Western aid agencies and their gender equity agenda in Indonesia.
Western Agenda
Said to be a commentator on public affairs, Ansari Yamamah, M.A., Lecturer in Shariah Law at Medan IAIN, said on 12th December that western NGO’s and aid agencies were trying to impose their own ideas of gender equality on Indonesians, as well as western conceptions of terrorism, human rights, and democracy.
Western people often assumed that their way of doing things was the best, and Indonesia, with a society wracked by poverty and injustice, was seen as fertile ground for spreading their ideologies.
Western countries give lots of money to non-government organisations that support their agenda.
Of all the money that foreign NGO’s spent in Indonesia little of it went towards improving the financial and economic situation of the country and the people, he said, but rather it went on politically motivated projects such as gender equity programs. republika
It’s True
Meanwhile, later on 27th December, a survey released by the Australian newspaper lent some support to Ansari Yamamah, claiming that much of the $400 million that Australians had donated to 2004 Aceh tsunami relief had been used by aid agencies to promote politically correct projects that advanced left-wing Western culture over traditional Asian values.
Some of the charities that were ridiculed in the report, and their activities in Aceh:
The “travelling gender justice show” features scenes of an old fashioned father:
Apa Kaoy, who cannot cook, complains when his wife, exhausted from working in the rice field, has not prepared supper.
Illiterate bigot:
…he disapproves of his daughter’s ambition to study at university. Instead, holding a newspaper upside down because he cannot read, Apa Kaoy tells his daughter it is important that she learn to cook, clean, marry and have children.
Enlightenment:
his attitude towards women softens as other more enlightened men point out the error of his ways.
Echoing Ansari Yamamah in Medan Don D’Cruz said of the Australian report that much of western aid money did not go on actual relief work. theaustralian
Indonesian version of this article – Kesetaraan Jender.
Hey raden,
Singaporean must rethinking about their relationship with Indonesia. Even they send aids to Indonesia, they still must end money laundering from Indonesian. In fact, Singaporean are Chinese majority. And, I believe for many years Singaporean has been suffering Indonesian by supporting corruption in Indonesia.
Ask them, how much money they give to Indonesian to stop LNG from Aceh to Fertilizer Plant in Aceh? And, ask them too where do they get LNG for Singapore Fertilizer plant? Ask them too, how much they pay Indonesian poor people to sell sand to expand Singapore territory? Ask them how much money that Singaporean get from Indonesian oil trading?
If Singaporean won’t stop their dirty practices, I believe, someday and somehow, Indonesians will declare war to them!
Aluang Anak Bayang
I am not Jon Spencer you knew.
But what about gender equity? Maybe Japan and China and Christian countries have better or fast growing economy partly because they let smart women get good education. Educated women have fewer children, so it is easier to reduce poverty. What do you think about Indonesia? Are smart women prevented from getting an education because of Islam? If there was more gender equity would this lead to less poverty?
“every individuals living in Sgp ho.. ho.. ho include China maling BLBI and cukong Narkoba who made money from misery million poor people of Indonesia”Β¦
include China Bandar Penadah Minyak Selundupan who without shameless buying Indon subsidized oil to the poor.”
Guys, that is Indonesia, that is Indonesian way of thinking.
I still wait for the next riot. π
And … I think we talk here about gender equality..?
As a yellow-brown man I usually like to tel this joke:
God (which God whoever) worked hard to create human, he made adough and modeled figures. Then he put the figures in the oven.
After 30 Minutes he
Friend Jon Spencer,
Our Javanese Islam allows women to get educated. No one is complaining. We treat our womenfolk better than the Chinese and Japanese. We all love Bu Megawati whether we agree with her or not, unlike smelly Paki who kills their Bhutto. Our smart women here prefer to stay home, do house chores or shopping.
Sorry here the continue of my story:
..he took the first figure out of the oven. It was still to white, and it was the white man. the next was to yellow, because he put too much kurkuma in the dough.
After 1 Hour it was the right time, the surface was nice brown, it was the brown man (Javanese, Malayu, as you like it), it was perfect.
After 1,5 Hrs it was a little bit too dark, it was Indian man. Then after 2 Hrs. it was very dark (burnt), it was the African.
So the brown man was the perfect one.
Really…?
A pitty God has forgotten to put bone important organ in it ….. π π
Dear Tomac,
Friend anyhow my post is still in line with philosophy of “Pencak Silat and Pancasila” we brown man never attack anyone unless the other attack us in first place.
Achmad said
Raden,
To your Singaporean friend:
Bullsh*t.
What there is none of in Singapore is free access to information.
Who controls Temasek ? Who’s she related to ?
Who’s the Prime Minister ? Who’s he related to ?
I talked about sincere money donation from individual red-cross to Aceh victim of tsunami (not Sgp ministry of health gov’t), and you talked about Temasek related to top gov’t officers business acquisition in Indosat / Telkomsel : those are different subjects.
It maybe there is little compassion inside the heart of the hard core muslim militants of Indonesian, a typical personality of mujahideen / laskar jihad / etc.
We should prepare to see our neighbour countries relax watching thousand of Indon victims because of mud-flow, floods, earthquakes, transportation accidents, etc … and our gov’t unadequately deal with those victims. Afterall muslim CAN NOT ACCEPT money from non muslim donor countries right ? it is HARAM
AS
Bullsh*t. What there is none of in Singapore is free access to information.
Your friend said your grammatical vocab reign superior but this me no get you.
Who controls Temasek ? Who’s she related to?
Temasek belongs to the Government. Who sits there is immaterial. What a corporate need is to have someone capable academically and professionally. Simple as that, don’t you think so? Or do you think you fit? Show some color please.
Who’s the Prime Minister ? Who’s he related to ?
It doesn’t matter who the Prime Minister and what relations she had. It is like the Supersemar but with a difference.. Achievements.
What 100 or so Anglophile/Phobic Chinese families are at the higher circles of power and why ?
That 100 or so with your so called Anglophile/Phobic Chinese each have a brain 10 times your size, not in words but professional achievements, seen by people throughout the world. Impress by all her people. Each year the Singapore Government would hand out surplus cash to every of her citizens not on a prorated basis but as is basis. Show me a country that had such kind of achievements except the US who only return what the so called tax rebates on tax that was overpaid.
What happens to the compulsory pension scheme cash ?
The Central Provident Fund is what you are referring and it has been in service for granfather years. That show how primitive you have been. Once you attain the age of 60 you will get a monthly allowance from your own account and on provision how much you have contributed prior your retirement.
I want to see someone follow the money trail from the forced pension savings to Temasek.
Who are you to say you want to trail money from forced pension savings to Temasek. This is what I would say Bullsh*t kind of rubbish.
Let me domonstrate the kindergarden mentality you have in this economic and political world outside Indonesia.
Because of the high cost of medical facilities and amenitites and all medical facilities went private, the Singapore Government, had impose a clause into the CPF to ensure that each Singaporean are taken care of their medical benefits and a lower medical bills picked up by the insurance company.
Finally, why have no shareholders raised a peep about Temasek’s poor performance and why no disclosure about the Lee family’s full financial holdings.
Temasek is a public listed company and it is to no surprise that there are PNL, so being a shareholder with reports from world renowned Accounting firm do you think they would manipulate the account like Indonesians? And as to the Lee family’s full financial holdings what has that got to do with you. The CPIB used to keep close watch on politician’s monetary activities. Moreover all cabinets ministers and members of the parliament were told to make all the financial report and until so far there were nothing unofficial on their income, I see no reason why they have to let you know. If they were to then it would have been to their fellow citizen, don’t you think so?
Reason: Singapore’s a dictatorship of the Lee clan and its cronie
Citizens of Singapore will only rely on those who are capable in leading the country. Achievements is the top priorities. Same as a CEO of a company. If they are doing a good job, why do we need a change. Whereas in Indonesia that is different. Politicians wants to become President just for their share and not for the people.
tat lee bank was owned by the brother of harry lee, which was bailed out by keppel finance in 1997, which was then gobbled by DBS, which belonged to temasek.
There is cronism in every nook and cranny in this world.
when asia was hit by financial crisis in 1997, world bank insist that businesses go bust by increasing interest rates. many of indonesian banks and companies are now foreign owned because of this.
when US and UK suffered similar fate, their central banks did the exact opposite and pumped money into their banking system.
We must ask ourselves, is the indonesian economy more open or close to competition.
Singapore was not founded, not developed by Harry Lee. It was built by the british, developed at a major trading route, squeezed by islands. Ships sailing through this route had to slow down due to traffic and narrow channels.
when singapore merged into malaysia in 1963, It had the second highest percapita income in asia, next to japan, and its govenrment reserve was USD400million (Big money in those times). It already have one of the biggest ports in the world, huge refineries by shell and Exxon(still in operations), a first class university (aptly named University of Malaya), a first class airline (malaysia-singapore airways), an internatonal airport (seletar, which international flights to malaya to london and australia was connected and landed due to extreme distance.) and a full fledged stock exchange and financial centre. PAP and the men in whites do not require much help to maintain this position.
My personal opinion is that temasek is buying things high. this includes Optus, bank of east asia, BARCLAY’S, down 30% since purchaed several months ago, 49% of virgin atlantic(USD600 million then and worthless now as no buyers) and many more. It seems to me that these purchases were made by educated mandarins who had no business acumen.
the biggest mistake in indonesia and malaysia, was that they decided to destroy their colonial legacy, while singapore maintained them. this includes education, language and administration. But off course, we are lucky that education for both genders were maintained
Temasek caused economic distortion (monopoly) in the GSM market of Indonesia ? when market distortion is happening normally the price is at the highest compare to most other country’s prices in the same industry. Indonesia’s GSM charges infact is one of the cheapest rate in the world except India still cheaper than us due to economic of scale & more modern / advance GSM infra. Is that accusation of Temasek in Indonesia only a cheap kindergarten class of conspiration theory backed by the muslim militant’s hatred & envy to the richer small neighbour like Sgp? what a shame … ‘mau duitnya tapi kagak mampu mengelola secara profesional, dasar malas’ TEMASEK MONEY = HARAM ! bisa muntah & mual perut mu !
Thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ, my mind is not full of envy & hatred, the Lord Jesus Christ bless me with normal brain, I think & act normally. I do not hv prejudice to any races except to the muslim militants ideology
ade wanto says
Coz there are many people from donor country can live from the aid for Indonesian. Do you think all donation are money, don?’t you? Many donor countries donate their own domestic products that their Govt buy and ship it to Indonesia. Firstly, all profit of donor donation go to their domestic industry.
No, I don’t.
Money or not, the question and the consequences remains the same.
By what you are saying Thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ, my mind is not full of envy & hatred, the Lord Jesus Christ bless me with normal brain So how TEMASEK MONEY = HARAM
The market is not distorted, but I think the mind is. Singapore’s GSM does not go into the Indonesian market. You cannot have everything you think you want by putting business in comparison and personal thought to consider them to be some sort of sabotage because others become less effificent. Each corporate have the rights to call their price when they deemed fit. Please do not forget that Singapore leased the Palapa satelite from Indonesia and they are paying billion USD for air time. So how do you account in your mathematic to price something that eats into the consumer. Do you understand what is there in suppressing inflation? To make things cheap and affordable, ain’t that right? Unlike Indonesia who owns several satelites and yet the phone bills are sky high. To you all is that good management ? If they have opted for the same policy as Singapore they most probably do not have to sell out like the buying of Optus to expand their network.
And do you know what are the required element to control inflations?
I think you need to stop repeating thing over and over again as we have touch up on Singapore as you said of her unwillingness to share the 400 million with Malaysia was a bias and unsupported theory when Malaysia decided to part ways with Singapore and the latter started to develop a phobia of starting Singapore from the very start that was entitled A Reluctant Singapore by Eunice.
Harry Lee is the younger brother of LKY, yes, and he was one of the MD of a stockbrocking firm of which some of the Directors I was acquainted with. What is wrong with that, can’t they buy over banks and owned them? Like any other countries during the economic shakedown in 96, Singapore did not suffered much on the overall but there are still companies like you said suffered the storm. Then what, don’t you think as a government they should rescue the bank or rather to let them die? The US Treasury do not interfere with banks but most banks are guaranteed by FDIC. It is only in interpretation of how you look at it on macro scale. BI came to the rescue to more banks than Singapore setting a rampage on the BLBI. Which is worst?
DBS is government ownd. Temasek is also government owned. Haven’t you heard of swap?
As to Barclay’s and Virgin Atlantic down or no buyer is the business norm of offering to buy someone’s share at a premium, therefore when business is not catching up too well you still have to face the music. No one is perfect, are you? Like in gold if it reaches the bottom and became worthless like in the 80’s it will still be gold. The two companies are still functioning business as usual. Did they acted like Aburizal’s Lapindo Brantas? Business are build and developed over a period of time. And with these you are saying that they are business these purchases were made by educated mandarins who had no business acumen How pathetic in your analogy. Or do you expect them to change color just because the business is not doing well like Indonesian’s whinning and sighing, lamenting and blaming on others? And you got the cheek to call yourself a businessman in the Asian region!
If you understand that the biggest mistake in indonesia and malaysia, was that they decided to destroy their colonial legacy, while singapore maintained them. this includes education, language and administration then I suppose you know what to do, or the Indonesian government knows what to do, right!
And you ought to mean that Indonesia is the only country who maintained both genders and not by other society?
Singapore vs Indonesia is an interesting story. Certainly the infrastructure in Singapore is streets ahead of Indonesia and what corruption and cronyism there is (or is not) has not had the same deliterious affect on the country as it has in Indonesia. The streets are clean. The roads are excellent. The airport is first class. The courts work. Everything works. Things run on time. In a nutshell you have schedules and efficiency.
Perhaps this is to do with Chinese business savvy and their practical focus on this world rather than the next one? Singapore is about 70% Chinese if memory serves me correct. And perhaps the legacy of English law and its strong tradition of judicial independence and the rule of law has assisted.
The main problem Singapore faces is a creativity problem. Singapore struggles with this and the government recognizes it as an issue. However, the government still wants to enforce a strict censorship regime as well. Eventually (maybe) they will figure out that these two things (creativity and censorship) don’t like each other.
If you want serious power, you have to give freedom of expression, creativity and the right to tell the bigshots and authority figures they are wrong their head. It is this latter point that many Asians struggle with culturally. All that hoohah about “face” and “harmony” gets in the way of the full and frank exchange of views (which involves change and upsetting the status quo) that is essential to progress.
I guess as to this there are people who see straight and some don’t.
That is the problem, envy being unable, jealous being incapable, lament being inefficient, whinning being corrupt, blaming being obssess with power.
I suppose people should be open minded rather than to jump into a same conclusion from a different angle.
If a rational person with logical thought, they would not have become discriminative by saying educated mandarins with business acumen, which i suppose he is trying to incinuate that there are better people. Of course I won’t dismiss there are many many human on this earth with fantastic thought that could make money by the snap. I mean real business not those of Aburizal Bakrie.
If you have read a recent undergraduate who started another search engine where Microsoft pumped in money and appraise this brand new company, set up 2 years ago in a university campus, to be worth 15 billion USD. These are proven facts where supply and demand call the shot. Technology reign supreme. whereas in stocks and share are the same old trick buy low sell high. Business the same. Whereas aburizal Bakrie simsalabim 1.2 became 5.4 in one year. You should consider this to be the typical corrupt business acumen.
Don’t you think so.
One more thing I forgot.
‘If you want the business, you have to pay a higher price to obtain it. How you manage it at a profit or loss is secondary’
And this is the tactic of educated mandarin business acumen in business. So are we speaking on the same frequency?
Dropping by, greeting you, but sorry, I don’t leave a comment yet to this interesting post. Wish you all the best. π
btw, talking about development industry is always interesting. I used to work for a donor institution in Jakarta, and after 3 years working there, I was sick of the abundant numbers of jargon in our daily lives: good governance, participation, gender equity, democracy, you name it. while I believe in those values, I was sick of the jargon “obral”.
a few years ago, I tried to search scholarly view on the Indonesian development industry, and the result was limited. some papers discuss the “noble obligation” of the CSOs, such as the late Mansour Faqih’s PhD Thesis. while on the opposite, and directly discussing the development industry and how multinational institutions (WB, ADB, CGI) shape the agenda of Indonesian governance reform, was Gordon Crawford’s paper and its counter opinion from, none other than the speaker of SBY, Andi Mallarangeng and Peter van Tuijl, that assert that, yes, donors have some degree of influence toward the agenda of the implementing institution, but there are also some degree of independence on the recipient side.
reflecting to the the case of gender education in Aceh, most likely the donors were successfully dictating their agenda without substantial counter balance from the recipient, who were Acehnese in desperate need of economic resources (local NGO activists, local villagers, local government), whatever of the program offered.
another issue that should be brought up is the lack of effective performance evaluation system and system to translate development strategy into action. corporate sector has valuable system, such as balanced score card, while development industry is reluctant to have a more robust system, citing reason that development is too big to be put into some system, i.e. balanced score card.
Caritas, a Catholic aid group – funded an Islamic learning centre to promote “the importance of the Koran”.
Really ???
Well, in the end I’m not surprised. Islam, Christianity, prophetic religions, they are all birds of a feather. Besides some theological disputes and navel-gazing their agendas are the same i.e. to control peoples minds and lives through imams, priests and the like, speaking in the name of an imagined Higher Authority that nobody can call to justice.
I don’t say this to deny the need for morality, but because I have rather faith in democratic systems that take into account the dialectic and evolutionary nature of society, which is based on tension or opposition between interacting forces. Natural selection works this way and guarantees that only systems that prove to be successful can survive.
But I agree that it is easier and less demanding to trust some self-proclaimed prophets and scholars instead of thinking for oneself and helping to push the wagon of civilization forwards. That’s why you will find verses in the Qur’an like
“It is not fitting for a believer, man or woman, when a matter has been decreed by Allaah and His Messenger to have any choice in the matter. If anyone disobeys Allaah and His Messenger he is clearly astray” (trans of surah Al-Ahzab 33:36)
Briefly, shut up and do as you are told !
dewaratuanom wrote :
Briefly, shut up and do as you are told !
me:
We are bunch of people with principle “samina wa athono”…we will fully heed and do what God told to us in Quran as much as we can without exception include dot and comma therefore if anyone who has problem with those commitment that will become down payment of your bliss in this life prior to enjoy your ultimate pleasure in the after life.
Poverty has a woman’s face. Global prosperity and peace will only be achieved once the entire world’s people are empowered to order their own lives and provide for themselves and their families. Societies where women are more equal stand a much greater chance of achieving the Millennium Goals by 2015. Every single Goal is directly related to women’s rights, and societies were women are not afforded equal rights as men can never achieve development in a sustainable manner.
I think its high time we all individually or collectively Stand Up and Take some action
Regarding this.
This will help all you people on this blog to do something along with the United Nations in your locality.
Check this
http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=47234928
This is what I said before. People are remain the same no matter what attire they use. You catch their consistent words, you know who they are. So please less worry about multiple IDs in IM.
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Cuk, you are right but your statement is unproportional, this websites can be visited by Singaporean Malay (muslim who pray 5 times a day like u who live in Tampines HDB flat who is my friend) who really donated sincerely to Aceh brothers.
Singaporean do not always means the Chinese race whom you hate very much