MORE WASHINGTON, LESS JAKARTA

IGNORING AN ELECTION NEXT DOOR          

‘The World’ is a nightly news show on Australia Plus, our overseas TV showcase transmitted to 44 countries in Asia and the Pacific .  The one-hour programme pulls together the day’s global issues, often adding lengthy interviews dissecting international developments.

On 27 June the prime set-piece story in Southeast Asia was Indonesia’s first simultaneous regional elections called Pilkada; about 150 million voters got the chance to pick 171 governors, regents and mayors. It was ignored by ‘The World’.then and the following night.

Psephologists labeled Pilkada’s results a bellwether for next year’s presidential election. This is likely to be a rematch between the moderate civilian incumbent Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, 57, and tough guy Prabowo Subianto, 66.  He’s a retired general, alleged human rights abuser and relic from last century when his dictator father-in-law Soeharto ruled for 32 years. 

Alarmists worried about an eruption of racial and religious hate during the poll, especially after East Java church bombings the previous month. 

Instead all ran peacefully with early results showing the electorate is getting smarter and Indonesia’s teenage democracy taking a firmer grip.  

Indonesian politics are so knotty they make unraveling Australian Senate tangles as easy as tying a clove hitch.  Candidates move around parties like diplomats at Christmas, bemusing Indonesian electors and befogging outsiders.

When The Jakarta Post frontpaged Wednesday’s results Jokowi gains, PDI-P loses it was like saying ‘Turnbull backers won, Liberal candidates lost’.  

The Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle) is Jokowi’s party, but the real leader is Megawati Soekarnoputri, 71, daughter of founding president Soekarno and herself a former president. She really wants her daughter Puan Maharani in the Palace.

These difficulties should not have stopped The World recruiting an academic expert from Indonesia or Australia to explain the importance of Pilkada and interpret results. Much of Indonesia’s media is owned by political partisans, so factual news and impartial analysis from outside the Republic is critical for locals and foreigners.

Overall the Komisi Pemilihan Umum  (KPU - General Elections Commission) appears to have done well, opening booths from 7 am to I pm in thousands of locations - often closing streets to traffic for easy pedestrian access. Making the day a national holiday helped boost participation as voting is not compulsory. 

Electors chose by punching a hole in the voting slip; officials at the counts held up punctured papers to show scrutineers that all is open. There were a few reports of funny business, but nothing serious. 

Candidates have been plastering the country with banners and posters. Policies seldom featured, just touched-up portraits of hopefuls in regional or religious dress, and the same cliche slogans we get in the West. Officials ripped down all signs before the vote,

Figures are still being tallied. The official result will be announced on 9 July

While Australians are familiar with the names of many American and European politicians who feature regularly in the media, they know little of Indonesian public figures.  One candidate who could be heading for international notice is former Bandung (West Java) mayor Ridwan Kamil, 46, a cosmopolitan US-educated architect with a can-do reputation.  He’s leading in the West Java Governorship and is tipped as a future presidential candidate.

Indonesia ranks 96 on Transparency International’s corruption perception index; clean NZ tops the 180 nations measured, while Australia is number 13. Politicians are among the worst offenders.  In East Java, Malang mayor Mochamad Anton campaigned for re-election from prison where he’s being held on charges of allegedly plundering contractors’ budgets.  He lost.

Politics in the world’s third largest democracy is big business, according to Indonesian academic Muhammad Beni Saputra. In The Diplomat he wrote:

‘To become a village head it costs 130-150 million rupiahs; becoming a member of the People’s  Representative Council (DPR) costs 1.18 to 4.6 billion rupiahs, a mayor is from 20-30 billion  rupiahs, a regent is 75 billion rupiahs, a governor ranges from 100 to 400 billion rupiahs, and  president costs up to 7 trillion rupiahs!’  

(One Australian dollar buys just over Rp 10,000. The average income is under Rp 50 million a year.)

Apart from rallies and advertising costs, much is alleged to go on goodies for fans, though the increasingly effective Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK - Anti-Corruption Commission) has been cracking down on handouts and kickbacks. Unlike previous campaigns T-shirts featuring candidates’ mug shots have been hard to find.

The next biggie will be the 17 April 2019 general election for the DPR and president. Unlike Australia, voters get to select the pres for a five-year stint - two terms maximum. 

In the past scores of parties mushroomed causing chaos; now only those with at least 20 per cent of seats in the legislature, or 25 per cent of votes at the 2014 election, can field candidates. Coalitions are allowed to help make up the numbers, which leads to some strange pairings

Maybe then Australia Plus (soon to be rebadged as ABC Australia) will take what’s happening next door seriously.

## 

First published in Pearls and Irritations, 30 June 2018
http://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-our-failing-media-again-ignoring-an-election-next-door

PUTTING A GOOD FACE FORWARD

From asking to tasking via masking

Two years ago Ali Sudarjo, 48, (below) was squashed into Sukun, an old kampong in Malang. 

He rattled off the negatives:  “Life was hard. I didn’t like the way my children were growing up.  Pollution was bad. Not much work, so not much future. No space. Then we got the chance to move.”

Sudarjo and his wife Siti Mutmainah, 42, and their six kids were shifted 20 kilometers out of town to a Rp 2.5 billion (US $182,000) government social experiment underway in a forest.

Despite ups and downs, so far it seems to be going well.

Sudarjo still fixes motorbikes as he did in Sukun, but there’s not much work in a community of only 250.  So the versatile mechanic has started other businesses – raising catfish and fighting cocks.

“Life is much better,” he said as his children sorted fingerlings into buckets.  “Moving was the right thing to do.”

Kampong Topeng (mask village) is being run by Malang City using funds from Jakarta to relocate gepeng.  This truncated term is formed from gelandangan (homeless) and pengamis (beggars).

 “We selected 40 families who we thought stood the best chance of adapting,” said social worker Safria Effendi, 27.

“We’ve had a few who couldn’t cope and left so there are now three vacant houses.  But we’ve had others leave who’ve built new skills and enough confidence to move on – which is just what we want.”

Effendi and his colleague Aisyah, 21,( right) help run the little settlement collecting Rp 5,000 (US 36 cents) entrance fees from curious visitors keen on taking selfies with the masks. The public servants live outside the village and spend their working hours on site or their department’s office in Malang.

The government built the village on a sloping one-hectare plot of virgin forest and lets the houses rent free, though residents pay for basic facilities. For an isolated hamlet the services are good, with mains power and piped water.   

There’s a well-equipped playground, meeting hall and a small café. Tourists who find this too pedestrian can soar over the valley on a flying fox.

A communal kitchen is available for making krupuk (crackers) and other snacks for sale.  One family is Christian – they have to travel to find a church. For the others there’s a new mosque.

Trainers have been employed to help the settlers find jobs.  One household has a worm farm, another is making chocolates shaped and painted like masks.  These should be a hit in up-scale stores and hotels if promoted well.  

“Developing markets is something we’re still working on,” said Safria.  “We have many ideas but implementing these takes time.”

Malang is famous for its dance masks, now also sought by home decorators wanting a dash of culture on their feature walls. There are 76 characters, but few in the village can identify the images painted on walls or mounted on frames, apart from the two 7.5 meter high topeng that dominate the settlement. 

These are Asmar Bangun and his wife Dewi Sekartaji from the ancient Panji stories of East Java.

A shop offers fiberglass masks formed using moulds for Rp 45,000 (US $3.25), and hand-carved wooden topeng for four times the price.  The artisan is Prasetiyo Hadi, 42, originally from the East Java tourist center Batu.

Quality control and pricing are an issue as cheaper well-made Javanese artifacts mainly from Yogyakarta in Central Java can be found in Malang’s handicraft outlets.

For a project hoping to attract tourist there are several shortfalls.  The brick-paved entrance road is only one car wide, creating hazards for drivers. The village is poorly signposted and has had little publicity; your correspondent was said to be the first foreigner to visit.

In the past transmigration projects shifted whole communities from overcrowded Java to West Papua and Kalimantan. Outcomes weren’t always positive as some locals resented people with different faiths, languages and values, while the newcomers often found their farming techniques didn’t suit strange soil types and climates.

Social engineering is thick with risks. People aren’t ciphers but individuals with quirks and passions, agreeing today and disagreeing tomorrow. One person’s paradise is another’s hell.  And so it has been with Kampong Topeng, a form of local transmigration with the government doing far more to help.

It is also less prone to the ills of the inter-island moves as friends and relatives are still nearby and there are no culture or language differences.

Heri Wiyono,(left)  head of rehabilitation at the Malang Department of Social Services, said he was aware of the flaws but stressed that the venture was still a work in progress.

“The idea came from the government in Jakarta as part of its Desaku Menanti (My Village is waiting for you) program,” he said.  “This is a pilot project, one of four nationwide.

“There are many challenges.  We have to be careful in picking people keen to turn around their lives. 

“Before it began we spoke to nearby residents about the enterprise and its purpose.  We anticipated some would be jealous, so we appealed to their moral duty to help those less fortunate.”

Wiyono said a mosque had been built because nearby communities only had musholla (prayer rooms.)  A school was not necessary because the children had access to one in an adjacent village.  However classrooms may be established in the future.

“Our aim is to empower the poor,” he said. “We’ll evaluate this project before we go further – but we need to develop the criteria. How many are able to change from asking for help, to doing things to help themselves?  So far it’s working well.”

(First published in The Jakarta Post 26 June 2018)

CHARGES NO DETERRENT FOR CANDIDATE

A picture tells a thousand lies 

Indonesians will go the polls on Wednesday 27 June to elect their local government represenatives.  The process is called Pilkada  (Pemilihan Kepala Daerah) 

This big beamer on the front page of the Jawa Pos is the mayor of Malang, H Mochamad Anton. If you don’t understand the headlines you might assume his abundant joy shows he’s won either another five-year term in office or a lottery, which in Indonesia can be much the same.


The reality is strikingly different: Anton, leader of the central East Java city and the second largest in the province, had just been charged with bribery by the Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (Anti-Corruption Commission - KPK). His orange vest is the fashion statement for those under arrest.

It’s alleged he paid other public reps to pass the 2015 budget.


Eighteen Malang city councilors - that’s 40 per cent of the total - have also been named as suspects in the scandal. They include Anton’s main rival in the upcoming elections, Ya’qud Ananda Gudban from the Hanura Party.


Hanura’s full title is Hati Nurani Rakyat, which loosely and ironically translates as the People’s Conscience Party. Anton’s backer is the Islamic Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa – the National Awakening Party.


\Opinion polls rate the KPK as the most trusted authority in the nation with a 100 per cent conviction rate; its bag has included regional governors, scores of lesser officials and even national government ministers like Dahlan Iskan.


In 2017 the former CEO of the Jawa Pos media conglomerate was sentenced to two years jail for selling East Java Government assets while Minister for State-Owned Enterprises.

Anton must be concerned he’ll be treated like former Bandung mayor Dada Rosada; in 2014 the West Java leader was handed a ten year term for bribing judges to acquit city officials caught stealing millions in social aid funds.


Further proof of the KPK’s effectiveness has been fang-pulling attempts by politicians who want oversight of the Commission’s activities and their own nominees in key positions.


More brutal has been an acid assault outside a Jakarta mosque. The target was investigator Novel Baswedan who is now partly blind. The police, who have no love for the KPK, say they are still seeking the attackers who struck a year ago.


The H in Malang Mayor Anton’s title stands for Haji, meaning he’s a pious fellow who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca.

He’s also rich; according to data declared to the KPK his personal wealth is more than Rp 113 billion - around 11 million Australian dollars. His two main rivals report they have Rp 6 billion and Rp 2 billion.

Perhaps Anton is grinning because he reckons he can squeeze out of jail by claiming it’s a political stitch-up. Or maybe he thinks his candidature in this year’s Pilkada (election of regional heads) will stay put for the 27 June vote.


Two weeks after Anton’s arrest giant billboards and banners were still on Malang streets promoting his values. His slogan is apik, which in Javanese means ‘good and clean’ – a lie because the city has a major waste disposal problem while traffic congestions worsens by the week. Citizens still toss their rubbish into the Brantas and its tributaries, or any empty lot. Rodents squeak their joy.


Anton has twisted apik into an acronym standing for agamis (religious), progresif, inklusif and kreatif. Like political motherhood slogans everywhere, they are vague enough for electors to accept as shared values. Policies? Too boring to bother.


Campaign photos usually have men wearing the peci, the traditional rimless black Javanese cap, women the full jilbab or penutup kepala, a shawl which partly covers the hair. This is supposed to prove they are devout, though not extreme, so safe for the non-Muslim vote.


To prove they are just everyday folk some male contenders go bareheaded and don casual gear. They add honorifics of endearment like Mas (similar to bro or mate) and Abah (Arabic for father). Academic qualifications, whether earned or bought, are another essential tag.


For those who claim to be real sons of the soil, the weird Malang trend of writing words backwards is supposed to prove local authenticity. So one hopeful has dubbed himself Sam, Mas in reverse.

Because the big TV networks are Jakarta-based, regional candidates rarely use national TV. Local stations are seldom watched so contestants rely on banners and rallies.


Students of cultural differences might contrast Anton’s Jawa Pos pic with those in the Australian press of wet-eyed former Test cricketer Dave Warner. These showed a portrait of shame though there’s no risk the cricket cheat will end up behind bars.


##

MORE TO BLITAR THAN A MAUSOLEUM

A grave town                                                          

There’s much that’s curious about Blitar.  Harmonious yet discordant, mainly subtle - then abruptly blunt. Certainly different. Well worth sampling.

 It’s not so big; with just 140,000 residents Blitar ranks number eight in the hierarchy of East Java’s cities.

That doesn’t always mean less traffic- smaller towns are often more cramped and crowded.  But through a measure of planning wisdom decades past, the streets are mainly wide and straight.

Later administrations added one-way traffic.  All it needs now are police cameras to snare the hoons who believe space needs speed.

Fortunately they are few (jerks and cops) so it’s possible to cross Jalan Merdeka at almost any point without getting snared for jaywalking or skittled by feral Hondas.

Where to stay? This is not a puff for the grand 19^th century Tugu Hotel on this same street, but even if you camp elsewhere take a peek – staff members are accommodating and there are cheaper rooms tucked away.

The central pavilion, where prices start at a million rupiah plus plus, is grand without being majestic. The restorers have been gentle.  Here’s a suite devoted to founding President Soekarno, as is the whole town.

When the 1945 Proclamator of Indonesia’s Independence died of kidney failure in 1970 General Soeharto, who’d ousted him five years earlier, had a grave problem. He feared a Soekarno headstone in Jakarta would become a rallying point for the resentful angered by the 1965 military takeover and purge of communists.

So the remains of the 69-year old were sent 750 kilometers southeast to Blitar where Soekarno had lived as a child with his grandparents.  Soeharto’s fears were well grounded; neither distance nor time has dissuaded pilgrims. The founder’s tomb has become a national shrine and a huge earner for the city.

Well over half the archipelago’s 260 million citizens were born after Soekarno died yet the nostalgia industry seems unquenchable, with busses often delivering crowds keen to commemorate the father of the Republic and his supposed glory times.  On special days, like 21 June, the anniversary of his death, the pride is palpable.

In this intoxicating environment the unwelcome voices are sober historians reminding that although Soekarno was a towering revolutionary he was a midget manager of the economy.  He shunned the West, seized foreign-owned businesses and courted the Reds.

He had nine known wives; the 132-meter Russian-realism Monas (Monumen Nasional) pillar in Central Jakarta is known as ‘Soekarno’s last erection’.  It was supposed to rival the Eiffel Tower.

Unfortunately the Blitar mausoleum is almost as kitsch as the back-scratchers and other trashy souvenirs sold outside the gates.  More authentic is the house where Sukarno lived.

The gravesite’s slab design is weird, for the city and its surrounds are full of creatives.  One village makes kendang jimbe, the goblet-shaped hand drums, and exports to China.

There are potters, carvers, musicians and painters, descendants of the artisans who over 250 years built the Penataran Shiva Temple complex.  This is 12 kilometers out of town on the lower slopes of Mount Kelud, 1,731 meters and last active in 2014.

The reliefs, many showing episodes from the Ramayana epic and scenes of daily life, are marvelously rich and superbly executed. Some are quirky and playful.  All are spellbinding, the past speaking to the present with clarity.

This is not manicured, hyper-commercialized Borobudur, which is not to demean the mighty Central Java Buddhist temple built four centuries earlier. But smaller Penataran is so much easier to wander and ponder.

 However getting there can be tricky.  Blitar doesn’t have taxis, public transport or an airport.  The city is accessible by rail - five hours from Yogya, two from Malang. Then it’s a stroll from station to center – though not beyond. There are becak (pedicabs) but the old peddlers keep to city limits.

There are only four hotels; two rent bicycles.  The roads are mainly flat and there’s much to marvel.  Foreigners still turn heads so Bali-style rip-offs are rare.  Expect to be recruited for selfies.                          

Blitar can be raw. On Jalan Merdeka a door opens onto cages with four long-tailed macaques.  The friendly owner sluices their droppings into the street.  Adjacent is a shop packed with fireworks waiting for one fag to blow up the block.

Down the road is the freshest butchery in the region.  The animals are slaughtered in a back room and the quivering bloody meat barrowed to the shop front.

A street behind is the lush and lovely flower market squeezed between a narrow lane and the railway line.  It’s not signposted or promoted.  It should be.

Diners at the Pacific restaurant are served by a guy in a police uniform - an arresting experience.  Don’t bother looking for Western food away from the Tugu.  Best adapt to the Real Thing with rice.

Further down Jalan Merdeka is the grassed alun-alun (town square) where thousands of Javanese pond herons roost in the banyan trees and slime the streets. Finding wildlife in an urban area is as rare as road rage, so this is special.

Next-door is a prison for juveniles flanked by Blitar’s first shopping mall with a crass façade in the current minimalist style.  More acceptable is the old-era streetscape, which includes the Po An Kiong Buddhist Temple close by the markets. Here women gather to exercise at dawn.

Blitar is supposed to be an acronym for Bhumi Laya Ika Tantra Adhi Raja, the Land Where Kings Reside.  It’s also a land soaked with blood.

In early 1945, months before atomic bombs ended the Pacific War, Blitar nationalists took on the Japanese occupiers. The revolt was poorly organized and soon put down, but it startled the Japanese who unwisely thought Indonesians welcomed their presence as fellow Asians.  It inspired others to fight back.

Four years later the returning Dutch were the killers. A monument in nearby Peniwen records the shooting of 12 civilians and rape of three women by Netherlands’ troops.  Their gross evil became internationally known and hastened the Dutch departure,

There are more benign reminders of the colonialists.  About five kilometres above the Penataran Temple is the 19^th century De Karanganjar Koffieplantage.

Other surviving coffee plantations in East Java hilltowns are often boringly functional, plain sheds with rusting machines; this one is being turned into a museum and education centre by the family of former Blitar bupati (regent) Herry Noegroho.  Though still a work in progress it has great potential and charges foreigners local prices.  An overnight room costs Rp 200,000.

For outsiders seeking some understanding of Indonesia’s complex past and present, the culture, concerns and expectations of the citizens of the world’s third largest democracy - then Blitar is the nation’s one-stop shop.

 A short film by Blitar-born, now US-based director Livi Zheng can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg-YN2sDrZI

 First published in Indonesian Expat 6 June 2018

##

MAN IN A HURRY

 Running down Track II    

Djalal (left) and FM Retno Marsudi  (Photo Erlinawati Graham)

                                               

Before losing base support and plunging to earth, Dr Dino Patti Djalal was Indonesia’s highflier.

The cosmopolitan ambassador to the US with a professional wife and three little kids sparkled as the new face of the world’s third largest democracy, a welcome offset to the image of past authoritarian rule.

The Republic ranked as a middle power emerging from a chaotic turn-of-the-century revolution but Djalal pushed the positives.

Not through bellicosity but by promoting the archipelago’s rich culture and the policy of its sixth president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), ‘to have a million friends and zero enemies.’

Appointed to the most coveted job in foreign affairs at just 45 after a six-year apprenticeship as presidential spokesman, Djalal knew citizens back home were bored by their overseas reps’ talkfests on arcane topics. So he played showman and in 2011 staged the world’s largest angklung performance at the Washington Memorial.

With more than 5,000 people rattling the bamboo tubes to the tune of We Are the World, the diplomat startled – and probably annoyed - his staid US colleagues, but delighted compatriots.  ‘This recognises our multiculturalism,’ he said at the time,

Another initiative was to encourage talented Indonesians who’d prospered abroad to help recover their nation’s mana, as they say in New Zealand, meaning honor, respect and status.  Much had been trashed during 32 years of despotic rule under second president and army general Soeharto.

In 2012 Djalal set up the world’s first Congress of Indonesian Diasporas in Los Angeles, recognising citizens who’ve quit their nation to better their lives.

In an elite profession where maintaining stern-faced reticence has been as essential as multilingualism, Djalal was a self-promoter, adding authorship to his CV. Among his nine titles is Nationalism Unggul: Bukan Hanya Slogan (Excellence in nationalism is more than a slogan.)

This pocketbook is more snack than meal, a gallery of selfies with past world leaders, lightened with some self-deprecation: ‘I used to be a frog until Rosa kissed me.’ (Rosa is his wife and a dentist.)

His maxims don’t strain the brain: ‘The worst thing that can happen to 21^st Century Indonesians is to live in a strong democracy with weak ideals, or to live in a rich country with poor people, or to achieve progress but lose our soul.’ 

Djalal started life as the son of Soeharto-era diplomat Hasyim Djalal and well up the pyramid. 

First degrees in Canada, then a doctorate from the left-leaning London School of Economics.  He spent 27 years in government service and was a confidante of the last president; the final assault on the summit just needed the clouds to lift.

Then Djalal made the wrong call.  Too sure of his ability and appeal he made a pitch to be a candidate for the 2014 Presidential election.

Joko ’Jokowi’ Widodo, the former Governor of Jakarta and one-time furniture trader with no military background or family ties to the oligarchy but backed by another party, became president.

His priorities were local. He appointed the little-known Ambassador to the Netherlands, Retno Marsudi, as Foreign Minister.

Although Djalal claimed he never joined SBY’s Democratic Party, like Icarus he’d flown too close to the sun of party politics. The wax on his wings melted and he fell far.  

“The experience was a cold shower,” Djalal told Strategic Review in his Jakarta-based NGO where he’s trying to develop a new persona.  “I got a sudden sense of my limitations, of what could be done.”

Too young to retire to a golf course and too energetic to settle into an academic life, Djalal faced a dilemma: How to get back into foreign affairs when the big game is played by governments on Track I?

How about Track II, the unofficial ‘backdoor diplomacy’ used by NGOs, companies and altruistic individuals?  Unable to threaten sanctions or bombs their only tools are trust and words.

He also had to move at speed.  Fame perishes fast - ‘former’ is a giveaway adjective in the top line of a resume.  In 2012 he’d won a Marketeer of the Year award.  Two years later the last product on the shelf was himself.

Djalal opened the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia (FPCI) at a Jakarta suburban address so drab he cooked up excuses to meet contacts elsewhere. 

The shame-days have gone.  A supporter offered space in a South Jakarta high-rise with a towering Salvador Dali bronze Homage to Newton in the marble lobby – grand enough to comfort VIPs.

Officially opened by FM Marsudi in May, the FPCI’s ‘School of Diplomacy’ offers modules in speech writing and public speaking, workshops on geopolitics, global trends and other issues parked under the international relations umbrella.

“I used my own money,” Djalal said.  Like pensioned generals he hangs on to his previous title.  When it was suggested the FPCI might have a hidden financier he kept his diplomatic cool:  “There are no big entrepreneurs behind me – I’m beholden to no-one.

“This is a non-profit, non political and non religious foundation. The rent is about Rp 2 billion (USD 142,000) a year and staff wages a similar amount.  We get our money from our courses, workshops and sponsors.  We can create space and do things that governments can’t do.  I’m far more effective now than before.

“Our mission is to promote peace and bring foreign policy to the public.  That means finding out how to talk to ordinary people about these issues.  They may not seem interested but that changes when, for example, the price of imports rise.

“We want to develop understanding between nations.  Our youth exchange program with China should help reduce Sinophobia”.

The Institute’s researchers have set up overseas study tours including one to North Korea, returning just before the North and South leaders’ Panmunjom summit in April.

The next ambition is to run backgrounders in Indonesian current affairs for incoming diplomats.

Djalal claims more than 6,000 came to one of his events; many participants are students of international relations. There are 18 ‘FPCI chapters’ on tertiary campuses.  The mailing list has 40,000 subscribers.  He says there’s nothing quite like the FPCI anywhere in the world.

If true this reflects either his entrepreneurial skills - or reveals great gaps in the universities where low pay and lower prestige deter top talents.

Djalal has been in Perth this month (May).  Freed of diplomatic gags he talks bluntly:

“I’m dying to kill the idea that Australia has a hidden agenda on Papua.  I think that’s rubbish.  (NGOs in Australasia, though not governments, have been supporting independence.)

“Australia should not be part of ASEAN which is geographically apart, though China is now working to redefine Southeast Asia.

“Australia is supposed to understand Indonesia best because it’s next door but in fact only a very small group understands us, while we don’t understand you.  There are stereotypes on both sides that need to change.”

(First published in Strategic Review 6 June 2018 - http://sr.sgpp.ac.id/read/Running-down-track-2

A CONVERSATION ABOUT CASH

 WORDSMITHS OF NO WORTH                     

It was a splendid idea and it has worked.

Instead of reporters tracking elusive academics to explain their expertise, why not get the scholars to do it themselves – then hire journos to slash the verbiage and prune the deadwood?

Finding lucid academic writing makes Jason’s Golden Fleece quest a trip to the deli.  An impenetrable thesis once ensured tenure, but keeping a campus job now means communicating with citizens in terms they understand.  

But how? In 2008 Andrew Jaspan, then 56, had just lost editorship of The Age in a staff purge. Having built high-level contacts in Melbourne since arriving from Britain four years earlier, he turned to flogging the notion of a newsdesk staffed by subs who’d work with writers. The polished prose would be freely available on-line to all through the Creative Commons system.

 The Conversation would be run as a not-for-profit (NFP) with the tagline  ‘academic rigour, journalistic flair’. Features would have ‘a readability index set to an educated 16-year old.’ 

Jaspan must have had the gift of the gab because he coaxed the Federal Government, the Commonwealth Bank and some sandstone unis to kickstart.  Ignition fired in 2011 and The Conversation raced away.

It now trumpets 27,000 contributors, 10.7 million ‘unique readers a month’ plus offshoots in the UK, the US and several other countries, including Indonesia.  There’s much emphasis on quantity. 

Hold Page One revelations are rare, but copy based on research is usually fresh and informative. Not so with op-eds; few challenge The Australian’s stable of stirrers.

According to NSW University Vice Chancellor Ian Jacobs, ‘in a media world experiencing disruptive change The Conversation stands out as an exemplar of informed, knowledge-based communication and healthy democratic discourse.’

This and other endorsements have been used as curtain raisers for the website’s annual appeal.  Wrote editor Molly Glassey: ‘We need to raise a quarter of our annual budget in a fortnight to continue the important work we’re doing.’

Last year, according to reports lodged with the Australian Charities and NFP Commission, expenses were about $6 million.

Why these demeaning daily begathons when the site is already maintained by some of Australia’s richest institutions?  Readers are being pressured to pay to read research they’ve funded as taxpayers.

Like many publishers, The Conversation’s business model is founded on the view that keyboarders dwell in a Nirvana beyond debtors.  US author Harlan Ellison’s rant is worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE

Tertiary teachers and researchers publish to maintain their credibility.  The website paves a path to the wider audiences they seek, so – the thinking goes - no need to reward those already comfy on campus payrolls.

Australian academic wages are among the world’s tops.  Salaries vary; but on Jacobs’ campus associate lecturers start at $73,597 rising to $98,127, lecturers around $30,000 more.

These figures are beyond belief for uni staff in countries like Indonesia where many moonlight to survive. See here: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/12/07/paid-with-compliments-not-cash.html

It’s the same with part-time tutors jostling to get onto the escalator. In such cases the subs would be earning more from cleansing copy than the author gets from her or his salary.

A fairer system would be to offer contributors an advertised rate; those who reckon filing for The Conversation is part of their job description could forgo fees.  Payment would also sharpen selection – budget-conscious editors could reject floss or demand higher quality.

To its credit this issue has been raised in The Conversation – https://theconversation.com/when-journalists-write-for-free-it-hurts-our-democracy-46320

Payment would set an example for the other tertiary education no-pay websites to follow. These undermine professional freelancers. That’s particular noxious when the institution teaches journalism and expects its graduates to get paid work.

Figures from The Conversation’s annual report appear to show its employees take home $135,000 pa.  Chief editor Misha Ketchell disputed these calculations and claimed ‘the average editor earns well less than 90k.’

Jaspan quit his creation last year after facing a ‘staff revolt’ according to The Guardian.  The British paper started an Australian edition in 2013.  Faced with plummeting ad income it’s also turned to shaking a can in readers’ faces, though using genteel language - ‘a small favour’.

The Conversation says it will never follow the Murdoch Press and go behind a pay wall. But giving academics space is also helping kill reporters’ jobs, and set the agendas in understaffed newsrooms with drained editors.

The ABC is a regular user along with other mainstream media.  Another source of income would be to charge commercial publishers that apply pay walls, like Fairfax and News Ltd, re-run fees.

But the real earner could be advertising, a dirty word to the purists, but the source that has sustained newspaper and magazine jobs across the decades.

The Conversation already carries job ads tucked away at the end of the features. No need to sell diets and vitamin supplements; there are opportunities for promotion of campuses, courses, books, films, grants and fellowships.

Then this otherwise commendable website could stop bothering little readers for our loose change every time the end of the fiscal year draws nigh. The Big End of Town has the cash; tap on their windows like Jaspan did a decade ago – and raise enough to pay the wordsmiths.

Duncan Graham June 2018

##

DEATH BY A THOUSAND COUGHS

Buy fantasy fun, light up, die young

Do advertising agencies have ethics?  Questionable in Indonesia where a NEVER QUIT campaign is running free. In a market where controls are lax and the government dithers, the tobacco lobby makes the US National Rifle Association look responsible. Duncan Graham reports from the smoking heartland of Java.

Ibu (Mrs) Liya (above) is a trader most rare, close to being unique.  She deserves an award.  Instead the small businesswoman in Solo, Central Java, is losing customers.

She refuses to sell cigarettes from her roadside warung (eatery) “because smoking is not good for people’s health.”

Indeed, though Western visitors rightly reckon that the war waged on the weed by health authorities has never been prosecuted with Australian vigor. 

The signs are obvious - literally. Many cities are visually polluted by huge billboards and banners urging consumers to buy. 

Ad-agencies in Indonesia seem unworried about using their talents to sell poisons. Their target is the young; as an estimated 450,000 coughers die every year the industry has to replenish the pool lest producers follow their wheezing customers and spit away profits with the phlegm.

More than 180 countries have banned tobacco advertising though not the land next door which hasn’t ratified the UN Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The other bludgers include the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Honduras.

This sick trio also backed Indonesia’s failed bid last year to have the World Trade Organization stub out Australian plain packaging laws.

Indonesian ads are cheeky and pernicious though clothed otherwise. Popular now is the slogan in English: Never Quit.

‘Quit’ is widely used in the West to wean users. So the text has been flipped to double-entendre with pictures of sweating athletes seemingly striving for greatness.

To entice those into exercising mind above muscle, a rival company is pitching for students.  The caption over a photo of a bookish man at a desk reads in Indonesian: ‘Overcome tiredness, achieve success’.

On the crass-scale these rank alongside the infamous More doctors smoke Camel than any other cigarette ads that littered US mags last century.

Indonesian law prohibits images of users lighting up which worries the industry not one flick of a fag.  Why show gap-tooth yellow-gum inhalers facing agonising departures? Better promote bright young things entering a life of escapades and fun in exotic spots.

The guys race up mountains, skydive, kitesurf and jetski - pastimes which need lusty lungs, not bronchitis. 

Megabuck videos mimic Nat Geo adventures in wild places, the hazards challenged by guys in four-wheel drives while pretty lassies laugh approval of their blokey behaviour.  This being Indonesia the cheerers are modestly dressed as the people’s morality must not be damaged.

An estimated 67 per cent of adult males smoke, though only three per cent of women because many associate the habit with prostitution.  Laws force advertisers to add health warnings but not as the main message. Alerts are footnotes and absent on posters the big brands use to sponsor youth concerts above their logos.

The descriptor ‘mild’ is supposed to be off limits so one company has invented MLD, highlighting the vertical stroke on the L.

Brands advertise  special manufacturing techniques like ‘triple roasted’. One claims it’s using ‘reduced smell technology’.

A year ago reports forecasting a total TV and radio ad shut-down set the broadcasters quivering; they get more than half a billion Oz dollars a year pushing nicotine arguing that as smoking is legal they have the right to screen.

The threatened TV ban quickly vanished; now companies want heritage status for kretek cigarettes which use cloves and were developed in Indonesia in the 19^th century.  If successful promotions could by-pass other controls.

Every assault on profits, however MLD, is countered by prodding politicians to remember half a million growers and 600,000 factory workers, mostly women who’d have few other job prospects, depend on selling death.

The tax take rises every year with a 10.4 per cent excise ramp scheduled for July, though 13 per cent was originally proposed. So manufacturers have been playing with sizes and running a price war, promoting one company offering 16 for Rp 10,000 ($ 1). 

A pack of 25 in next door Australia can now cost more than $35.

Statistics are contradictory: Customs and Excise says sales in Indonesia dropped last year by 1.6 per cent - others claim production rose 13 per cent boosting government revenue to USD 14 billion.

Measure this against Australia: With a population one-tenth of Indonesia’s and where less than 15 per cent smoke the government reaps almost $10.7 billion.

The other hoary line is that ads are designed to get smokers to switch brands, not encourage uptake. However a Muhammadiyah University study showed almost half the smoking teens surveyed started because they identified with the lads in the ads. The World Health Organisation reckons one in four teen boys carry smokes in their school satchels.

Though supplying minors is illegal the kids have no trouble buying - though not from Ibu Liya’s warung where she takes her principled but solitary stand.

Duncan Graham (www.indonesianow.blogspot.com) is an Australian journalist writing for the English-language media in Indonesia.

See also: http://australiaindonesiacentre.org/keeping-cigarettes-out-of-small-hands-in-bali/

First published in On-line Opinion 28 May 2018. See: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?

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