ASK - DON'T TELL. AID THAT WORKS

      

DOING LOTS WITH LITTLE ON MAGIC ISLAND            

 

Our Jakarta Embassy is the ’world’s largest Australian diplomatic mission … designed for 500 staff.’ What do they do? If just 14 media releases this year is a guide, one tiny NGO far away seems to be making a better fist of showing we care.

 

Jacob Nulik is a retired Indonesian forage agronomist with a doctorate from Australia. He lives in Kupang, the old Portuguese trading port on the southern tip of Timor. Most days he can see the low-lying island of Semau (117 square km) to the northwest just a 30-minute ferry trip away.

 

‘But even I wouldn’t go there,’ he said. ‘It was called Magic Island and full of spirits. That didn’t bother Colin Barlow. He went straight in.’

 

The Australian scientist’s impressive scramble through Semau’s dense bush and ancient coral ridges to the dry plains inland was not a demo of Okker bravado but intellectual curiosity. 

 

No wailing phantoms, only the sight of Indonesians struggling to survive in a drought-prone hardscrabble landscape, the people so poor their currency was barter. Semau is a sad example of much that’s wrong where corruption thrives and arbitrary administrations run vast countries.

 

Indonesia stretches 5,100 km west-east; Semau is only 830 km from Darwin but more than twice as far from Jakarta. Government support goes down as the klicks from the national capital go up.

 

Dr Barlow, who died last December aged 90, was no casual tourist but the ‘world’s leading authority on smallholder cash crop economies.’ His wife Dr Ria Gondowarsito is an Indonesian sociologist.

 

The couple had enough clout and contacts to run scholarly seminars about Semau but wanted change to be real and sustained. Back in Canberra they hustled donations from mates and NGOs like Rotary, mustered volunteers and did the unusual:

 

‘He asked the people and he listened’, explained Deborah Kana Hau (right) co-founder with Barlow of the Nusa Tenggara (Southeast Islands) Association (NTA).   ‘We worked from the bottom up.’

 

So much time goes on slow talk which annoys hustlers, but the decisions tend to stick because they’re owned by the locals. 

 

The NTA says its mission is to reduce poverty which has a knock-on effect. In practical terms, this means having more income can lead to better access to water and sanitation, schools and kindies and health clinics. 

 

What started as a minor project in 1988 now has 26 staff (including two Australians) and 120 volunteers; a third are locals.

 

ANU economics professor Stephen Howes wrote: ‘If the province was a country it would be one of the poorest in the world. Income per person is one-third of the Indonesian average’ currently around $4,600 a year.

 

He calls NTA ‘one of the most effective NGOs in Eastern Indonesia, and perhaps in the developing world.’ All this on tiny sums and big commitments.

 

If only politicians were as generous as individuals.  Australian Government documents show aid measured as a proportion of Gross National Income hovers around 0.2 per cent, The OECD country average is 0.32 per cent. This ranks the Lucky Country 21 out of 29 donors.

 

The heaviest cuts were last decade under Coalition PM Tony Abbott. There’s been some repair. In this year’s budget taxpayers are giving slightly more aid to Indonesia - up from $307.3 million to $326.1 million.

 

This year NTA will get $277,000 (previously $150,000). Twenty per cent of the grant must be raised by the NTA. 

 

Semau’s needs were basic and solutions low-tech. With no reticulation, women spent up to three hours a day lugging water from wells to homes using two 20-litre buckets on a yoke.

 

The symbol of Outback Oz is a windmill and a tank, filled from a bore or runoff from homestead rooves. This idea only reached Semau with the NTA. Now more than 1,000 concrete tanks have been built. The materials are gifted if the locals do the labour. 

 

Another regular whinge was roaming livestock chomping crops and angering neighbours. Walls had been built from lumps of coral, but no barrier to agile goats.

 

So ‘living fences’ of green stakes which took root laced with the Australian standard repellent of barbed wire keep the bovids at bay.

 

The knowledge flow has been hastened by Indonesians studying in Australia. Evert Hosang (right) got a scholarship to the University of Southern Queensland where he researched maize DNA for a doctorate. 

 

On Semau farmers buy hybrid seed every season because insects destroy their granaries. So using the Australian principle of high-rise sealed silos he got an Indonesian factory to make 20 kg drums to store enough home-grown seed for a hectare of ground.

 

But it had to be dry and farmers don’t have moisture meters. So he’s taught them to put a handful of maize in a dry plastic water bottle laid on its side in the sun. When no moisture settles inside the container the corn’s dry enough to store in silos, though with the ‘i’ pronounced as ‘e’.

 

A bonus from foreigners fixing faults is the shaming of local governments to lift their game and care for their own. Since the NTA arrived Semau now has some decent asphalt roads and a network of power lines.

 

Schools are being built but finding well-qualified teachers who’ll work for a pittance and tolerate poor living conditions limits kids’ learning. So does stunting.

 

Jakarta is now getting serious about prevention by distributing supplements. Around 77,000 littlies in the East Nusa Tenggara province (pop 5.4 million across 500 islands) grow slowly and sickly largely because their mums were undernourished when pregnant.

 

The NTA is seeking a replacement for Barlow who used his wallet for his trips and sought no fees. 

 

Howes wrote that in the government’s hands the NTA’s budget ‘wouldn’t pay for a single in-country consultant employed by the Australian aid programme for a year. That’s value for money.’  

 

Locals say Australian government officials rarely visit except for audits, but they see many volunteers.

 

To Nulik (right) and his Indonesian colleagues, Barlow was driven by altruism: ‘He was an ambassador for humanity’. That was his Aussie magic.

First published Michael West Media 28 May 2023:  

https://michaelwest.com.au/indonesia-our-biggest-and-closest-neighbour-needs-our-aid/

         

 

PLEASE FIX OUR PROBLEM

                                 I don’t like you but want your money

Ma’ruf Amin is a name few Australians would recognize.  Before his election last year as Indonesia’s vice-president, the hard-right Islamic cleric showed minimal interest in his southern neighbour.  Suddenly he wants Australian aid.

Amin, 77, is the former head of the Majelis Ulama Indonesia (Council of Islamic clerics) and no friend of moderates.  Before elevation to the Palace he was best known for issuing fatwas (religious prohibitions).  His targets included pornography, gays, and Muslims greeting Christians with ‘Happy Christmas’.

Amin now says he regrets testifying against Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok) in a 2017 blasphemy hearing.  However the religious elite’s words, along with his presence at a rally of more than 500,000 demanding a trial (and some a lynching), helped put the ethnic-Chinese Christian behind bars for two years.

Ahok was convicted on the basis of a speech where he condemned politicians who deliberately misinterpreted the Koran. 

Last year Amin told Australia to butt out of Indonesian affairs and stop protesting the planned early release from jail of terrorism supporter Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, the spiritual leader of the 2002 Bali bombers. The domestic objections were so strong the plan was dropped.

Amin, 77, wasn’t President Joko Widodo’s choice for VP, but was dropped in by Jakarta’s political puppet masters.  They saw the older man’s presence as the best way to prove the President’s piety. 

 During the bitter election campaign Widodo was accused of being a covert Christian with Chinese ancestry and his late father Noto Mihardjo a Communist.  No proof was offered to back the claims.

Amin’s job is widely considered to be Widodo’s shield, his stand-in at minor functions and little else.  Meanwhile liberals pray that Widodo, 58, stays healthy.  The VP was entirely educated in local Islamic institutions so little exposure to other faiths, cultures, ideas and values.

Suddenly Amin has found another voice, making a submission to a Federal Government aid review headed by International Development Minister Alex Hawke.  The VP reportedly said Australia had made a ‘vital contribution’ to ­poverty reduction.  He singled out programs to reduce stunting.

About a third of Indonesia’s toddlers suffer because they aren’t breast-fed and lack access to clean foods and decent toilets.  They don’t grow properly and neither do their brains.

Australia already funds a programme called MAMPU  ‘to improve the lives of poor women in Indonesia’ and says it’s ‘empowered’ 35,000. Sounds substantial?  About 90 million Indonesian women are in what statisticians call the ‘productive group’ aged between 15 and 64.

The problem doesn’t need more foreigners in floppy hats devising databases. Indonesian health and social workers are competent enough and communicate better.  They know stunting can be fixed by properly funded education services.  Money is not the issue – it’s the distribution that’s flawed.

Three years ago Oxfam, the confederation of 19 charities fighting global poverty, claimed the wealthiest one per cent (all men) own half Indonesia’s total wealth:

 ‘Indonesia has the sixth worst inequality of wealth in the world. In 2016 the collective wealth of the richest four billionaires was more than the total wealth of the bottom 40 per cent of the population – about 100 million people.

‘The amount of money earned annually from (one man’s) wealth would be sufficient to lift more than 2.8 million Indonesians out of extreme poverty.’  

During the past five years Australia’s annual aid to Indonesia has been slashed from AUD 610 to 298 million.  The published rationale is to pay for the Pacific ‘step-up’ policy.  

This has been defined by PM Scott Morrison as putting the islands ‘front and centre of Australia’s strategic outlook, our foreign policy, our personal connections, including at the highest levels of government’.

Decoded it means: ‘We’ll use aid to stop the Chinese from getting toeholds in Pacific states.’  Super cynics linked the cut to the 2015 executions of Bali Nine drug runners Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, a suggestion denied by all.  

Widodo said the chop was Australia’s business and no tears should be shed:  ‘That’s their right’.

Amin’s plea is badly timed and curious.  It’s been reported that no other nation bothered to submit, probably realising the review will go nowhere.  

Hawke’s review team might also think charity should begin at home.  Last October the Republic launched a US $212 million (AUD 343 million) international endowment and development fund called Indonesian AID.

The VP will get a polite ‘your submission has been noted’ maybe plus an attachment explaining the Australian budget is no longer in surplus and the Covid-19 ‘stimulus package’ will drain the Treasury of AUD 17.6 billion.  So sorry Sir, no extra aid.  

Preferably Amin should be told:  ‘Crack down on the oligarchs, tighten your tax take and assume responsibility for your problems.  That’s your right’.

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First published in Pearls and Irritations, 26 March 2020: https://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-the-wealthiest-one-per-cent-all-men-own-half-indonesias-total-wealth/

30 SOMETHING - THE INDONESIAN WOMAN'S DILEMMA

Nosey neighbors and the Indonesian voice  

                       

Dwi Sujanti Nugraheni (Heni) is 38 and not yet married.  So what?  That’s hardly a knock-out issue worthy of an opening line.

Except that Heni, like many Indonesian singles, still lives at home.  She’s not a lesbian.  Her mother asked, concerned that might explain her daughter’s apparent disinterest in men.

And not just her Mom.  The family, neighbors, friends – just about everyone is concerned about Heni’s marital status as the barren 40s approaches.

So what’s a gal gotta do when faced with such outrageous personal intrusions?  Get mad, get even? If you’re Heni you make a film.

“It will be called 30 Something and will focus on my life,” she said.  “It’s going to be funny and a little bitter. The pressures I’m under are common for Indonesian women, particularly in small communities.  I hope it will help me better understand our culture.

“My Mom thinks that if I wed I’ll be safe, but I know that’s no guarantee.  She tells me: ‘I don’t care who – just marry before I die’.

“I appreciate her concern and that of the neighbors.  I don’t want to hurt them.  They’re good people, though like all Indonesians, nosey. I’ve already broken many cultural rules, like coming home late which arouses suspicion.

“You’ll only find me in the malls if the weather’s hot and I need to cool.  I prefer angkringan (eating cheap food and sitting on the sidewalk.)  I can live frugally.  My life is borderless.

“I know what I’m doing. I’m not a prostitute or doing drugs, I’m working as a film maker.  I want to live my life my way. I have many men friends, but marriage is not my priority.”

Instead her prime interest is shooting documentaries and running the now well-established Yogyakarta Documentary Film Festival, turning 13 this December.

What could be finer for a film fanatic than watching, criticising and selecting the nation’s best creative work?  The downside is that the genre has still to find clear focus in the Republic.

“There are many problems, including that documentaries are seen as patriotic and nationalistic government propaganda” she said. “That’s what we had to watch during the Orde Baru era when I grew up.

(The government-sponsored docudrama Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI  (The Treachery of the Communists) was compulsory viewing for school children till 1998 when President Soeharto lost power.)

“The standard of entries is getting better but it’s a slow process. Directors’ styles remain conventional, often imitating overseas trends, so I hold workshops to encourage film makers’ creativity.

“Schools have the ability to show films but that’s not on the curriculum.  My dream is to change that situation – we need to start with the young.

“The other concern is screening.  We don’t have a tradition of art-house movie theaters.  Selection and distribution are dominated by the Cineplex 21 chain, the biggest in the country. We have to pay to get them to show our work.

“Television stations aren’t willing to buy documentaries, arguing that screenings give crew and cast exposures so that should be enough. So far there’s been no interest in crowd funding.

“You can’t make a living making documentaries in this country.  That’s the reality.  I fund my films through working as a researcher and other jobs.  I can make US$ 1000 (RP11.5 million) go a long way.

“I try to get my films shown at festivals overseas where they are given respect.  Then people in Indonesia start to pay attention. I don’t submit them for censorship.”

Heni grew up in Yogya, the daughter of a college administrator.  She started to study political science at the University of Gadjah Mada but found little connection between the theories she was being taught and the life she saw around her, so dropped out.

She’s a self-taught film maker who has won four awards. Her 90-minute film, Denok and Gareng, tells the story of a courageous couple trying their hand at pig farming after years of street living.

Janji Jabrik (Jabrik’s Promise) features a young man struggling with an HIV infection from using dirty needles.  While his friends rapidly perish from AIDS he stoically tries to stay alive for his wife and child. Jabrik has since died.

Pengabar Kematian (The Herald of Death) is about a man who uses a trumpet in a village to announce the death of residents instead of broadcasting the news through the mosque’s loudspeakers.  He does this to give the passing a more personal touch.

Heni found these and other stories while working for a community health clinic in Yogyakarta.  She has also helped deaf people make a film and is now working on a feature about villagers’ beliefs in mountain spirits.

Her skills have been refined through an internship with the non-profit media arts organization Women Make Movies in New York.

 Last year she was one of two Indonesian women given the inaugural John Darling Fellowship (named after the late Bali-based Australian director) to attend a post-graduate course at the Australian National University called Thinking with a Video Camera.  She has also been supported by the German cultural organization the Goethe Institute and attended the Berlinale film festival.

“I’m not into poverty porn,” she said.  “This is my job and I do it seriously. I respect the people I film and their stories.  I want the audience to get closer to the subjects.  I hope my work encourages viewers to be reflective.

”American films tend to be issue-driven, while European cinema is character-driven, a style I follow.  I don’t intrude with commentary – I’m more of a fly-on-the-wall director.

“I love to travel.  I’ve found Europe, and Germany in particular, to be the most accessible for independent documentary makers. I also admire Japanese documentaries because they reveal that nation’s culture

“We Indonesian film makers have got to find our own voice, not imitate others. Documentaries should hold up a mirror to society.  It’s not about nationalism; it’s about understanding who we are, and to make a better society.”

(First published in The Jakarta Post 19 April 2014)

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MOHAMMED KOESNAN

THERE'S MONEY IN MILK, BOUNTY IN BLOOMS © Duncan Graham 2007

Local and overseas investors should add rural interests to their portfolios to slow the urban drift, boost the economy of country towns and help educate and employ local people.

Plus get a decent return, and enjoy a better lifestyle, according to Mohammed Koesnan, head of one of Indonesia's most successful cooperatives.

"Too much money is going into city developments," he said. "Many have a blinkered view of rural Indonesia. They're overlooking the opportunities to be found in the hinterland.

"Farm produce is part of the chain of life. Quality food helps build our children's health and intellect so they can better cope with the future. That will benefit us all. I don't think money should be the number one motive."

For a man who hasn't been driven by profit Koesnan has done better than most who've made amassing cash their goal.

In 2005 he was given a presidential medal for his pioneering skills in making an East Java cooperative one of the most progressive in the Republic. Last year his work was recognized by the Indonesian Livestock Industry with a national award.

Appropriate, for in the past decade he's imported 5,000 dairy cattle from Western Australia (WA) and Victoria. The ambition has been to lift milk production and quality throughout Java, but particularly around Nongkojajar in East Java.

This is a village on the western slopes of Mount Bromo, 2,000 metres above sea level and about 80 kilometers southeast of Surabaya. It has long been a major dairy center and its dominant building is the milk factory. But till recently animal husbandry and processing systems have been primitive.

Now the Setia Kawan (loyal friend) Cooperative has an Ultra-High Treatment (UHT) plant producing packaged milk for the local market and export to South East Asian countries. It runs 24 hours a day and takes milk from five other cooperatives.

The Co-op has also built a model dairy using modern milking machines and an udder-to-vat piping system to avoid contamination. The idea is to encourage farmers to upgrade. Workshops on cattle feeding and hygiene are held most weekends.

The big changes started in 1992 when Koesnan was part of an Indonesian farmers' group that visited WA. On dairy properties he was astonished to learn that big-bodied Friesians were producing up to 40 litres of milk a day – more than four times the yield of Indonesian cows.

He bought a few pregnant Aussie heifers, but at first they didn't adjust well to the Indonesian way of doing things. With land scarce, cows in Nongkojajar are stabled and grass brought to them. The newcomers were used to broadacre grazing and ample exercise at lower altitudes.

An Australian vet was brought in; he advised supplementary dry foods. So a factory has been built to supply this need using waste products from wheat milling. The cattle are now thriving and producing around 30 litres a day.

Koesnan was also surprised on his WA visit to meet potato growers who budgeted for yields of up to 70 tonnes per hectare compared with an East Java average of 15 tonnes.

In 2000 he imported one container of Australian seed potatoes. Three years later he was bringing in ten containers, and although numbers have dropped as farmers have nurtured their own seeds, he is still buying from WA.

Together with local farmers he has 300 hectares under cultivation, with the potatoes mainly sold to factories producing chips and crisps.

"We have limited space in the mountains so it's important that we learn how to produce more using the resources that are available," he said.

"The Co-op has 12,000 dairy cattle. This year I hope we'll be able to increase numbers by 850. This area has the capacity to run 15,000 cows. We need a lot more milk."

Despite his honors Koesnan prefers to keep his head below the skyline – which is difficult when he is such a standout corporate success.

He doesn't speak English so has relied on his instincts to judge character when dealing with Australians. He likes to do business direct, farmer-to-farmer, stay on properties and meet families. Despite the vast cultural difference he says he's found few problems.

He's sent his sons to study agriculture in NZ so they'll be aware of modern trends and be fluent in the international language.

His office is modest and has none of the show-off trappings normally associated with big business. He is particularly keen to get mid-level investors into agriculture and claims opportunities lie in supplying local markets.

Fresh and UHT milk consumption in Indonesia is increasing by one or two per cent every year. Although this sounds small, the quantities are huge when measured against the population.

Before the UHT plant was built the Setia Kawan Co-op sold milk to other companies for powdered milk manufacture. Indonesians have long favored this product for kitchen use and baby formula, while in most other countries fresh milk is preferred.

The lack of refrigerated transport and domestic fridges has been a principal factor. Now more households are getting used to the benefits of liquid milk.

"Future prospects look good," said Koesnan. "This year I'll bring in apple trees from WA to improve local stocks and grow different varieties better suited to changing tastes. I'm also importing tropical vegetable seeds, including capsicums.

"There's a strong demand for cut flowers and plants, with the market seeking new blooms. We're now looking at varieties from South Africa and New Zealand which have a much longer shelf life.

"There are openings for agricultural tourism facilities. As the stress of city living increases more people want to savor country lifestyles. Homestays and retreats are becoming popular.

"I urge Indonesian business people to travel widely and see what other countries are doing. I'd like to see joint ventures between local people and foreigners. We welcome them."

(First published in The Jakarta Post 26 January 2007)
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