Wag the Dog à la Indonesia
Apr 25th, 2008, in Opinion, by Guest Writer
Rima says the government creates distractions and the media willingly participate, to hide the real problems of Indonesia.
Wag the Dog à la Indonesia
If you are an Indonesian like me, or a foreigner living in Indonesia, or someone who has been following Indonesian current events, you might agree with me when I say that Barry Levinson’s “Wag the Dog” rings a familiar bell. It is somewhat similar to what has been happening lately in Indonesia.
The government knows the people is much more aware of the situation around them nowadays, the people can see right through them, and the people can see their impotence. So what do they (the government) do to take control of the situation? They create decoys as a weapon of mass distraction. They throw bait at the Indonesian media who in turn almost always turn the bait into a giant media circus, distracting the people’s attention from the real, much more urgent problems at hand.
The Indonesian government’s incapability in the eradication of poverty and improvement of the current economy, monetary and socio-political problems have inflicted what seems to be irreparable damage to the country, the keyword here being “seems”. It is pre-conditioned that way, and while nothing is impossible or irreparable, this situation is continuously yet implicitly portrayed in the media. A clever tactic by the government to throw the people off course and a cruel move by the money-hungry media that has resulted in the general feeling of despair and hopelessness across the nation.
The following media hulla-balloos are among some of the government’s attempts to make sure the public is forever misinformed of the truth; a sure fire diversion:
- Bill against Pornography and Porno-action (an Indonesian made-up word best translated as pornography acts)
- RUU ITE Indonesia’s newest law, the infamous Cyber Law;, and the latest,
- The blocking of several websites following the release of the Dutch film “FITNA“.
Media circuses are certainly not against the law. It isn’t even all that evil. It is neither, only when it happens in a place with a higher number of educated people, or at least higher number of sanity. Sadly, Indonesia is not. The majority of the Indonesian people are uneducated people whose opinions are very easily formed by bombardments of information, much like what the media has been doing lately.
The fact shows the media’s prominent role in shaping the general consensus and I think it plays a big part in the rise of fall of the country’s future as well. It is time for the media industry to up their game and not take the government’s bait and fall into the lure of big sales and advertisement prospectives for the sake of profits only.
They must realize the chances of stimulating the people’s mind and making profit off hard journalism is also feasible. They need to start being serious; employ serious, credible and dignified journalists; focus on serious issues; stop exaggerating and over-blowing silly situations; and they need to put more effort into educating the nation with factual and hard truth. The Indonesian people deserve more than what they got, they need the media’s faith that they are able to digest real news.
While light and entertaining news should not be banned, I think the media should refrain from paying too much attention and merit to the actions of the morally and financially corrupt, those who are passing laws or building business that would only benefit a particular group of people while disadvantaging the majority of the Indonesian people.
Indonesia’s Problems du jour
At the present time, Indonesia has so many problems that, if not treated well, they will be a threat to the country. We have environmental problems, three of which that are quite urgent are:
- deforestation
- pollution
- floods
We have been hit with bad regular floods so often that it is starting to affect the economy, health and the well-being of the people. The fact of the matter is, the flood problem is something Indonesians cannot afford to put off any longer.
We have a shortage of food supply which has led to soaring food prices. This is also the culprit of many malnutrition cases across the country, some of which have even resulted in hunger related deaths. Something unthinkable and unheard of just a decade ago.
We are in a deep hole when it comes to labor and human rights issues. We have never had a transparent government and believing strongly in eastern taboos doesn’t help us get out of the top 10 most corrupt governments list either. Besides that, we also have an increasing growth in poverty and gap between the rich and poor, not to mention a mess of government bureaucracy, infrastructure and working system which it is imperative to improve.
One of our biggest problems yet, as you may already known from the reporting of the various local and international media, is that we have an alarming increase of intolerance among people of different groups and religions which could be the beginning of Indonesia’s journey into medieval times. It may as well be the start of the demise of the so-called world’s third biggest democracy. This is probably the deadliest poison, one that could kill this great nation of diverse people from all walks of life and different cultural, religious and racial backgrounds.
Problems in these areas are so serious and incessant that the government should and must re-evaluate its priorities and start doing something about it. They must stop doing nothing but create situations, laws and regulations that will further distract the general attention of the public from their impotence. They should have some kind of a dialogue with (competent) representatives of the people to brainstorm for solution ideas and to get the people’s aspirations on the table. They must stop hiding behind excuses and apologies of how hard it is to “clean up the mess” left by Suharto Inc. and his legacy of chaos. While it is true that time heals wounds and is important in the progress of change for the better, the decade that has passed by has not really showed significant improvement. On the contrary, many feel that we are now in a state of decline, further backwards than when we started 10 years ago.
Now, will the media wake up and start doing intelligent journalism? Will the government realize they are officials entrusted by the people to guide them to a better place? Will tolerance resurrect and save the people from doom?
As always, we shall wait and see.
92 Comments on “Wag the Dog à la Indonesia”
-
andrey says:
rima:
I certainly think poverty as a grave problem. but,
the government does not consist of just 5 persons. there are many ministries, each with their own field of work. the ministry of education will take care of the quality of school, ministry of industry take care of the small industries, the ministry of religion takes care of heretic sects, etc. it is not as if the ministry of industry will stop their work on creating new jobs while waiting for the religious ministry to finish his talk on ahmadiyya.same with the parliament, there are many comissions each with their own field of work.
so there is no need to leave one problem in order to solve the other.so why are they slow in showing results??… well I must admit incompetencies might be a reason, but I dont see, taking the economic problems as an example, how can those sharia law graduates of the religious ministry be of much help where the berkeley economists in finance ministry failed.. even if we ask them to stop their work on ahmadiyya for a while.
-
Keke says:
Ah….Cukurungan…Yes, as you said, you need something not nice to keep up your awareness, an it’s obviously an Abusive one. You can’t be nice and not nice at the same time,rite?. The ‘Master Healer’ is simply too nice tho… i think a combination would be nice enough…uhm..Not nice enough. ‘Master of Abusive words’
—-Oops, jang mara dang ne! i just don’t like to see (read) or hear a “momake”, (if) you know what i mean— ^^v *peace* -
Good article Mbak. b^^d *thumbs up*
-
Purba:
not all that glitters is gold. The West has nothing to offer us of any worth.
Yet most Indonesians (and morrocans, turks, tunisian, egyptian etc) all jump at the first chance to immigrate to a western country. Why they dream of living in western lands when the west has nothing good to offer baffles me.
But whatever man, you think the west has nothing to offer, many people think you’re nuts. it’s relative.At this point I believe you and I simply do not share any opinion in common (Thank God for that!) except for this thing you wrote:
We should reflect on our Asian values and the unequivocal supremacy of the State and the absolute subordinance of the individual.
yes we should do so instead of replacing those values with absurd ones imported from the arabs/middle east.
I think to continue this debate, you and i, is futile, so why don’t we leave it at that and just agree to disagree, ok?
andrey: it’s not leaving one and do the other, i’m talking about the government’s focusing on one petty little problem (if we can even call it a problem, most are not really problems anyway) and shifting the public’s attention from what really matters. and yeah, government incompetence is a big part of my critique towards the government as i have written in the article.
and finally, to all, thanks for commenting, i had fun. 🙂
-
therry:
Achmad the terrorist strikes back!
Reminds me of Jeff Dunham’s Achmed, lol.
OOT again,
Long weekend’s coming, anyone wants to have a meet-up!?
Let’s ajeb-ajeb! -
Achmad Sudarsono says:
Where do you Ajeb, Marisa ?
It can be a big, big mistake to meet people in real life who you met in cyberspace.
-
@ Achmad
Where do you Ajeb, Marisa ?
Doesn’t matter where I ajeb, but having a meet up matters. Just giving you and everyone here the idea, pak Achmad. 😀
Anyways, it’s quite possible there’ll be a gathering for bridge bloggers in future time, just a rough plan for now. Several important issues to be discussed, such as: concerning our position and relation with local bloggers from various niche, e.g.: technology bloggers, on issues concerning the social politics and the media, and perhaps sharing some feisty gossips concerning Indonesia Matters’ commenters (Patung, Lairedion, and Achmad Sudarsono’s real identities?). The mission is simply to acknowledge our stand in the Indonesian blogosphere and to establish a fun-loving network amongst bridge bloggers. Of course, everyone’s free to ajeb afterwards.
Support us?
-
Let’s met up a Purbalingga !
-
CAPEEEEEE DEEEEEEEEE
-
janma says:
It can be a big, big mistake to meet people in real life who you met in cyberspace.
Is that the voice of experience Achmad? Or did your mama tell you to be afraid?
-
Ibu Janma Yth,
Experience.
There’s a book about writing I have in which 100 or more scribes are interviewed and the author says there’s often a dual-personality. The sarcastic, scathing voice is mild-mannered and polite. The warm, charming voice is often anti-social and depressive. The interesting, funny person is…
You the idea.
But it’s a nice suggestion from Marisa. I just don’t want you girls to start fighting over me and who gets to keep my peci, autographed ukuele, unwashed sarung — etc.
x o .
-
Cukurungan says:
Rima wrote :
my dear cukurungan, while all you have written so far has very high entertainment value and is very very amusing for me and I’m sure many people too, it is pathetic and deeply saddening.
But it’s nice to see that at least FPI has employed native english speakers to teach them english. Now if only FPI could employ a moral teacher to teach them (and by them I mean you and your peers) good moral values.
words such as infidel: bad
freedom/liberty/human right/tolerance/equality/peace/love/understanding: goodMe :
I am wondering that our moral value is not the same with the westerner moral value, the westerner would say: cheating, free sex and threesome is good & healthy but polygamy is bad & sick while our people think otherwise.
The westerner built civilization upon domination, annihilation and the graveyard of the native America and Australia while we built civilization upon the brotherhoods, friendship and respect that every human has it own unique value.Rima wrote :
I was going to entertain you by assuming you are a highly iseng person who like to provoke people for the sake of provoking, but reading your last line of your comment, I don’t think you’re worth it. You obviously belong to the taliban regime and cannot wait to die a jihadist so you can collect your 72 virgins.Me :
My dear, you are cordially invited to say anything about me because I fully respect the freedom of speech and expression.
Fyi, I am not belonging to any regime but I always belong to the truth.
Yes I do hope that once day I could collect God reward of 72 virgins but I would take those reward by other way because I know that to take care the widows is not less important than Jihad itself.
At the moment our country have suffered big problems because of those forgotten obligations while too many Imam preach about the important of Jihad it is too few of them who preach how the important obligations to take care the widows.
I tell you that even Dewi Persik will not need to deliver Goyang Porno on the public area just to earn money if she could goyang sex in the contaiment space under Mas Cukurungan supervision. Of course it only happen when I can fully implement those forgotten obligations.Rima wrote :
ps: standard for poverty in indonesia? just look around you. you will see people who have barely enough to feed their families, who cannot afford medical care when their wife/children needs it, who cook with wood because they can no longer afford kerosene, who eat once a day or even go two three days without food, that’s it.Me :
What’s wrong cook with woods as along as they don’t cut trees to get woods there is no problems even my family cook the rice with woods in order to save environment from the bad emission caused by kerosine burning.
I don’t only see them because my self is part and mingle among them, the poverty in Indonesia is not extreme like in Africa or India and there is still more than enough foods for everyone in here by improving better distribution and storage system the poverty can be minimized , the poverty in our country can be seen either as the problem or the opportunity depend on our mind set. For myself I see it as my opportunity to strengthen brotherhood with my poor brother and there is no better happiness than our happiness to see our effort can be enjoyed not only by our self. I already spent several years to live with my brother who live in middle jungle of Sumatra and Papua and there is no poverty at all, they can go to school even far enough from their village and there is also Puskesmas available provided by government to take care medical problem for free and their economy is also not so bad because they can earn money from farming latex and palm oil and breeding cattle, chicken and pig but they need to work hard to earn money and they have no time to nongkrong in Bar or Café but they are still enjoy their life and when I met them in their village everyone are smiling and we were still enjoying to become part of super big family of Indonesia country.
Of course I do agree that our country still have many problems need to be solved but tell me which country that size as big as us and as diverse as us has no problems in their country even the most modern USA is also got many problems even their crimes problems still bigger than ours.
Rima wrote :
people who still has money to spend in warnet like you or buy nasi bungkus at the nearest warung tegal regularly are definitely not poor. But if you are Indonesian, stop denying the truth and cold hard facts, wake up and grow a heart (and sanity too while you’re at it)Me:
Mbak rima, it seemed that you are riding on the time machines with the time reverse mode, I tell you that most of us now has GPRS access to internet while off-roading on 1 billion rupiah Land Cruiser in the middle jungle of Sumatra I still able to post this sxxxit.
I am not denying anything but I want to enjoy every second of my life while realizing how hard is our government efforts to ensure that there is sustainable food available to feed more than 200 millions of its citizens.
To be honest, I don’t want to involve in the public service work in the government office therefore I fully respect to our countrymen who foolish enough to take those bloody job that demanding too many responsibility and giving too small salary.Rima wrote :
Yet most Indonesians (and morrocans, turks, tunisian, egyptian etc) all jump at the first chance to immigrate to a western country. Why they dream of living in western lands when the west has nothing good to offer baffles me.
But whatever man, you think the west has nothing to offer, many people think you’re nuts. it’s relative.Me :
There is no question that the western offer something especially to someone who seek better living while they couldn’t get it in their own country but for the most middle class family in Indonesia, there is only few people who want to immigrate to the western country because in here you are only need less than $100k/years to get life like King while in the western you are just nothing. -
fahri says:
ever wonder that everything will be upside down if it was muslims who went around the world colonizing people.. (and forcing monopoly on gunpoint, thereby collecting enough money for development backhome)..
we’ll have “britainmatters” website telling the british how barbaric their christian way of life is 🙂Westerners like to brag about their achievement.. but never forget that Isaac Newton’s study was subsidized by muslim & hindu farmers in India.
-
Neil of Newcastle says:
Fahri has touched on quite an important point. It was of course Muslims who went around colonizing the world and it is the legacy of Islamic imperialism which fuels so many of today’s ‘clashes of civilization’. The longest running such clash and the bloodiest is between Hindu and Muslim. The whole reason for the establishment of a secessionist Pakistan was that the Muslim ruling class could see no future as the overlords in a secular, but overwhemingly Hindu, India. Similarly the massacres of Muslims in the Balkans in the 90s, which to an extent kicked off the current round of outrages, were the result of centuries of oppression by Muslim conquerors of the local peoples. Log onto any Serb or Croat website to see chapter and verse of what Islamic imperialism created in the Balkans. The biggest obstacles to Turkey’s entry into the EU are folk memories of Islamic invasions and occupations in Austria and Greece. The train bombings in Spain were, in part, justified by the the murderers as revenge for the temerity of the Spaniards in kicking out their colonialist overlords in 1492 etc, etc. And so, Fahri, you grabbed the stick well and truly by the wrong end, but you’ve got a result. A conversation on historical rights and wrongs; and who did what to whom – well done.
-
Neil,
Friend, friend. As usual, the White Man has a simplistic and naive view of history. Any war carried out by Muslims should be sanctioned by the Koran to spread Islamic values. The White Man carried out his colonization for greed. The Muslim did it to spread the true religion. How can you compare ?
The answer is the Aussie is living on stolen lands because he knew the Aboirigin would one day become Muslim.
-
P.S. — Also, such wars are only carried out for the benefit of the people colonized.
-
every civilisation colonize in their time for some reasons. no dispute on that.
I just wanted to point out, objectively, that the only reason westerners are what they are now is because they won some battles in the past. it was not so much the result of their superior values as it was the result of their cunning deceit.
I do not think, for example, the Turks lost their battle in Vienna because of their poligamious marriage. That was simply military victories decided by luck and strategy on the field. So to use the current western political/economic supremacy as a reason to follow their way of life is just stupid.
-
Achmad….
Now there is an alternative view of the reasons behind the colonization of Australia and the theft of indigenous Australian lands from their rightful owners; a fear that one day indigenous Australians would turn to the one true religion, Islam!
Hopefully, my indigenous brothers and sisters would not have turned to the one true religion at the expense of their rich traditions and cultures (renouncing all the things that make them unique to this world). Yet, I have the distinct feeling your argument rests on the premise of substituting one colonization for that of another where the benefits of the alternative are suspect as well!
However, we do not have to go far to see the modern version of colonization (neo-colonization?) ala Indonesia. This process is called transmigration (or perhaps a more accurate term would be Javanization) where control of Indonesia’s vast archipelago is based on putting Javanese into the indigenous homelands of Indonesia’s vast diaspora of ethnicities as a means of securing control over natural resources or territory!
Perhaps us white folk do not have a lot to be proud of when it comes to the way we have treated the various indigenous populations but for you to use it as a means of justifying Indonesia’s colonizations such as Timor Leste is also somewhat hypocritical don’t you think? “You have done it so now it is our turn to do it” somewhat naive and simplistic in the same way you accuse others!
-
Hi Rob,
I think transmigration and the 1975 East Timor incident are beside the point here. We’re talking about Islam and its conquests. The difference between the West’s treatment of indigenous people and colonized lands is that we Muslims were doing it for the benefit of the conquered. In fact, the conquered have many rights. Slaves have the right to convert to Islam and have the possibility of buying back their freedom – if they have earned it or can afford it. What could be fairer ?
-
What’s wrong cook with woods as along as they don’t cut trees to get woods .
I’ve heard that you can get wood from other places besides trees…. for example, you could chop down your house bit by bit….. though apparently the wood in houses originally came from trees…. maybe if you drop your number two’s in a special container for long enough, they could turn into wood?… I’m sure they’re are many ways to get wood that has nothing to do with trees…
-
I’ve heard that you can get wood from other places besides trees…. for example, you could chop down your house bit by bit….. though apparently the wood in houses originally came from trees…. maybe if you drop your number two’s in a special container for long enough, they could turn into wood?… I’m sure they’re are many ways to get wood that has nothing to do with trees…
Bu Janma, Sorry if my english is too good for the native english speaker like you, what I mean is we do not take whole trees include its root but we only take its branch and if possible we take the dead branch one.
However, we do not have to go far to see the modern version of colonization (neo-colonization?) ala Indonesia. This process is called transmigration (or perhaps a more accurate term would be Javanization) where control of Indonesia’s vast archipelago is based on putting Javanese into the indigenous homelands of Indonesia’s vast diaspora of ethnicities as a means of securing control over natural resources or territory!
Mr Rob,
We brownman launched the transmigration program without hidden agenda because our heart is so clean and we do not have heritage of the cultural deceit like the white man have, the purpose of transmigration is for beneficial all parties, the java island is over loaded and the outside java land is far less developed farm land and for sure we do not give the Javanese farmer a gun to shoot the indigenous people but we give them “cangkul” to teach the Indigenous people how to prepare land for the good farming un-like the white-man who make the native America and Australia for their shooting practice while giving the native people infected blanket to make the native disappear ASAP from the earth and it worked well anyway congrat brother.
-
Cuk, if all the people (or at least the poorer people) of indonesia can’t afford gas or kerosene and then they need wood, do you think there would be enough ‘dead wood’ and broken branches lying around for all of them?
-
Achmad, Cukurangan et al, Love you guise! Love all your posts! How much are the International Z-Men Conspirators paying y’all to play the Certain Religion Goose/Geese? They are definitely getting their money’s worth. Keep it up, Shlomo/Solly/Moshe and the rest. Adjust y’r eyepatches and lay it on us. Indonesia, ya gotta lurvit, dong.
-
We speak only The Truth, Neil.
-
Cuk, if all the people (or at least the poorer people) of indonesia can’t afford gas or kerosene and then they need wood, do you think there would be enough ‘dead wood’ and broken branches lying around for all of them?
If I am Goverment, it is more than enough ‘dead wood’ what I saw by my own eyes, when “Farmer Perambah Hutan” in Sumatra Jungle move to new farming land they cut down all trees and burn it for nothing. Remember we are also well known as “EXPORTER SMOKE” because by product of the forestry industry is so huge and at the moment we are burning it just for polluting.
By applying simple technology to make a wood chip those waste trees and branch is more than enough to supply friendly fire to our poor brother while saving the fuel subsidize and reducing CO2 emission. FYI, even in the western world, they has been considered the fuel wood as one of their option to fill gap of the lack fuel supply see below:
http://www.bioregional.com/programme_projects/forestry_prog/urban_forestry/urbfor_woodchip.htm -
Dykarg says:
Back to mbak Rima, very good article.
Most of our media coverage is just like our sinetron soap opera, telling naive stories so we feel better before going to bed. What make me really sad is apperently we like it.
Even in the nets we have more postings on subject like “halal vs haram” and “FPI this and that” than environmental issue,……or maybe it just me who is visiting a wrong place,.. -
Dhea says:
Rima article is amazing and right on the fact. Therefor some probably doesn’t like the reality so they can make up any conspiracy theory or what ever they want. Anyhow Good Job.
-
Andy says:
Rima, you are a gem and a fantastic lady. You, not the rabid nationalists, are the truest of patriots. You can see a problem and want to find an answer without looking at someone else for the solution. Thank you so much, if only there were more like you Indonesia would be possibly a world super power with it’s vast resources and huge population.
-
Pulutan says:
It’s with several months dealy that I come to read this thread. Rima hits the nail right on the head. She elegantly puts down Achmad’s shorts. Kudos, too, to the bule behind Achmad. His character is instrumental to this blog. Well done indeed! I wish Rima had her own blog though.
Comment on “Wag the Dog à la Indonesia”.
Related Stories
Copyright Indonesia Matters 2006-2025
Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Contact
Rima,
the proof as they say is in the pudding.
Observe teh difference between China and India.
One a dictatorship, one a democracy with plenty of the trendy angst-ridden chattering cosmopolitan OKB (nouveau ricvhe) buzzwords of liberty, freedom, democracy, etc.
Which is the greater economy? CVHina.
India will only OPTIMALLY attain 60% of CHina’s GDP.
Rima- those “conspiracy theories” are 100% factual and proven via masive reams of documentation.
Why are Malaysia’s RAF BUtterworth, Singapore’s RAF Tengah and Brunei are all manned by Gurkha’s?
Why are all of Australia’s Northern airbases within striking distance via F-111 (originally envisaged as a nuclear first-strike bomber) of Indonesian strategic positions- especially Biak?
What is the US Navy’s Pine Gap Deep Space Listening Facility (located Northern Territory)and why is it positioned to eaves drop on us?
We should reflect on our Asian values and the unequivocal supremacy of the State and the absolute subordinance of the individual.
Rima- not all that glitters is gold. The West has nothing to offer us of any worth.
Only the most naive and ignorant brown-skin would ever trust the West and believe their glittering tales of democracy as golden.