Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts


Youtube link is taken from Indonesia Matters

Ilham Anas, Indonesian Obama's look-alike, is delivering his "speech" in this very short video.

Don't embarrass Indonesia in the next Presidential election! "Jangan Bikin Malu 2009!"

PS: You need to understand Bahasa a little bit to get the fun from this video.
So, the first part of the Indonesian legislative election is almost over. The air and atmosphere of negativity, personal and institutional attacks, money politics and all that have been decreasing a little bit lately. At least no campaigns and street convoys which add up to the complication of the existing messy traffic and which contributed to the already polluted land. Less real open attacks on how bad the present government has been performing, or any other parties whose leader had failed performing. Less manipulation on lower class people that it was not fair for them that they couldn't sell papers by the traffic lights or fake watches at the sidewalks. Less lies on the ups and downs of the petrol price that is blamed to be the sole reason of the people suffering.

Those accusations I just made are probably only one-sided since I only attended one campaign. Maybe the other parties are not like that. Maybe they're more fair and make more sense. But really with the constant news on how Party A attacks Party B, Party B attacks Party C and so on and so forth, it is not likely.

The campaign I was talking about was of Gerindra. Proposing Prabowo Subianto as the next president, the party tries to convince the people that the ex-military general is on the common people's side. It promotes a better life for farmers and street vendors and ojek drivers and the migrant workers. Nice idea. A big question mark that popped up, however, was HOW?

The next was even uglier. Let's say it is logical that you might win people's heart by pretending that you're on their side. That you don't want them to suffer more than they do now. But yeah, you'll need someone to blame. And whoelse to blame but Yudhoyono's administration? A metaphore given for President Yudhoyono's governing performance was ofIndonesia as a Mercedes Benz car and Yudhoyono as its driver. A quality car that kept being broken, they said, was all the fault of the stupid driver. And with a little provocation, they made the people sing in rhythm, "GOBLOK, GOBLOK, GOBLOK!"

Permadi, a paranormal and an ex house member for PDIP (Indonesian Democracy Struggle Party) who resigned from the first president's daughter's party and joined Gerindra funnily tried to remind the people of how good it was when Soekarno was still on the presidency and that Prabowo could take us back in that kind of condition. I couldn't make the best sense of it. How? If Megawati, Soekarno's daughter, failed in ruling this country because she is not, has never been, and will never be a figure her father once was, how would Prabowo make a better President?

No allegations against Prabowo made in the past were proven yet. Not sure if they will ever be rightly investigated. But I just hope there are more clever people in this country for not voting for a president who holds an uncertain past like activist abductions and their "forced dissapearance" and human rights violation in Timor Leste.
I've been practising to write articles in Bahasa Indonesia lately. I thought it would be a huge challenge since I am so used to writing in English. And I did struggle in my first few sentences. But after that, words flowed naturally and I even thought that it was easier to write in Bahasa!

So here is one of the two articles I wrote so far. It was first published in Kabar Indonesia, an Indonesian news agency that commits to the news for people and from people.

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Caleg Bule, Mengapa Tidak?
Oleh : Carla Bley Ardian

20-Mar-2009, 16:52:25 WIB - [www.kabarindonesia.com]

KabarIndonesia - Denpasar, Ada yang menarik dari pemilihan legislatif di Bali, terutama dari kubu Partai Demokrasi Pembaruan (PDP). Partai yang merupakan pecahan dari Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (PDI-P) ini membuat heboh media massa baik lokal, nasional, maupun internasional dengan mengusung Calon Legislatif (Caleg) keturunan Jerman, Petra Odebrecht.

Petra (41) yang sudah menjadi warga negara Indonesia sejak tahun 1991 ini menyatakan dalam wawancara lewat telepon Februari lalu bahwa ketertarikannya dalam dunia politik Indonesia dikarenakan ia ingin membuat perubahan-perubahan dengan arah yang lebih baik di Indonesia, terutama di Bali.

Wanita berkulit putih ini mempunyai misi utama untuk menaikkan status para wanita dan meningkatkan kesadaran rakyat Indonesia dalam berpolitik. Sebagai contoh, ia menceritakan salah satu kunjungannya di sebuah kampung dimana ada pabrik yang pekerja-pekerjanya kebanyakan perempuan.

Di sana Petra bukannya ditanyai mengenai inti perjuangan PDP dan bagaimana PDP bisa mengakomodasi kepentingan rakyat setempat, tapi para ibu-ibu itu malah bertanya berapa uang yang akan mereka dapat kalau mereka memilihnya. Pertanyaan ini membuatnya terkejut dan ia jadi semakin ingin mengubah cara pandang wanita-wanita Indonesia.

Selain itu pariwisata juga menjadi isyu yang menarik bagi Petra. “Selama belasan tahun saya tinggal di Bali, kebanyakan saya bekerja dalam bidang pariwisata. Oleh karena itu saya ingin juga meningkatkan promosi turisme Bali,” katanya dengan Bahasa Indonesia yang cukup fasih, walaupun dengan aksen yang masih kental.

Ia juga sangat peduli dengan keadaan lingkungan bahari Bali yang mulai tercemar. Wanita dengan nomor urut 6 di PDP ini mengamati bahwa keadaan laut di Bali sering kotor dan terpolusi sehingga menyebabkan banyak ikan mati. “Seharusnya ini dapat diatasi oleh bupati disini asalkan penerapannya tegas,” katanya dengan antusias.

Ketika ditanya berapa besar peluangnya untuk menang di pemilu mendatang, ia tertawa dan berkata, “Saya hanya maju untuk DPRD Bali saja kok. Dan kalaupun saya tidak terpilih, saya tetap akan mendukung kolega-kolega di PDP dalam misi bersama kami.” Yang penting adalah kenyataan bahwa saya adalah bule pertama yang ikut pemilu di Indonesia, itu sudah cukup untuk menunjukkan bahwa tidak ada feodalisme di negeri ini, tegasnya. (*)
watching: National Treasure
tags: politics

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The government of Indonesia is finally to issue the Cyber Law after two years going back and forth discussing the matter. This law apparently has hauled some rather strong reactions from some of the Indonesian bloggers, especially those who attended the meeting held by the British Council on Friday, 4 April 2008.

Blogger Enda Nasution warned the Indonesian bloggers to be more careful in their choice of content uploaded on their journal as it might be considered sensitive by certain groups. Even a simple linking to a website with a defamation content can get a blogger in trouble, he told the Jakarta Post.

But how do we define a libel? How do we know when a statement is offensive or abusive when it seems like people have different standpoints of the degrees of how a matter should be expressed? But that is just the key point, isn't it? Different standpoints. Different opinions. Isn't that what makes this world such an interesting place to live?

After two years of deliberation, the House of Representatives passed the Electronic Information and Transaction Law last month, which prohibits citizens from distributing slander in any electronic format. Perpetrators can get a maximum of six years in prison or a fine of Rp 1 billion (US$107,526). The law also prohibits any kind of pornography, gambling, blackmail, lies, threats and racist comments.

More questions:

How do you differentiate pornography and art? That is an ongoing forever debate all over the world, and still... it is in the grey area where you keep being confused about it. For me personally, it needs not be defined in any way extreme for it is so abstract and it always comes back to the viewer's background (culture, religion, economy condition, etc.) and perception over things.

Racist comments.

This is hard. I mean maybe almost everyone reading this may have agreed with me that racism shouldn't ever exist. But almost everyone reading this may have made at least one racist comment or joke on something that is stereotypical. Most of the time, they would have been ever much funnier when you were making fun of your own race. So how to define a comment is racial and abusive?

I've gone through some occasions in my life where I felt so abused by statements that were delivered politely and decorated beautifully with very nice words. But I knew the real meaning underlying all of them were not to praise me at all. In fact, it was meant to put me down. So is this kind of statement not abusive merely because it is stated in the polite manner? I know enough cases where someone uses racist or sensitive words in a statement, it does not necessarily mean literally the same way it sounds. And the real point is usually taken rightly.

So again, grey area.

Some bloggers, including Raditya Dika, deleted some posts on their blogs so that they would not get the bad impact of the bill. Really, as a person who often makes honest and sharp (yes I have to admit it) comments over basically various aspects in life like me, I couldn't agree with the bill passed. I may even get a problem by having this uploaded. But where is the freedom of speech that we claim to have after Soeharto stepped down from his throne? I thought we were proud of being one of the nations in South East Asia that could voice ourselves the most. First the youtube was blocked due to the wide circulation of Fitna the movie in the site. Now this.

I am very concerned that Indonesia is going backwards in terms of this freedom of speech. I mean what can you really expect from the Indonesian lawmakers who slept during the President's speech on important subjects of the people's lives? Of course these bupatis who irresponsibly did this are not those who issued the law we are talking about. But they are an example.

And clearly Ibu Siti Fadilah Supari, Indonesian Minister of Health, has expressed and used her right in the freedom of speech to the highest by accusing WHO stealing the Bird Flu sample and not benefiting the sample giver country (us). I am surprised that she did not get any warning concerning her book titled "Time For The World To Change, The Hand Of God In Bird Flu", which more or less putting the United States of America and WHO in the corner of a rather baseless (maybe it's right, but not much fact revealed) accusation in this bird flu sample case.

But oh, I forgot. Of course she didn't get banned. It was A BOOK. Not a BLOG. And what again? She's a minister. An Indonesian high profile person.

So despite the Communication and Information Minister, Muhammad Nuh's diplomatic comment on Indonesian bloggers are not enemy, but family, he still licensed the law to be passed.

The inconsistency that exists among the ministers is the one that probably triggered the hacking of some minister's and parties website.

Hackers on Thursday posted a message on the information ministry's Web site (http://www.depkominfo.go.id) saying: "Prove that the law has not been made to cover government stupidity."

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All in all, as a big time blogger, I feel rather threatened, too. And if by a mere linking to a website that contains a defamation is considered wrong, while our real purpose is to inform people of the existing happening in the society, how can we possibly be knowledgeable and aware of what is going on in our own country? How can we contribute our voice in this kind of medium? How else can we be a good but critical citizen of the Republic of Indonesia?

I really hope President Yudhoyono is not signing that proposed bill.