NOT WED? THEN NO DOUBLE BED IN BALI

Lock your bedroom:  The state is perving

TRAVEL WARNING:  Don't do this in Bali without a certificate

The G 20 in Bali last month was a splendid success – and not just because world leaders talked to each other proving differences can sometimes be understood, if not always accepted.

The grand two-day event also showcased Indonesia as a modern, progressive, tolerant and efficient state deserving respect and applause.  No longer. Cheers have turned to jeers.

Now the international news isn’t about grand-scale diplomatic breakthroughs that could make the world a safer place. That worthy account has been kicked to touch by lawmakers climbing into bedrooms.

There’s hardly a newspaper, radio or TV station around the world which hasn’t run the story of the Indonesian Legislative Assembly unanimously revising the Criminal Code to include a clause making consensual extramarital sex illegal.

Inevitably it’s been tagged ‘Bali bonk ban’ – and the mockery is widespread and justified.   Apart from being a gross affront to citizens’ privacy and an assault on human rights, it’s also a nutty notion.

In practical terms, how can it ever be widely enforced?  There aren’t enough jails in the country to hold the tsunami of offenders that would swamp the legal system.

Using Indonesia’s population surge as proof (2.3 live births per woman compared to Australia’s 1.6) it’s clear Indonesians like sex as much as any other humans and will enjoy the natural practice whatever their marital status. 

The pious sly will honour the law by using a Mut’ah temporary contract, ‘marrying’ before a compliant cleric just ahead of undressing, and ‘divorcing’ after the post-coital shower.

The salacious reports divert from the more serious questions:  How did this come about, who’s running this show and what’s the intent?

The legislation would not have surprised readers of this website as the decision was flagged here a month before the legacy media noticed.

But the story starts more than six years ago when the Aliansi Cinta Keluarga (Family Love Alliance) started to get its agenda heard.

 Till then radical Muslims had backed the Front Pembela Islam (FPI - Islamic Defenders’ Front).  It used firebrand speakers and mass rallies to force demands for an end to pluralism, liberalism and other perceived Western pollutants.

Their biggest success came in late 2016 when it overfilled Jakarta’s one-square-kilometre Merdeka (Freedom) park and engineered blasphemy charges against the city governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok).  The ethnic Chinese Christian was jailed for two years.

The government took fright at the growing power of the FPI so jailed its leader Rizieq Shihab, and got tough on his followers.  On one occasion police shot six dead on a Jakarta highway - driving the radicals underground.

Since then the Family Love Alliance has filled the vacuum by claiming it wants to strengthen ‘family values.’

The Alliance appears mild and mainstream, the image a gathering of grans. The giveaway is the acronym it uses – AILA - Arabic for ‘big family.’  As one commentator noted:

‘Unlike the FPI, which often acts outside or above the law, AILA is exploiting the existing legal system to turn law enforcers into a morality police, so that later they will practically do what the FPI has been doing for years.’

Which is what’s happened.

Before readers cancel their Kuta getaways, note the law has to be ratified and signed off by President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo. Judicial appeals are likely.

The big end of town is worried. The US Ambassador in Jakarta Sung Kim has reportedly forecast ‘a negative impact on the investment climate.’ Tourism businesses horrified by the overseas headlines will be lobbying to get unwed foreigners excluded from the no-cohabitation rule.

Three years ago when drafts of the proposed law were revealed, five died and 232 were injured when thousands protested in the streets of major cities. They demanded the state get out of people’s private lives and concentrate on improving education and health care, reducing poverty and concentrating on corruption.

The government has been trying to placate. Deputy Minister of Law and Human Rights Edward Hiariej has been quoted as saying nothing will change for at least a year as new regulations are assembled.

These are expected to include a clause restricting dob-ins of adulterers to relatives of the naughty couple, supposedly to keep neighbours from twitching curtains – another impossible goal.

It also won’t stop vigilantes believing they’ve been given a social licence to operate as morality police – a practice refined by FPI hoons who terrorized drinkers and gamblers during the holy month of Ramadan.

Human Rights Watch's researcher, Andreas Harsono told the BBC that in Middle East states with similar laws, women were punished and targeted more than men:

 

‘The danger of oppressive laws is not that they'll be broadly applied, it's that they provide avenues for selective enforcement.’

 

There are other revisions that are concerning in a country which wags call a ‘pious democracy’ as all citizens must belong to an approved religion.

In a move towards Thailand’s lese majesty laws, Indonesia’s legislators also want insulting the president and ministers to be a jailable offence.  It’s unclear whether normally humble Widodo supports this oppression of speech.

 Most likely it’s been inserted by politicians jealous of their status as the definition is a catch-all: ‘An act that humiliates or damages the honour, or the image of the government or state institutions, including insulting or slandering’.

Although the adultery clause is getting the most attention this is just one of 600 changes to the Criminal Code, with many replacing a mish-mash of old Dutch law, customary law and laws passed since the country was declared a republic in 1945.

At the time there was a strong push to make the new nation a theocracy and compel Muslims to follow Shariah law. 

That failed, but the zealots haven’t given up.  These new laws don’t go that far, but they do weaken the secular state, easing the way for harsher changes in the future.

 First published in Pearls & Irritations, 9 December 2022: https://johnmenadue.com/indonesia-bans-sex-outside-marriage-amid-sweeping-law-changes/

FASTING AND FEASTING BUT LITTLE RECONCILING

 

                   No quiet days for kafir

This year the holy weeks of the people of the book, Jews, Christians and Muslims coincide, creating moments for reconciliation.  This time is supposed to be about discipline and introspection, revelation and renewal, sharing and caring.

Maybe that’s how Indonesia’s prayerful experience the ritual of Ramadhan in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country.  But for many kafirs (unbelievers), the days start badly and get worse. 

Our street’s satpam (community security guy) carries a steel bar. Not for protection as crime is rare.   He uses it to bash hollow power poles three times.  At 3 am.

That’s to waken the pious so they can fill up before dawn and then fast till sunset. There are non-Muslim households nearby but the culture doesn’t extend to respecting neighbours’ rest.  

Indonesia is constitutionally secular but in reality it’s an ethnocracy. Christianity is accepted but Judaism is not government approved.

Just five of the Republic’s 34 provinces aren’t dominated by Islam. In East Java where 98 per cent know the direction of Mecca, the solar system star peeps over the eastern horizon about 5 am. 

Then the well-fed adults head back to bed and let the kids loose to roam, which they’d normally never allow. Parents reason no harm can come to the littlies when Satan is constrained and hell’s gates chained.

In Australia gangs of pre-teens chucking fireworks would trigger calls to the cops, but in Java they’re also asleep. 

The hoons shoulder hollow bamboo poles stuffed with homemade explosives. Firearms are scarce in Indonesia, but these bazookas would outgun AK-47s for noise.

This is considered more fun than threatening, supposedly to expel evil.  Thankfully that doesn’t included bule (foreigners).

Ramadhan is good business for beggars whose handlers rightly judge the devout will have their fear of perdition aggravated if they’re mean.

Questioning these practices risks charges of blasphemy or cancel culture, as PM Scott Morrison calls the hesitancy to offend.

In the past Easter has been church bombing season.  Since the government banned the fundamentalist Front Pembela Islam (FPI - Islamic Defenders’ Front) in 2020 attacks have declined.  None were reported this year. 

FPI thugs used to run extortion rackets by ‘sweeping’ clubs looking for alcohol, but these crimes have also lessened.

Nonetheless authorities stayed cautious; churchgoers parked alongside police and army armoured cars manned by dozers. Liberal Islamic organisations ran patrols to keep other faiths safe.  Seven alleged terrorists were arrested in West Java on Easter Sunday but their intentions were unclear.

Bangers aren’t the only racket.  Regulations passed this year supposedly crimp mosque loudspeakers and cut broadcast times to ten minutes, bur recitations of the Koran run for hours. Mandatory is a synonym for optional.

Even in Hindu Bali some mosques are louder than the screams of jets as tourists trickle back.  The non-Muslim rich retreat to Singapore hotels to sit out the month as their maids and drivers take leave.

Ramadhan is supposed to last for 29 days bracketing the sighting of crescent moons. Like the Easter break merging with Anzac Day, in Indonesia the show over-runs as feasts get extended and families visiting distant relatives for the Mudik ritual are slow to return.  The traffic thickens to cold lava.

Ramadhan commemorates Gabriel’s first visit to Muhammad in AD 610 making this year 1443 in the Islamic calendar.  No doubt the winged one stressed calm and quiet to help contemplation and this was lost in translation. 

Nor did the celestial visitor warn fasters about the downsides of abstaining, not just from food and drink but also sex and smoking.

As anyone who’s lived with a quitter knows, they’re best left alone to cough in their stress-saturated withdrawal, difficult when the addict has to work. 

In normal times – whatever they are - getting around to buy, do business and meet-up is all good as the locals are generally genial.

Though not during Ramadhan when mates turn to miseries and friends become fractious. Dealing with shop staff, government workers and parking officials with rumbling tummies doesn’t make for a good day.

Occasionally people collapse from dehydration as drinking anything is prohibited.  This runs counter to medical advice to take at least two litres of water a day in the tropics.

Those who get a grip on their moods aren’t worth a conversation unless the topic is what they plan to eat come nightfall.

Around 4 pm the takjil food markets open, knock-up kiosks selling every kind of fare imaginable, a delight for foodies.  Thousands buy but take away.  Sutiaji, the mayor of the East Java city of Malang urged citizens not to chew in public lest it disturb fasters.

This was a shot at the Christians and it’s not his first. He drapes the Town Hall’s outer walls with banners proclaiming his city is a centre of tolerance.  Yet in 2018 he ordered officials to ‘monitor Christmas festivities by Protestants and Catholics to prevent them from annoying others.’ 

There’d been no reports of youth yahooing on their way to midnight mass. Catholics are supposed to fast on several religious days, particularly Easter, so know about self-control.

His worship’s targets hit back saying that if Muslims abandoned principles because spotting a kafir munching a banana showed their faith is fragile.

The few restaurants that stay open during the day, like fast food chains, fear to tease.  They draw blinds lest passers-by see chilli sauce soaked hamburgers and chips, deciding that in the contest between spirit and stomach the gut wins.

These eateries draw women wearing jilbab (headscarves).  Consuming is allowed if they’re pregnant or menstruating, though many appear to be long past childbearing age.

The famished tuck in as the sun sets, hard to tell when the sky is black with rain, so the times are set by clerics who study the heavens.  Gun-jumping is said to earn the wrath of the referee watching from above.

The more progressive invite kafir to their feasts and gift-sharing can be enjoyable. Misunderstandings are resolved and friendships develop.  The greetings mohon ma’af, lahir dan batin (please forgive my transgressions, body and soul) help reset relationships

But the four weeks of puasa set a barrier to full resolution however generous the hosts and grateful the guests.

The 3 am clangs are indeed a wake-up, time to get away for a while. Not for fear, but a rest. Which is why this commentary is being keyboarded in Australia.  DG

 

 

 

 

 

SMALL NAIL, BIG HAMMER

 

                          Creating victims, fuelling hate

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, a leader prone to blunders (he initially took the Trump no-worries approach to Covid-19 now ravaging the Republic), may have made another serious error.  He’s banned a Muslim organisation that’s become the loudest and most militant critic of his government.

By making it illegal to belong to the Front Pembela Islam (FPI – Islamic Defenders’ Front} and join its activities has given the shambolic wackadoos the chance to find common purpose and gain credibility.

If the democratically elected government is so frightened of a rabble with an estimated 200,000 followers that it needs to banish it into the shadows to brew hate, then it seems Widodo is running scared.

Instead of using a prominent Muslim cleric to publicly confront the FPI and demolish its vile teachings with better interpretations of Islam, the government has chosen to strike using the secular mallet of the law. 

The person best qualified to challenge the FPI is vice president Ma’ruf Amin.  The high-standing Islamic scholar was picked as Widodo’s running mate in the 2019 election to offset the scuttlebutt that his boss isn’t a fair dinkum Muslim.  Instead he’s said to be a Javanese Abangan, a follower of a milder, more accepting form of the faith recognising local pre-Islamic beliefs.

However Amin, 77, has so far used his office more as a sinecure than a platform to disabuse the radicals’ line that the administration has lost its moral compass by, among other sins, bedding Chinese business.

As reported in this column, the FPI was formed late last century– allegedly with the help of the military - after the fall of the Republic’s strongman president, General Soeharto.  During his 32-year authoritarian rule any spark of religious militancy was crushed by army boots.

 

Some leaders fled to the Middle East or Malaysia where they covertly stayed in touch with supporters plotting the introduction of Sharia (Islamic) law.  In the chaos following the 1998 economic crisis, student-led riots against the corrupt regime and resignation of Soeharto, the demagogues slipped back to their homeland and roused the rabble.

One of the most notorious returnees was cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, leader of the militant Jemaah Islamiyah (JI - Islamic congregation).  Its gangs were responsible for the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing which killed 202, including 88 Australian holidaymakers.

Now 82, Ba’asyir remains in jail after being convicted of inciting violence and plotting terror. 

JI has been proscribed in Indonesia since 2008.  It’s one of 27 organisations forbidden in Australia.  According to Australian National Security: ‘JI remains a threat to the region.  JI continues to exist as a functional terrorist organisation and remains committed to its long-term strategy to overthrow the Indonesian Government and establish a pan-Islamic state in South-East Asia—through violence if necessary.’ 

The FPI is a separate swarm, but its younger leader Rizieq Shihab, 55, has filled the vacant post of hardline frothy-mouthed demagogue.  For the past three years he’s been in self-imposed exile in Saudi Arabia, returning to Jakarta on 10 November to such riotous applause that roads to the international airport were closed for several hours.

Countries which outlaw ‘illegal’ (meaning unregistered) organisations – as Indonesia has with the FPI – justify their actions with slippery phrases like ‘disturb public order and national security.’

Indonesia’s new catch-all law lists ‘activities that were in violation of the law such as violence, sweeping (raids on homes and businesses), incitement and other matters.’  But the likelihood that the FPI hoons will not regroup under another name or give up because a law has been proclaimed is fanciful.

Writing in The Conversation academics Lee Jarvis from East Anglia Uni, and Tim Legrand from the ANU, claimed debarring is ‘more political symbolism than effective counter-terrorism.

 ‘This scepticism dovetails with the work of other researchers ... who doubt that contemporary terrorist groups are appropriate targets for listing because they tend not to exist as coherent organisations with a fixed identity and an identifiable membership.’

 

Amnesty International Indonesia Executive Director Usman Hamid said the law ‘has the potential to discriminate against and violate the right of association, and will further undermine civil freedoms in Indonesia.’

 

Banning may sometimes be necessary to control immovable extremists.  But it’s also the favourite tool of tyrannical governments and often used against mild critics whose only weapons are reason and facts.

The blacklisting follows the police killing six FPI members on a toll road near Jakarta last month, and then arresting Rizieq Shihab on charges of breaking Covid-19 lockdown rules by encouraging mass rallies.  The government has rejected calls by NGOs for an inquiry into the shootings.

Days later the police said they’d discovered a JI military-style training centre in Central Java.  Separately they arrested two JI leaders allegedly involved in the Bali bombing after 18 years on the run.  By now the populace was well prepared to accept a ban on the FPI.

Christmas in Indonesia sometimes excites zealots to try their hand at bomb-throwing.  This year targets were few as the coronavirus closed churches, though a building in Sigi, Central Sulawesi was torched.   Local families claimed it was their church where they gathered to pray; authorities countered it wasn’t a ‘house of worship’ but a ‘service post’.

The Indonesian Constitution is supposed to guarantee freedom of worship, though the legislature has decreed citizens must follow one of six approved religions: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.

There are scores of other ancient faiths which the government labels traditional practices.  Endy Bayuni, a senior editor at The Jakarta Post and executive director of the International Association of Religion Journalists wrote that minority faith communities have lived in constant fear of persecution this century.

‘The fate of the followers of Ahmadiyah (a messianic movement) and Shiism (the branch of Islam dominant in Iran, Bahrain and Iraq) illustrates Indonesia’s failings in protecting freedom of religion or belief for everyone. Thousands of their followers have been lingering in shelters, unable to go home, others are facing harassment.’

The peak non-government authority Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI – Islamic Scholars’ Council) has declared Ahmadiyah and Shiism ‘deviant’ giving the FPI mobs an excuse to attack.

In a Cabinet reshuffle at the end of December Widodo announced a new Minister for Religious Affairs.

Yaqut Cholil Qoumas is a former chairman of Ansor, the 800,000-strong youth wing of Nahdlatul Ulama, the country’s largest Islamic mass organization. Ansor’s militia wing Banser sometimes musters its green-uniformed gangs to protect churches. (The FPI militias wear white.)  

Banser weren’t always the good guys; in the mid 60s they helped massacre thousands of real or imagined Communists after the coup which brought Soeharto to power.

Qoumas promised he’d protect minorities but within a day he copped a blast from conservative Muslim leaders.  He then said there’d be no special treatment.

‘No one is really asking for special treatment,’ wrote Bayuni. ‘If only he (Qoumas) could protect all religions, particularly religious minorities, against harassment and outright persecution, which would be sufficient.

‘This is hardly a picture that Indonesia wants to convey to the world. The nation of 270 million people takes pride in its diversity of all kinds, from race, ethnicity and culture to tradition, language and religion.

‘Living up to the spirit of the state motto Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity) however has become more challenging now with the increasing use of religion as political identity that encourages religious intolerance.’

At his swearing-in Qoumas said he wanted to ‘turn religion into an inspiration, not an aspiration’.  With others bent on wrath, the minister will be praying for wisdom.

Update: The FPI has reportedly changed its name to Front Persatuan Islam (United Islam Front). The government has also announced terrorist leader Abu Bakar Ba'asyir will be released from jail on 8 January after completing his sentence.

First published in Pearls and Irritations, 5 January 2021: https://johnmenadue.com/small-nail-big-hammer/

 

 

 

 

SEARCHING FOR INSULTS AND PLOTS TO STIR

 

         Sinophobia as a political weapon

‘Morality racketeering’ is Australian academic Dr Ian Wilson’s shorthand for Indonesian white-clad mobsters who dress themselves in religious righteousness to terrorise their animus-du-jour.  Last century it was vice.  More recently it’s been blasphemers.  Now it’s the government of President Joko Widodo.

An Australian supporter of the ultra-nationalist group Front Pembela Islam (FPI – Islamic Defenders’ Front) explained to TV news this month why he and a few friends were backing the FPI leader Rizieq Shihab, 55, a man who’s no Santa Claus.

They said Widodo had neutered opposition through political alliances.  This left the FPI and its incendiary preacher as the only voice offering alternative policies.

Unfortunately that voice is hate-filled.  If there are plans worthy of being called policies, they’re rooted in sinophobia.  The signs are subtle, more dog whistles than shouts according to another Australian scholar, Dr Quinton Temby based at Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

Key words in the FPI’s rhetoric include naga, the symbol of a dragon, cacing (worm) and zalim (aka zulm) Arabic for cruelty, exploitation and oppression.  All are linked to China and Communism.

Readers who remember Vietnam War propaganda would recognise the images – a loathsome red creepy-crawly, jaws agape, slithering towards the motherland.

Shihab likes to strike demagogue poses and call himself the Imam Besar (Grand Cleric) descended from the Prophet Muhammad through his ancestors who brought Islam to Indonesia.

Critics have publicly called him a thug, but his claims suggest the man’s also a charlatan.  The Prophet, who died in 632 is supposed to have had 13 wives but only two children.  Islam arrived in Java in the 14^th century, popularly through the Walisongo, or nine saints of Islam.

As there are few written records Shihab’s ancestry can’t be proved, but as Donald Trump knows, the more outrageous the notion the more likely to be accepted by the gullible.

How many believers is hard to know.  Temby has taken a stab at 200,000 which is big by Australian standards but tiny in the Republic. The mainstream Islamic organisations Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah together claim a membership of 120 million.

As we know, one determined zealot can still do enormous damage, though the FPI’s energies are currently directed to social media manipulation rather than bomb making.

The FPI made a major mistake when it switched targets from boozing foreigners and the unwed in bed to the government.  This enemy has a police force with lots of guns which were used to kill six of Shihab’s ten ‘bodyguards’ on a toll road in the early hours of 7 December.

The police said they had to defend themselves against armed men, but Shihab says his supporters had no weapons.  Guns are rare in Indonesia’s underworld.  So far no independent witnesses have come forward, but the cops’ version looks suspect.

The government has certainly sent a late no-tolerance message, reinforced by the arrest of Shihab for allegedly breaching coronavirus rules on wearing masks and social distancing.

When the preacher returned to Jakarta from three years self exile in Saudi Arabia on 10 November he was met by a huge mob which ignored lockdown laws. 

The crowds caught the Widodo government by surprise.  How could ministers not have known about the flight and planned welcome? Either the State’s ‘intelligence’ service was dozing, or they knew and wanted the FPI to incriminate itself.  Widodo sacked two senior cops and their replacements are cracking knuckles.

Another sinister theory going the rounds is that Shihab’s return was arranged by the FPI’s political paymasters playing a long game to discredit Widodo. Like Trump’s election fraud accusations, no one is producing evidence.

Naturally the FPI is playing victim and promoting the six dead men as martyrs who died for the cause of ‘moral revolution’.    This sounds fine unless a definition is sought.  For the FPI it means making the population live under sharia (Islamic law) and the suppression of ‘minorities’.

This is another code for ethnic Chinese. Most are Christian and probably total less than ten million.  That’s about one in every 30 citizens, though their economic clout is far greater.  

Some families have been in the archipelago for three centuries and helped fight Communism after the 1965 coup.  But that doesn’t disturb the radicals who only see foreigners taking local jobs on Widodo’s infrastructure projects powered by Chinese loans. Jakarta’s debt to Beijing exceeds AUD 23.5 billion.

Its vaccine diplomacy should ensure millions get protected with the Sinovac jab.  Doses are already in the country and will be delivered free if approved.  That should encourage citizens to think favourably towards the donor – but few forget they’re also atheists persecuting Uyghur Muslims.

The FPI has called for citizens to boycott Chinese shops and goods.   If that happened the populace would go hungry, have to quit fags and buying smartphones.

So far China hasn’t retaliated.  Instead coal exports have been increased to replace imports from Australia.  But if its citizens are physically attacked it could withdraw its engineers and throw the massive road and rail upgrades into chaos.

Widodo’s government is in a bind.  Sinophobia is always bubbling beneath the surface.  The last big outbreak of violence in 1998 took the lives of more than a 1,000 shopkeepers and looters.

Anyone offering a sane commentary runs the risk of being painted Red – a straight lift from George W Bush’s ‘for us or agin us’ reductionist lunacy as the ideology has been banned for the past 55 years and shows no sign of germinating.

It’s difficult to know if the FPI is affiliated with the extremist Jemaah Islamiah (Islamic congregation).  The government is trying to persuade citizens that Shihab’s mob is a terrorist group and should be black-listed for spruiking violence – including the beheading of blasphemers.

Human rights activists are also conflicted fearing a ban on one outfit threatening the government will lead to further action against peaceful and rational critics – which is already happening.

The police say they’ve recently arrested 23 JI members including two prize targets - Taufik Bulaga and Zulkarnaen - suspects in the 2002 Bali bombings, in which 202 died, including 88 Australians. The men were also allegedly involved in the 2004 one-tonne suicide bomb hit on the Australian embassy.  Nine died – all Indonesians.  About 150 were injured.

This Christmas and New Year the police are expected to be ramping patrols around churches, a standard precaution every twelvemonth.

Any outrage during the season of goodwill is likely to further frighten the Western investors Widodo so badly needs to balance the Renminbi.  

 

  First published in Pearls & Irritations 28 December 2020

 https://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-sinophobia-as-a-political-weapon/