Alaksir Jakarta blog

Did you hear about the recent MUI frenzy over the swine thing?

No, it doesn’t have anything to do with the flu. Instead, the knowledgeable scholars heated up the op-ed section of local newspapers by fussing about meningitis, particularly the Mencevax ACWY meningococcal meningitis vaccine produced by GlaxoSmithKline that was recently reported to contain a type of porcine enzyme called trypsin.

As it were, foreigners entering Saudi Arabia are required to be vaccinated against meningitis, because the country has seen a number of outbreaks of the contagious disease in the past. However, it is said that no meningitis vaccine is free from materials derived from swine.

Alas, the ever alert Food, Drugs and Cosmetics Assessment Board of the MUI (”LPPOM MUI”) found out that, well, the vaccine contained the swine-derived trypsin, and promptly blasted out the Pig-Signal to warn the faithful who are currently making their preparations for this year’s hajj season.

But surely, somebody else would have already known about this, right? Right.

The MUI had questioned the vaccine producer about the treatment in 2007, at which time the Health Ministry’s consultative assembly on health and Shariah law found material from pigs in the vaccine.

And they did something about it, right? Right.

GlaxoSmithKline responded to the inquiry by producing a vaccine free of pig-derived material.

In fact, …

In February 2009, the Belgian company declared that “no trypsin [or other materials of porcine origin] is used in the production of the new Mencevax vaccine.”

And in a statement signed on Monday, the company’s local unit also declared that as of 2009, no animal-derived materials were being used in the production of the vaccine, which is sold in 59 countries, including Muslim nations like Malaysia, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

In addition, even though trypsin was in fact used in producing the vaccine, Head of Food and Drugs Monitoring Agency (”BPOM”) Husniah Rubiana Thamrin Akib said during a hearing with the parliament that the enzyme would only be used in the early production process, and the final product would no longer have it.

So what’s the fuss all about? Mr. Nadratuzzaman who heads LPPOM MUI said:

The one saying that the vaccine is good is the manufacturer. They have to be audited. We should come to their manufacturing facility so we can see all the manufacturing processes from start to finish. We can’t just accept what they say.

Of course, he would also want the government to foot the bill, because GSK’s manufacturing facilities are in Belgium. While you’re at it, why not add in some allowance too to make the trip more enjoyable.

Let me just share a story I heard from a very old friend about an Islamic sage who had to lead a group of religious students on their trip to a conference in Europe. Once the conference was over, the group went to a dinner in a fancy local restaurant, courtesy of the host. None of them understood what was on the menu because they didn’t understand the local language. So the sage just pointed at a fulfilling-looking meal someone was having at a table next to them.

A serial nitpicker among the sage’s students couldn’t help but raised an issue with what the sage did. So he went and whispered to another student next to him that the meal might contain pork, and if the sage ate it, he would be committing a sin. The other student started to feel uneasy and talked to another student about it, and it went on as the meal arrived on their table.

One of the students finally asked the host if the meal did indeed contain pork, and the host confirmed it. When the student who asked the host told the sage about it, the sage had almost finished his meal, and said, “Well you’ve ruined the fun. Now we sin, because we know the meal contains pork.”

The moral of the story is: Don’t be a nitpicker, just shut up and take things in good faith.

Election day is nigh, and this would be utterly obvious at least to anyone living in Jakarta for they have had to endure the horrid experience of playing hide and seek with rowdy campaign crowds and the traffic debacle that would almost certainly transpire since the hunting season officially kicked off last week.

Isn’t democracy wonderful?  At least it should be to most of us who are too busy trying to make ends meet–or to pay off the loan on that glittering new SUV now perched peacefully in the garage–to be properly informed about our foremost civic duty.  If it hadn’t been for democracy, nothing would have forced our ignorant souls to pay any inkling of attention to whatever the legislators-to-be have to say about how a sprawling archipelago nation of 245 million is to be governed.  Nay, there is nowhere to escape the constant onslaught of political newspeak delivered right to our face; not the television as all the big networks are contemptuously coveting the title of “the election channel,” not any of the scandal sheets where all the most insidious perversions of our nation’s crème de la crème have been laid bare for all to see, and certainly not the internet where online political ads have turned up even on the most seemingly unassuming sites.

If you think this is a prelude to a sarcastic rant about the failings of democracy in a  perennially developing nation such as our beloved Indonesia, you would be wrong.  I celebrate the fact that it took me 2 extra hours to get to a meeting with the most challenging client in the middle of an unforgiving tropical storm.  I’m grateful about seeing political talking heads rattling off the most unbelievably thoughtless analyses about the candidates’ chances of winning enough votes to secure a seat in the parliament, or their takes on what VP Jusuf Kalla’s run as a presidential candidate means to his cohabitation with President SBY.  And yes, I enjoy seeing haphazardly prepared candidates unbecomingly turning a TV debate show into an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway, even though they were not supposed to be funny.

I believe in the oft-repeated wisdom of the general election as the time to celebrate our newly found democracy.  Indeed, campaign seasons were almost certainly a big quinquennial bash with music shows–and political sermons–served to political constituents eagerly blessing any candidate who was willing to pony up the highest amount of rupiah.  If political rallies seem to have become more subdued nowadays, that doesn’t mean no celebration is taking place.  Don’t take my word for it; just look at the polychromatic exhibition of candidates’ banners persistently adorning our streets.

Yes, democracy is brute, noisy, traffic jam-inducing, and most certainly ugly as Plato would readily attest to.  But it is also the only way to let the politicos know that they don’t mean a penny without us.  At least once in every five years, the honorable parliamentarians whose utterances are law and incomes are far beyond what us mortals can dream of will be focusing hard, devising illegitimate trickeries, hiring the most attractive campaigners they could find, manipulatively scheming solely to get our valuable votes.

You may be lamenting that when campaigning, the candidates should be offering the most sophisticated sounding economic arcana to get us through the global credit crisis or peddling the most convincing ideological platform with which voters can identify, but these are all beside the point.  In fact, the whole point of democracy is neither to ensure that our nation becomes a land flowing with milk and honey and streets lined with gold, nor to cater for our ideological inclinations.  Rather, democracy means that nobody can have exclusive claim over the fate of our land, and specifically for us Indonesians, it is quite possibly the only thing in which we can say we are far ahead of our neighboring nations.  Sure, other nations in our neighborhood can boast better living standards, higher incomes and faster internet connection.  Yet as democracy continues to take roots in our land but falter in theirs, none of them can claim to be a nation of free and desperately optimistic people.

So shut your eyes, close your ears while the politicos bombard you with their nonsense, their operatives stubbornly surround you with their likenesses for the next month or so.  On April 9, go to the voting booth or don’t, and be glad that whatever you do you have the freedom to choose.

There’s been much attention given to the Indonesian Council of Islamic Scholars (MUI) by the media lately, with its recent decision to issue fatawa (sing.: fatwa) on a number of issues, including yoga and smoking, and its inclusion in Transparency International’s latest survey on corruption and bribery perception as a public service institution that is prone to receive bribe money.  I think a little discussion on this is merited.

First of all, though, a little disclaimer: I feel neither preference nor rejection toward the MUI.  The fact that it was established originally as a way for Suharto’s New Order regime to ward off muslim dissent and add some kind of legitimacy to its autocratic rule means that part of its natural tendency is to view disagreement as a threat.  But by the same token, it also means that the council has to a degree discouraged political Islam, which is a good thing, at least as long as there is a committed secular government above it.

But we are now by and large a free electoral democracy, which means there will almost definitely be strong resistance if somebody in the government happens to come up with the good idea of subjugating the MUI.  And I don’t think anyone in the foreseeable future will be brave enough to do this.

Now for a little backgrounder, the MUI comprises representatives from Islamic organizations across the country, but how it recruits its members is a mystery in itself.  That’s right, the council actually receives public money through the Ministry of Religious Affairs, but is being run virtually without any accountability to the public.  How do they get away with it?  Well basically by just simply saying that they’re accountable only to God.  Now who’s going to argue with that?

Of course in the past how the councilors were recruited always involved heavy screening by the government who also discouraged any open and transparent process in the way the organization is being managed.  Sadly, the disbandment of the Suharto regime did not lead the council to reform its elitist organizational approach.  This is something that they need to think deeply about if they still wish to be heard by the people it’s supposed to represent.

And that brings me back to the media spotlight on the MUI’s latest annual meeting, which resulted in fatawa on smoking, voting, yoga, abortion, underage marriage and vasectomy.  My first impression on this is most media reports and commentators are overestimating the influence of the council.  For example, this report from The Guardian says:

“The council’s ruling is not legally binding but most of Indonesia’s Muslims, who make up 90% of the country’s 234-million population, are likely to follow the decree.”

Or the BBC, which even calls the MUI “the top Islamic body in Indonesia,” and goes on to say that “most Muslims consider it a sin to ignore [the MUI's edicts].”  Time magazine is painting a pretty scary picture by calling its article on the subject “Indonesia’s Fatwa against Yoga,” bringing to mind images of bearded men rallying in the streets while angrily chanting death to yogis.

Around the blogosphere, commentators are aptly critical about the fatawa, saying that the MUI is excessively encroaching on non-religious matters, but also overestimate their impact.  For example, Chris Taylor at Everything Indonesia is pointing out that there are many more important things that the MUI should be concerned about than forbidding yoga.  There is also Harry Nizam who is worried that the fatawa will influence people in the rural areas, because the MUI, in his words, is “the highest Moslem religious authority.”  Some other commentators are aghast that the MUI dares to forbid muslims from staying home during the election day, such as Parvita.

First, from a purely religious perspective, a fatwa, whether by the MUI, the Malaysian Majlis Fatwa Kebangsaan (National Fatwa Council), Bin Laden or even any of your instant internet mufti is just that; a fatwa.  It is a religious opinion of a mufti (fatwa giver) who is asked about a particular matter that would only be considered binding on all muslims if the overwhelming majority of Islamic scholars with valid credentials agree with it.  In other words, a fatwa is about the same as an expert witness’ answer about a question relevant to his expertise that is posed to him during the course of a trial.

In the rare case that a fatwa is agreed upon by the majority of Islamic scholars with verified credentials, it is codified in the Sharia, and this is what sunni muslims refer to as ijma, the third source of the Sharia law under sunni Islam.  But again, in response to a fatwa, any muslim is free to choose whether to follow it or not.  K.H Mustofa Bisri, or cordially known as Gus Mus writes a good brief discussion on this at the NU-affiliated Ansor website here (in Indonesian).

Now saying that the MUI is the “top” Islamic body in Indonesia is also misleading.  It is not, and there isn’t any.  To Western journos, it might be a bit difficult to comprehend the nature of religious authority in Islam and differentiate between sunni and shiite Islam.  Yes, shiite Islam has a concept of religious authority similar to papacy in Roman Catholicism, where the Ayatollah holds supreme authority over all religious matters of the believers.  But the sunnis actually don’t have the same hierarchical rigidity, and religious authority for them is actually much more decentralized.

It’s also not true that most Indonesian muslims adhere to everything the MUI says, except probably for their annual decisions about when to celebrate the Eids and their halal certification, and this is especially true for rural Indonesian muslims.  Traditional communities have always had their own local religious authority, such as pesantren leaders, the kiyais and community elders, and they are the authorities that most people will listen to.  It’s instructive to learn that the two biggest Islamic organizations in the country, the traditionalist Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and even the more scripturalist Muhammadiyah have been critical against the MUI fatawa.  Both organizations have real scholars whose opinions are actually heard by Indonesian muslims.

There is the case of the country next door, Malaysia, which had issued its own fatwa forbidding yoga last year.  But unlike in Malaysia, there is no separate Sharia law in the Indonesian system where fatawa issued by the country’s Fatwa Council can be legally enforced.  In the country, no fatwa by the MUI will have more meaning than the bearded clerics’ ramblings unless the government legislates it–and thank god for that.

On another recent issue involving the MUI, namely the inclusion of the council in Transparency International’s (TI) survey of corruption perception and bribery index, the council’s spokespeople frankly have succeeded in making themselves look even more stupid in the way they respond to the issue.

The way the recent release of TI’s latest survey is covered by a section of the media is that the MUI is identified to be one of the most corrupt public service institutions by the TI survey’s respondents.  For example, Time magazine writes thus:

“The credibility of the council was called into question earlier in January, when Transparency International Indonesia accused the institution of being one of the most frequent takers of bribes in the country, particularly in the issuance of halal stickers for food and beverage products.”

Or Detik.com, which titles its news item on the survey release “Survei TII: MUI Sering Disuap” (TII Survey: MUI often Bribed).  The impression you might get from these reports is that the MUI is pretty high up in the list of most bribery-prone public service agencies in the country.  To the religiously faithful who are flaunting “Islam is the solution to all problems” mantra to the masses, the thought of pious scholars receiving bribe money for stamping halal certificates on their client’s products would be outrageous, which is most likely why some journos chose to focus on MUI’s inclusion in the survey.

But if you take a look at the real report, the story is actually a bit more nuanced.  The survey documentation says this about the objective of the so-called Bribery Index:

“To measure prevalence level of bribery in 15 public institutions based on businesspersons experience.”

…which does not explain the rationale for specifically including the 15 institutions in the survey.  In fact, if you look further down, you still won’t find any explanation of how TI selects these 15 institutions to be in the survey.

But in fact, there are other public service agencies which have been known to be prone to bribery that TI did not include in the survey.  For example, officers at the civil registry office have been known to ask for “grease money” to speed up providing legal documents from birth certificates, marriage to the hideous SBKRI citizenship certificate, which used to be required of Chinese Indonesians.  Also absent from the survey questionnaire is the Religious Affairs Office (the KUA), whose priests charge much higher–anywhere from Rp500 thousand to Rp2 million depending on how wealthy the couple looks–for marrying people than the official price–which ranges from Rp30 to Rp150 thousand, depending on who you ask.

My point is the 15 institutions included in the survey were selected arbitrarily by TI.  They might have intended these institutions to be some sort of sample of all public service agencies in Indonesia, in which case the MUI should actually be proud for being the ‘least’ bribe prone institution in the country, because it is ranked precisely at the bottom.

And yet, most likely without bothering to have a look at what the survey is all about, the MUI chairman Amidhan fumed in response to the news about the survey, calling it “slanderous and misleading.”  He says:

“There’s no bribery.  What do they mean by bribery?  This is slanderous and misleading.  The MUI is a religious institution and this is false.  They should expose the facts instead of making hasty statements.  They can’t do this.”

Being defensive is never a good way to deal with criticism.  It implies a corrupt, judgmental mentality, and this is the kind of image that the MUI chief is projecting about the council.  It would be wise for them to use some of the money they get for dispensing halal certificates, whether legitimately or not, on media and communications training, or better still, personality training.

A group of boys were playing ball in an open field.  Give or take, they’re about 6-7 years old.  Another group of older, bigger boys came along and, not satisfied with just watching the smaller kids play, snatched the ball at one point and sent the little boys away.

As it wasn’t dark yet, the smaller boys resisted to call the day off and go home, but instead decided to fetch another ball and play with it on a smaller area next to where the older boys are now playing.  The big boys yelled at the little boys and told them to go play somewhere else, but the little boys said they had nowhere else to go.  Being classic-case bullies, the older boys eventually went ahead and played while continuing to harass the little boys, intimidate them and leave them with impossibly less and less area to play on.

At one point, the little boys drew enough courage and just dribbled away the ball across the larger area.  The big boys were incensed at the sight and resorted to beating the little boys severely.  But this just angered the little boys even more.  Afterward, the little boys would go and challenge the big boys from time to time, and with increasing fervor each time they did it.

Eventually, the big boys came to the little boys and said to them, “Okay, we’ve had it with you midgets.  You’re just not going away aren’t you?  Well we’ll give you more space to play whatever you want and we’ll even leave you alone.  But we’re going to take your ball so you can’t meddle with our game anymore.”  And off the big boys went.

With the ball taken away from them, the little boys wanted to go and get another ball.  But one of the big boys came to them and said, “No way, you’re not getting another ball.  You’re just going to get in our way again.”  So the little boys just had to stay in the field and watch the older boys play while holding their grudge.

But with nothing to play with, one of the little boys just couldn’t take it and started throwing some little stones at the big boys.  Some of the other little boys, knowing well that they would incur the wrath of the big boys, stopped the stone-thrower, reproved him and said that they should do what the big boys want and cooperate.  The other ones didn’t say anything but silently sympathized with the stone-thrower, and from time to time they would pick up little rocks, mud, whatever they could get their hands on and throw them at the big boys, until finally the big boys just couldn’t take it anymore and together they attacked the little kids brutally.

Now, if you look at these pictures, can you tell which ones are the bigger boys and which are the little boys?

Normally we expect an adult to come along and break the whole thing up.  But what happens when the designated adult is siding with the big boys?

So we’re finally going to vote for celebrities an actual parliamentarian in next year’s parliamentary elections instead of some faceless political party, thanks to this lengthy verdict by the almighty Constitutional Court.

But didn’t we also vote for individual nominees in the 2004 parliamentary election?  In fact, the only reason I still remember about that particular election is because that was the first time I could punch on this lovely lady’s picture on the ballot rather than one of the colorfully unattractive party logos as with prior elections.

Apparently, although we were able to pick any individual candidate we liked, there was a catch: any single nominee who won popular votes but did not make the top of the party list for the relevant district or couldn’t secure a full portion of an obscure mathematical arcanum called the Hare quota (it’s called the “Bilangan Pembagi Pemilih” here) would relegate those votes to the nominee on the top of the party list.  In short, many of us were duped.

That’s right, some of you might actually like a particular candidate but detests the party and whatever nominating system it has, in which case your vote for the candidate, most of the time, wouldn’t count.

But is that even possible?  I mean when someone runs for government office under a particular party banner, isn’t she saying that she endorses the party and what it stands for?  Not exactly.  With balance of power increasingly tilting toward the parliament, the political sector now offers the promise of a rewarding career, which means politicians aren’t too motivated to run on promoting their ideology as they are on how to secure jobs for their members until the next election.  In fact, figuring out what each of the parties that will contest next year’s election stands for is like figuring out the Higgs boson.  In effect, with so many parties that don’t seem to be that much different from one another to choose from, it’s really so much easier to put a check mark on the most good looking face on the ballot paper during the election day.

So the Constitutional Court did good, really.  The judges practically stepped into the debate of whether celebrity politicians would add substance or mere good looks to the legislature, and brought legal validity to the latter.

Well okay, not really.  The Court just thinks whoever wins the most votes should get them, and if voters happen to prefer gorgeous but brainless automatons over manipulative and ugly sexagenarians, by god we really should have them.

Some commentators such as Mr. Danang Widyoko of the Indonesian Corruption Watch contend that most of the celebrity politicians that were elected in the last election have not mastered the skills needed to be effective at advancing legislation such as lobbying, debating and so forth.  He says:

Through my lobbying [for Indonesian Corruption Watch] at parliament I come into regular contact with the celebrities elected in 2004. They really don’t have the capacity to debate or raise issues. They do as they are told by the party leaders, sign their names and collect their pay checks.

But really, with looks like these, who needs persuasion skills?

And one last note, the presence of these gorgeous souls amidst our legislators might also encourage them to cut back a little on their chronic habit of not turning up for meetings.

Let’s hope politics don’t get across borders as easily as economy.

The Thais are really setting a bad example for us, aren’t they?  First they had a robber baron for a PM, then a military coup, but then there were mobs occupying the airport, and practically holding the entire country hostage?  What’s next?  A ban on yoga?  Wait, that’s another monarchy.

Bad Thai.

Didn’t you know Thailand and Indonesia have so many similarities?  Just look at these:

Indonesia	Thailand
Indonesia	Thailand

See?  We’re both crazy about yellow and red, and we agree blue is for sissies.  They also mean the same here and there, with a little twist.  Over there, yellow is for the monarch, over here it’s for long time, corrupt political party.

How about red?  Over there it’s for grassroots political party that wants a corrupt former PM back from exile abroad, over here it’s for grassroots political party that wants an incompetent former president back so she can resume her habit of shopping abroad.  You just can’t help making the analogy.

Infecting the entire region with bad credit eleven years ago just wasn’t enough, huh?  You really have to give one of our sultans the idea that monarchy is still relevant, and make him think he has chance to be elected president?

Sultans, kings or whatever should be barred from elections.  They usually don’t make good campaigners or debaters, because, well, you can’t really expect them to take criticisms all that well, given all the privileges they get from birth.  Besides, I don’t think President Sultan or President King would make a good baby name if he wins on a change platform.

But then again, we really don’t have many alternatives do we?  In Thailand, holding any more election would probably just bring Thaksin’s gangs or any one of their reincarnations back in power they say.  Here in Indonesia, the political cartels are scaling back our freedom to choose our president, and the presidential election next year will probably just give us another stinking cat in office for the next five years.

But whether we’ll have a stinking cat or aromatic dog in the presidential palace, I’m glad we’ll still be able to vote a blue-eyed yoga instructor for legislator.

Economist Agustinus Prasetyantoko said that the impact of the global crisis on Indonesia’s economy next year will depend on election results.  Smooth political transitions will give way to a quick recovery, he says.

Well, for a real economic impact of the election, how about this: I have an in-law who owns a printing shop that specializes in printing banners for political parties,… well actually only one particular party, because he’s an activist for that party (hint: it’s the one that reportedly has the most celebrities in its list of nominees for next year).  I’ve never seen a business whose fortunes are directly tied to how many elections the party is contesting like this one.  But just before the campaign season actually kicked off, this guy bought a shiny new car, remodeled his house and dispensed new glimmering mobile phones for his wife and kids.

I’d say that’s a real economic impact of the election right there.  And I imagine that my in-law wouldn’t be the only one who can pull off something like this, especially with more parties and more areas to cover next year:

• 24 parties contested the 2004 election, now we have 44
• We had 32 provinces in 2004, now we have 33; West Sulawesi being the new one
• There were 417 municipalities/regencies in 2004, now there are 485

Democracy can actually be good for the economy after all.

Last week, Helene Cooper of NY Times reported that Barack Obama was thinking of making a major speech to lay out his foreign policy plans from an Islamic capital during his first 100 days.  There was no official statement about where that would actually be, but Cooper concluded it would most likely be Cairo, Egypt.

Ben Smith at Politico.com informed that making a foreign policy speech from a major Islamic forum was actually something that Obama mentioned during his campaign in August.  Later, Smith reported that an Obama donor, Ted Leary, reckoned that Obama had told some of his donors that his first trip would be to Indonesia.

It’s not clear whether Obama intends to do this during an actual Islamic forum or a normal state visit.  An ideal forum that was major enough to be heard but religiously moderate enough in outlook not to anger American Islamophobes was the International Conference of Islamic Scholars (ICIS).  However, it was already conducted in July this year.

Next year, Jakarta will host the fifth World Islamic Economic Forum in March.  Looking at the lineup of invitees, this looks close enough to be ideal as there will be leaders from the Islamic world as well as the West, Japan and even China.  The forum is going to talk about food and energy crises and how to solve them, which will be a very enlightened topic for the future US administration to be engaged in with the Islamic world.

But if Obama is looking to make a normal state visit, President SBY has definitely invited Obama to come to Indonesia during his international tour last month, where the American President-elect said he would love to have another chance to taste some tasty Indonesian cuisine he had grown fond of during his time in Jakarta.

No doubt, this will surely please the 1,641 Indonesians for Obama.  In a sense, this might also give a public relations boost to SBY during next year’s election.  But I’m not sure how Americans will take this, given the state of the current economic crisis back home and a renewed alertness to the Muslims due to the recent event in Mumbai.  I’m betting this visit wouldn’t be as popular to Americans as it would be over here.

Head of Indonesian Entrepreneurs Association Anton Supit urged the nation’s leaders to declare that an economic crisis has taken place in Indonesia and be ready to make tough, though unpopular decisions.

Well I think asking an incumbent administration that’s going for reelection next year to be ready to lose popularity could be the ultimate Zen paradox.  Mr. Supit said:

We’re already in a crisis, but still unable to change our attitude.  We keep blaming others and working without a good plan.  Hundreds of thousands of people are being laid off, so don’t say that there’s nothing serious to be concerned about.  We need leaders who are ready to be unpopular by declaring that we’re in the middle of a crisis.

Here’s the definition of an economic crisis according to businessdictionary.com:

A situation in which the economy of a country experiences a sudden downturn brought on by a financial crisis. An economy facing an economic crisis will most likely experience a falling GDP, a drying up of liquidity and rising/falling prices due to inflation/deflation. An economic crisis can take the form of a recession or a depression. Also called real economic crisis.

Yet, official statistics are indicating that the economy is still in a relatively good shape.  GDP is still growing 6.1% year on year, and it is spread across all sectors though not equally.  Sure, export industries such as textile, shoes manufacturers are taking hard beatings with order cancellations from global customers on the rise, but it’s hardly a cause to announce a nationwide crisis and risk losing consumer confidence as a result.

In fact, with consumer confidence index still creeping back to an optimistic level after three months, the most irresponsible thing to do for the government right now is to create panic in the market.

I didn’t realize we were on a banning season.

I wrote about the website ban, but it turns out we might also have a book ban, did have a film shooting ban and a religious near-ban.

Bummer.

While we’re at it, we might as well summon Suharto, Ali Moertopo and Benny Moerdani back from the dead and go back to 1984 so we can ban non-Pancasila organizations, re-annex East Timor, revoke Islamic law in Aceh and reenact martial law there, and most importantly we also need to get the entire media back in the whitewash mode.

And lest we forget, we should also reinstate Petrus, the notorious covert sniper operation that aimed at criminals, and we need to extend the target to cover overly creative people who make even the slightest mention of the "c" word, non-majority groups, and authors-who-wrote-that-a-former-vice-president-might-be-a-local-CIA-operative.

Indonesia, wake up.

I realize we’ve only had time for democratic baby steps after the Reformasi–what with the big tasks of reversing the course of the ‘98 financial crises, revamping the executive, legislative and judicial branches, and now tackling the imported crisis, we’ve barely had time to do anything major. But the ban-now-and-let’s-get-on-with-life mentality you’re showing is really disturbing.

This mentality doesn’t always mean you abhor the truth, but it’s pretty close. And it’s absolutely indicative that you do not like differing perspectives.

And why do we need to have different perspectives when only one will do?

Because the other perspective might work, if not for you then for others. If no one benefits from the other perspective, then let it die a natural death so it pleases no one else.

Take lesson from some of the responses to the Bali bombers’ execution. You kill someone by force, some others will sympathize.

What happens then when you kill an idea? You are giving it more exposure, more fuel to the flame, and you end up getting even worse aftertaste.

But then again, if banning season is indeed on and will be so for many years to come, everyone might as well lay low and resist any penchant for intellectual vigor. After all, we probably could use some more idle time in our hands to beef up our skills for real street fighting, which is probably our national pastime, not the wordy ones, which are not.