I don’t like you but want your money
Ma’ruf Amin is a name few Australians would recognize. Before his election last year as Indonesia’s
vice-president, the hard-right Islamic cleric showed minimal interest in his
southern neighbour. Suddenly he wants
Australian aid.
Amin now says he regrets testifying against Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok) in a 2017 blasphemy hearing. However the religious elite’s words, along with his presence at a rally of more than 500,000 demanding a trial (and some a lynching), helped put the ethnic-Chinese Christian behind bars for two years.
Ahok was convicted on the basis of a speech where he condemned politicians who deliberately misinterpreted the Koran.
Last year Amin told Australia to butt out of Indonesian affairs and stop protesting the planned early release from jail of terrorism supporter Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, the spiritual leader of the 2002 Bali bombers. The domestic objections were so strong the plan was dropped.
Amin, 77, wasn’t President Joko Widodo’s choice for VP, but was dropped in by Jakarta’s political puppet masters. They saw the older man’s presence as the best way to prove the President’s piety.
During the bitter election campaign Widodo was accused of being a covert Christian with Chinese ancestry and his late father Noto Mihardjo a Communist. No proof was offered to back the claims.
Amin’s job is widely considered to be Widodo’s shield, his stand-in
at minor functions and little else. Meanwhile
liberals pray that Widodo, 58, stays healthy.
The VP was entirely educated in local Islamic institutions so little
exposure to other faiths, cultures, ideas and values.
Suddenly
Amin has found another voice, making a submission to a Federal Government aid
review headed by International Development Minister Alex Hawke. The VP reportedly said Australia had
made a ‘vital contribution’ to poverty reduction. He singled out programs to reduce stunting.
About
a third of Indonesia’s
toddlers suffer because they aren’t breast-fed and lack access to clean foods
and decent toilets. They don’t grow
properly and neither do their brains.
Australia already funds a programme called MAMPU
‘to improve the lives of poor women in Indonesia’
and says it’s ‘empowered’ 35,000. Sounds substantial? About 90 million Indonesian women are in what
statisticians call the ‘productive group’ aged between 15 and 64.
The
problem doesn’t need more foreigners in floppy hats devising databases. Indonesian
health and social workers are competent enough and communicate better. They know stunting can be fixed by properly
funded education services. Money is not
the issue – it’s the distribution that’s flawed.
Three
years ago Oxfam, the confederation of 19 charities fighting global poverty,
claimed the wealthiest one per cent (all men) own half Indonesia’s total
wealth:
‘Indonesia has the sixth worst
inequality of wealth in the world. In 2016 the collective wealth of the richest
four billionaires was more than the total wealth of the bottom 40 per cent of
the population – about 100 million people.
‘The
amount of money earned annually from (one man’s) wealth would be sufficient to
lift more than 2.8 million Indonesians out of extreme poverty.’
During
the past five years Australia’s
annual aid to Indonesia
has been slashed from AUD 610 to 298 million.
The published rationale is to pay for the Pacific ‘step-up’ policy.
This
has been defined by PM Scott Morrison as putting the islands ‘front and centre
of Australia’s strategic outlook, our foreign policy, our personal connections,
including at the highest levels of government’.
Decoded
it means: ‘We’ll use aid to stop the Chinese from getting toeholds in Pacific
states.’ Super cynics linked the cut to
the 2015 executions of Bali Nine drug runners Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, a suggestion denied by all.
Widodo said the chop was Australia’s
business and no tears should be shed:
‘That’s their right’.
Amin’s plea is badly timed and curious. It’s been reported that no other nation
bothered to submit, probably realising the review will go nowhere. Hawke’s review team might also think charity should begin at home. Last October the Republic launched a US $212 million (AUD 343 million) international endowment and development fund called Indonesian AID.
The
VP will get a polite ‘your submission has been noted’ maybe plus an attachment explaining
the Australian budget is no longer in surplus and the Covid-19 ‘stimulus
package’ will drain the Treasury of AUD 17.6 billion. So sorry Sir, no extra aid.
Preferably
Amin should be told: ‘Crack down on the
oligarchs, tighten your tax take and assume responsibility for your problems. That’s your right’.
##
First published in Pearls and Irritations, 26 March 2020: https://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-the-wealthiest-one-per-cent-all-men-own-half-indonesias-total-wealth/
No comments:
Post a Comment