The Year of Living Better
Expat get-togethers at year’s end can turn edgy when
well-lubricated newbies sound off about this nation’s defects.
Those of us who’ve lived here longer and have a stake in the
country find ourselves bristling, then mustering counter claims. Fortunately our task became easier in 2018.
Sure, the whingers (‘complainers’ to non-Okkers) have some
strong points.
You don’t need to watch horror movies to pump adrenaline –
just looking through the windscreen lifts the pulse rate. Pollution smokes the lungs, harms the ears
and stings the eyes. Will it ever
lessen?
The bureaucracy continues to bloat; the education system has
more cracks than the sidewalks and the Republic’s diplomats are still waiting
for directions. Yet despite these negatives last year saw a burst of
betterment.
Which is not to diminish the natural disasters and their
terrible death tolls, which could have been lessened through public awareness
programs.
These are underway; 2018 should be remembered as the time
when politicians were jolted out of complacency. Clearly shaken they’ve started hearing the experts who’ve long
shouted for more money and modern early-warning systems.
‘These aren’t wants, they’re needs,’ said Weather Bureau
head Dr Dwikorita Karnawati who now expects last year’s budget to be doubled.
At first glance the December photos of President Joko
‘Jokowi’ Widodo with Freeport McMoRan’s CEO Richard Adkerson looked like yet
another posed East-West business-page line up of forced smiles.
These events often mark the signing of a perforated paper
that’s then filed in the bottom drawer under FORGET.
Not this time: The handshakes celebrated a real done deal
that seemed impossible twelve months earlier, and all the years before as
negotiations moved slower than Jakarta’s commuter traffic.
Ownership of the stunningly rich Grasberg copper and gold
mine in West Papua, which US engineers and local laborers gouged open in 1973,
has been a running row for decades. Resource
nationalists have been battling foreign capitalists waving Soeharto-era
contracts. Now Indonesia holds the
majority stake.
That it’s all over in a US $3.85 billion shuffle of shares
and cash shows just how far Indonesia has moved in the past year by asserting
its position as the world’s third largest democracy – and getting recognition.
But let’s stay sober.
In October the rupiah plunged to 15,248 against the dollar, its lowest
point since the crisis of 1998, terrifying investors. It’s bounced back a little to around 14,500 but remains a worry.
This column is not a cheerleader for any candidate in the
upcoming April poll, just an observer acknowledging noteworthy changes in
2018. The reasons are for voters to
determine.
The new toll roads and rail lines criss-crossing Java seem
to be expanding faster than similar infrastructure projects in our
homelands.
Upsides, downsides. Good for travelers, not for farmers.
Concrete smothering the globe’s most fertile soils will further deny the dream
of the archipelago feeding itself – a food security issue which research and
consultations might have identified if the rush to build had been paced.
Supporters of procedures say that considering every option
ensures safety. There must be rules,
rigidly enforced.
Western engineers have no reason to be smug. Just before
Christmas a new 36-storey apartment block in Sydney was evacuated over fears it
might tumble, even though stringent building codes were allegedly followed.
Dashing ahead or biding time? Construction of the Transmission Gully motorway in New Zealand
was first mooted during World War 11, a necessary alternative escape route
should an earthquake disable the shaky isles’ capital Wellington
Clearly urgent, absolutely vital. The route was debated by working parties with members dying and
retiring before making decisions. Every threatened insect and plant had to be
identified and moved, all objections considered. Cars are expected to start moving along the 27-kilometer road
sometime in 2020.
That’s when the 1,200-kilometer Trans Java Tollway should be
completed. Both projects started in 2004.
I queue, therefore I am. Government offices were ideal
places to build new relationships as long waits forged friendships with
strangers. Last year a few more
agencies went on line meaning we can fill in forms at home and meet less. The challenge for department managers in
2019 is to find tasks for unsackable staff with no 21st century
skills.
The May suicide-bomber attacks on East Java churches and
police posts shocked all. The response was impressive when compared to similar
incidents a few years ago. There’s now
awareness that terrorism is a whole-of-community issue, not something just
affecting minorities.
Overall the police in 2018 acted professionally and
impartially when handling mass protests like those around Monas. Whisper, so
xenophobes aren’t alerted: The cops have been accepting training from their
Australian counterparts.
Indonesian politics have always been volcanoes threatening
to erupt. Yet by comparison with
Britain and its Brexit crisis, Canberra with three leaders in three years and
Washington’s endless chaos, this country is hard lava, stable enough to build
firm foundations if laid well.
That wasn’t the expectation early last year as parties
jostled to build power blocks for the June elections of governors and mayors;
the gloomy were forecasting widespread villainy. There was some, but
unexceptional and limited.
Voters got heated but kept their passions for the TV
debates, which are now more watchable than the sinetron (soap opera)
domestic disputes.
Prices are edging up, unemployment has risen from 5.13 per
cent in January to 5.34 per cent now. We all moan. However no one seems keen to don yellow vests and burn tyres in
the streets. Jakarta is not Paris.
Vive la difference.
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First published in Indonesia Expat 17 January 2018
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