INGGRIS - PARE STYLE

Study at Harvard.  Or Cambridge. And never go overseas     

  

         

The dilemma was palpable.  Should Saumi and Nanda keep walking and risk eyeballing a native English speaker? The encounter might enhance their vocabulary.

Or should they dart back to the safety of the Basic English Course (BEC) campus where order rules and decisions are made by others?

The earnest teens in their black jilbab (headscarf) and white blouse uniforms decided to accelerate, tell the foreigner “we must be leaving” and head for the café.  Facing each other across a table they practised to make perfect:

“I am going to the classroom.”

“You will be going to the classroom.”

“She has been to the classroom.”

BEC is the pioneer language school and the biggest in the East Java town of Pare.  This was once a totally rural village relying on rice and sugar cane grown on the fertile flatlands surrounding the city of Kediri. Now it has diversified into teaching English and thrived, largely because of one man.

 Study at Harvard.  Or Cambridge. And never go overseas                

Duncan Graham/ Pare

The dilemma was palpable.  Should Saumi and Nanda keep walking and risk eyeballing a native English speaker? The encounter might enhance their vocabulary.

Or should they dart back to the safety of the Basic English Course (BEC) campus where order rules and decisions are made by others?

The earnest teens in their black jilbab (headscarf) and white blouse uniforms decided to accelerate, tell the foreigner “we must be leaving” and head for the café.  Facing each other across a table they practised to make perfect:

“I am going to the classroom.”

“You will be going to the classroom.”

“She has been to the classroom.”

BEC is the pioneer language school and the biggest in the East Java town of Pare.  This was once a totally rural village relying on rice and sugar cane grown on the fertile flatlands surrounding the city of Kediri. Now it has diversified into teaching English and thrived, largely because of one man.

 Muhammad Kalend Osen arrived in 1978 after studying languages and religion for five years. He met two Islamic university students from Surabaya wanting to hone their English skills for an exam.  Their chosen tutor had other commitments so Kalend’s wife, who had inherited a house in Pare, pushed hubby to take the job.

“I was nervous, I didn’t know whether I’d be successful,” he said. “I’d never been to teachers’ college.  When my students returned to Surabaya and graduated they attributed their success to me, told others and the word spread.”

Now 23,000 students later Kalend has a splendid purpose-built campus where he imposes his own style, discipline and strict dress rules. BEC’s teaching bears little resemblance to a Western language college; it’s more like a pesantren (Islamic boarding school) than the 100 other ‘colleges’ that have followed in his wake to create Pare’s famous Kampong Inggris – a term Kalend dislikes.

“It’s not a village and it’s not English,” he said. “It suggests that everyone speaks the language and that’s certainly not true. But I’m not bothered. That’s their affair.”

Kalend, 71, was born in East Kalimantan where his future in the family’s timber business seemed assured.

“But I didn’t plan to spend my life cutting down trees, I wanted to use my brain,” he said.  “I was also seeking spiritual guidance.  I’d heard of a pesantren in Gontor, East Java led by a scholar called Kiai Yazid who spoke several languages.

“Also at the pesantren was an Australian studying Islam and he helped me learn English.”

Despite having never been to an English-speaking country Kalend’s language skills are remarkable. He’s at ease with idioms. Yet he has never studied at university and has no formal qualifications.  “I’m just a village boy,” he said.

He claims inspiration from American self-improvement salesman Dale Carnegie’s book How to win friends and influence people and its message of learning from mistakes.

Surprisingly he found his abilities useful on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.  “I couldn’t make myself understood in Arabic and was generally ignored,” he said. “But when I switched to English I was treated with respect.”  It’s a story he tells his students to underline the point:  Even in Islam’s holiest places you need the international language.

The teenagers who head to Pare (population 20,000), a two hour drive south-west of Surabaya, come from all parts of the Archipelago. To get here they’ve by-passed established commercial courses like the Swedish franchise English First, and reputable universities with language degree programmes.

In Kampong Inggris the students are spoilt for choice; they can enrol in Sand Course with units for ‘comprehending your complications’ which can ‘make comfortable listening like steady’; they might also discover that ‘a rich vocabulary is better than being single’.

Those with universal ambitions can start at Galaxy or Peace.  More down-to-earth is Global and UNESCO.  Prefer Europe? Try Britain or Cambridge.  No need to get a visa for the States – Harvard is here.  You can even study underwater with EACE, which calls itself ‘the English Aquasition (sic) Course’.

Like the staff at BEC tutors are recruited from the ranks of past students. There’s believed to be only one native speaker working in Pare – an American.  Kalend’s children and in-laws are lecturers so academic dissent is unlikely. BEC has chairs and desks but other courses are conducted on the floor of open sheds.

No government permits needed to start a business so no prowling inspectors to check credentials. The only capital outlay is for a whiteboard, street signs and banners; to entice ditherers these should include images of the Statue of Liberty, London double-decker busses – and even the Eiffel Tower.

Come to us, learn English and go to Paris.  No-one mentions that the Anglophobic French are reluctant to use any tongue other than their own.

Not all graduate with scrambled syntax. Mohammed Ridho Fadli, 22, claims his impressive English mastery has come from study in Pare. He took an undergraduate degree in Bogor before heading to East Java.

“I don’t bother about memorising words,” he said. “Nor do I think much about grammar.  I try to concentrate on listening to people and watching films.  I enjoy the atmosphere here.”

Unlike Saumi and Nanda, Ridho fronts foreigners to sharpen his language skills which he hopes to use in making tourist videos. He spends Rp 350,000 (AUD $ 35) a month for a room and a similar amount on food. 

Pare is cheap even though Wall Street is nearby.  Courses start from around Rp 150,000 (AUD $15) for a fortnight’s part-time tuition.

There’s another attraction – the mixed sex environment.  For many it’s their first venture afar without their parents who doubtless feel their darlings will be safe in a largely Muslim town.  In Australia they might get a world class education but they’d also be exposed to the notorious ‘free sex’ lifestyle.

Melbourne’s Girl Camp sounds like every adolescent boy’s dream, but it has nothing to do with love-ins under canvas. In Pare ‘camp’ is a synonym for course.

To serve the influx of outsiders several support businesses have opened – from bicycle-hire shops to laundries and photocopy kiosks. But no bars – and with the density of living eliminating privacy couples have to cool their ardour by licking ice creams confident with their course motto:

‘We’re gonna make you successful with our gatherness.’

###

Pix credit Erlinawati Graham

153a Muhammad Kalend Osen

167a Mohammed Ridho Fadli

. 





'

    (left) arrived in 1978 after studying languages and religion for five years. He met two Islamic university students from Surabaya wanting to hone their English skills for an exam.  Their chosen tutor had other commitments so Kalend’s wife, who had inherited a house in Pare, pushed hubby to take the job.

“I was nervous, I didn’t know whether I’d be successful,” he said. “I’d never been to teachers’ college.  When my students returned to Surabaya and graduated they attributed their success to me, told others and the word spread.”

Now 23,000 students later Kalend has a splendid purpose-built campus where he imposes his own style, discipline and strict dress rules. BEC’s teaching bears little resemblance to a Western language college; it’s more like a pesantren (Islamic boarding school) than the 100 other ‘colleges’ that have followed in his wake to create Pare’s famous Kampong Inggris – a term Kalend dislikes.

“It’s not a village and it’s not English,” he said. “It suggests that everyone speaks the language and that’s certainly not true. But I’m not bothered. That’s their affair.”

Kalend, 71, was born in East Kalimantan where his future in the family’s timber business seemed assured.

“But I didn’t plan to spend my life cutting down trees, I wanted to use my brain,” he said.  “I was also seeking spiritual guidance.  I’d heard of a pesantren in Gontor, East Java led by a scholar called Kiai Yazid who spoke several languages.

“Also at the pesantren was an Australian studying Islam and he helped me learn English.”

Despite having never been to an English-speaking country Kalend’s language skills are remarkable. He’s at ease with idioms. Yet he has never studied at university and has no formal qualifications.  “I’m just a village boy,” he said.

He claims inspiration from American self-improvement salesman Dale Carnegie’s book How to win friends and influence people and its message of learning from mistakes.

Surprisingly he found his abilities useful on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.  “I couldn’t make myself understood in Arabic and was generally ignored,” he said. “But when I switched to English I was treated with respect.”  It’s a story he tells his students to underline the point:  Even in Islam’s holiest places you need the international language.

The teenagers who head to Pare (population 20,000), a two hour drive south-west of Surabaya, come from all parts of the Archipelago. To get here they’ve by-passed established commercial courses like the Swedish franchise English First, and reputable universities with language degree programmes.

In Kampong Inggris the students are spoilt for choice; they can enrol in Sand Course with units for ‘comprehending your complications’ which can ‘make comfortable listening like steady’; they might also discover that ‘a rich vocabulary is better than being single’.

Those with universal ambitions can start at Galaxy or Peace.  More down-to-earth is Global and UNESCO.  Prefer Europe? Try Britain or Cambridge.  No need to get a visa for the States – Harvard is here.  You can even study underwater with EACE, which calls itself ‘the English Aquasition (sic) Course’.

Like the staff at BEC tutors are recruited from the ranks of past students. There’s believed to be only one native speaker working in Pare – an American.  Kalend’s children and in-laws are lecturers so academic dissent is unlikely. BEC has chairs and desks but other courses are conducted on the floor of open sheds.

No government permits needed to start a business so no prowling inspectors to check credentials. The only capital outlay is for a whiteboard, street signs and banners; to entice ditherers these should include images of the Statue of Liberty, London double-decker busses – and even the Eiffel Tower.

Come to us, learn English and go to Paris.  No-one mentions that the Anglophobic French are reluctant to use any tongue other than their own.

Not all graduate with scrambled syntax. Mohammed Ridho Fadli, 22, (left) claims his impressive English mastery has come from study in Pare. He took an undergraduate degree in Bogor before heading to East Java.

“I don’t bother about memorising words,” he said. “Nor do I think much about grammar.  I try to concentrate on listening to people and watching films.  I enjoy the atmosphere here.”

Unlike Saumi and Nanda, Ridho fronts foreigners to sharpen his language skills which he hopes to use in making tourist videos. He spends Rp 350,000 (AUD $ 35) a month for a room and a similar amount on food. 

Pare is cheap even though Wall Street is nearby.  Courses start from around Rp 150,000 (AUD $15) for a fortnight’s part-time tuition.

There’s another attraction – the mixed sex environment.  For many it’s their first venture afar without their parents who doubtless feel their darlings will be safe in a largely Muslim town.  In Australia they might get a world class education but they’d also be exposed to the notorious ‘free sex’ lifestyle.

Melbourne’s Girl Camp sounds like every adolescent boy’s dream, but it has nothing to do with love-ins under canvas. In Pare ‘camp’ is a synonym for course.

To serve the influx of outsiders several support businesses have opened – from bicycle-hire shops to laundries and photocopy kiosks. But no bars – and with the density of living eliminating privacy couples have to cool their ardour by licking ice creams confident with their course motto:

‘We’re gonna make you successful with our gatherness.’

###

 (First published in Inside Indonesia December 2016)

. 





'

TAKE IT EASY AND ARTY

Meet, stay, love                                              

Indonesia is bigger than Kuta, says President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo.  He wants tourists to stay longer, wander farther and drop their dollars into tills beyond the Three Bs– Bali, Borobudur and Bromo.  Duncan Graham took his advice.

………………………………………………

Pity hoteliers trying to stay afloat in a tidal and turbulent market.

 In the bad old like-it-or-leave days a hard bed and a squat toilet in a barrack-cell losmen was the best local travellers could expect.

Overseas visitors might get up-market accommodation in the big cities.  There was no point in complaining that the lights had gone out and the water ran rusty because the phone wouldn’t work.

Now the world is on the move; guests are getting choosy and can rank services on the Internet.  Odors in the lavatory and stains on the sheets?  Tell all – and they’ll steer clear.

Air conditioning, hot showers, a fridge and a cable TV service are now industry standards. Staff with real smiles are essential, not the grimaces of yesteryear. Room safes and free Wi-Fi are becoming common, even in small towns.

Now add bicycles.

Borobudur isn’t just one of the world’s wonders, a majestic 9^th century three-tier Buddhist temple described by its discoverer Sir Stamford Raffles as this ‘noble building’ and ‘majestic edifice’. It’s also a Central Java town.

Backpackers use it to board unsprung busses for next stop Yogyakarta, while the moneyed majority head straight from the archaeological park gates to the airport.  That’s a mistake.

In the villages beyond and in a straight line are the related temples Pawon and Mendut. Few foreigners bother to drive the five extra kilometers even though the entrance fee is only Rp 30,000 ((US$2.20) for the two compared with nine times that sum for the bigger monument.

Wanurejo is a nearby hamlet off the tourist track, though only by a few twists and turns.  Here the locals have accepted President Jokowi’s challenge to expand tourism by combining to offer must-try experiences.  Their secret lure: Arthouse Homestays.

These are converted or purpose-built cottages in ordinary lanes and among local residents.  Regulations prohibit more than five rooms so even with a full house double digit occupancy is rare.  That means fellow travellers are easy to meet.  To avoid, push pedals.

Homestay is not always the correct term as the owners may be elsewhere – guesthouse is more accurate. Staff tend to be neighbors so the men watch the premises while the lady who cooks breakfasts and mops the floor lives a few doors down.

When not boiling eggs straight from the nest or airing bedding she may well be applying wax on cotton and happy to let quivering hands try the tjanting. Batik demands patience so cityfolk should pack plenty before leaving Stress Central. 

Others paint and hang their impressive work on guesthouse walls, or make organic soap and other supplies for hotels. As Arthouse Homestays are only now getting known the villagers have yet to develop the Kuta syndrome where every bule (Caucasian) is regarded as a walking ATM, ripe for a withdrawal.

No flash uniforms, no unctuous receptionists, just wholesome kampong friendliness and the chance to see the way most Indonesians live.  That’s not in high-rise anonymous apartments but among the rice and sugar cane fields of rural landscapes like the fertile and flat Kedu Plain. Which means it’s ideal for cyclists of any age.

But where to wheel? After over-dosing on ancient ruins and saturating irises with shimmering landscapes it’s take-it-easy time.  There are no poolside bars but there are cafes and studios.

Antique dealer Umar Chusaeni and his Japanese wife, artist Yasumi Ishi have set up a collective studio and performance space where artists can perform or show their works.  It’s not a guesthouse.

“We try to stage an event once every two months,” said Chusaeni who once ran a major show in the fields behind his house with elephants.

 “There’s much artistic talent in this area – perhaps inherited from the craftsmen who carved the panels on the walls of Borobudur Temple, though many would have fled when Merapi erupted. (There was a major explosion in 1006.)

“We keep asking the government to allow more homestays, but few officials understand the business and how it’s building a creative economy.

“Every village has a tourist committee – and they know what visitors want.”

That includes seeing artists at work at the Limanjawi Arthouse where locals have space to work. Like Wawan Geni, 34, who thankfully confronts his canvases outside.  For instead of brushes and pencils he uses glowing mosquito-coils and lighted cigarettes to produce strange shadings.

When J-Plus visited Limanjawi the Institut Seni Indonesia (ISI -Indonesian Arts Institute) student was smoking over a big canvas of Borobudur temple as seen from above.  He claimed he only used a pack of smokes a day but an overflowing ashbucket and yellow fingers suggested otherwise.

“Smoking helps me relax and gives me inspiration,” he said. “I’m not worried about getting sick.”  Commented Chusaeni: “He gets paid well for his work with tobacco companies among his admirers.”

Although most villagers follow Islam there’s no sense of fundamentalism. Buddha statues are widespread in public and private areas.

“The ones in China are fat and in Thailand always resting,” said Chusaeni, a Muslim.  “But our Buddhas in Java are lean and happy.

“This is a safe area where outsiders are welcome. People come here for the culture and to feel the spirit of Borobudur.  They come for peace. 

“There is no sense visitors are interfering or damaging our traditions and culture. After a few days here you get to understand a little of our lovely land.”

(Breakout)

Getting there

Arthouse Homestays are ideal for couples on a budget, serious about understanding Java and getting closer to the people. Visitors who want to relax in comfort but are not into hedonism should find this accommodation ideal.

Most homestays are listed on Internet hotel booking agencies with prices starting from around Rp 300,000 (US $ 23) per room/night including breakfast, tax and service charges. Some offer pick-ups from the airport or bus terminal.

Bicycle hire is either free or around Rp 30,000 (US $2.30) a day.  Buy fresh fruits from roadside traders.  Those with special dietary needs should bring their own supplies.

Kids? Yes, if mature and appreciative of difference.  No if their world is defined by Pokemon.  There’s rafting nearby for the adventurous. English is rare but tolerance common so encounters can be fun.

Bali resorts have manicured gardens, aerobic classes, fashion shows and menus to cater for most tastes. Arthouse Homestays are the affordable alternative with all add-ons the real thing.  They are also well beyond the ugly tout-zone encircling the big temple.

First pub lished in  J Plus - The Jakarta Post on 11 December 2016

  

AHOK WHO?

BTW

Being there

Dear Auntie Dwi – thank you for asking if I’m safe following the 212 Big Protest.  That’s what they call it after the date, and that the numbers are sending us a sign, but didn’t say what it meant. In our street the trash collector lives at 212 and his house has a sign. Maybe that’s it.

Did Mom warn you I was going?  I didn’t want to ’cause I had really important things to do like buying the new nail varnish. But they said everyone must or their names would be given to the Political Actors.

Anyway the bus was real good and I got to sleep a lot while Mohamad was wagging his finger and sermonizing which never stopped during the 12-hour journey. Then my friend Dwi who gets travel sick threw up all over him and he went wild. 

He said she must be possessed by a demon she’d swallowed. I told him she’d only eaten chocolate. “Must be Chinese,” he said. “Just like your smartphone,” I replied.  “You’ll be in the harem come the caliphate,” he snarled and we all sang K-Pop to make him mad.  

Or maybe you saw me on TV?  Check the pictures on Metro – I’m in the seventh row on the nineteenth line on the left of Monas.  Or maybe the right – I can’t remember - it was so much fun.

I was wearing white, which really doesn’t suit my complexion.  But they said it made us look pure.  Funny, ya?  And I got to keep the jilbab though I’ll probably give it to my sister.  I want to feel the wind in my hair, like in the TV ads.

For days I’ve eaten absolutely nothing – there was so much free food and all too, too delicious. I’m getting fat and it’s dis-gust-ing.  Every ten minutes someone was giving me a lunch box or telling me to wave a poster.  I don’t know what they said because the writing was all spooky and red with a picture of a prisoner shaking bars.

Someone said his name was Pak Ahok and he’s a bad man, but the cartoon made him look like a sad man. I wanted to cry.

They also said he’s Chinese, but I thought he was born here, so doesn’t that make him Indonesian? He looks a bit like Uncle Julius who I think goes to a church. Anyway, who cares?

The really, really major moment was when we got to see the President.  Well, he was rather far away but people who were closer took pictures that we could see on WhatsApp.  I don’t know what he said – It might have been about a football game with Vietnam.

More important was what he wore – the coolest jacket you have ever seen, I swear.  It made him look like Tom Cruise in that old Top Gun movie I saw on TV One last week, though I couldn’t understand what he was saying because the Indonesian captions made no sense.

”Oh, my God,” I said, but some gloomy guy added that was blasphemy and I might go to prison.  So I told him to go to hell.  He said this world’s already there. But I looked out and saw the sun was shining.  Lovely.

He was a freak.  Not like this totally yummy cop who came along and told us to keep moving. Polisi ganteng screamed Dwi who was OK once off the bus, though Mohamad was still trying to clean vomit off his gamis.  It made me think he’d never washed anything in his life.

Anyway, back to the cop, so cute in his tight pants and mirror sunglasses. Gorgeous. And he noticed little me, particularly when I accidentally dropped my poster.

“Here you are M’bak,” he said, “please take more care.” His voice was warm honey.  His name badge said Antonius.  “I think he’s Catholic,” whispered Dwi who noticed my red face. “No problem,” I said as my knees turned to jelly. “I’ll convert. Where do I go?”

“Be serious,” she snapped, “we’re here to protest. This isn’t a peace march.” “Why not?” I replied. “Aren’t we all one – like, you know, unity in diversity?”  Duncan Graham

(First pub lished in J Plus The Jakarta Post 10 December 2016

TOP ACADEMICS - BOTTOM PAY

Paid with compliments, not cash      

                                   

Catootjie Nalle (left, with students) is a star scientist.  In 1999 she won an Australian Government scholarship to study at Queensland University where she graduated with a Masters Degree in animal nutrition.

A few years later the New Zealand Government recognised her talents and offered her a place at Massey University.  She graduated with a PhD and returned to her job at Kupang State Agriculture Polytechnic.

She’s spent more than seven years studying overseas much of that time as a single mother caring for her son.

Dr Nalle, 44, is one of the best qualified nutritionists in the Indonesian poultry feed business, and the first woman at her polytechnic to gain a doctorate.

Her research abilities have attracted laboratory equipment grants from the Asian Development Bank

She lives in a tiny house in high cost East Nusa Tenggara and can only afford a motorbike.  As a department head she gets Rp 9 million a month (US $687).  Yet by local academic standards that’s a handsome wage.

Indonesian education institutions do graduations well. Staff in faux-ermine robes and tasselled mortar boards shuffle to the flower-strewn stage for Indonesia Raya, hands on hearts.

The nervous students and their awestruck parents surely think: ‘The rewards must be great to match the prestige these learned ones bring to the institution and our nation’.

But without rich partners or politically powerful mates, chances are the academics arrived at the ceremony straddling Hondas and enrobed in the staff toilet. 

For Indonesia still doesn’t pay its scholars well or even appropriately, according to English language lecturer Aam Alamsyah. He claims poor salaries and conditions aren’t just crippling professionals’ careers; they are throttling the nation’s advancement and international reputation.

Alamsyah (right) has been researching employment conditions while studying for a doctorate in linguistics at Atma Jaya Catholic University.  He teaches at private colleges in Jakarta and Tangerang and recently presented a paper on tertiary education salaries at an international conference

In this he claimed some school teachers were getting allowances and incentives which lifted their income above higher qualified academics.

“University staff face many problems, and the most disturbing is their remuneration,” he said. “Low wages run against workforce laws. They force scholars to moonlight rather than concentrate on their students.”

Despite academics being considered important for Indonesia’s development the government leaves pay in the hands of the institutions.  Lecturers struggle on their own since there’s no substantial legal body to defend their rights.

“Though faculties of business, engineering and information technology usually offer more, many lecturers survive on less than Rp 3 million (US$228) a month,” Alamsyah said.

That’s equal to the supposed minimal wage of an unskilled junior high school graduate in a Jakarta sweatshop punching parts or packing plastics. 

But universities are supposed to be temples of learning, not factories rolling out identical gizmos. They never omit the comparative adjective when describing their role as ‘higher educators’.

Alamsyah is not howling alone in the wilderness. Economist Jonathan Pincus, a teaching fellow in the Development Studies Centre at Cambridge University, wrote in this newspaper that ‘Indonesian lecturers are promoted based on seniority rather than research or teaching performance. 

‘The rules make it difficult for lecturers to change universities, which effectively eliminate competition to hire the most productive scholars or the best teachers. Academic departments routinely hire their own graduates as lecturers, a practice that encourages patronage and favoritism and discourages competition.’ 

Although Indonesia has around 2,800 tertiary institutions, few rank well. The University of Indonesia just squeezes into the world’s top 400 as listed by the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) annual report, but the rest are still seeking the start line.

The production of scholarly papers in learned journals recognized internationally is a handy guide to a nation’s intellectual thrust.  Indonesia ranks 57, below Malaysia (35) and Thailand (43).

Bureaucrats love pasting letters after their names. No public presentation by government officials is complete without the speakers parading their Sarjana (Bachelor’s Degree) or Master of Management (MM).  However such qualifications may indicate wealth rather than commitment to prolonged study; degrees are for sale in Indonesia.

Last year the government started cracking down on phony academies with Research, Technology and Higher Learning Education Minister Mohammad Nasir leading raids on dodgy outfits.

But such is the demand that fines of up to Rp 500 million (US $38,000) and five years in jail for individuals using false certificates don’t seem to deter.

“Few campuses are willing to pay their lecturers to do research, or even try to help them publish their work in journals,” Alamsyah said.  “There are also private colleges and universities using the notorious ‘home base’ racket.

“In this illegal scheme campuses offer small sums for the right to include an academic’s name on their faculty list to meet staff quotas. They blatantly neglect other aspects of lecturers’ welfare such as a basic salary, overtime, research pay and health insurance.

“The wealthy and prestigious campuses usually spend as little as Rp 1 million (US$76) for a doctoral graduate, and half that for a masters.  School teachers and public servants are then hired to lecture at low rates, but the teaching hours are credited to the ‘home base’ academic.”

Alamsyah’s wish list includes erasing this scam and the national government getting tough over accrediting new colleges. 

He wants salaries which recognise scholars’ qualifications and status, and an end to student ‘tipping’ – a ruse he alleged is used to “respect the noble deeds of the teacher”. These practices masquerade as ikhlas beramal (willing to donate) or sedekah (giving alms).

“Better remuneration will boost lecturers’ dignity and confidence to serve their students without moonlighting or getting involved in graft,” he said.

“There’s evidence of a strong correlation between improving education and declining corruption.  That alone should be good reason for reform.”

Overseas pay

In countries like Australia with powerful unions, minimal academic salaries are negotiated and set by legal awards with terms and conditions. 

For example, an associate lecturer at the University of New South Wales would start on an annual salary of AUD 70,000 (Rp 700 million) or about Rp 58 million a month.

In the US at the University of California an assistant professor gets US$5,000 a month (Rp 66 million) while in the UK an academic at Cambridge might begin at 3,300 pounds a month (Rp 60 million).

Although factors like tenure, insurance and costs of living can warp these figures, academics in the West get paid well by comparison with their colleagues in Indonesia.

(First published in The Jakarta Post 7 December 2016)

##

A GERMAN VIEW OF IN DONESIA

Good Goethe! A poet’s lament                                      

Poets dwell in sacred space.                                                                                                       Go slash the jungles, pierce the gloom.                                                                               Java’s mysteries touch the sky                                                                                              Sealing secrets like the tomb.

Are Indonesians bibliophobic - and if so, why?

For Berthold Damshäuser who teaches Indonesian language and literature at the University of Bonn, the answer to the first question is: ‘Yes. Indonesians are not great booklovers.’  He believes the prime reason is that the nation’s cultural traditions are oral.

However a new chapter may be opening. Optimists say pages are turning and cite a bookmark: Indonesia’s position as Guest of Honor at last year’s Frankfurt International Book Fair, and a further appearance this year.

Damshäuser is also a prominent translator and with a group of others compiled 33 Tokoh Sastra Indonesia yang paling Berpengaruh (Thirty-three most influential figures in Indonesian literature).

That sounds scholarly, reasonable and civilized. But budding penmen and women – beware. The world of belles-lettres is not beautiful; it’s more like nature – red in tooth and claw.

 The academic was attacked on Facebook where critics angry about inclusions and omissions claimed the book should be burned and the author sent to Auschwitz, demonstrating a history fail as the notorious concentration camp was closed in 1945.

Damshäuser used the anecdote at Malang State University’s Café Pustaka Discussion Group to show young authors edging into the arts that literary criticism and ranking writers is not a passion-free pastime – particularly for outsiders.

That’s technically his status – but professionally and spiritually he’s almost a bumiputera (native) with four decades of archipelagic experience to reinforce the claim.

 Jokingly known in Indonesia as Pak Trum for reasons that would take several stanzas to explain, Damshäuser is chief editor of Orientierungen, a journal on Asian cultures and editor of Indonesian poetry magazine Jurnal Sajak.

He translates Indonesian poetry into German and vice versa, often working with Bandung poet and author Agus R. Sarjono a former guest writer at the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation’s retreat in Langenbroich. Together they’ve put works by 19^th century poet and philosopher Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe and others into the hands of Indonesians.

Despite efforts to boost interest in Europe, Indonesian Studies and the language are wilting as elsewhere, including the nation’s southern neighbor, Australia.  Damshäuser has only 60 undergraduates and five masters’ students.

“Pragmatically students are thinking that all the important texts are in English so that’s the language they have to master or get their friends to translate,” he said.

“I know it’s claimed that basic Indonesian is easy because of a lack of tenses and genders, but it’s full of ambiguities.  It’s a very difficult language if you want to understand it properly.

“Take for example the term Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (PDI-P – the major political party in the Parliament.)  Is it Indonesia or the party that’s democratic?  Where do I attach the adjective? And who’s struggling? I’ve also had problems getting the meaning right with clauses in Pancasila (the State philosophy).”  

Now 59 Pak Trum first learned about the mysterious East Indies as a teen laboring on the docks during university breaks.  Also on the wharves were friendly Indonesians who invited him to visit.

He did.  “I thought it a kind of paradise.” He fell in love not just with the country but also Jakartan Dian Apsari. They married and settled in Bonn where Pak Trum consolidated his reputation as a fluent Indonesian speaker and expert on its literature.

Although his skills were as a translator he was chosen to interpret for the late President Soeharto during two visits to Germany, and two visits to Indonesia by former Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

These garnered a wealth of anecdotes and friendships, with Damshäuser invited to the homes of Soeharto and former vice president B J Habibie who had been educated in Germany.

“Soeharto was always soft and polite towards me and his staff,” he said.  “I didn’t see him as a monster.  He felt that what he was doing as president was right. He was not a strict Muslim but an abangan (a Javanese relaxed about religion) and he was proud of that.”

Damshäuser is a regular visitor to Indonesia, sometimes backed by the Goethe Institut, the German cultural organisation and language school with branches in Jakarta and Bandung.

From a culture of discipline, planning and punctuality to laid back Indonesia hasn’t been an easy journey. When he started he asked:  “How can I deal with this country?”  The loving and hating lasted quite a long time…but it’s no longer polarising.

“In Germany we celebrate the individual and the rights of minorities,” he said.  “I now see my culture differently, and know that along the way we’ve lost a kind of equilibrium that’s still present in Java.”

His experiences have been published this year as a collection of essays - Ini dan itu Indonesia – pandangan seorang Jerman (This and that in Indonesia – a German’s views.)

He said that during the Frankfurt Book Fair the media called Indonesia ‘the country without readers’. Wikipedia lists a total of 29 Indonesian poets past and present. Germany (population 80 million, one third of Indonesia’s) has 50 whose surnames start with A and B. 

Despite comments about the paucity of bibliophiles there seems to be no shortage of poets in Malang. After his speech Damshäuser was busy handling questions about topics, styles and getting into print.

“I’ve already been given four or five published anthologies,” he said. “Among them are some very talented young writers often using pantun the traditional Malay oral expression.

(Pantun is a four-line verse consisting of alternating and roughly rhyming lines, each of eight to 12 syllables. An example by Anon heads this story.)

“People want to hear the words.  The poets write for their works to be performed and getting books printed here is far cheaper than Europe. It seems to me that there have never been so many books and so few readers.”

(First published in The Jakarta Post 5 December 2016

##

                                 

IT'S NOT US - IT'S THE INVISIBLE THEM

The politics of puppetry      

                                                 

The 4 November protests in Jakarta over alleged blasphemous comments by Jakarta Governor Basuki ‘Ahok’ Purnama ended badly.

Police cars were torched, tear gas sprayed and one man died as a small gang stirred strife in the dark after most demonstrators had left the scene.

The thuggery was incited by ‘political actors’ according to President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo.

His explanation followed a tradition.

The Jakarta riots that triggered the fall of President Soeharto in 1998 took the lives of more than a thousand citizens and destroyed hundreds of shops.  Many were owned by Chinese businesspeople and their families, the prime target of mobs determined to make mayhem.

The initiators were dubbed ‘dark forces’.

A year later in the distant Moluccas (the capital Ambon is 2,000 kilometers to the north-east of Jakarta) far more serious fighting erupted.  Up to 15,000 may have died and 700,000 made homeless before a formal peace agreement in 2002.

This civil war was widely portrayed as Christians versus Muslims in an area where adherents of the two faiths had long lived together in equal numbers and relative harmony.

No longer. An edgy return to some form of normality has been achieved with the physical separation of residents according to their faiths. This them-and-us arrangement is prone to rupture if poked and prodded by the malicious.

The provokers were labelled ‘outside actors’.

On 5 November President Jokowi was on a teleconference call to Indonesians in Sydney assuring them that the capital was calm and their homeland safe.  Most listeners would have been ethnic Chinese studying or doing business in Australia and holding strong memories of 1998.

If their skills and money stay away from the Republic the government’s plans to develop the economy with large scale investments, particularly in the President’s signature infrastructure projects could falter. Chaos does nothing for business confidence.

In the Moluccan and Jakarta cases no one group has been proved responsible for starting the fighting.  Instead the public has been told about phantom masterminds in theatrical terms. Nudge-nudge, wink-wink blaming is not exclusively Indonesian; the French term agents provocateurs is well embedded in English.

Hints-not-facts sit awkwardly in modern societies that give priority to openness, justice and reparation.  These principles include exposing those out to fracture peace, airing their motives, bringing them before the courts and making them accountable. 

However the explanations do fit Javanese cultural views centered on the dalang puppet master in the ancient wayang kulit epics. These accounts of mystical beings pre-date the arrival of Abrahamic faiths in the Archipelago.

The dalang is a deft artist taking the roles of producer, director, stage manager, choreographer and commentator. Performances may include references to current political dramas.  He is heard but largely unseen.

He tosses and dances the elaborately crafted puppets before a lamp so their images flicker across a white cotton screen.  Although the wayang are physically two dimensional their characters are multi-faceted and prone to devious twists and turns, leaving audience in states of wonder, amusement and puzzlement.

The dalang and his shadowy figures is the easily understood metaphor for any social drama where the script is complex and performers devious.  But this doesn’t lead to a just resolution when the guilty remain as ghosts.

Academics trying to understand the forces driving social unrest are now moving onto the stage once filled by partisan politicians. 

Among this small group of peace experts is cultural anthropologist Dr Birgit Brauchler, formerly at Frankfurt’s Goethe University and now a senior lecturer at Australia’s Monash University.  

She’s been in Indonesia to talk about research into conflict resolution; she studied the Moluccan conflict for a decade - how it came about and what solutions worked, though none have been wholly successful.

When fighting flares the need to restore order is urgent.  In the usual pattern elite troops, often from afar and with little knowledge of local sensitivities, are despatched. They enforce peace by deploying more men with bigger guns and exercising greater discipline than the troublemakers.

Eventually the smoke settles; the soldiers retreat to their barracks and the job of patching the community’s wounds is left to others.  Brauchler said that before the 1999 riots in Ambon there were less than two dozen NGOs in the region.  That number swelled to 400 though not all were effective peacemakers.

The best involved a mix of locals often working in secret and with women taking prominent roles.

Brauchler warned post-graduate peace studies students at Malang’s Brawijaya University  that there were ‘no easy answers’ to the complex question: Why do some groups whet knives to solve problems when it’s clear that combatants sooner or later must get back to working and living together?

In her latest book The Cultural Dimension of Peace she advocates a ‘new anthropology of peace’ where disciplines beyond law and political science get involved.   She urges the creation of ‘peace scapes’ as opposed to ‘war scapes … where the maintenance of peace becomes more lucrative than war, and where such negotiation and communication can take place.’

During Soeharto’s authoritarian rule public comment on SARA (suku, agama, ras, antar golongan) issues of race, faith and ethnicity were banned.

The prohibitions were lifted with the re-introduction of democracy this century but the power and will to stop community violence using such emotional fuels has yet to be effectively applied.

Political scientists believe allowing orderly dissent is essential for a balanced society, and President Jokowi has agreed in the right to peaceful protest.  But he has yet to discover the sweet spot between Soeharto’s authoritarianism and the current tension. 

He promised to reveal the ‘political actors’ though so far has stayed silent. Military Commander General Gatot Nurmantyo has stepped in to suggest US and Australian involvement, though without producing evidence.

Refusing to identify and isolate those alleged to be responsible is not assisting reconciliation, while mystery references just shower all players with suspicion.

(First published in Strategic Review 30 November 2016.  See: http://sr-indonesia.com/web-exclusives/view/the-politics-of-puppetry

##