INDONESIA'S CURSE - THE KKN GORGONS

 

LOOMING NOW: THE AGE OF UNCERTAINTY

There’ll soon be a new leader next door – ageing hardliner Prabowo Subianto.  He’s           Indonesia’s dark lord with a worrying past of alleged human rights abuses, yet overwhelmingly elected in the February national poll.  He’ll take over on 20 October.

Some expect the change from the calming Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo to be seamless.  Others fear his tough guy successor will drive out democracy from the world’s fourth most populous     nation and return to a military-led autocracy – as in last century.

What will Jokowi hand-over after two five-year terms in power? Some differences are huge,

A trip between the East Java capital Surabaya and the province’s major hill city Malang through congested villages was once a five-hour ordeal.  Now the 80-kilometre journey on a toll road takes about an hour, thanks to Pak Infrastruktur.

Since 2014 Jokowi's government put down 2,700 km of bitumen at a dazzling pace using 24/7 Chinese labour and loans; the present debt is reportedly US$27.5 billion.

Projects involving national highways, village roads, airports and dams were all                transformative, speeding trade.  During his decade the population grew by 27 million.  The natural increase matches the number of people living in Australia.

Jokowi in a hard hat symbolised a shovelling aside of the avalanches of blocking bureaucracy.  He dug through by treating the government like a business and finding big backers, mainly from Beijing.

Another achievement already introduced but rapidly enlarged is the national insurance health system.  It has serious flaws as the industry exploits its many weaknesses, but it remains an essential helping ease worries about paying for medical care.

Then came nationalism.  Jokowi’s government peacefully negotiated control of the huge gold and copper Freeport mine in West Papua from the US owners and now has 51 per cent of the company.

Foreign affairs was left to career diplomat Retno Marsudi, a lady of no great achievements.  She’s off to the UN so Prabowo has to find another FM, hopefully a civilian.

All good - but Jokowi’s legacy has been clawed by Indonesia’s Gorgons – Korupsi, Kolusi, Nepotisme.

For Jokowi did dirty deals to keep his family in power ripping his reputation as humble Mr Clean  from a riverside mudbank shack.  His PR story claims he’s a clever climber who got to the top without carrying a rifle or wearing Muslim robes. Nor was he carrying the genes of a feudal Sultanate.

 What he did have then and now is a mentor – US educated former four-star general turned  businessman and prominent Protestant Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, 77.

Officially he’s Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment but on the street he’s Prince Regent and Lord Luhut, titles that infuriate.  He sued two sniggers for defamation and lost.

Before Jokowi became a poli he partnered with Luhut in a furniture export deal. The younger man got into public life through the mayoralty of the small Central Java city of Solo, then as governor of Jakarta.

Jokowi was seen as pure Javanese, socially low key and physically slim; an ideal model for the nation’s marvellous batik shirts, but insufficiently sinewy to wear the uniform of office. His rank was popularity and here he had five stars.

In 2015 he took then-PM Malcolm Turnbull on a blusukan (walkabout) of public markets.  That happy scene is for the archives.  Today Prabowo is into media control.  He waves from jeeps and shuns the media apart from one awkward tussle with Al Jazeera.

There’ll be little access for independent journos ahead, so anticipate few facts but many rumours.

Only skilled cultural anthropologists noted the kid from the kampung was enigmatic and surreptitiously devious, offering ambiguous “why not?” answers to journo’s questions.

Like Icarus he forgot the altimeter.  Denied under the Constitution to extend his stay he used his brother-in-law, a Supreme Court judge to bypass age rules.  That let his eldest son Gibran stand for office and win the vice presidency.  Jokowi’s cleanskin reputation was flayed nationally - likewise his lad’s.

Old social media accounts allegedly published by Gibran rubbishing Prabowo during his earlier tries for the top job have been dismissed as fakes, but the damaging scuttlebutt has spread.

Prabowo is certainly a worry, and not just to his sidekick.   Australian researcher of military crimes in East Timor Pat Walsh has asked if he’s a “fit and proper person” to be president, detailing the commander’s actions in the former Indonesian province. Walsh concluded “no”.

In 1998 Prabowo was cashiered for disobeying orders. That was amid the revolution which saw the authoritarian Soeharto quit the presidency after 32 years of despotic rule.

Prabowo fled to exile in Jordan following his divorce from Soeharto's daughter Siti. He publicly returned in 2008 after his former father-in-law died but failed to get into politics via  any established organisation.

So he started Gerindra (Great Indonesia Movement), now the third largest party. Calling it right-wing is too simplistic. It’s certainly bombastically nationalistic and carries a whiff of fascism along with contradictory social benefit programmes like free lunches for school kids.

Once hostile minor parties are now clamouring to bed down in Prabowo’s coalition and suckle the teats of power leaving the government to face no opposition.

Helped by a mainly partisan media Prabowo’s people have been erasing mentions of his alleged human rights abuses .  These awkward stories that he dismisses or denies saw him refused entry to the US and Australia earlier this century.

Indonesia street stalls are already selling photoshopped official portraits of the upcoming leaders to mount on lounge walls.  The 73-year old has shed wrinkles; his 38-year deputy has garnered wisdom lines.

An ANU conference of students and scholars in September held an Indonesia Update: How Jokowi changed Indonesia.

Their predictions of Prabowo’s rule run from maybe a matured reformist to the baton-master of Soeharto Mark Two and the flight of what’s left of democracy.  Most agree he’s a chameleon. ANU Associate Professor Marcus Mietzner reportedly said:

“Widodo’s enduring mark on his country may well be his decision and ability to put Prabowo into the presidency after defeating him twice and questioning his abilities.”

To a Westerner raised in the culture of confrontational politics the idea of a winning leader appointing his twice-defeated bitter rival as Minister of Defence sounds as whacky as eating cats - or a splendid example of forgiveness by a Muslim that Christians might emulate.

Whatever, Jokowi’s endorsement has propelled Prabowo into power tethered to Gibran to keep an eye on Daddy’s Nusantara – the new capital on Borneo Island. There are already hints that Prabowo’s not too keen on finding the cash.

Once in control the prez may send his VP into a dead-end job, like encouraging shy investors to rethink Pappa’s project. 

We don’t know – and neither do the bemused ANU conference experts, as confused as those who live in the archipelago.  Expect a political future as changeable as the climate – an age of uncertainty.

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  First published in Pearls & Irritations 30 September 2024: https://johnmenadue.com/looming-now-in-indonesia-the-age-of-uncertainty/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MUSHROOMING BUSINESS

The spores of success            

                                    

Like many farmers Sumadi is a man of few words but many thoughts. More pensive than dour; a stranger to puffery and pessimism.

Just one complaint: Though a diligent Muslim he never seemed to get ahead.  He also worked hard providing for his wife and six children in the village of Plumpungrejo near Blitar in East Java.

He runs a small earthenware business making garden pots and other domestic objects from clay mined nearby and fired in the yard behind his house.

He does this so well that he gets asked to stage workshops and lectures on his techniques.  Even so a breakthrough remained elusive - until one night about four years ago.

When the light got too low to work he wandered inside and turned on the television, just to relax.

A program on growing mushrooms caught his imagination, mainly because the featured farmer said he’d earned enough money to go on the Hajj.

Making the pilgrimage to Mecca was an ambition Sumadi had long harbored - but one he’d never reach on the Rp 7 million (US$540) monthly earnings from his pottery.   The program hadn’t been recorded, so next day he headed to Blitar and bought a book on fungiculture.

Two years later he was in Saudi Arabia circumambulating the Kaaba and throwing stones at the devil, all bills paid using mushroom money.

Surely a shining example of enterprise that must have attracted the government’s business promoters?  “No, nothing,” he said. “No interest.”

When offered congratulations for thinking laterally and investing wisely he replied: “No, thank you. My success is the will of God.”

If so then the Deity chose the right vessel for His wisdom because Sumadi is a careful planner who has taught himself the tricky art of mushroom cultivation.

“There are so many factors involved,” he said.  “It looks simple and easy; it’s not. The temperature, light, materials and humidity must be just right.  I’ve had up to 90 per cent success, but so far not 100 per cent.”

The capital outlay has been two windowless sheds and bamboo racks which Sumadi built with his sons. The growing medium is a mix of sawdust and rice husks which he wraps in plastic to make a bottle-shape bag. 

On one end the plastic is crimped with a rubber band round a collar.  The other end is left open.  All materials have been scavenged.

The containers are then stacked inside a big tank and steam sterilized for several hours. 

This term suggests scientists wearing hazmat suits measuring microbes, but this is backblock Indonesia where conditions are raw.

Nonetheless Sumadi’s system works.  The mycelium harvested from other mushrooms is stored in bottles and then poured into the bags.  These are then stacked horizontally on the racks and within a few days – or weeks depending on the weather – the big white oyster mushrooms sprout.

And what a spectacle.  Hundreds of plate-size fungi, clean as virgin snow, ready for harvest.

Now the downside.  The mushrooms have a shelf life of only two days.  Because East Java’s rural roads are too narrow and congested the fungiculturist is limited to selling in nearby towns.

Sumadi said he’d like to expand and market in cities like Malang and Surabaya. He has the space and the smarts.  He also seems to have the capital. But fixing the flawed infrastructure that limits rural ventures is beyond his control

Killer mushrooms

There must have been many trials and even more errors as our ancestors wandered nature’s supermarket. 

Bad choice could be fatal. One fungus might be edible, another toxic.  Some are hallucinogenic.

The oyster mushroom is found in much of the temperate and tropical world growing on decaying trees. It kills and digests roundworms and is one of the few known carnivorous fungi.

Canny woodsmen probably discovered it was safe by watching animals nibble and survive.

It wasn’t till the First World War that cultivation began in Germany during food shortages, with growing techniques brought to Indonesia in the 1980s.

Agus Heri Santoso, head of nutrition in the National Government’s Politeknik Kesehatan Kemenkes Malang (Malang Health Department Polytechnic) reckons mushrooms are magic.

“It’s a high protein low-calorie food full of vitamins and minerals,” he said. “Mushrooms reduce triglycerides (created by excess calories) and cholesterol.  They help with the immune system so assist the anti-ageing process.”

A sentence of caution:  While the scientific literature backs the nutritionist’s claims, it also warns that some people have a hypersensitive reaction to the food. 

Santoso (right) is a trim 49 but looks younger. Because he eats mushrooms? Hard to tell, for his diet includes vegetables, fish, cereals and milk.  As a role model for his 150 students he exercises and doesn’t smoke. So any one or all factors could be responsible.

With his colleagues he’s experimenting with mushroom nuggets which include chicken.

“Balanced foods have to compete with processed products containing preservatives and promoted on TV – which is where many people get their information,” he said.

“Mushrooms have a low image.  They are seen as meals of the poor, yet paradoxically widely used in high class cuisine overseas

“As youngsters we ate foods straight from the field. That’s now rare. I want Indonesians to eat their own produce wherever possible and not rely on factory fare.

“Many new home industries can be developed, like growing mushrooms.  As scientists we must share our knowledge and work together with farmers.”

(First published in The Jakarta Post 9 August 2016)

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AYO! NAIK BIS!

Romancing the road 

                                              

While attention has been focussed on the spectacular rise of air travel in Indonesia, most people still use public bus transport for inter-city commutes.

These can vary from nightmare journeys in ancient rattletraps literally held together with wire where seats are shared with goats and poultry, through to luxury travel with toilet, spacious leg room and sleeper seats.  Duncan Graham has taken a few rides.

……………………………………………………………………………. 

The transit people in Canada’s chilly Edmonton have come up with a smart idea to keep their customers amused.  Since 1999 they’ve run a poem competition.

Organizers say the project ‘celebrates the work of poets and makes riding public transit a more enriching and pleasurable experience.’ Presumably it also takes passengers’ minds off chattering teeth and dead fingers.

Across the border in somewhat warmer Madison, Wisconsin there’s a similar contest, cleverly called Bus Lines.

A few other countries have devised creative ways to promote the delights of being imprisoned in a steel box racing down a highway and controlled by someone you don’t know and pray remains awake, but it seems only Indonesia has Bismania.

It’s not the ideal title, suggesting louts who put their dirty boots on your seat, blow smoke in your face and razor-slash the upholstery. In fact they’re fun people with serious intent, a consumer-awareness and lobby group that started in Jakarta in 2007 and in Malang the following year.

The legally incorporated club’s motto is Ayo! Naik Bis! (let’s go by bus), and it has a code of ethics; ‘We will not accept free rides lest we compromise our right to criticize’.  Its members are mainly professionals and university students who have thought deeper about their nation’s transport problems than many political candidates.

Driver Hari, 46 and never had an accident
 “though I’ve seen plenty”

The Jakarta Post met 15 supporters (half the local membership) at Malang’s pitted and puddled Arjosari terminal where the big busses bounce and buck their way into position amid clouds of dust, some heading as far as Medan, 72 hours distant.

Not all noise comes from the fuming diesel engines and klaxon blasts, for Arjosari is hustlers’ heaven.  Here the jobless gather to garner a few rupiah by shouting travellers onto a bus, any bus.  If it happens to be going your way then that’s a bonus.

Any uncertain victim with white skin heading for Jakarta will be steered onto a bus for Bali; all touts know that’s where foreigners really want to go.

Work on a new terminal has stopped and weeds are sprouting. When will construction restart? Everyone gave the same answer: “Only God knows.”

Bizmaniacs can tell the age of a bus at a glance, however much it has been disguised by panel beaters.  The oldest they noted was built in 1982, long before most of the spotters had been assembled.

“If I became Transportation Minister I’d  take off the fuel subsidy and subsidize spare parts so buses can be better maintained,” said spokesman Dudi Sudarmono, a public servant when he’s not admiring axle lengths and sizing up horse power.

“Passenger waiting rooms need to be improved to make the travel experience more pleasant.  We want a fit and proper test for drivers and better working conditions. In some areas outside Malang we hear that bus driver licenses can be bought.

Checking the hardware – Bizmaniacs Rezha Hadyan  (on the ground)
and Adi A. Firdaus (on the bus).

“Some drivers work 12 hours with only brief breaks.  They get paid a commission so have no insurance.  That’s not fair to them and it’s not safe.  Then there’s the issue of traffic overcrowding and highway repairs.”

Because Indonesia’s roads are so rough the buses need a minimum of 42 centimeters clearance. This makes alighting tough for the elderly and handicapped unless the conductor puts out a step. It’s even better if the driver actually stops.

What about other hazards like the asongan (hawkers) and ngamen (buskers) who are allowed on many routes, their presence noted by a sudden close clutching of handbags?

“That’s complicated for us,” said Hendra Rakhmanto who works in the pharmaceutical industry. He’s something of a romantic who loves the colors of the busses.

“These are little people; they need jobs but have no skills. They bother passengers but can’t get money elsewhere.  This is a problem the government should address.”

In early May the Malang branch hosted a national convention attended by 800 Bismaniacs, including Rezha Hadyan who plans to enter the diplomatic service when he finishes his international relations studies at Malang’s Brawijaya University.

“I could fly back to my family in West Java for holidays at around the cost of travel in an executive bus (fewer seats, two drivers and a toilet) but I prefer travelling by road,” he said.

“The drivers and conductors are cheerful and friendly in Malang; it’s not like Jakarta.”

High Tastes

Catching the bus: Bambang Gunawan Lie

David Lie vice president of coach builder PT Morodadi Prima, which has a factory at Singosari on the Malang-Surabaya road, said there were two main lanes of bus design – European and Chinese.

“We prefer the European,” he said.  “Their ideas are more elegant and the accessories, like air conditioning, are hidden.  This creates a more aerodynamic look. We may be a growing and changing country but our tastes and demands are high. Twelve years ago there was no air conditioning – now it’s essential.

“The problem is that while we make fine and comfortable busses the roads remain crowded and poorly maintained. How can you travel smoothly and fast when the highways aren’t the right standard?”

It’s easy to detect the Chinese style – big rear-view mirrors thrusting ahead like heavy-duty proboscises, turning the bus into a monster-movie mutant caterpillar.

Along with technical improvements in transmission, air-conditioning, engine efficiency and seat comfort, the other evolution has been in livery. 

If the body has leaping tigers and galloping horses it should be parked and left to rust in peace.  Today the emphasis is on long, sweeping abstract designs in pastel, supposedly creating an impression of tranquil movement, flowing gently like a stream.

Wildlife is also popular.  “We have more animals in Arjosari – deer, pandas and dolphins – than any zoo in the province,” commented one Bizmaniac dryly.

David’s father, Bambang Gunawan Lie started the carrosserie (a borrowed French word) in 1964, and the company has just had a big birthday bash.  He said the industry had changed dramatically since the fall of Soeharto and the lifting of chassis import restrictions.

“You can say that the growth has been linked to Reformasi (the 1998 change to democracy),” he said. “The demand for busses is growing as more people have money and want to travel.”

His company, which produces between 400 and 500 vehicles a year and employs almost 600 workers, is far from the largest in Java.

The bare frames are shipped into Indonesia from companies overseas. These are little more than the engine, wheels and flat steel frame, the foundation on which to build the body.  The finished product can cost around Rp 3.5 billion (US$300,000).

  The most popular chassis are Japanese Hino. Their suspensions are said to be particularly tolerant of rubble roads. However some companies modify the imports to add their cheaper versions of air suspension.

 (First published in The Jakarta Post 9 June 2014)