MY TRIP TO JAKARTA

Robertson Collins
rcollins@questbay.com
28th March 2001

CNN, The Singapore Straits Times, the New York Times, the Economist and everyone else you read or see have painted Jakarta blood red and dire black. A menacing pit They run a daily horror story that ranges from headless victims, terrorists in taxis, bomb blasts and hordes or marching students.

It is not for me to dismiss on-site reporters but it is beyond me to fathom their reasons for such blatant exaggeration.I am willing to accept their professionalism but I choke over the emphasis and the headlines their editors give their reports.

A horrific school shooting in San Diego or Frankfort is not used as some sign of national and catastrophe decay.

I can tell you from a recent three-day visit that the city in not just safe, it bordered on boring (unless you get a thrill out of watching the fast moving freeway traffic go by.).

In the past year, in all the world, more tourists have died of ebola than have been scratched or bandaged in Indonesia!

I well know that a well-accompanied three days hardly allows a pertinent detailed study. The intricately etched complexity of Java’s traditions and Jakarta’s politics is only matched by the variety of the island’s languages, songs and religions. And that’s only Java. For instance: the Ambonese were engaged in brutal local warfare five hundred years ago. In Acheh the Portuguese, the English, the Dutch and the French each in turn experienced the smiles, the deceit, treachery and overflowing wealth of the people and their rulers.

In Indonesia’s process of national development, it still remains a country that needs a strong leader. Tragically for all, Suharto stayed in office too long. Far too long. However, separate from his misguided devotion to his shoddy children and their spouses, his skills at managing diversity and articulating a national political ethic was brilliant and un-matched. It is sad he did not withdraw and himself monitor a transition into national maturity.

I will grant you all his terrible cronies, civil and military, but one glimpse at the modern highways, airports, utilities, banks, factories and universities and the most cynical observer must acknowledge his achievements. Not a perfect man, not a perfect regime, not at all, but he had given the people pride, dignity and vision.

One sample of the difficulties; the nation had no pension system, no social security, no government or private sector way to help people grow old gracefully and securely. Every soldier, general, civil servant and politician was expected to garner his own retirement fund in whatever way he could. It bred what we call corruption all right but there was no alternative in place. Greed it was but the excesses developed out of fear of old age poverty. This dominated everyone’s estate planning.

On my first day there was a local headline that the union members at the Shangri-la Hotel had settled their wage dispute but had not yet cleared out of the lobby where they had had a sit-down for the past month! The saddest tale was of four teen-age girls who had been trampled at a shopping mall in a crush of people trying to get CD’s and signatures of a touring boy-band from England.

The SIA flight over was packed, as was the return. Few tourists, no refugees but business-men and women with their conservative clothes, brief-cases and cell phones.

We drove by the Presidential Palace several times and the threatening mob the Times had described was resting, lying down in the courtyard, sleeping in the shade. There was a pile of placards on the ground. Traffic didn't notice or even slow to gawk. Ho-hum time.

So why the bad press? Is there an agenda?

With the relentless and totally useless indignation and posturing and crying out over the Talaban, why isn't the press a bit more understanding, patient and supportive of a country trying to fine-tune its brand-new constitution and work out its problems?

No kidding, Gus Dur is enough to tax your patience. He is unpredictable, canny, exasperating but he is also an astute politician and unquestionably sincere. And for the moment he is working hard, he is the best they have got, the best we could hope for.

Malaysia has been having some serious racial strife. Wisely, all sides are trying to control and down-play it; not to hide it but to avoid fanning the tension with excessive reporting. Understandable. Commendable.

So why the alarmist stance in reports from Jakarta?

I find the press mean and their tone (alarm) is the kind of thing that makes me look for deeper, dire manipulating motives: capitalist cronies? communist plotters? Who has a stake in destabilizing the country?

Tell me a terrible tale about Indonesia and I can match it the same week with an equal horror in Tokyo, the Philippines, India, London or San Diego but the reports have a balance missing in the coverage of Jakarta.

I do believe in evil manipulators but also have the impression the country suffers from the bi-polar posturing of outsider do-gooders.

The UN boss, Mr. Koffi Annan has a terrible record of meddling in Indonesia. Neither he or any one else has ever explained why, after decades of UN drifting, he had to bring the Timor issues to the fore at the very time the country was stressed by the currency crisis and the challenge to Suharto. Who pushed his botton or the earlier buttons for Mandela to intervene?

Even a simple review presents Annan as unfathomably righteous with no understanding of politics and no skill for diplomacy or a search for peaceful solutions. The old routine of sending in observers who promptly cry out for sending in troops was so blatant, so embarrassing and senseless. Who was the guiding hand? At a time everyone was trying to find an arbitrated settlement in the Middle East, along the Kashmir and Korean border he led the war cry for troops and only troops in Timor.. A dangerously silly man and very silly everyone else who went along with him. It is my conviction that if you follow the Nobel Peace Awards you can foresee UN policy.

Not even a map helps me find my way around Jakarta. For me, it is endlessly confusing. The waterfront is in the north, the core of the city has moved progressively south. So uptown is south. downtown is north.

Anyway, we went up north to the old town to dinner at the Batavia. This is as savvy, sophisticated and pleasant as any restaurant in Washington D.C.. . It is an embassy hang-out that presents a fine menu, fair prices and has the feeling of an understated lair for wealthy planters, spice merchants and their bankers.
It faces the old-town square that now hosts museums on the other three sides. There is, I assure you, danger lurking in the dessert menu. None of their home-made ice cream is served in less less than three-scoop dishes.

My hotel bill for three nights was one million, one hundred and eighteen thousand rupiahs. That is US, $107.00. A cruel exchange rate.and it embarasses me to tell you I had a wonderful hotel stay!

I hope a certain amount of rage comes through in this hasty report. I am deliberately trying to paint a gentler picture to counteract the reporters who regularly splatter as they wield their broad brushes.

Mark Twain said not to argue with anyone who buys ink by the gallon but in this case I am willing to stand up and I urge you to visit Indonesia yourself..

If nation-building interests you, go now by all means. You will be caught up in the excitement of meeting some terribly nice people who are struggling like hell to re-invent their country.

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