THE LOST TRIBE OF KATANNING

TRANSMIGRATION FROM THE TROPICS

Alep Mydie (centre)bustled out of a side room alongside the mosque, striding ahead of the half-dozen other worshippers who’d been attending a Saturday-morning meeting.

As befits an imam he was wearing a fine sarong and peci, the neat embroidered headgear used by leaders, particularly those who have been on the haj. As suits a local government politician who’d just been re-elected he radiated purpose and direction with a firm handshake to match.

The men, some greybeards, many in batik, all looking sage and senior, made small talk.  It could have been anywhere in Indonesia – until they wandered across the vast and almost empty car park and into their big air-conditioned four-wheel drives and pick-ups, cars with grunt. Not a motorbike in sight.

Alep was in a hurry. He had an important meeting on the coast, 230 kilometers distant.  It would take him under three hours to get there and with no toll road.

This is life in Katanning, Western Australia, for the 400 men and women whose ancestors came from Java and Sumatra – and maybe other places.

“But we don’t know who they were,” lamented Alep. “There are so few records. It’s as though our past has been wiped clean.  It’s so sad.”  Compounding the situation is that the people were originally called ‘Cocos Malays’, a reference to their ethnicity, not their ancestor’s nationality.

What is known is that during the 19^th century indentured workers were brought from the archipelago, and probably the Malay Peninsula to labor on two little groups of Indian Ocean islands. 

The larger, Christmas Island, is less than 500 kilometers south of Jakarta.  It’s Australian territory principally used as a detention center for Middle Eastern asylum seekers ferried from Indonesia.

The Cocos / Keeling islands, two atolls 900 kilometers southwest of Christmas Island, share a similar history and administration. The workers  processed copra. On Christmas Island they mined phosphate deposits, the excreta of millions of seabirds over thousands of years.

The mineral was shipped to Western Australia and used to enrich the poor soils of the State’s wheatbelt, turning vast areas into productive lands.

Christmas Island was named in 1643 when a British ship sailed past but the island wasn’t explored till 1857.  The British declared it theirs and later started to mine the phosphate deposits.  The islands were administered through Singapore.

In 1957 the British handed the island to Australia when they were largely forgotten.  But in 1979 Gordon Bennett, a trade union leader from Britain arrived and revealed the men were not being paid award wages.

His campaign to end pay discrimination resulted in proper salaries but higher phosphate prices that closed the mine.

But what to do with the people? They remained a separate community, ethnically, culturally and religiously tied to Indonesia, though with no known relatives left in the Republic.

But in law they were Australian citizens because they had been born on Australian territory.  On Cocos / Keeling a referendum was held in 1984 with most voting for integration with Australia.

With no work left the government was forced to fly them to the mainland.  Between 1973 and 1979 most went to Katanning 290 kilometers southeast of Perth, and a most unlikely place to drop Muslims from the tropics.

Katanning is hot in summer and freezing in winter, a town of tall gum trees and quiet streets.  It was founded in 1853, an archetypal wheat and wool center dominated by conservative broadacre farmers who’d grown their crops using fertilizers made from Christmas Island phosphates.  But a new meat works was in need of labor.

The men slaughtered the sheep and their wives worked on the boning tables.  The company made allowances for its Islamic workforce, exchanging Australian public holidays like the Queen’s Birthday for Idul Fitri. Friday is worked as a short day so employees can pray.

More recently the meat works has started employing refugees from Afghanistan as the descendants of the original ‘Cocos Malays’ get higher education and better jobs.  About ten per cent of Katanning’s population is Muslim, compared to a national average of 2.2 per cent.

“The women had come from the islands so we all spoke Indonesian,” said Jenifa Lloyd-George (left).  When born she was given an English label by island authorities too lazy or prejudiced to respect Malay names. (David Lloyd-George was Prime Minister of Britain early in the 20^th century.)

She’s now aged 73 and retired on an Australian pension after 30 years working at the abattoir with her husband Enjia Corrie, 75.  Their grandchildren have married Muslims and moved to other parts of Australia.

The couple maintain their culture with the help of a giant satellite dish in the backyard of their spacious and modern house.

On the lounge wall an evil husband mixes a poison potion for his pregnant wife so he can run away with the new woman – a sinetron (soap opera) beamed directly from Jakarta to the cinema-sized flat screen TV monitor.

When the contrived passion palls she flicks to a direct telecast of pilgrims circling the Kabah.  Outside wattlebirds sip nectar in the couple’s flower-filled garden while the ruthless Australian sun roasts the ochre landscape.

“We’ve adjusted, but it hasn’t always been easy,” said Jenifa. “In winter the temperature can drop to zero.  I miss fresh tropical fruits like papaya and bananas, but everything else is OK. There’s been no discrimination.

“Would we go back to Indonesia?  Why?  I wasn’t born there and there’s nothing for us.  We’d get nothing.  On the islands we were segregated and lived in poor housing with few facilities.”

Within four years of settling in Katanning the couple had started buying a house. “In the Cocos I worked as a carpenter and got ten and half rupiah a week for boat building,” said Enjia. “Here we got proper wages – that number of dollars in an hour.”

The mosque was opened in 1981, less than ten years after the first arrivals, by the first Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman.

Before then prayers were held in local halls, even a winery.  Alep Mydie came to Katanning in 1974 as a child with his father who worked as a halal slaughter man.  Alep’s grandfather had been an imam so it seemed natural to follow the family tradition. He’s also a marriage celebrant.

“There’s been good cooperation with local churches,” he said.  “We all live in harmony here. The secret is to assimilate but stay true to your traditions and beliefs.”

(First published in The Jakarta Post 4 December 2013)

PRINT MEDIA STILL DETERMINES NEWS AGENDA

Me generation unfriends politics 

                                  

Despite a small readership Indonesian newspapers are setting the political agenda.  Television and radio pick up print stories and amplify them.  The issues then get into the social media and impact voters.

“I used to think it was the other way around, and that comments on the Internet determined the response of the mainstream media,” said US-educated political scientist Dr Djayadi Hanan (right).

“However further research has changed my view. Around 80 per cent of Indonesians still rely on national television for political information, though news and current affairs stations are not popular. 

“For example, Metro TV (owned by NasDem Party founder Surya Paloh) attracts an audience on only three per cent. TV One (linked to Golkar chair and presidential hopeful Aburizal Bakrie) has five to six per cent.  The popular channels are those that telecast sinetron (soap operas).”

Dr Hanan, 40, a lecturer in international relations at Paramadina University in Jakarta, was speaking at a forum on development and democracy held at the Indonesian Embassy in Wellington, New Zealand last week. (W/end 30 Nov).

His speech used statistics, which he said were reliable, up-to-date and compiled from surveys across the nation by his university and other researchers. He told an audience of academics, students and diplomats that only between 11 and 13 per cent of the population used the print media.

That number appeared to be declining.  However on-line Internet sites run by newspapers were winning readers.

“The Internet is a democratizing and democratic media, but access is still limited, unlike television which is widely available throughout the Archipelago,” he said. 

“This is largely because the administration of former President Soeharto put up the Palapa satellite,” he said. (Palapa One was launched in 1975)

“About 45 million are using the Internet, but few have high speed broadband outside Jakarta. Most have social media contacts, which is why President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono used Twitter to directly reach electors and comment on the Australian spying revelations.

“This is something Australian commentators, critical of a national leader using Twitter, could not understand. Fifteen per cent of global tweets are sent in the Republic, probably because we like talking about ourselves”.

The problem for politicians trying to get their names in front of the public is that Internet users are an exclusive group.

“Their Internet content includes opinions, expressions and stories of an urban middle-class culture, its lifestyle and problems,” Dr Hanan said. “Most Facebook groups are about brands and products, entertainment and celebrities – not politics.

“Social and political concerns exist but are event-driven and short lived.  They mimic the taste and bias of the mainstream media.  The more contact users have with politics the more they are alienated from politicians.”

Dr Hanan said he didn’t like to follow Australian political scientists and give “counsels of despair”, even though Indonesia did have serious problems with corruption and education; for example few students used the Internet at school or university.

However research showed almost 70 per cent believe democracy is the best system for Indonesia – though this support lagged behind public opinion in South Korea and Taiwan.

Although the public was generally satisfied with their experiences with democracy, that approval rating had slipped from a high of 75 per cent in 2009 to just over half this year.

Freedom of expression and freedom of the press were highly regarded with well over 90 per cent approval. Education and public health remained as the most important issues facing voters as they head into next year’s elections.

(First published in The Jakarta Post, 1 December 2013)

IF THIS IS FRIENDSHIP, THANK GOD WE'RE NOT ENEMIES

Killing the messenger                              

One afternoon in Surabaya during the tension leading to the 1999 referendum on the future of East Timor, our landlord took me to a meeting with the Rukun Tetangga.

Although the term means neighborhood harmony, officially the RT is the local community leader.

“It’s just a courtesy call to let him know new people have moved in,” our lessor explained as we walked to the appointment.

“I’ve already told him you’re a New Zealander.  I don’t think it would be good if people know there’s an Australian in the kampong.”

The years roll on but tensions persist. Today Australians registered with the Jakarta Embassy got an automated e-mail urging a ‘high degree of caution’ because of possible civil unrest.

This follows revelations that our government has long spied on its northern neighbor and supposed friend, impertinently tapping the phones of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife, Ibu Ani.

Seasoned diplomats claim such behavior is commonplace. So do the Australians eavesdrop US President Barack Obama’s cellphone and intercept intimate messages from his wife Michelle?  Or those of UK Prime Minister David Cameron and his spouse Samantha?

Should Edward Snowden, the US whistleblower (or traitor, depending on your viewpoint) reveal such snooping, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s response might be more humble than his reactions so far to President SBY’s anger.

In Parliament Mr Abbott said he wanted to express “my deep and sincere regret about the embarrassment to the President and to Indonesia that's been caused by recent media reporting.”

An apology for spying?  Not at all.  It’s all the media’s fault reporting the espionage, so shoot the messenger. In this case it was The Guardian newspaper and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster.

Managing director Mark Scott was forced to defend the decision to publish papers marked TOP SECRET.  He told a Senate committee that although he knew the news was embarrassing to the government, the relevant test was whether releasing the material was in the public interest.
According to news reports Mr Scott ‘drew a distinction between the national interest and the public interest’ – the fine line walked by all journalists.

 

While others were handling the controversy with tweezers, journalist and academic Dr Philip Dorling (a visiting fellow at the Australian Defence Force Academy) grasped the issue firmly: 

‘Why do we do it?’ he wrote. ‘Behind all the declarations of friendship and good neighborliness by successive Australian governments, Canberra just doesn't trust Jakarta. We work closely with Indonesia, including in the fields of security and intelligence, but we don't trust them. We never have, and probably never will.’

His comments are well grounded. A 2012 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade survey of Australians’ attitudes showed knowledge of Indonesia to be poor and perceptions mixed.  Almost half the respondents rated Indonesia ‘a threat to Australian national security’.

Scrutiny of the results show the distrust was rooted last century when Indonesian paramilitaries, allegedly sponsored by the army, laid East Timor waste after the referendum rejected Indonesian rule.

Since then the Bali and Jakarta bombs have fertilized the distrust.  Hundreds of thousands fly into Kuta every year, but few venture into Java, a land of mystery and Islam, regretfully still considered a synonym for terrorism.

More recently the Indonesian government’s inability (or reluctance) to stop its own citizens using Indonesian-flagged boats to ferry asylum seekers to Australia is a toxin that poisons attitudes.

Few Indonesians understand how the bombings continue to resonate in Australia, just as Australians don’t appreciate the sensitivity of Indonesians towards real or imagined colonial attitudes.  It takes more than 68 years of hard-won independence to wash away three centuries of rule by smug white-skinned foreigners.

Mr Abbott and his ministerial colleagues may profess undying love for Indonesia (the President is “a very good friend… one of the very best friends”), but they’re occasional suitors living far away in Canberra, making only fleeting visits and not recipients of today’s travel warnings. 

If this is how Australia treats best friends, thank goodness we’re not enemies.

The thousands of low-profile Australians who work and live in Indonesia, quietly trying to eradicate misunderstandings and put substance into the leaders’ rhetoric, now have to cope with the fallout.

Military cooperation has already been ditched. Other agreements, treaties and projects like the splendid BRIDGE student exchange programs may survive, but they’ll be considered suspect. 

The AUD $542 million (Rp 5.8 billion) aid program has benefited thousands, particularly schoolchildren in remote areas, but all that goodwill is rapidly evaporating.

Political scientists yawningly note that all nations spy on each other and this is widely known.  International relations are always a roller-coaster ride – so what’s new?

Known by insiders, maybe, but not the general population.  We may have wondered, but we didn’t know for certain.

What’s new is that doubts have hardened into fact. The suspicious can no longer be dismissed as crazed conspiracy theorists.

Inevitably some superficial relationship will return as time heals.  We can betray and threaten and fear, but nothing is going to change one unshakeable fact.  Our countries are – and will always be – close neighbors.

We have to learn to live in harmony – we’re in the same kampong.  It’s time for some Rukun Tetangga.

(First published in The Jakarta Post, 23 November 2013)

THE BONDOWOSO TRAIN TRAGEDY

Cooked alive

 

Prolonged guerrilla wars are always brutal, and the four-year fight to consolidate Indonesian independence against diehard European colonialists was particularly vile.

About 150,000 freedom fighters and civilians, and 6,000 Dutch soldiers, died in the prolonged conflict between 1945 and 1949, euphemistically labelled  ‘police actions’ by the archipelago’s former controllers.

Earlier this year the Netherlands government apologized and paid compensation to the victims’ families of a December 1947 West Java massacre when Dutch soldiers shot 431 Indonesian freedom fighters at Rawagede (now Balongsari).

However descendants of the 46 men from Bondowoso cooked to death in a railway wagon a month earlier have still to be recognized.

The issue has been raised with Professor Liesbeth Zegveld, the Dutch lawyer who drove the Rawagede compensation case.  She’s passed it on to the European Nuhanovic Foundation that specializes in war reparation cases. 

This is the story of Gerbong Maut, the Corpse Train.

According to Soetedjo, one of the survivors who gave his story to Dutch researchers, the men were prisoners who’d been arrested on suspicion of being revolutionaries.  They were scheduled to be shifted to the Kalisosok Prison in Surabaya about 250 kilometers distant, allegedly because the local gaol was overcrowded.

On the morning of Sunday 23 November 1947 one hundred men in the Bondowoso prison were woken at 5 am and marched to the railway station.  Twenty-four were stuffed into the windowless first freight wagon and 38 each in the remaining two.

The floors were of timber and the roofs of corrugated iron. There were no benches. The doors were sealed and the train got underway around 7.30 am. The day was typically scorching.

Revolutionary propaganda images show the men being brutally herded into the three boxcars.  However a photo suggests it was a relatively routine manoeuvre with the soldiers – some seemingly unarmed - appearing relaxed.

Whatever their demeanor the guards were certainly inexperienced.  At the time there were around 100,000 Dutch soldiers in Java. Many were conscripts with little heart in the job of overturning President Soekarno’s declaration of Independence.

The plan to recolonize Indonesia  was internationally unpopular and opposed by recently de-colonized India and many Western nations, including Australia.  In Holland public opinion was split on the value of trying to regain sovereignty of the East Indies.

When the train stopped at sidings along the 16 -hour journey the prisoners hammered the walls and shouted for food and water.  They were told only bullets were available and nothing would be supplied until the train reached Surabaya.

Eventually the cries became faint, but even this didn’t move the Dutch soldiers to investigate.  Sometime during the awful journey a man in the middle car using a spoon managed to scrape a hole in the planks to get more air.

During the afternoon it rained and some drops leaked into the first two cars, though not the more recently built end wagon.

That night the doors were opened. All the men in the first car were alive though some were seriously sick.  In the second car eight were dead. In the final wagon no-one had survived.

Of the 100 men only 12 were fit enough to help their mates and move the corpses. The others were taken to hospital.

“The victims were cooked, as in an oven,” recalled Soetedjo. “When we saw their bodies, their skin was off and appeared to be white. Bekas darah kelihatan keluar dari mulut dan kuping, mata dan lidah keluar, sungguh ta' dapat kita lupakan.

“There were visible traces of blood from their mouths and ears and eyes. Their tongues were out. It’s something I’ll never be able to forget. Ada jang tangannja keatas, ada jang meninggal mlungker. Begitulah, kita letakkan 46 jiwa di peron stasiun Wonokromo.We put 46 bodies on the station platform at Wonokromo.”

At the soldiers’ trial in July 1948 it was revealed that the transport arrangements had been entrusted to Arie Jippes, an inexperienced soldier in the Marine Brigade who’d never had an operational role. He was suddenly given the job, papers thrust into his hands, just as he was leaving Java at the end of his service.

Dutch author Ad van Liempt wrote that Jippes’ ‘guilt never left him .. and ruined his life’.  He was sentenced to two months in jail.  His commander was never prosecuted.

However in Pakisadji, close to Malang, three Dutch soldiers who refused to take retaliatory action against Indonesians on moral grounds were jailed for more than two years.

Six students from Petra University in Surabaya directed by graphic arts graduate Sherly Jessica have produced three You Tube videos about the tragedy.

These have helped rekindle local interest. Last year (2012) a group of students in Bondowoso re-enacted the tragedy in a bid to keep the memory of the men alive and to inaugurate Gerbong Maut Day.

Ms Jessica said her team had tried to locate the three wagons.  Remnants of one have been found in the Gedung Juang Surabaya museum scrap yard.  It hasn’t been displayed because its authenticity has been questioned. 

Another is in the Brawijaya Army Museum in Malang, and reasonably well preserved, though not treated with respect as visitors are allowed to climb over the exhibit.  This is believed to be the newest box car, so may be the one where all the men died because the planks would have made an airtight fit.

The other is missing, though there are rumors it’s in Solo. Ms Jessica said the one used for a statue in Bondowoso (described by Dutch academic Dr Gerben Nooteboom, who did field work in the area, as a ‘pathetic monument made from blackened brass’), is a replica.

“We went to Bondowoso and interviewed a few people, but they kept silent,” Ms Jessica said. “The people said it was a secret that they couldn’t tell to strangers.

“It’s my belief that there are still some untold stories, yet to be discovered regarding the wagons and their connection with the prison.

“We as the young and caring generation of Indonesia want to bring this Gerbong Maut tragedy to a whole new level.

“We want to make our own generation – and future generations to come, to know the truth and learn from it.

(First published in The Jakarta Post, 23 November 2013)

GETTING ON WITH THE FOLKS NEXT DOOR

Not spying – just a mutual awareness doctrine

Well, hi there neighbor – good to see you Mr Bambang; you’ve been away so long you must have plenty to talk about.

Maybe we could get together after Friday prayers and have a few cold ones to catch up?  No?  OK, some other time maybe.

A chat now?  Well sure, that’s fine; I’ll just tell Julie where I’ve gone so the missus doesn’t think I’m having a foreign affair!

Not funny, eh?  Sorry, but we Aussies like to share a joke or two to crack the ice. I’ll be round in a tick as soon as I’ve made a couple of calls to Canberra.

Now, what’s the problem Mr Bambang?  Our dogs barking too much?  The new satellite dish blotting out your sunlight?  Those antenna wires singing in the wind? I find them damn annoying too, as I told our community head when he complained.

Look mate, let’s keep this man-to-man.  I know there’s been a bit of tittle-tattle in the street, and to be perfectly clear the good lady wife does tend to chat a bit to the American neighbors on the other side.

She particularly likes Mrs Michelle – you know how it is with women - and maybe she passes on a thing or two to her husband when they’re talking about Syria and Iran and the price of rice.  But it’s all harmless stuff.  As you and I keep assuring the folks roundabouts, we cooperate, we’re good friends, we respect each other.

Alright Sir, calm down. Let me explain what happened – fair dinkum. That means straight up and down – no funny business. Not that we ever do.

One day the maid was polishing a wine glass which she inadvertently put against the wall and heard noises from next door.

Well, I explained how sound travels, and we all had a go – it was jolly fun really, more like a game.  And to tell the truth (as we always do) I thought this might be a handy way of protecting you by gathering information. Gotong royong and all that looking after each other stuff that you guys do so well.  Gee, I love your culture.

Look Mr Bambang, don’t get annoyed.  To be frank (as we always are) you’re off in Bali quite a bit, and there’s more than a few shady characters coming and going in your absence.  Who knows what they’re plotting behind your back?  Some of them might want to hop the fence and get into our back yard.

Calm down, no need to take umbrage. I agree that using the wine glass was a mite crude so I’ve asked our techies to  see if things can’t be improved.  I specifically told them not to drill holes in the wall, but they might have got a bit too enthusiastic.  I’ll send Greg around to clean up the mess.

I see you’re still annoyed so let’s put our cards on the table, as we always do.  We’re mates, right?  Please Sir, I’d like your confirmation.

I’ll certainly sack the maid and get rid of the wine glasses – how’s that?  Not enough? Well, I could call for a report and get a committee together to put up some recommendations. But with Christmas and the New Year and your election coming up I can’t see any reporting this side of Idul Fitri.

Can we just stop beating about the bush?  Everyone knows we listen to each other all the time – it’s impossible not to with all this megaphone diplomacy.

I bet you folks have already got my cellphone number and password, which is TRUSTUS if you’re interested.  See – we’re open and transparent. Ha, ha.

Let’s hit this thing for six.  Of course it’s not spying – these are just operational matters.  Spying wouldn’t be cricket as my cobber Marty says – an idiom picked up when doing his paper round in Australia, along with his designer stubble. 

Let’s call it for what it is – a Mutual Awareness Doctrine (MAD).  It’s in both our national interests. 

Enough robust exchange of views.  Let’s have a quiet chat off the record.  Grab a seat will you – a bit closer to the vase of flowers, thanks.  Duncan Graham

(First published in The Jakarta Post 17 November 2013)

##

FUAD ARDIANSYAH - FOOTBALL AS BUSINESS

Addicted to soccer   

                                                        

How does a soccer administrator reconcile encouraging the young to enjoy healthy football when the sport is sponsored by companies selling beer and cigarettes?

“That’s a hard question,” admitted Fuad Ardiansyah, business director of PT Arema Indonesia, owner of Arema Malang, the runners up to Persipura Jayapura in this year’s Super League.

“The problem is that it costs about Rp 50 billion (US $4.35 million) to manage our senior team and Rp 5 billion (US $435,000) for our youth academy.

“We’ve now added a telecommunications company sponsor – there’s no difficulty there.  I don’t smoke or drink and I wouldn’t want my three sons to do so.

“But what else can we do? Apart from a ticket tax reduction we don’t get anything from the government.”

It’s a dilemma not exclusive to Indonesia. Although tobacco sponsorship of sport is banned in many countries alcohol advertising is often allowed, angering those who claim the liquor lobby is trying to conflate beer with football.

 “We don’t promote the products, just the names as part of the companies’ corporate social responsibility programs,” Fuad said. However the brands and the firms share the same name.

“Personally I’d like to see tobacco and alcohol taxes distributed to sporting groups – but that’s not possible under the present law. I hope one day we’ll be independent of tobacco sponsorship.” 

(Some Australian States have independent statutory boards that sponsor sports and arts using tobacco tax. Venues must be smoke-free and promote healthy living.).

Fuad, 37, started supporting Arema when the team was formed in 1987.  His Dad, a milk cooperative manager, saw no future in football so sent his son to get a masters degree in international marketing. 

Fuad studied in New Zealand where soccer is sidelined by rugby, but the nation leads the world in dairy production.

Back in his homeland he was in time to catch the milk wave which saw huge investments in dairy cows to satisfy an increasingly thirsty local market.

He now manages a modern milk treatment plant in Pasuruan, East Java, producing yoghurt and other dairy products rarely seen before in the Indonesian market.

That’s his afternoon job.  Other times the soccer tragic is in Arema’s Malang headquarters creating what he calls “industrial football” with wads of plans.  These include a new 60,000 seat stadium with shopping mall; the fan base has expanded and the existing two venues are too small.

 

“I don’t regret not becoming a soccer player,” he said. ”Now I can mix with all the greats and see them play.

“Back in the 1980s it wasn’t wise to walk the streets on the evening of a match, particularly if the home side lost.

“Supporters were just mobs – we had more than 30 gangs and there were fights every weekend.  

“We had to turn that around because sponsors don’t want to be associated with violence. We worked with the police, the army, civic leaders, district heads and the gangs. It took about ten years. 

“Arema supporters are now among the best behaved in the nation. I want our soccer to be a family sport, where women and children feel relaxed. (The term ‘Aremania’ now means a dedicated fan rather than a one-eyed thug. Malang is full of Arema kitsch – mainly featuring snarling lions.)

“We’ve got to get all clubs working together to support the national team and leave our local identities behind. Next year we’ll play in France and Britain. We want supporters to change their thinking and open their minds.”

Which is going to be difficult in a game as tribal as soccer, though Fuad said he was optimistic.  The Under 19s, that electrified Indonesia last month (Oct) by beating defending champions South Korea 3-2, included an Arema player, midfielder Dio Permana.

The win means Indonesia will enter the 47-member Asian Football Confederation 2014 season playing in Myanmar.

Arema belongs to the Pelita Jaya Cronus (PJC) consortium of clubs in Uruguay, Belgium and Australia. They are all held by the Bakrie Group linked to Golkar presidential hopeful Aburizal Bakrie.

Young blood is recruited from around the nation.  This year 1,200 applied, though only 400 were selected.  They are schooled in Malang when not practising.  The best get the chance to stay and play overseas at one of the PJC clubs.

“Soccer is a marvellous way to break down cultural and language barriers,” Fuad said.

“For my first week in NZ I wanted to go home.  Then I played soccer and the doors opened for me. I found friends. It was so much easier to adapt.”

Having controlled much of the violence the next soccer sickness to be tackled is racism.  Fuad said it remained a problem and was particularly directed at West Irian players.

The approach is to adopt FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) rules and penalize clubs that tolerate abuse. 

For years Indonesian soccer was trashed by people more concerned with cash and status than raising national pride.  Corruption was widespread. The so-called beautiful game was ugly behind the goal posts. Under the Soeharto New Order administration redundant generals were parachuted into government-funded clubs as administrators.

The sport is now kicked around by big business and politics, keen to impress the fans and get their votes. Two leagues were established – the Indonesian Super (ISL) and Indonesian Premier (IPL).

Indonesia is a nation where residents can enjoy a game right outside the own gate. Turf-denied kids practise on the street using sandals as goal posts while their mates warn of approaching traffic.

Fuad agreed the lack of facilities is kicking the sport in the shins.  Despite Indonesia’s huge population of 240 million and vast talent pool, the nation ranks 170 in the 209 countries that play.

Yet he remains upbeat: “Next year the ISL will merge with its rival the IPL, and that’s got to be good,” he said.

“I don’t believe matches are fixed. The sport is clean now. Our players are getting paid.  We’re getting there.”

(First published in The Jakarta Post 11 November 2013)

##

 

 

 

 

CHARITY DOESN'T COME CHEAPLY

Charity – or feeding thugs?

The first time I gave money to a beggar was also the last.

She was a pitiful sight, maybe three years old and hunched into the corner of the ugly overpass that links Jl Gubernur Suryo with the forecourt of Surabaya’s Tunjungan Plaza shopping mall.

She huddled on a piece of dirty cloth and just looked, a classic image of despair.  The tin in her lap was empty, and it was empty again a few moments after I’d dropped in coins.

An athletic young man sitting on the mall steps with his mates had seen the offering.  He sprinted up the stairs, took the money, and then dashed back to his vantage point, proving the warning given by locals:  Beggars are farmed by the unscrupulous – it’s a racket.

If so then the solution to the problem facing Jakarta Governor Jokowi and all other big city leaders is easy – turn off the supply. Then, under the ruthless law of the market, demand stops.

This tactic is being tried in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, a pioneer nation is supplying welfare from the cradle to the grave under the principle that none should need.  The fortunate rich get taxed and the unfortunate poor get benefits.

But even in Lambton Quay, the city’s main street of prestige shops and hotels, pedestrians steer past beggars hunkered under old coats, squatting on the sidewalk.

Proving that creative minds can exist in a bureaucracy, the arrest-and-rehabilitate approach being tried in Indonesia (never a success in countries with an abundance of  human rights lawyers),  was abandoned in favor of an Alternative Giving Fund. 

Posters urged well-wishers to stop helping individual beggars, but instead give to a fund that registered charities can access and distribute to applicants.

Donation boxes were installed near popular hobo hangouts, and a smartphone app distributed for those unable to move fingers off keyboards and into wallets.

Great idea?  The campaign cost almost NZ $40,000 (Rp 376 million) to set up.  In its first six weeks only $1,000 (Rp 9.4 million) had been raised. The beggars remained, though fewer.

An enterprising journalist wondering whether scrounging was a paying prospect disguised himself as a down-and-out and sat behind a scrawled message of misery- NO MONEY - NO HOPE. 

This took some courage as Australasian culture has devised a special slander for the English term ‘loafer’: Bludger, with a plosive B. The Indonesian word pemalas doesn’t carry the same connotations of contempt.

Nonetheless, within four hours he’d netted NZ $126.20 (Rp 1.2 million), plus enough food and drink for the day.

The basic weekly unemployment benefit for a single adult with no dependents is NZ $206 (RP 1.9 million). That’s almost Rp 8 million a month which many Indonesians would consider a handsome wage – but in costly NZ it’s the bare minimum for survival – hence the begging.

That’s the reasoning used by mendicants. The hard-hearted claim there’s work for the willing if only they’d stop smoking and boozing, have a shower and think positive.

The panhandling reporter also got advice from religious folk - who Kiwis call ‘the God Squad’, recommending their brand of faith. But reading the Holy Books for ideas isn’t helpful

The Koran urges believers to give charity so they will be rewarded, which suggests that the needy will be forever present. It’s even more depressingly explicit in the Bible, which quotes Jesus saying: ‘For ye have the poor always with you’.

Many governments, including Indonesia’s, are more optimistic. They’ve signed up to the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of eliminating extreme poverty and hunger by 2015, so clearly believe in the power of administrative action. We pray.

Since my Surabaya experience I’ve learned that though there are vile adults who exploit kids, there are also abandoned children who survive only through charity.  Separating the two is the tricky part, requiring vast resources and deep wisdom.

Maybe it’s easier just to clear the conscience by tossing a few coins in the kids’ tins, even when knowing they’ll be stolen by the thugs.  At least some of it will be used for food – the beggars have to be kept alive to keep the evil business going.  Duncan Graham

First published in The Sunday Post, 3 November 2013)

##