of
Suharto’s politically repressive rule, the creation of these intriguing cartoons
required bravery as well as skill.

Tusuaria’s 1997 Election Cartoon

Stumbling upon the “Globalisasi” exhibit was serendipitous because I was
not expecting to find anything very political at the month long festival of cultural
performances. I was so elated to discover a cartoon I understood to be attacking
the sham nature of Indonesia’s elections as staged by Suharto’s authoritarian regime
that I immediately decided