OFFERING SERVICE - OR LUSTING FOR POWER?

 The Jakarta Cup’s favourites train in Oz              

 

                 

 It’s on - starters are lined up for the big race next door - with two using Australia to show their international form.

 

Footage-on-a-loop filled TV screens across Indonesia as the Muslim holy fasting month ended. Homes groaned with rellies and neighbours bringing pressies and goodwill.

 

But all also wanted to see the grand Idul Fitri nosh-up in Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo’s Central Java hometown of Solo. Who’d be there? 

 

The President shuffling, uncertain, a ghost of the carefree character who took Malcolm Turnbull on a jolly meet-the-people market tour in 2015.

 

Nearby forcing smiles and failing, the plump Prabowo Subianto, 71, a former general who’d be an embarrassment in any war room but still wants to lead the nation. 

 

Also in wide-shot hobbling with a cane was Megawati Soekarnoputri, 76, the de-facto Queen of the Republic who had just whacked down Prabowo’s hopes by anointing her party’s candidate for the presidency.

 

The white-haired lawyer and Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo, 54, is the man who could be running the show in 2024.

 

 He was the only figure in this parade of ageing oligarchs looking fit and ready for the task of leading a nation of 273 million.

 

He got the nod six weeks ahead of the promised grand reveal. The scuttlebutt is that Mega was forced to choose early because while she dithered other runners were already training, locally and in Australia.

 

Apart from Prabowo, the man to fear was absent at the Solo bash. The latest polls show Dr Anies Baswedan, 53, the NasDem (National Democrat) Party’s pick for the Presidency a nose behind Ganjar, 54, a moderate with no international profile. 

 

He’s in the most popular PDI-P (the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle) the fiefdom of Megawati, daughter of founding president Soekarno. 

 

 Ganjar cultivates an accessible all-folks image, cycling through markets to listen and yarn. It’s the blusukan (impromptu meeting) tactic used a decade ago by Jokowi in his successful upwards journey before a fear of assassins put him behind bodyguards. (In 2019 senior minister Wiranto was stabbed at an official function. He survived.)

 

Baswedan’s environment is education so he was in happy land last month speaking at the ANU, meeting Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Reserve Bank Governor Dr Philip Lowe and chatting to expats in Sydney.

 

There aren’t too many. About 90,000 permanent residents plus 20,000 students are scattered across the wide brown. But they’re the smart influentials who’ll tweet views to friends and families back home.

 

Baswedan’s visit helped polish his profile as a candidate taking foreign affairs, the economy and the environment seriously and at ease with the Western media.

 

Prabowo, the Gerindra (Great Indonesia Movement) boss and self-appointed candidate has also done the dash Down Under as Defence Minister for formal meetings. 

 

To ensure exposure back home he took his personal ‘media team’ that taped him patronising about 40 post-grads (‘work hard’) in Canberra. See, I’m a statesman.

 

Had he fronted the Australian press the questions would have set his backers squirming. Why was he dishonourably discharged from the Army in 1998, and banned from the US for alleged human rights abuses in East Timor and West Papua?

 

What happened to the pro-democracy student activists allegedly tortured by troops under his command? Thirteen ‘disappeared’. With this background how can he hope to find the West’s respect?

 

A former Jakarta-based Australian diplomat wrote: ‘Those who know Prabowo say he has more faces than Sybil. One is never sure which Prabowo is on show, from charming and urbane to raving and irrational.’

 

Anies spent a dozen minutes looking relaxed on the overseas service ABC Australia. Watch the programme here.

 

The toughest question concerned weaponising religion in the 2017 Jakarta Governorship campaign against the ethnic Chinese Christian incumbent Basuki Tjahaja Purnama aka Ahok.

 

Anies’ matter-of-fact response ran: ‘When there’s a Muslim candidate and a Christian candidate, religious issues come into the equation.’

 

In his homeland, Anies’ ethnicity is being used to demonise because he has Hadhrami Arab ancestry from Southern Yemen.

 

This gives him cachet with rigid-stare Muslims though not with the majority abangan pribumi - the native Javanese who take a relaxed approach to their faith and put it second to nationalism. Jokowi is an exemplar.

 

Although NasDem looks middle-road it can’t be measured by the left/right gauge of the Westminster system. An ANU study found Indonesian politics ‘dominated by a cartel of parties characterised by their common desire to share the spoils of office, rather than by ideological or policy differentiation.’ 

 

The minors form what Melbourne University researchers awkwardly call a 'rainbow coalition (nothing to do with gays) of multiple parties without any coherent ideology or clear policy platform’. 

 

The result: No Parliamentary opposition, an essential for a functioning democracy.  

Turnouts are high - 83 per cent of the 191 million registered in 2019. All get a direct vote by pushing a nail through a photo on the ballot paper. 

 

What doesn’t get nailed is corruption which has worsened under Jokowi’s watch. Indonesia is the world’s third largest democracy, though ranked ‘flawed’ because of graft. Whoever becomes the next pres, that needle is unlikely to move, for no candidates seem serious about curbing the national curse.

 

NasDem’s published platform includes a seven-point collection of trite. Example: ‘Build a democracy based on strong people who are called on to bring about a bright future.’ 

 

In 2019 NasDem won just over nine per cent of the vote, but in Indonesian politics voters go for personalities, not parties or policies which rarely get detailed and are soon ignored.

 

About a quarter of the population is aged between 18 and 30,   They want the rule of law to apply to all, less religion in state and private affairs, and a more egalitarian society. 

 

In his two five-year terms Jokowi has focused on infrastructure and health care, but in the human-rights areas which don’t bother the rich, he’s thrown the race.  His successor will probably do the same.  This track’s too heavy.

 

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 First published in Michael West Media, 28 April 2023: https://michaelwest.com.au/the-race-is-on-the-line-up-to-replace-joko-widodo-as-indonesias-next-president-is-revealed/

KICKING AGAINST THE WIND OF PUBLIC OPINION

               Indonesian politics scores an own goal

135 fans died here after a game

 

It’s the biggest story next door but barged offside by the Australian media for the Trump indictment and the Dutton ‘No’. There’s another factor: Soccer’s not Australia's national game.

 

But it is Indonesia’s, and the reaction to the loss of the Republic hosting the Under-20 World Cup because Israeli youth will play is showing the Great Age Divide - much like responses to the upcoming Voice referendum.

 

Almost 30 per cent of the Indonesian population is aged 10-24 - and they’re the core of soccer crazies. The ageing oligarchs who gained power last century under the authoritarian regime of President Soeharto (1967-98) may have misread the national mood.

 

When Muslim radicals threatened strife in the upcoming international contest because Israeli boots might trample Indonesian turf, President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo said religion had no place in sport.

 

He then dashed Indonesia Football Association boss Erick Thohir off to Zurich to reassure Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) President Gianni Infantino that no ugly incidents would harm the beautiful game.

 

The Swiss football administrator was unsurprisingly unpersuaded. As reported here, 135 fans died in a stampede last October at a match in East Java when police fired tear gas, ignoring FIFA’s strict crowd control rules.

Reaction to the stampede deaths in Malang

 

Less than two months before the scheduled 20 May kick-off, Infantino yanked Indonesia out of the World Cup.  Millions took to social media shouting Foul!

 

Jokowi heard as he’d kicked balls as a kampong kid, but caught a signal semaphored from the VIP Box so switched tactics, telling the outraged: ‘Don't waste your energy blaming one another. As a big nation, we have to look toward what's in front, not behind.’

 

What’s in front is global opprobrium and local fury - except among those who play the hard game of politics and see sport as a business. 

 

 In the 2019 presidential election, the two biggest Islamic-based parties together drew only 13 per cent of the vote. Commented Endy Bayuni, a former editor of The Jakarta Post: ‘Fear of Islamism is widely exaggerated.’ 

 

Their numbers are small but their voices are shrill and they have truck tyres and petrol. Party leaders feared being wedged by faith fanatics in the upcoming Presidential election also blew FIFA’s whistle.

 

 The anger at being denied the chance to watch the world’s best young players is widespread. In a country with more Muslims than any other, the fans want politics left outside mosques and stadia. 

 

Midfielder Robbie Gaspar, president of the WA Indonesia Institute lived and played soccer in Indonesia for seven years. He’s now promoting the power of sports diplomacy through Monash Uni. He told this column: 

 

‘Nothing brings Indonesia together as one like the National Football Team and when they play. 

 

‘This tournament could have been the catalyst to drive the game forward, inspire more young players and improve the standard … this (withdrawal) has the potential to set the game back by five years at least.’

 

Some background: In 2019 FIFA awarded Indonesia U-20 World Cup host status for the 24-team contest, knocking out Peru and Brazil. Winning this prize was big time and started a clean-up of six grounds costing Rp 322 billion (AUD 32 million) for a 2021 opening. Hotels and economists rejoiced, anticipating visitors from everywhere.

 

But Covid ran onto the field and sidelined plans for two years. At the time few gave Israel’s chances much thought. Indonesia only made the grade through a clause allowing the host nation to participate, meaning the upcoming generation could get among the game’s giants. 

 

In 2022 Israel, drawing its football talent from a population below ten million, suddenly trounced naysayers at the European Under-19 Championship. 

 

FIFA reported that ‘the team exceeded all expectations … Having come so close to being crowned European champions, can Israel now cause shock-waves on the world stage?’

 

Answer: Yes, though not through athletic abilities. When he heard that Israel’s brilliant teens were scheduled to play in Bali, Governor Wayan Koster stamped his foot: Anyone from the Biblical Holy Land would never make it to the Island of the Gods.

 

Bali is Indonesia’s only majority Hindu province, a religion not known for antisemitism, but the driver is parochial politics. 

 

Koster is a member of the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which includes Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo. He’s currently tipped as the nation’s next leader but waiting to be blessed by party matriarch Megawati Soekarnoputri, 76.

 

Two days after the Bali snub Pranowo checked his WhatsApp messages from PDI-P HQ and announced he doesn’t want any Israelis punting leather in his province. Flapping banners appeared shouting ‘Israel is the enemy of Islam.’

 

That’s contestable, but heat generates slogans incinerating facts and rational debate. Twenty per cent of the population follows Islam. A Gallup survey in 2015 found 65 per cent of Israelis aren’t religious.

 

One of the few who challenged  the hate was the late fourth President Abdurrahman (Gus Dur) Wahid (1999-2001).

 

Although a revered Islamic scholar he was also a peace activist preferring diplomacy to bans. Unlike Widodo he stared down the fanatics, visiting Israel before and after his time in office.

 

This story is well seasoned with humbug. A year ago a delegation from Israel’s Knesset (parliament) visited Bali for official meetings of the Inter-Parliamentary Union without fuss. Koster was the host.

 

China allegedly persecutes the Uyghur Muslims living in the northwestern region of Xinjiang; like the Palestinians they want independence. China is the major investor in Indonesia and so far there have been few marching for the Uyghur.

 

Likewise, the reported mass killings of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. Five years ago there were protests in Indonesia but the energy seems to have dissipated. Myanmar is a member of ASEAN which is led by Indonesia.

 

Kicking in all directions may seem smart politics, but it infuriates the young who want to pray and play. Voting isn’t compulsory so if Gen Z says a pox on all pollies the damage to democracy will aggravate the already serious injuries to Indonesian soccer.

First published in Pearls & Irritations, 13  April 2023:

https://johnmenadue.com/indonesian-politics-scores-an-own-goal/

 

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SAY WHAT YOU MEAN, OR MEAN WHAT YOU SAY

 Butchering the Bard

Warning:  Some readers may find the details below offensive, as they involve dismemberment.

This is a story of a murder, the torture and despatch of our beloved language. Millions mourn.

The guilty have been charged:  They are two senior government officials caught red-handed, their fingers on the smoking keyboard.

The Jakarta Post published  the gore, so repulsive that one veteran wordsmith was moved to tears, commenting while heading to sick leave:  

‘After decades of having to read abstruse public statements, daft media releases and trite speeches, this sickens me.  I originally thought the jargon so far out it must be a spoof, maybe a left-over from a script by the late John Clarke aka Fred Dagg.

 ‘But the autopsy shows it’s real. God help us if this is to become acceptable.’

Exhibit One is an  INFORIAL which one witness asserted was a new drug to prevent verbal constipation.  However  a statutory declaration shows this is also an article containing an advertisement, with content ‘made’ by The Jakarta Post Business Department.

The defendants claim that’s not true - comparing it with False Fact, as defined by a former US president.  Through their lawyers, they allege ChatGPT is responsible.

In a supporting affidavit, they say the Post once employed many fine English-literate staff to ensure copy was clean and of a professional standard.  The level in this crime scene is too low to trip up the most pedestrian hack, so the blame has to lie with a robot.  

Members of the jury: You must read the evidence yourselves, but first some background.

The indictment from the Crown Prosecutor's HQ located in Mark Twain House reads: ‘Establishing collaboration with Australia in the immigration sector’.  It recounts an alleged meeting between Indonesian Immigration official Pak S and  Ms F from Australian Immigration. (Their names have been redacted to preserve their presumed innocence0.

They are doubtless fine public servants contributing much - though not to the language.

He said: ‘We followed up on several things, such as shaping a technical group regarding the development of technological information in order to facilitate the exchange of information on architectural systems and immigration for these two countries.’

She then added: ‘We respond with positivity toward the proposal as well as measures to contain foreigners who are not beneficial to Indonesia in a sense where we push the border forward to protect the borders of the two countries. This is to ensure a minimization of illegal migrations.’

Pak S compounded the offence by going further:‘We learned a lot from our last visit in Australia last month, which covered the database of foreigners, lists of data alerts to prevent or catch, and other various awakenings that we learned.’

The Prosecution confirmed the suspect had his ‘awakenings’ without the need to take a second dose of  INFORIAL so was fit enough to stand trial.

The learned judge refused to accept a plea to reject the charges because the defendants were only doing their duty to obfuscate, as required under public service rules.

‘The Nuremberg Defence has no place in a court which respects the rights of words to say what they mean,’ she said while dismissing a bid to have the charge reduced to wordslaughter.

 ‘I am not convinced the events under question were spontaneous .. there are elements of premeditation  present.’

Bail was allowed on the grounds that the defendants report to a library and under supervision read a chapter a day of the Oxford Guide to Plain English while awaiting trial.   They were warned not to attend any Zoom or face-to-face meetings, deliver reports or show PowerPoint presentations.

One anonymous observer commented: ‘To be fair - and I shouldn’t because this involves generously-paid bureaucrats with tertiary qualifications given the responsibility of communicating with the public  - the evidence should be handy for English teachers who aren’t too squeamish.  

‘Now they don’t need to compose imaginary examples of violence on language for their students to analyse - here’s a ready-made example of a real assault.’

In the upcoming by-election, both major parties have pledged to hold a Royal Commission with particular reference to the maltreatment of prose.

A spokesperson for the minister said: ‘This is a repugnant development that demands strong and immediate action, so we are planning to consider a review in the not-too-distant future given sufficient resources and a time frame which allows input from a wide range of stakeholders responding to the concerns of voters overall, subject to funds being made available in the upcoming budget.’

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TIS THE SEASON FOR NOISE

            Wake in fright but fear not; Ramadan’s here

Credit: Anadolu Agency

 

It’s 1444 on the Islamic calendar and the holy month of Ramadan is well advanced with four weeks of fasting, prayer, introspection and goodwill. All commendable - though in the land next door the noise spoils the values.

 

Unlike WA which has jarrah street poles or SA with Stobies, Indonesia uses hollow metal pipes to carry power and phone lines. These double as alarms.

 

Bash jarrah and it responds with a low timbre, not out of place in nature. But a steel stanchion whacked with an iron bar at 3 am is industrial din - the security guard’s reminder to rise, bathe and feast before the sun crests the mountains.

 

No problem when all agree to be woken to their responsibilities. But in our soundscape live folk of other faiths and ‘KTP (ID card) Muslims’. The Aussie equivalent of ‘wedding and wake Christians’ and too cowardly to protest - like your correspondent.

 

In 2015 Jusuf Kalla announced a team to check sound levels from the 800,000 mosques across the world’s most populous Islamic nation. As vice president, he could get away with suggesting a loud-speaker war was being waged and faith-powered boom no boon to developing a modern nation.

 

But then Sumatra householder  Meiliana, 44, muttered to a neighbour about  the local mosque’s five-times-daily calls to prayer. Her whispered whinge was amplified and distorted through social media. Riots erupted and 14 Buddhist temples were ransacked in Tanjung Balai.

 

The ethnic Chinese was charged with blasphemy for allegedly saying: ‘Lower the volume of the mosque. It’s too loud and hurts my ears.’ That landed her in jail for a year with six months on parole.

 

The story echoed around the Western world damaging Indonesia’s image of tolerance. VP Kalla’s initiative was never heard again.

 

Indonesia is constitutionally secular but allows followers of six religions to practice openly - Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism (aka ‘Christians’) Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. 

 

In central East Java, where this column is being keyboarded, the Catholic church bell in the heart of Malang city tolls for thee at 6 am - but no worries. By then all are awake and the kids heading to school for a 7 am start.

 

Although less than three per cent of the population follows the Church of Rome, it runs hospitals, universities and schools that accept students of all faiths. So they hold a credit balance in the community should strife flare, an insurance not always enjoyed by the other God-botherers who tend to insularity.

 

A few fast food outlets stay open during the day for non-Muslims and those deemed exempt. These include the unwell of both sexes, women breastfeeding, menstruating or pregnant; their numbers are surprising. The windows are curtained so the righteous aren’t tempted, and passers-by can’t see who’s cheating.

 

Once the sun has tumbled out of sight - which it does rapidly in the tropics - sirens sound like an air-raid warning all-clear. 

 

Then the bukber (collective break fasts) get going. This is a chance for families to flaunt their wealth, angering  President Joko ‘Jokowi' Widodo.

 

He’s issued a prohibition against civil servants serving lavish meals and provoking envy; the gap between the richest and the rest has grown faster this century - much under his watch -  than elsewhere in Southeast Asia  according to an Oxfam report:

 

Indonesia is now ‘the sixth country of greatest wealth inequality in the world … the four richest men in Indonesia have more wealth than the combined total of the poorest 100 million ...’  Some calm their consciences by distributing meals, publicising their munificence with company logos.

 

Top hotels fear losing trade and religious authorities say the president’s order breaks tradition.  His office explained the ban also prevents the spread of Covid.  Curious, for there are no curbs on the dense crowds in the takjil fast-end markets.

 

At lower levels, the bukber gatherings of  friends and neighbours with differing expectations of the hereafter assuage hunger, erode distrust and dispel annoyance: ‘Does the 3 am wake-up bother Sir? No probs mate, right as rain.’

 

After the saur predawn meal, the increasingly grumpy adults hit the mattress again, but the wide-awake kids are let loose from the disciplines that govern their other 11 months.

 

Packs of 20 plus  pre-teen and adolescent boys, and now more frequently girls, dash around  the streets spreading their sarongs like bat wings, yahooing loudly and throwing firecrackers.

 

In Australia 000 calls would jam police switchboards, and Sky News would rabbit on about Asian gangs. The Indonesians make a racket, but they don’t hot-wire cars, break into homes, bash or booze.  They’re so self-absorbed the only things they throw at passers-by are glances.

 

My dawn bike rides sometimes draw shouts of bule (whitey), for foreigners here are rarer than Bibles in mosques and Korans in churches, but the banter is benign.  Last week one smart lad yelled ’wiseman’ in English. Then an afterthought: Was he being cynical?

 

The climax is Idul Fitri on 21 April, a fortnight following Easter. In the week before millions take to the streets for mudik. This is the gift-giving mass return to families asking for blessings in the year ahead and seeking forgiveness for bad words and deeds in the twelvemonth past - lahir dan batin. Like a fault-prone laptop, 1445 will get a factory reset.

 

A predicted 123 million individuals on overloaded motorbikes and cars will quit the metropoles in a roar of power bouncing off the concrete canyons and a fog of CO2. It’s a practice-run for Armageddon.

 

There were more than 700 deaths and 1,000 serious injuries in Jakarta during the last exodus. As many prangs go unreported the number will be higher.  

 

For health and safety reasons the religious authorities could classify mudik as haram (forbidden), and the government pass noise-abatement laws.

 

These sensible suggestions your reporter declines to offer. To maintain Australian-Indonesian harmony it’s best we stomach the holy month’s quirks and cacophony - plus the meals and hospitality.

 

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