iT'S NOT JUST NEWS AND NOTES THAT'S FAKE

Connecting the dots to the dollars      

                                                   

There are few genuine Australian souvenirs that visitors can take home and admire for their originality.

Tea towel impressions of the Sydney Harbor Bridge or Central Australia’s Uluru – formerly Ayers Rock - are more kitsch than culture. 

But Aboriginal art is unique, a global stand-apart. and to the fury of its creators has been left vulnerable to swindlers.  That could start to change following last month’s conviction of Birubi Art.  The company has been fined AUD 2.3 million (US $1.6 million) by the Australian Federal Court for marketing fake Aboriginal art.
More than 18,000 boomerangs, bullroarers, digeridoos (wind instruments) and other artworks had been bought since 2016, mainly by overseas holidaymakers.
The court found the sales had broken Australian consumer law by leading customers to think they’d acquired authentic local art and paid a fair price benefiting the creator.  In fact the artifacts had been mass produced in Indonesia, imported and retailed.

One estimate is that 80 per cent of indigenous arts on sale in Australia are phonies, or have been created without a legal licensing agreement.

Aboriginal art, colloquially called ‘dot painting’, is marginally similar in technique to pointillism though less refined and presenting no identifiable likeness; it’s mainly abstract and rich in secret meanings. It has been appreciated by the public only since the 1970s, largely through the initiatives of the late Geoffrey Bardon. 

A teacher at the Northern Territory Papunya settlement, he recognized the originality and complexity of Central Desert creativity; much is spiritual and impermanent because the canvas was then sand and scrub.

Bardon persuaded the Papunya artists to use modern materials and make their art two-dimensional and portable, starting with paintings on shed doors.

And profitable.  Jump ahead half a century and the curious designs can be found at every sightseer stop, often with a simple statement about the alleged ‘story behind the art’. 

Although dismissed by some as just pretty patterns, a few farsighted connoisseurs got in early and have done well. 

Former official war artist Frank Norton started collecting for the West Australian Art Gallery after being appointed director in 1958.  Astute private buyers then got interested.

Two years ago Earth’s Creation 1, a 1994 painting by the late Utopia (Central Australia) artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye sold for AUD 2.1 million (US $1.47 million), the highest price ever paid for a painting by an Australian woman.  Ten years earlier it changed hands for AUD 1,056 million (US $742,000).

Traditional paintings are based on ‘song cycles’ revealing stories of ancestors’ journeys and discoveries, but there’s also a practical side. The art included three-dimensional models of the landscape showing symbols of waterholes and places where food was abundant = maps of the environment.

Survival in a harsh land meant remembering the elders’ words and pictures, usually created using paints made from ochres plus feathers and grasses.

Indigenous Australians carved rocks and painted caves.  Some petroglyphs (images hammered onto rock) in the Pilbara district of Western Australia are estimated to be 40,000 years old. Although imaginative artists, Aborigines never developed a written language. 

Counterfeiting has long been a Vietnamese speciality; Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) market wanderers will have seen racks of competently copied Mona Lisa lookalikes and Last Suppers.

Indonesian tourist art has tended to be hybrid and corny, Balinese maidens happily laboring in scorching ricefields. Now some entrepreneurs have turned to filching motifs from the culture of the country next door.  About 825,000 citizens have Aboriginal ancestry.  That’s 3.3 per cent of Australia’s 25 million population.

The tricksters manufacture with impunity in their homeland while ranting against outsiders who have appropriated local batik designs for clothing.  The alleged culprits are usually said to be Malaysians.

Australians are only slowly realizing the need to protect the nation’s distinctive heritage.  Back in 1967 the government blushed to find artist David Malangi Daymirringu’s work had been used on a new one-dollar bill without acknowledgement or compensation. 

Though the errors were fixed it’s taken more than half a century to legally expose rip-offs with a court conviction.  But the June decision is a colander, full of holes to let dodgy operators drain royalties from creatives.

Technically the guilty company would have stayed clean had it acknowledged, however tiny the typeface, that the daubers were in Kuta and not Kununurra.
In her court judgment Justice Melissa Perry said there was ‘powerful’ evidence Birubi's conduct caused great social, economic and cultural harm to Indigenous communities and artists.
She said she hoped the fine would deter others from undercutting the rightful Aboriginal art industry, but this laudable aim seems likely to miss the target.
The company involved has reportedly gone into liquidation so is unlikely to pay the penalty. This has prompted three agencies - the Indigenous Art Code, Copyright Agency and the Arts Law Centre of Australia to call for tougher laws.
The prosecution was launched by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. In a statement Commissioner Sarah Court said ‘Birubi's actions were extremely serious. Not only did they mislead consumers, they were liable to cause offence and distress to Australian Aboriginal people.
‘… (this) has the potential to undermine the integrity of the industry and reduce opportunities for Australian Aboriginal peoples.’
The Director of the National Indigenous Art Fair Peter Cooley said: ‘(Frauds are) lessening the value of authentic art and swaying people to be nervous about purchasing; ultimately they stay away from buying and that's not what we need as Aboriginal artists and businesses.’

So next time Strategic Review readers are shopping Down Under for a dinky-die (bona fide) example of the Great South Land’s art, they might wish to scrutinize labels and ask searching questions of the seller.

First published by Strategic Revew 10 July 2019  https://outlook.live.com/mail/inbox/id/AQMkADAwATExADgyNy00YzQyLWMxYzUtMDACLTAwCgBGAAADEneujBqxX0WPcDPHS6EhYAcAoJpXSmIQrUmUE6S25GZDhAAAAgEMAAAAoJpXSmIQrUmUE6S25GZDhAAC3HheGAAAAA%3D%3D
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VISIT AUSTRALIA - BUT DON'T EXPECT A WELCOME MAT

Getting to know you shouldn’t be so difficult                                

Australia is so close passengers just have time for a snack and a snooze on a two-hour, 30 minute flight to Darwin.  It takes longer to get to Manado in North Sulawesi.

The Northern Territory capital is a delightful, compact modern city largely rebuilt since it was trashed by Cyclone Tracy in 1974.  No adjustment needed for those who enjoy the tropics.

If heading south to Perth in Western Australia, add a short doco or news update; you’ll be there in well under four hours after lifting off from Denpasar.

There’s no shortage of carriers so fares outside school holidays can often be lower than flying between centers in the Archipelago.

Just one catch:  Indonesians need visas, like most foreigners.  But there’s a difference which can be more than a hassle and a cost.  It’s also a big deterrent, according to Indonesia Institute President Ross Taylor, who lives in Perth.

Along with the local tourist industry his NGO has been pushing for Indonesians to have the same access to visitor visas as citizens of Singapore and Malaysia.

They can apply on line, get speedy responses and pay only AUD 20.

Taylor, who used to be a trade commissioner in Jakarta, tells of a chance encounter with a family of 22 from Bandung, West Java.  They were enjoying Perth’s splendid Kings Park above the city.  Access to this bushy lookout is free, but getting there ripped wallets.

The group leaders told him they’d paid AUD 3,080 for visas and filled in close to 300 pages of questions.

Aussies flying in and out of Indonesia know that those trying to ram overweight backpacks into overhead lockers use English expletives to help the bag fit.  Less than one in six passengers are Indonesians.

In 2016 the Indonesian government surprised tourists when it cancelled the US $30 visa-on-arrival system, a decision which reportedly cost the country US $50 million.  It seemed like an economic wrist-slash, but it was super smart.

Within a year visitor numbers flew 16 per cent higher, and according to industry calculations, added US $145 million to the economy.  Now Australian passport holders queue only to get stamped, not fleeced.  That comes later in Kuta’s Jalan Legian.

The other factor is time.  Feel like a quick break this weekend Down Under?  Forget impulse ticket-buying unless you’ve fixed the paperwork well in advance.

Last month this writer helped an Indonesian who wanted to look around Sydney during a return home eight-hour stopover from New Zealand.

It took about ten days using an agent in Indonesia to get the transit visa.  The middle-aged lady had no criminal record and held a senior position in a State bank.

Jakartans spluttering to get out of the Asia’s second most polluted city and inhale fresh air should forget the Wide Brown land and head for the Himalayas; India now gives Indonesians visas-on-arrival. 

Last year more than 9 million Indonesians traveled overseas; less than two per cent headed south-east. Their favorite destinations were Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Japan.

Tokyo is seven hours from Denpasar but Indonesians don’t need a visa for a short visit. More than 300,000 made the trip last year while fewer than 200,000 headed Down Under.

The Australian Embassy struggles to deny the facts, arguing that immigration policy is a work in progress. Officials say Indonesians can now apply on line, multiple-entry visas valid for three years are available, and that most applicants are successful.

The unspoken reason for the discriminatory treatment appears to be the lack of trust in what officials call ‘document integrity’.  This is bureaucratic-speak for believing forgery of passports and supporting travel documents has yet to be tackled seriously.

The other issue is overstaying.  Yet few from the Archipelago are guilty.  According to Immigration Department figures, Malaysians are the major offenders followed by Chinese, Americans and the British.  Around 60,000 overstayers are believed to be in Australia, a nation without ID cards.

None of this dents Taylor’s resolve to get more of his neighbors into his country, and not because of the money they’ll bring.  He reckons tourism helps people get to know each other and shed attitudes built on myths and hearsay.

“Tourism is the best way to forge a more intimate bilateral relationship, giving Indonesians the chance to see how Australians live,” he said.  “It challenges ignorance, misperceptions and suspicions.

“We need to bring hundreds of thousands more Indonesians to Australia, so we start getting to know them better."

Ironically this is the same message continually pushed by the Australian government.  It says it wants people from the Republic to jump a jet and check out the koalas and kangaroos for themselves, and for Aussies to discover their neighbors no longer live in an autocracy.

The ignorance has been measured.  Every year the well-respected Lowy Institute questions Australians perception of Indonesia and its citizens.  The last report was little different from its predecessors:

‘In 2018, only 24 per cent of Australians agree that Indonesia is a democracy. They are divided … on whether Indonesia is a dangerous source of terrorism, and only 32 per cent agree that the Indonesian government has worked hard to fight terrorism’.

Maybe encouraging more Indonesians to visit Australia might help the locals revise their outdated attitudes. 

First published in Indonesian Expat 4 July 2019: https://indonesiaexpat.biz/featured/getting-to-know-you-shouldnt-be-so-difficult/

Also published in The West Australian on 12 July 2019

HARRY'S THEME

The onus lies here                                                          

It’s a bromide among politicians urging exporters: Australians must study Indonesian to sell more to the hungry customers next door.

It’s a line liked by academics, though their motives are less mercenary. Aussies should learn to look beyond Nusa Dua’s infinity pools.  Exploring reveals diversity; tolerance will thrive, and friendships flourish.

OK to a point, though not the whole story for veteran Indonesian journalist and independent thinker Harry Bhaskara. He reckons his former country also has to put in the hard yards, as Australians say.  That includes the government news agency Antara distributing enticing stories about Indonesia written in smart English.

Then Aussies might learn there’s more to the Republic than burning tires in Jakarta and motorbike prangs in Kuta.

“If Indonesia can become a decent country its relationship with Australia and the rest of the world will improve,” Bhaskara said.  “Much of the onus lies with Indonesia itself.

“By ‘decent’ I mean the nation should become a true democracy, uphold justice, eliminate the impunity protecting authority, and make the bureaucracy transparent.

“Investors won’t come if these issues aren’t solved.  Malaysia and Singapore are well run.  In the eyes of outsiders Indonesia is a problematic country.

“I don’t blame Australians – why should they bother if Indonesia is not doing well?”

Such comments make partisan politicians splutter about ‘sovereign rights’.  Crowing that they’ll ignore outsiders’ opinions plays to the crowd but warps the intent: Caring critics aren’t traitors damning their nation, only those rulers who put self ahead of state.
Bhaskara’s views can’t be easily flicked aside.  Although now an Australian citizen, he spent most of his working life with The Jakarta Post starting just after the paper was launched in 1983.
In the dark days of President Soeharto’s Orde Baru administration a free press was but a dream: “The army used to order us not to publish certain stories, like riots in remote areas. Useful alerts; we often didn’t know there was trouble.” 
At press conferences Bhaskara drew stares.  “I was too Chinese to be an Indonesian, but too Indonesian to be a Chinese,” he quipped.  There were hurts, like the government in 1967 forcing name changes. 
Sie Siang Hoei was born in Makassar (South Sulawesi) a fifth generation Indonesian who only knew Indonesian languages.  Not good enough for Soeharto. Enter Harry Bhaskara Kontutodjeng.

“Bhaskara is Sanskrit for torch. Kontutodjeng is a Makassar word for truth,” he explained, adding that a good translation is Harry Tru(e)man.

A fine name for a journalist.
Offsetting, though not negating domestic discrimination, was recognition abroad.  He won visiting scholarships to the University of California and Murdoch University in Australia.
Bhaskara was orphaned as a teen.  Before his mother Cecilia Tanzil died she urged him to continue his education. But the family had no money so the lad quit high school.
He worked in stores and workshops but his real calling was music.  Through teaching the guitar he garnered enough for a place at the University of Indonesia as a mature age student. 
He’d already taught himself English and excelled.  He was drawn to American literature and cultural critic Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956).  “I was so impressed with the way he handled language and the clarity of his prose that I decided to become a journalist,” said Bhaskara.
The respect stopped there.  Mencken was also a racist anti-democrat, his admirer is the opposite. Writing well is not enough.  Good journalists need to be cursed by curiosity, showing sympathy for the weak while revealing wrongs. Bhaskara’s work reveals he suffers from these bothersome qualities.

 “We used to sneer at Malaysians because they didn’t fight for their freedom so had no independence,” he said.  “Now they’re upholding the law by putting former prime minister Najib Razak on trial. We never brought Soeharto to justice”.

Razak has been accused of looting US S4.5 billion from the country’s sovereign wealth fund. Transparency International has alleged that Soeharto, who died in 2008, embezzled up to US $35 billion.

Bhaskara, now a spry 70, covered stories across the archipelago rising from reporter to managing editor before retiring to Brisbane in 2010 where he’s been sharpening perceptions of his motherland. 
He’s Queensland correspondent for the prestigious national daily Kompas. His report on Australian Labor leader Bill Shorten conceding defeat and congratulating Liberal Scott Morrison on his 17 May election win ranked second highest in the paper. 
“Readers were surprised because Shorten accepted defeat before it was official,” Bhaskara said. “That’s another cultural difference – Australians don’t like bad losers.”
If adjusting to life in Australia’s third largest city has been difficult for Bhaskara and his wife Melanie, you won’t find details here.  The couple mix with the wider community and deplore Indonesians who import their cultural and religious differences.  He’s an on-call interpreter helping Indonesian patients in hospital and gives guest lectures at unis.
Instead of whingeing (complaining) he gulped a lungful of street air and shouted:  ‘It’s clean.  No noise. No pollution.  I’m not stressed. Who’d go back to Jakarta after this?”
Although friends joke that he’s become an ‘Indonesian bule (foreigner)’ because he doesn’t drink coffee, admires rugby football and rarely eats rice, Bhaskara is not uncritical of his new home; he believes the government has “reached a stalemate” in trying to handle drugs, gambling and alcohol abuse.  Empty churches also distress.
“I know Indonesia has potential,” said Bhaskara; for a moment his Happy Harry persona slipped – then recovered. “It makes me very sad that it hasn’t become the country it should be – and that’s a super power.
“Things have improved.  I have great hope for young people seeking to serve, and who want appointments based on merit.  Much will depend on the character of the leader who succeeds Jokowi in five years.
“If we have the right people at the top then corruption can be conquered.”
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First published in The Jakarta Post 2 July 2019

IGNORING THE DOINGS NEXT DOOR

Focusing on Washington, glancing at Jakarta                                 

The 17 April Indonesian elections and fallout could have been big news in Australia.  According to some experts they should have been.

Instead media consumers Down Under got more of US President Donald Trump’s distant domestic political shenanigans than they did of the blood and fire crises facing their neighbor nation and its President Joko Widodo.

The result from the world’s third largest democracy staging the world’s biggest one-day election will impact many countries, but most particularly the adjacent southern continent.  

Although the times have been tumultuous, consumers of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s sound and vision news bulletins would have concluded most salient events were happening 13,000 kilometers distant in the Northern Hemisphere – not next door.

Using the ABC's website search box, ‘Widodo’ appears only a dozen times compared with 150 for 'Trump' in the same seven-week period.  'Indonesia' featured on 60 occasions.

The Australian national newspaper did better with 36 mentions of Widodo.

This survey doesn't measure story length, prominence, or note overlap. It’s a crude measure of quantity, not quality.  That doesn’t undermine the point: the gap is too wide.

The political happenings in Indonesia’s recent past appear to have been judged by news editors in Australia as minor against those in America, even though the US didn’t feature an election or resulting tumult.

Perth-based Indonesia Institute President Ross Taylor told The Jakarta Post:

“The statistics simply reinforce our Institute’s view that the only time we here in Australia engage with Indonesia through the media – or as a community – is when … something shocking happens in the rest of Indonesia.

“Our media reported how the Jakarta riots’ terrible scenes were a result of people protesting against alleged vote rigging and anti-Widodo sentiment … The main contributors to those riots were young thugs, Islamic radicals combined with disaffected youth happy to get three dollars (Rp 30,000) each to create a ‘protest'. That should have been a story in its own right.”

Australian journalism is facing crook times; an estimated 3,000 jobs have been deleted this decade, most from newspaper newsrooms as consumers click screens rather than flick pages. Rip-and-read reports, mainly from the Anglosphere, often fill space.

That leaves much heavy lifting to the public broadcaster.  The ABC is the most trusted news organization in the nation, according to Roy Morgan Research’s MEDIA Net Trust Survey.

Told that Trump was eclipsing Widodo by a factor of twelve, Corporation spokeswoman Sally Jackson responded:  “A keyword in the search box does not surface all ABC coverage. It is not a reliable basis to draw conclusions from.”  

When asked what the search box misses and how searching could be refined she added: “We did a lot of coverage - both planned and breaking news … we had two reporters on the ground reporting for all platforms … and many live crosses at night. The Indonesia story was an important one that was covered thoroughly for all our readers, listeners and viewers.”

That’s not contested.  The issue is the disproportionate attention and higher ranking given long term to US affairs above those in Indonesia.

Dr Andrew Dodd, Director of the Center for Advancing Journalism at Melbourne University told this paper low rates of news coverage “reflect the sad fact that in Australia we are still not switched on to the great changes occurring in Indonesia.

“We are still largely ignorant of the people and parties and policies in play and why the protests are occurring. This does not reflect well on Australia’s media or population, given so much is at stake.

“Unless the story involves an Aussie backpacker doing something stupid in Bali it seems we just don’t really connect with stories in Indonesia. We’re too busy focusing on the latest idiocy occurring at the centers of Western culture - in Washington and London.”

Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto had some disquieting ideas.

The former general publicly promoted Ghost Fleet a US sci-fi novel which forecasts that by 2030 Indonesia will be brought to its knees by cunning Westerners plundering the archipelago’s resources. 

It gets worse.  According to Dr Edward Aspinall and Dr Marcus Mietzner, both from the Australian National University, Indonesian democracy could die with a Subianto win.

That’s what they claimed back in 2014.  This year they analyzed a Subianto speech and concluded he believed ‘direct elections were not compatible with the Indonesian cultural character and gave a strong signal that he wishes to do away with the practice.’

The possibility of a giant dictatorship on the doorstep led by ‘a Trumpian figure who lives in a self-created bubble of imagined greatness’ according to Mietzner, should have turned Australian media attention to the islands above.

Another factor: Had the May mayhem continued Australia might have been hit with a flood of refugees fleeing the violence. That happened in 1998.

President Widodo has visited Australia officially three times, but the Prime Minister he most liked, Malcolm Turnbull, was deposed last year in a Liberal Party coup and replaced by Scott Morrison.  He’s infamous for riling the Republic by proposing to shift Australia’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  Relationship repairs will be required.

Next comes a new Widodo Cabinet; few Australians could name the personalities and parties involved, though they’d be familiar with key players in US politics.

Commented Taylor: “As a community, Indonesia is simply the stranger next door; yet when Australians spend time in Indonesia they realize that Indonesians are gracious people with a great sense of humor, value family and value good friends. They also aspire to the things we seek.”

Which are deeper and wider understandings of each other.  That comes through expanded media coverage of issues and individuals on both sides of the shallow and narrow Arafura and Timor Seas.

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First published in The Jakarta Post 25 June 2019.  https://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2019/06/25/staring-at-washington-glancing-at-jakarta.html

Also published in Pearls and Irritations on 12 July 2019:   http://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-focusing-on-washington-glancing-at-jakarta/

GREY NOMADS NOT TO BE RUN OFF THE POLITICAL HIGHWAY

                                        Roaming for relevance

Politicians and pollsters hunting the grey vote usually stalk retirement villages and pensioner clubs.

Handy because electors mustered in dining rooms and community halls tend to groupthink.  Dissidents don’t do well in confined spaces where they’re condemned to stay mum or risk exclusion.

Wrong spots.  Hucksters should stake out the hills and creek banks where independent thinkers and determined doers thrive and allegiances can be shifted – the backblock campgrounds.

These aren’t the profit-driven holiday parks with garish banners and bouncy castles, but paddocks plus basics, often run by rural community groups.  The Gun Club in Roma, the natural gas origin town of Queensland, lets blow-ins squat alongside the clay pigeon catapaults

Nearby Injune has turned its racecourse from a monthly venue into a seven-day a week stopover.  A yard behind the rail line at Salmon Gums near the west-end start of the Nullarbor Plain has been spruced up by volunteers who yarn to visitors round the camp kitchen. 

Many of the movers are also shakers, retired professional couples who’ve sent the kids packing and decided to do the same. They have cash and a determination to die being active.

This is no small cohort: As you scan this paragraph there are probably around  120,000 campers on the blacktop, cruising not racing.  That’s according to the industry which has  websites competing for dollars by offering info on secret hideouts and special de

With more than 600,000 RVs registered across the country as one pulls into the carport, another hitches the trailer and heads inland.

‘RV’ is one more US import, meaning recreation vehicle, a four-wheel-drive not used for work, caravan or campervan.  What used to be a ute with a swag can now be the Taj Mahal on several axles.

Owners spend months selecting the right beast.  Stay-a-nighers go for campervans so they only need to plug into powerpont or genset;  those planning longer stays to explore, fish or just yawn and yarn away the days prefer caravans so they can unhitch the car and potter around town.

Few are technophobes.  Octogenarians swapping news on the lastest cellphones with the equally adapt grandkids half a continent away are a common sight.  So are oldies tapping their satellite arrays with walking sticks to get the signals in line with earth coordinates.

Because they often stay on the road for years, nomads carry enough gear to keep going far beyond bowsers, mechanics and doctors.  Some, like the Sugarcity Pioneers from Mackay travel in convoys.  Insurance companies aren’t keen on covering travelers who may not pass all the cemeteries they see before getting home, so mutual help is essential.

‘RV Friendly’ signs are slowly getting pegged outside progressive country towns where the local worthies read the stats: the rest are still grousing about interstate plates cluttering favourite parking places;  like Peter Dutton’s asylum seekers, you never know what diseases they’re carrying or perversions they practice.

Local government in the RV unfriendlies tends to be in the hands of luddite hoteliers.  Like taxis getting overtaken by Uber, they see threats, not opportunities.  Following Donald Trump they blacken outsiders with lurid tales of the bush befouled and ratepayers’ facilities trashed.

The rejects love adverbs; nothing is just ‘prohibited’ – it must be ‘strictly’. Along with  Singapore, they become ‘fine’ towns with  a penalty for every offence mean minds can imagine.  A favourite sign made failure to flush a urinal an offence.  You wouldn’t want to take the piss out of the police.

For these envious unwelcomers, camper are hoons in panel vans intent on sex and surf and with no interest in the bowling club bar.  Freeloaders must be banned, forgetting even the unshaven have to fill tanks, buy bread, cask wine and phone cards

A favourite rural myth has foreigners evacuating their bowels in botanical gardens and washing their undies with the water lilies.  Maybe there’s been the odd offender but the even truth is that most treat the environment as they would their lounge.

Having driven from Carnarvon on the West Coast to Carnarvon in Central Queensland the only sight of what seemed to be toilet paper desecrating the New England landscape turned out to be snow.

It’s equally easy to misjudge the grey nomads.  Their fashion is more Salvos than Myer.  Labourers’ boots and tatty shorts for the blokes, track suits for their partners.  This is not a market for Revlon but it is for Mercedes.

Whatever the superannuants aren’t spending on themselves they’re lavishing on their mobile homes which can often cost six figures.  According to industry stats more than $8 billion was spent on caravans and camping in 2015, a 24 per cent jump from four years earlier.

Geraldton, about 420 kilometers north of Perth is a ‘RV Friendly’ town, unusual for a sizeable city. It lets caravaners stay free overnight in the CBD, reasoning this encourages longer stays and an emptying of wallets.

Grouchtowns get blacklisted in seconds through the campers’ networks.  Nomads don’t grin and bear; with wheels and wanderlust there’s no need to stay and tolerate illwill.  Campers come from all points of the continent and even a few from overseas. They are as socially connected as their grandkids.

Many would vomit if called greenies though they’re deeply into the environment, keen to see what they never knew in their youth – Aboriginal art, protecting endangered wildflife, studying natural remedies - conservation of the endangered,  

The politicians who learn to link with this legion of  wised-up wanderers could learn how the electorate is changing.\

First published in Pearls and Irritations 24 June 2019; http://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-roaming-for-relevance/

CATHOLICS KILLING CATHOLICS

Murder in Maumere                                                                  

A few shops in the largely Catholic city of Maumere sell religious icons.  Some include mottos like Jesus Engkau Andalanku (Jesus is my mainstay.)

Perhaps the faithful in the East Flores city find comfort with the phrase.  Though not in February 1966 when their religion’s earthly representatives betrayed that trust.

Five months earlier in Jakarta 1,700 kilometers to the west, a failed coup against the government of first president Soekarno had been followed by an army-organized bloodletting; an estimated 500,000 real or imagined Communists were slaughtered by militias.

The genocide had just about petered out in Java and Bali when orders came to Maumere from the army in Jakarta listing locals to be arrested.  Almost all were Catholic.

Instead of demanding their congregations be protected and given fair trials, the clergy helped the army.  Apart from administering last rites to some of the 800 or more victims, the priests stayed silent.

This little-known story of the Church failing to shield its flock, and often siding with the gunmen, can now be widely told through the scholarship of Dutch anthropologist Dr Gerry van Klinken.  In Australia he used to edit the prestigious Inside Indonesia magazine.

His latest book was to be called Murder in Maumere.  Strangely that selling title was scrapped for the prosaic but academically acceptable Postcolonial Citizenship in Provincial Indonesia, guaranteed to frighten away casual browsers.

Wrong.  Knowing this history should help ensure no repetition. It’s tragic, brutal, shaming, and a damnation of the Catholic Church.  It’s also a powerful argument for revising the government narrative of citizens’ spontaneous and unstoppable rage which still dominates, the only version allowed in classrooms.

One of van Klinken’s sources was Egenius Pacelly (EP) da Gomez, 79, and living just outside Maumere where he writes histories and studies politics.

In 1966 he was a Catholic Party activist and present at a meeting of Komop (Komando Operasi) and local officials.

They were told the Jakarta ‘instructions’ were to ‘secure’ all Communists and their sympathizers, and that political parties had quotas to fill.  There were then about 2,000 people in Maumere and maybe ten times more in Sikka Regency villages; most citizens knew each other as neighbors, through intermarriage, or casually.

A report of the meeting and some of what followed was written eight years later by Anon and titled Menjaring Angin (To Reap the Whirlwind).  Van Klinken identifies the author as da Gomez, though the Indonesian says it was later edited by others. 

The report concerns ‘human beings, society and their relations with the Creator ... a search for something that if seen clearly, might be best called meaning.’

But how to find meaning in slaughter at the hands of fellow parishioners with nods from those wearing cassocks?

Van Klinken tries to answer that devilish question through the mind of a Western educated social scientist.  His endeavors are not alone:  In 2015 Dr John Prior, a British-born priest who came to Eastern Indonesia in 1973 and is now in Maumere, co-edited an essay collection titled Berani, Berhenti, Berbohong (Dare to stop lying) with philosopher Dr Otto Madung.

Da Gomez has read the book and rejects explanations for the 1966 violence such as rising nationalism, lay criticism of the Church, hostility towards traditional regal rule, factional politics, old hates and supernatural fear.  Boiled together at a time of national uncertainty they created an environment where some locals took revenge for past wrongs.

Instead da Gomez will only say (to this reviewer) that the sole cause was the ‘instruction’ from Jakarta.

One who rejected state orders was Father Fredrik de Lopez who demanded his people be released.  So the army contacted his bishop and de Lopez was moved to a seminary.  Although his protest failed he didn’t die for his defiance. 

This showed the cowardice of his colleagues who used the defence of ‘we’ll be killed if we don’t cooperate’.  None sought sainthood.

They’d also been indoctrinated through strident Catholic teachings, largely driven by foreign priests, into believing that Communism was satanic. They didn’t differentiate between the ideology, open to challenge through better ideas, and those who liked party policies such as land reform, but weren’t card-carrying members. 

After the killings van Klinken writes of da Gomez: ‘The bloodshed had not left him cold’. On a visit to Jakarta the Indonesian was verbally attacked by Florinese students and accused of complicity.  This led him to join a group wanting to ventilate the atrocities and name the main killers.

For this action he was jailed and today is still reluctant to speak out, referring questioners to chapters in Berani, Berhenti, Berbohong, including one by van Klinken in Indonesian.

“I never took part in the killings, or saw them, or the bodies,” da Gomez said. One of  many unmarked mass graves is 300 meters behind his house, but he says he never visits.

The first section in van Klinken’s book tells the story ‘forensically’ largely through the life and death in prison of Jan Djong ‘the district’s republican rebel’. 

It then locates the events within a set of theories about former colonized societies adjusting to self rule when old structures fall and there’s much jostling to fill the vacuum.

This is interesting but tends to dampen the hot horror of what happened in Flores.  The text will find a snug place in university libraries overseas, when it’s most wanted scorching desks of local students seeking their nation’s real history.

“We need Gerry’s book in Indonesian and we need reconciliation,” said da Gomez.  “The initiative should come from the Church.”  Van Klinken said a translation is being considered by an Indonesian publisher. 

Postcolonial Citizenship in Provincial Indonesia, by Gerry van Klinken

Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2019

152 pages.

##

 First published in The Jakarta Post 24 January 2019

KEEPING THE NEXT GENERATION AT BAY

                                   Past their use-by date but still in charge

They ignore the local statistics, but hang on to the exceptional example, Mahathir bin Mohamad.

Next month the Malaysian Prime Minister will turn 94 and although he earlier promised to hand over to Anwar Ibrahim, 71, that has yet to occur.

So if a nonagenarian soufflé can rise twice (Mahathir retired in 2003 after 22 years in Putrajaya’s Seri Perdana) and continue to run a  majority-Muslim nation, why not the hustlers next door?

Indonesia’s gerontocracy controls an archipelago where the median age is about 30, blocking the next generation of talented democrats from steering the country towards the rule of law and away from paternalism and corruption.

Mahathir is the role model for sclerotic politicians in the world’s fourth largest nation when challenged on their fitness to govern.

Jakarta’s megarich oligarchs who dominate Indonesia were already deep in the venal  mire when wee Joko Widodo was squishing his toes in the mud of Central Java’s Solo River.

The nation is ostensibly run by this mild-mannered commoner and just re-elected seventh president of the world’s most populous Muslim nation.  The son of a woodworker with no soldierly ancestors was four when Indonesia came close to suicide. A bloody anti-Communist coup and resulting genocide toppled founding President Soekarno and put the abstruse General Soeharto in charge for the next 32 years.

By the time Widodo graduated from the University of Gadjah Mada in 1985 with a degree in forestry, he presented as an unexceptional lad with interests in business, and later local government.

At that stage Soekarno’s daughter Megawati was boiling to revenge Papa who died in 1970, but her ambitions were brutally squashed by Soeharto. Three years after he fell she became the fifth president.  She was the nation’s first woman leader but a feeble figurehead, largely governed by the army during her term (2001 – 04). 

She tried twice to re-enter the Palace; in 2009 she campaigned with  this year’s contender Prabowo Subianto as her sidekick, but was locked out by unimpressed voters.

Now 72 she runs the Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (PDI-P) the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, and the country’s largest party. It’s supposed to be secular, but that doesn’t mean an absence of Islamic politics.

Knowing Megawati would likely loose again, the PDI-P reluctantly nominated Widodo, then the can-do Governor of Jakarta. Soon after winning in 2014 he was being publicly humiliated, told who was the dahlang manipulating the shadow figures, and who was the puppet.

At the PDI-P’s national congress everyone present heard Megawati say: ‘As the extended hands of the party, you are its functionaries. If you do not want to be called party functionaries, just get out!’  The President stayed silent.

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Harcher commented: ‘It was, in all, a brutal and calculated putdown … He (Widodo) now finds that he has no dignity serving her (Megawati), yet he cannot rule without her.’
For Megawati, Widodo is just keeping the Jakarta White House aired and tidy while her daughter Puan Maharani orders new furniture ahead of moving in next decade.  Recent changes in the Constitution restrict presidents to two five-year terms;
Maharani, 45, is Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Cultural Affairs, a position where her talents have been kept well hidden.
Unless there’s an eruption of enthusiasm and fresh ideas to dazzle the electorate she’ll be wasting her time briefing decorators.
Former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono – SBY  (2004-2014) is another dynasty planner.  Now 69, he’s trying to hoist his sons into the Cabinet where one can saddle-up for a tilt at the presidency.
Agus, 41, a former major, helps run the old man’s Democratic Party. Edhie, 38, was educated at Perth’s Curtin University and has a seat in Parliament.   Indonesian presidents can choose independent technocrats and members of other parties to serve as ministers.
Subianto was sacked from the army in 1998 for ‘misinterpreting orders’. This year he lost his fourth stab at public office.  After Jakarta thugs failed to change the result with rocks and Molotov cocktails, he’s turned to the Constitutional Court, alleging fraudsters conspired to deliver an 11-point loss.  The commentariat has written off his chances.
Late last year he dithered about nomination and looked sick.  But as a superstitious high-born Javanese megalomaniac he may well try again if the moneymen are persuaded.  He’ll be 73 in 2024; his only child Didit works in Paris. Like Widodo’s three kids, the fashion designer has shown zero interest in following Dad.
Black hair-dye comes in flagons to Jakarta where businessman and Vice President Jusuf Kalla,77, looks perpetually middle-aged;  his successor, slightly younger hardline Islamic cleric Ma’ruf Amin is not so vain, and for now lets his grey locks show. 
Army leftovers continue to influence.  Subianto gathered a platoon of retired parade-ground warriors to bolster his campaign, including SBY.
Widodo’s team includes Wiranto, Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs, and Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs.  Both are 72, former top generals, dyers and close advisors to the President.
Also looking awkward out of uniform are Defence Minister Ryacudu, 69, and Widodo’s chief of staff  Moeldoko, 61.
Democrats and human rights activists fret that the remnants of Soeharto’s dictatorship  are still on stage, in the wings, directing and producing in rehearsal rooms, wistful of the days when voters clapped continuously.
Shrewd players would note the shrouded skeleton with the scythe has a permanent walk-on role, so head for the exit.  Instead the power-greedy focus on Malaysia’s Mahathir, once labeled ‘recalcitrant’ by Paul Keating.  They’re in the front rows.

 First published in Pearls and Irritations, 11 June 2019 


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