THINK FIRST, CLICK LATER

Blame – don’t shame                                      

It’s warming to see Australians helping jobless Balinese felled by Covid-19 with tuckerbags as hotels shut and tourists flee. One donor called it her ‘moral obligation’, a commendable motive.

But when smartphone cameras start recording the decency all bule (foreigners) should dart out of shot. US showman Michael Jackson was a weirdo but offered one wisdom: ‘Real charity is giving without taking credit’, echoing the Biblical Matthew who said something similar about left and right hands.

Here’s how alms can harm: A photo from the 1998 economic crisis (krismon in Indonesian), mortified the people next door.

It showed a seated President Soeharto signing loan papers while the International Monetary Fund’s Michel Camdessus stands above with folded arms.  

It was widely interpreted as humiliation of the Republic by a European power, the body language reminding of the colonial Dutch who strutted the archipelago for 350 years.

More than two decades later the picture still angers a people justifiably proud of their past.

In August 1945 Indonesians were left ragged and starved after three-plus years of brutal Japanese occupation. Unlike Singapore and Malaya they seized independence, and then fought Amsterdam rule for four years forcing the world to recognise their resolve and courage.

Around 100,000 Indonesian soldiers and civilians and 8,000 Dutch and their allies died during the revolution. Merdeka! (Freedom) shouted by fighters hurling bamboo spears in Surabaya’s kampong has the birth-of-nation force of Anzacs charging Gallipoli’s heights.

However genuine the gesture, pictures showing foreigners giving goodies are open to misinterpretation by nationalists, particularly the sensitive Javanese. They’ll see tall, rich, white folk offering crumbs of aid to small brown victims in a developing state.

That’s not today’s Indonesia. The World Bank ranks it as ‘an emerging lower middle-income country’. The fourth most populous nation is a member of the G20 and the tenth largest economy. 

Yet the poor are many:  Badan Pusat Statistik (Central Statistics Agency - BPS) reckons 25 million.  That’s the population of Australia. A similar number ‘remains vulnerable ... as their income hovers marginally above the national poverty line’.

The figures were published before Covid-19 tipped more than 1.2 million out of work and into the pool of seven million jobless. 

The BPS defines the ‘national poverty line’ as Rp 440,538 per person per month. 

That’s $1.53 a day. 

What could we buy for a buck and a half in Oz? Not even a bottle of ‘mineral’ water; fortunately we can drink safely from most taps.  Indonesians can’t.

Balinese queue for Ozzie handouts because their rich nation has been grossly mismanaged and plundered by despots. The 1965 coup felled the pro-Communist first president Soekarno. Then came the capitalist General Soeharto who rapidly turned kleptocrat, reportedly pocketing US $35 billion.

Beggars are rare in Singapore which found its independence at the same time. It’s now a gleaming economic success; the average annual salary is $67,000.  No Aussie food parcels needed.

The 2017 Oxfam analysis Towards a more equal Indonesia reports: ‘In the past two decades, the gap between the richest and the rest in Indonesia has grown faster than in any other country in Southeast Asia. 

‘It’s now the sixth country of greatest wealth inequality in the world. Today, the four richest men in Indonesia have more wealth than the combined total of the poorest 100 million people.’

Here’s Oxfam’s prescription for reform: ‘Enforcing a living wage for all workers, increasing spending on public services, and making big corporations and rich individuals pay their fair share of tax’.

It’s up to Indonesians to turn around the world’s third largest democracy.  They can demand and back candidates who are altruistic and clean. Surveys show politicians are currently considered among the most corrupt in the country.

Although our leaders past and present have mucked up much, they’ve overall done the right thing and we’re the beneficiaries. So let’s help out the hungry – we can afford to be generous.

But no bule in photos, thanks. Don’t rub our neighbours’ noses in shame which is not their making.  

  

 
First published in Pearls and Irritations, 19 May 2020: https://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-blame-dont-shame/

SHOWING AND SHARING

Advancing in retreat                         

Christians celebrated Easter in April though not in packed churches as Covid-19 continues to thrive.  An alternative is to seek isolation and contemplate alone.

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Marie Luise (right) doesn’t care who books into the Catholic retreat she runs outside Malang as long as they’re seekers of wisdom.

“We’ve had Muslims, Hindus and Protestants staying here,” she said. “They’ve come from the US, Singapore, Malaysia and South America. 

 “Jesus was a Jew – he didn’t follow a Christian denomination.  In heaven there are no religions.”

Maybe – who knows?  But anyone planning to use the lush and well equipped retreat on the lower slopes of Mount Kawi for  ‘social distancing’ must be prepared for heavy Catholic iconography, from posters to statues – including some made by Muslim sculptors.

Should non-Catholics fear seduction by portraits of Jesus the celebrity looking like a Hollywood heartthrob?  Will Biblical quotes on walls become lodged forever in the mind? Can touching grotto walls and accidentally brushing against a concrete crucifix lead to a sudden conversion?

Sister Marie laughs away the idea that religions infect the unwary like coronavirus: “People who come here can find their own God and believe what they want to believe. 

“I just ask:  ‘What hopes do you have for this life?’ If you find Islam – well, that’s OK.  I’ve been in mosques.  I need to understand Islam, and so should we all.

”I want to see an improvement in relationships between religions. I want to break down barriers.  We must treat all with respect. 

“Never forget our national motto is Bhinneka Tunggal Ika. (The Javanese words from the 14^th century poem Kakawin Sutasoma are usually translated as ‘Unity in Diversity’ or ‘Although in pieces, yet One').  I also draw inspiration from Vatican II.”

In 1962 the reformist Pope John XXIII (Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli 1881-1963) rocked the established church and its 1.2 billion members when he initiated the three-year Council, though he died before its completion.

Ecumenicals hoped his standout statement:  ‘We were all made in God's image, and thus, we are all Godly alike,’ would draw different denominations and faiths together.  That was before the 2001 World Trade Centre attacks and the war in Syria which  triggered a tsunami of Islamophobia.

Now the crisis facing Christians in the West and driving many from churches is the discovery of pedophiles in the clergy, Catholic and Protestant – an issue rarely discussed in Indonesia, though not by this nun:  “This is a great sin. I feel very angry. They should all be in jail and excommunicated.”

She remains positive and when pressed by this cynical journalist as to whether she’d report a church pedophile to the police, burst into songs about reconciliation and love, much like a Pentecostal Protestant.  It’s a technique more effective at diverting hard questions than the standard duck-and-weave response favored by politicians.

Sister Marie has a mixed heritage, Chinese, Sundanese, Minahasa (North Sulawesi) and Japanese.  “I have never felt discrimination,” she said.

She grew up in a Shinto family in Jakarta. Her father was a bank accountant and her mother a medical worker. Her grandmother was a Muslim. There were seven children in the family.

She converted to Catholicism in her teens disappointing her boyfriend:  “If I’d married I could only serve my husband and children.  Now I can serve everyone.”

The Rumah Retret dan Aula Pondok Bethlehem (Bethlehem Retreat, Hall and Accommodation) was opened earlier this century but despite its youth is already showing defects. 

Most are more annoying than serious, but need fixing.  Prayer may be fine for healing a wounded soul but it doesn’t repair a holey roof.  Scrambling across wet tiles is no task for six middle-aged nuns who live on site, so locals are recruited to hammer and nail.

If donors think they’ll get free passes to a joyful afterlife then there’re must be many families and business happy their names are on plaques of grottos and statuary.

The nuns run an organic commercial garden, orchards and other ventures to raise funds.  They offer accommodation at Rp 200,000 (US$ 14) per person, per night including meals.  The standard is the equivalent of a two-star hotel.

For those seeking solitude there’s an abundance of space plus nooks and crannies for meditation.  Some land has been set aside for reforestation.   

Apart from Vatican II the 62-year old nun and a former high school principal in Central Java takes her progressive cues from Clara Fey (1815-94).  The German founder of Sisters of the Poor Child Jesus promoted education for girls.  She was beatified in 2018.

Mother Clara came from the spa town Aachen where Sister Marie spent eight months studying the initiator’s philosophy.  The Indonesian has a teaching degree from Santa Dharma University in Yogyakarta.  In 2010 she took 45 students to New Zealand to learn more about Western schooling. She was appointed to run the retreat two years ago.

“I have no problems with a secular society,” she said.  “I accept the Pancasila foundation of our Constitution. (Pancasila, or five principles, are belief in one God, a just and civilized humanity, national unity, consultation and human rights.)

“Foremost though is that Jesus never rejected anyone – so we don’t.”

First published in The Jakarta Post 19 May 2020

 

OUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED

When in doubt, think up a number

Indonesia’s second president General Soeharto had a fix-all to calm restless citizens demanding improvements.  He’d pronounce a numbered plan.

Joko Widodo, the seventh leader of the nation, has ignored his millennial advisors’ recommendations for rapid and enforceable action to handle the Covid-19 outbreak.  Instead he’s reverted to a response that kept his last century predecessor in the palace for 32 years.

As the pandemic continued to boil the President announced a ‘five-point plan’.  The integer is important.  It suggests serious analysis has been undertaken, anomalies eliminated and work underway.

The list topper in the latest Widodo version of sprinting on the spot is to ‘evaluate’ the social restrictions applied in just four of the Republic’s 34 provinces.

In Vietnam Noel Coward wrote ‘only mad-dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun’.  He could have composed it in Indonesia.  This hot-season fasting month isn’t the ideal time for public-service exertion so the ‘evaluation’ will plod.

The plague does not – it gallops, jumping work practices, cultural norms and religious observances.  It’s a 24/7 tearaway.  The latest figures show 13,645 cases detected and 959 deaths, but these stats are shonky.

Last week Wiku Adisasmito, head of the Covid-19 expert task force told journos all data would be ‘collected, cleaned revised and integrated’ so accurate figures can be presented.  When?  ‘Soon’.

Widodo’s Point Two seeks a 10,000 a day target for testing.  It’s currently about 2,500.

This policy comes three months after the first Covid-19 cases were revealed in Jakarta. Malaysia’s goal of 16,500 a day is almost there. 

No surprises here as the medical science driving reactions to the pandemic has not been properly explained leaving mad myths to multiply.

The fanatics soon sussed out Satan’s spawn, Bill (Globalist) Gates’ 666 microdot plot to vaccinate the world against Islam. Who knows what’s on the swab sticks imported from godless nations? Best not test.

The President told reporters he’d heard of people fleeing hospitals and clinics fearing confirmation.   Patients under observation yet not quarantining and endangering others had also caught his attention.

Item Three is monitoring new arrivals, something other countries have been doing since February. The World Bank estimates nine million Indonesians work overseas in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Middle East.  

Thousands are now returning home as Covid-19 forces business close-downs abroad.  Not all enter through controlled sea and airports, but dodge across the Malacca Strait using illegal ferries.

Amidst the chaos came reports the government would allow 500 Chinese into the country to work on a nickel smelter in South Sulawesi when millions of locals have lost their jobs.  The arrival of the engineering specialists has been delayed following protests. This gross political clumsiness could let slip the dogs of sinophobia. 

Point Four is telling bureaucrats to speed up distribution of funds to the broke and jobless.  This has been difficult enough in Australia where most departments are efficient; almost all citizens have bank accounts and are online – which is not the case in Indonesia.  

The media has been awash with stories of starving families waiting for government aid.  However if the final part of the President’s plan is implemented the needy will have a hotline to call, assuming they’re not among the 30 per cent without a phone.  Whether anyone will answer – like Centrelink aka Services Australia – or do anything - is yet to be checked.

When grab-‘n-go numbered plans are launched it’s useful to ask:  Why five points – and not six, or ten or whatever?

The Asian Development Bank offers an addition.  It estimates 30 million urbanites don’t have access to soap and water, though this claim needs querying.  Even in the poorest areas people bathe and wash clothes, though often in polluted rivers.  

Some local authority progressives haven’t waited for the Jakarta thumb-twiddlers.  They’ve mobilised utes with tanks and drums, many with sinks, soap, and sanitisers.  These have been parked at intersections for all to use.

The ADB report adds: ‘For the millions who live in slums, the overcrowded, unsanitary conditions are kindling for a swift and sudden wildfire of disease. 

‘Investments in healthcare delivery and infrastructure at this critical time will also further the government’s goals to reduce maternal mortality and deliver clean water and sanitation to households by 2024.’

When my laptop was opened to keyboard this column, a fortnight-long lockdown had been ordered for the morrow. The lid was shut before sunrise.  So was the plan.  Come dawn it was on again.
Indecision here is aptly named plin-plan.

First published in Pearls and Irritations, 12 May 2020: https://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-when-in-doubt-think-up-a-number/

THE SICK NEIGHBOURS WE IGNORE

 

                                  The year of living disastrously

Most days the ABC website publishes graphs showing the trajectory of Covid-19 cases.  The charts feature nine countries including Taiwan, Japan and Australia. Though not Indonesia.

A recluse new to an atlas might guess the world’s most populous Islamic nation is as distant from Australia as Alaska, so of little consequence.  A fair assumption based on minimal news coverage Down Under.

Once the isolate’s ignorance of geography has been corrected one explanation remains:  Australians judge events next door unworthy of their attention.

Should the situation in Indonesia turn toxic as poverty and disorder get stirred into the virus response, then a rethink may be necessary. As that hasn’t happened yet no thinking is in order.

The Jakarta government is facing the almost impossible task of stopping people congregating during the holy month of Ramadan. Fast-breaking, praying, chanting, partying and gift-giving are traditional communal events where crowds pack tight.

There’s now supposed to be a lockdown, but only the well-off have fridges and space to stockpile food.  The wong cilik (ordinary people) continue to haggle daily in crowded markets, often run on roadsides.

President Joko Widodo, with the backing of the two main Islamic organisations Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama, has told citizens to eat, pray and stay at home.  But since the fall of dictator General Soeharto in 1998 central power has been diluted allowing provinces to set their own rules.

Unsurprisingly videos from hyper-religious Aceh (North Sumatra) show mosques packed with men kneeling shoulder-to-shoulder in defiance of government edicts and medical advice.

That’s largely because neither authority is trusted, the masses preferring ancient scriptures and WhatsApp gossip to modern science.  It sounds pre-Enlightenment but in the current context understandable as the government has made an appalling fist of telling what’s going on.

Widodo, a former small-town furniture trader with no military or elite family connections, has strong local-lad appeal.  Early supporters clad him in the garb of a social reformer but he’s put that gear in the rag-bag.

Instead he’s focused on infrastructure with astonishing success, building roads, rail lines and ports with Chinese loans and expertise.

Unlike the gorillas in the mist of Western politics who barge their way to the front he’s a low-profile Javanese.  This is the largest ethnic group in Indonesia reputedly restrained, respectful – and Janus-faced. 

After initially muttering assurances about the Republic’s immunity to the plague lest truth stir panic, Widodo has now pulled back the blinds, telling staff to be transparent; they’ve yet to obey. 

Widodo is no Angela Merkel so finds it tough to explain the Covid-19 tsunami and rally his nation of 270 million to resist.  He relies on advisors hired since he won a second five-year term last year.  Unfortunately his Onward Indonesia Cabinet is going backwards, its spokesfolk’s comments more flawed than factual.

Endy Bayuni, former editor of The Jakarta Post decried the confusion being tipped out by the Palace: ‘The government needs professional help … on conveying messages related to Covid-19 without triggering massive panic but without misleading the public to take it easy either. Crisis management of this scale is too big to be left to a bunch of amateurs.’

The professionals are in Reuters where stayput journos have been sifting the statistics and asking the questions that make authorities squirm. Revelations that the death toll from ‘acute coronavirus symptoms’ is at least 2,200 higher than the official figure of 800 have been backed by independent health experts.

The testing rate is abysmal with just 10,551 cases detected.  Some of the unwell are spooked by seeking a nostril swab. A positive result could mean a third-rate hospital stay and family hounded from their village.

The other problems are cultural and administrative.

As outlined in earlier columns, sickness and deaths are often explained as ‘the will of Allah’ with little interest in knowing causes.  Bodies are buried the day of departure or shortly after.  Data collection is haphazard and seldom centralised.

There’s a plus to this mismanagement:  Not all understand the raging pandemic could have been slowed with resolute and early government action, so few scapegoats – apart from the neverfail fallback - Chinese. 

Indonesian researchers Ika Karlina Idris and Nuurrianti Jalli writing in The Conversation have been checking tweets, finding many blame Chinese tourists and workers adding: ‘There was also a strong sentiment that the Chinese deserved the virus because of their repression of Muslims in Uyghur.’

There’s grumbling among politicians, academics and medical experts who know how other countries are handling the crisis, but no eruptions.  Yeats’ last century fears ‘that things fall apart; the centre cannot hold’, are ever-present, though currently dormant.  

The leading critic, restrained during the fasting month, is Anies Baswedan, a personable US-educated former university rector tipped as a starter in the 2024 Presidential race.  He’s governor of Jakarta, the job once held by Widodo.

Baswedan’s academic and family credentials are impressive.  Grandfather Abdurrahman Baswedan was an Arab-Indonesian revolutionary, journalist, politician, diplomat and national hero.

Government incompetency isn’t confined to communications.  Indonesia has a social support system supposedly helping the poor survive using the Rp 400 billion (AUD $41 milliard) Village Funds programme.  

Indonesian academics Victoria Fanggidae and Jonatan Lassa, also writing in The Conversation, claim the government is still ‘developing guidelines’ to transfer cash from the funds: ‘The country’s bureaucracy, as well as its poor financial management, have prevented Indonesia from helping people in need during this difficult time.’

If the problems get fixed each household should get AUD $63 a month for the next quarter.

According to the Badan Pusat Statistik  (Central Statistics Agency - BPS) almost 25 million citizens  live below the poverty line.  A similar number ‘remains vulnerable to falling into poverty, as their income hovers marginally above the national poverty line’.

The figures were published before Covid-19 struck tipping more than 1.2 million out of work and adding to the seven million already unemployed, according to the Manpower Ministry.

The BPS defines the ‘national poverty line’  as Rp 440,538 per person per month.  In Australian money that’s $1.53 a day.

 

 
First published in Pearls & Irritations, 5 May 2020:  
https://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-the-year-of-living-disastrously/