Toekang IT

Hell, yeah! No regrets to being a veteran blogger

Sep 29, 2006 16:49

He gave me his popular book, No Regrets: Reflections of a Presidential Spokesman, last week in his office. The book had been published by Equinox Publishing four years ago.

What a pleasant surprise then to find on the inside page, along with his autograph, that he had written: "To Budi Putra, who made me a blogger. Wimar, 26/9-06."

Two days before, in his blog, Wimar Witoelar, the man whom I have admired most for the last 10 years, wrote:

Yesterday I got an important revelation from a blog expert, the premier writer on IT lifestyle in the country, Mr Budi Putra. He writes for Tempo magazine and CNET and recites Web concepts as more than terminology. My revelation came when he (and the television show we appeared on, E-Lifestyle @ Metro TV) called me a blogger."

But I know for sure: It just reflects his low profile and humble ways. He is, indeed, a blogger, a veteran blogger. He doesn't even need a formal recognition at all.

The book

Even though his site, Perspektif Online, is not using the common blogging software like the present form, he has actually been employing the logic of a blog since the site first launched in October 1996. Just consider. The site has a unique entry, personal point-of-view style, comments forum, and is listed in chronological order.

So when blogging software emerged and was developed later, he just simply adopted and put it on his Web server. The site just ran as a total blog then!

Because the essence of blog is its content, not the technology behind it.

A little on his background. When Witoelar started to become politically engaged as chairman of the Student Council at ITB (Bandung Institute of Technology), he took the position of concerned independent observer who often challenged the rules and policies of the regime of that time. This resulted in a month's detention by the Soeharto Government and pressure to leave his teaching position at ITB.

He was active in the reform movement through his TV talkshow Perspektif (1994), until this was mysteriously cancelled in September 1995. However, he was eventually recruited as chief presidential spokesman for President Abdurrahman Wahid in 2000.

The blog

At 61 years old, he was a popular political analyst icon in the country. He was a regular panelist during the entire lifespan of the ABC TV Asia Pacific current affairs weekly show The Editors, broadcast from Singapore. He contributed articles and quotes for Time, Newsweek, The International Herald Tribune, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Straits Times, Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review.

Witoelar published several books, including the popular No Regrets, a memoir of his days during the final months of Indonesia's first democratically elected leader. Written in English, it was successfully launched in Jakarta, Singapore, Melbourne, Sydney, New York and Washington DC.

His previous playfully ideological books (in Bahasa Indonesia), Towards an Ordinary People's Party and Stealing Clarity from Confusion, were reprinted by popular demand.

The blogger

His latest book, A Book about Nothing, is a collection of his writings for Djakarta! magazine. It is also a bestselling book.

The prominent Indonesian novelist Fira Basuki recently published an informal biography on Witoelar entitled Hell, Yeah!, written in Bahasa Indonesia. According to author Basuki, the title taken from Neil Diamond's song with the same title is Witoelar's favorite song.

No wonder the Indonesian blogosphere is so honoured when a well-known media personality like Witoelar then turns to being a blogger.

The blog, according to him, has its own nature:

Bad blogs, good blogs, just-so blogs. Power blogs, sentimental blogs, poetic blogs, militant blogs. Blogs with a mission, blogs abougt nothing. In a pluralist world, all have their place. The world is large, The Long Tail provides niches of time and place for everyone.

Indeed, the title of blogger just came later to him, but he had already begun as a real professional blogger earlier.

Hell yeah, he did.

Recent Comments

 

Most Discussed

 

Browse Archive