The First Family is calling for calm after First Lady Iriana was mocked on Twitter with a tasteless comment that triggered outrage in the country.
Iriana was recently photographed with her South Korean counterpart Kim Keon Hee at the G20 Summit in Bali. The latter in particular has wowed many in Indonesia who praised her beauty and elegance at the summit.
Yesterday, a Twitter user who went by the handle @KoprofilJati, which allegedly belonged to a comic artist named Kharisma Jati who was at the center of a controversy a few years ago surrounding his drawings depicting incest, posted the following:
The imagined conversation, written in Indonesian, translates to:
“Bi (literally meaning aunt, often used colloquially to address a servant), please make drinks for our guests.”
“Right away, madam.”
Jati soon deleted the tweet amid widespread condemnation. He then posted a series of tweets saying that people “had misunderstood” him, clarifying that the deleted tweet was meant to satirize Indonesians’ tendency to judge people based on their appearance.
Two of Iriana’s children, Solo Mayor Gibran Rakabuming Raka and his younger brother Kaesang Pangarep, responded to Jati’s clarification with the former tweeting, “Misunderstanding?” and the latter tweeting, “So what did you actually mean?”
With netizens hoping that the First Family would take legal action against Jati, Gibran said he was “calm” while Kaesang said that Iriana had told him to be “patient” and not take the issue further.
Jati’s Twitter profile no longer exists as of this article’s publication.
On Facebook, Jati posted an open letter apologizing to President Joko Widodo and his family, claiming he is prepared for any legal repercussions that may come his way.
He did, however, manage to work in a dig toward his haters.
“However, there is not even a little bit of apology from me to the fanatic supporters of this regime, who feel like they can do anything without any moral or ethical considerations,” Jati wrote.
“The framing, lies, and hate speech they made only mirror their arrogance and hypocrisy.”
Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled the name of Korea’s First Lady Kim Keon Hee. We apologize for the mistake.
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