Foreign Policy's Top 100 Public Intellectuals

An American-based influential magazine, Foreign Policy, has come up with their list of top 100 Public Intellectuals. This year, an Indonesian was put on the list, that is Anies Baswedan, the president of Paramadina University.

Other names include Pope Benedict XVI (Germany/Vatican), Noam Chomsky (United States), Richard Dawkins (Britain, the author of 'The God Delusion'), Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore) and Jared Diamond (United States, the author of 'Collapse').

You can vote for your top five and add one of your own choice that hasn't been listed there. Continue>>

Can we find a ‘Fernando Lugo ‘ in Indonesia?

The victory of Fernando Lugo, an ex Catholic Bishop, in Paraguay’s presidential election reminded me of a similar story 10 years ago when we started the reformasi in Indonesia.

At that time, the HKBP church, which I’m a member of, was in trouble because of an intervention by the Soeharto’s regime. The church was divided between two groups that accepted and rejected the appointment of the archbishop (ephorus) by the North Sumatra military commander. I belonged to the group who believe that the state should never interfere in the Church (read: religious) matters, let alone appointing a bishop, who should be elected through the grand synod.

To cut the story short, a HKBP pastor, who belonged to the same group as mine, decided to get involved in politics. He believes that a nation led by tyranny must be changed through political means, which is a regime change. So, he joined Sri Bintang Pamungkas’s newly formed –and illegal by Soeharto’s law at that time—Partai Uni Demokrat (PUDI).

His action invited controversies. Since he was close to me and my family, we also got many phone calls saying that they are against his political move. They include people who were actually on the same side as us in the struggle against Soeharto.

Their main reason, if simplified, is: “A priest should only do his religious duties. Don’t get involved in politics!” That is also the same argument that the Vatican said about Fernando Lugo now.

However, the pastor stood firm and said, “The fights against tyranny, injustice and crimes against humanity are also the task of the Church.”

So, Indonesia actually has had a “Fernando Lugo’. I believe there are many of them also in other religions. The difference between Indonesia and Paraguay is we haven’t been successful in forming a united platform and alliance to promote progressive and popular ideas. That’s why Paraguay has won, and we have not. Continue>>

Poverty and lack of education don't make a terrorist

I have long been suspicious about the 'common sense' of the causes of terrorism. As many have said, poverty and lack of education have been mentioned as the root causes of terrorism.

New research by Alan Krueger of Princeton found out that terrorists do not come from poor family or people with lack of education. Most people who got involved in violent acts or organisations that urge violence as their means are at least high school graduates. Plus, they also come from the middle or upper classes.

Among Palestinians, almost 60 percent of the suicide bombers had more than a high school education, compared with less than 15 percent of the general population.

Educated people tend to be more political and want to have a bigger say in the political processes. In a working democracy, people can vote or get involved in politics. However, the case is not the same with those who live in authoritarian regimes or conflict areas. For these people, the 'corner solution' is to use violence.

As for income level, a terrorist needs to have enough welfare to be able to participate in terrorist organisations. The cost of failure is high, so as Krueger suggests, the organisations select more able participants—which again points to those who are better educated and better off economically.

Then, why are educated and better-off people willing to sacrifice themselves? The answer is because they have a certain goal, which they strongly believe in. The goal can come from a wide variety of backgrounds: ideology, faith, religion, nationalism, history, so on and so forth.

These findings are important for us to address the issue appropriately. The 'counter-terrorism' policy in the short run should focus on reducing the 'demand side'. That is:

..degrading terrorist organizations’ financial and technical capabili­ties, and by vigorously protecting and promoting peaceful means of protest, so there is less demand for pursuing grievances through violent means.

In the long run, which Krueger didn't emphasise appropriately, is to answer their grievances, particularly in social justice issues. This is the 'supply side'. A world where socio-economic gap is huge and obvious is certainly a fertile breeding ground for terrorism. That world needs an alternative.

UPDATE 23/4:
I forgot to mention my old two posts with the same issue. I think it's important to also read again the posts to get the 'bigger picture'. They are:

• On Poverty, Education and Terrorism (15/8/2006)
  
• The Radicals and Windows of Opportunity (14/6/2006)
  

Continue>>

Will PKS be one of the top five in 2009?

After predicted to win the gubernatorial elections in West Java and North Sumatra, Tifatul Sembiring, the President of PKS, boosted that the victories will subsequently increase the party’s votes in 2009.

“The victories are our asset to achieve the 20 percent target of votes in the 2009 national election... We have won 89 out of 149 elections,” he said as quoted by Detikcom.

He further said that West Java and North Sumatra are two big provinces and therefore crucial as an indication for the 2009 national parliament election. However, we have to also carefully note that gubernatorial election focuses on figures, not the parties. The two types of elections must not be generalised.

We have seen the result of the 2004 national elections. President Yudhoyono won the presidential election, although his party, Partai Demokrat, only achieved the fifth position in the parliament election. In the latter, the Golkar Party, which is now chaired by Vice President Kalla, was the winner.

In addition, statistics have shown that religion-based political parties are losing popularity. Since the first general election in 1955, Islamic –and Christian—parties never obtained more than 20 percent of votes. Therefore, if PKS is to achieve its target in 2009, it has to move its ideological basis more to the centre. Can PKS, the –only—Islamic ideological party do it? I honestly doubt it. Continue>>

Protect your freedom!

A few days ago, I had a conversation with a friend about the government’s banning on websites that contain adult materials.

Him (H): Good! I support the government’s policy to block all porno websites!
Me (M): Why?

H: Because it is impossible for parents to control what their kids are doing on the internet.
M: But, if it’s so difficult for parents to control their own children, do you think the government can do it?

H: Yes, of course, just block all porno! It’s much easier and it’s part of the government’s responsibilities.
M: I still think it’s the parents’ responsibility. They should not expect other people to do their job. If you let the government do it for you, it will not only be about adult contents. It will spread to other things that they consider ‘inappropriate’ based on their own judgements. You should never let your freedom taken away from you!

Now, the government has also blocked YouTube and My Space. This time the reason is ‘for the sake of religious harmony that is threatened by a Dutch movie'.

UPDATE 9/4: Read a good article by Andre VItchek,"The New Face of Indonesia’s Islamic Fundamentalism: Pornography Ban Ignores the Starving", Japan Focus, April 8, 2008.
The article has the same concern as written in my previous post, "Religious Sentiments and Economic Problems". Continue>>

Is Boediono the right choice?

The parliament (DPR) finally passed Boediono as new governor of Bank Indonesia. Contrary to the DPR's response to the previous candidates, Raden Pardede and Agus Marto, the ‘fit and proper test’ for Boediono ran smoothly. Forty-five out of 46 members of the Komisi XI gave their votes for Boediono. The only rejection came from PAN’s Dradjad Wibowo, who questioned Boediono’s credibility due to his involvement in the BLBI case when he was working for the central bank as a director.

In my point of view, Boediono will hardly deliver improvements to the central bank’s performance. His school of thought, as I observe, is even more conservative than Burhanuddin Abdullah, the current Governor of BI. Therefore, he is not the right figure to lead the central bank in times of crisis like now. What we need is a more progressive person, who can offer us breakthroughs to avoid the impacts of the coming global financial turbulence.

I remember a conversation between Boediono and the economist Joseph Stiglitz in a seminar in Jakarta (I wrote an article about it in IndoPROGRESS [link]). At that time, Boediono as a coordinating minister for the economy said that Indonesia’s policy is purely based on pragmatism, not ideology. Stiglitz, the nobel laureate, subsequently responded that economic policy cannot be always pragmatic. Ideology is crucial because it will define what the government does, how and for whom.

I agree with Stiglitz, economic policy is not and will never be ‘neutral’ as the neoliberals say. Unfortunately, the Governor elect of BI does not think so. Continue>>

Religious sentiments and Economic Problems

Again, a religious issue is used to divert people’s attention from our real problem. Now, it’s a short movie produced by a Dutch politician about Islam. Several groups protested and the government has asked all internet service providers to block all websites and blogs that contain the movie.

We must remind all parties that our country is now in the middle of a serious situation. Currently, we are facing economic pressures from almost every sectors of the economy. In the monetary sector, our currency rate and stocks indices plummeted. The situation in the real sector is also worrying. The medium and large businesses are now in a position of ‘wait and see’ because of macro-economic uncertainties and government indecisiveness. The situation among the small businesses is even worse. Now, every day we hear and read the news about various small businesses must stop their operation or go into bankruptcy due to skyrocketed input prices.

We have never been in a situation as difficult as now since the economic crisis in 1997. And, what does the government do? They seem to have lack of breakthroughs to avoid us to go deeper into this vicious cycle. The top executives also do not respond appropriately. What we know is President Yudhoyono just launched his second album that consists of his own-composed ten songs.

It’s the economy! That is our current real problem. Continue>>

In Memoriam: Meilono Soewondo

Meilono Soewondo, a friend and a ‘big brother’ passed away yesterday at 1 pm in Bandung. I went to his funeral today at TPU Jeruk Purut along with other hundreds of people to pay him our last respect.

I knew mas Meil about six years ago. It was a spontaneous meeting between activists and a few members of parliament who wanted to do something to bring this nation back on track. After series of discussions, we –although some never showed up on the next meetings—decided to make a national network of young activists and every individuals who want to see a better future for the country. Together, we established ‘Pergerakan Demokrasi Nasional’ (National Democratic Movement), which was later changed to be ‘Pergerakan Indonesia’ (Indonesia Movement). Mas Meil was one of the presidium members of PI.

PI was in the fore-front of the national campaign against ‘rotten politicians’ (politisi busuk). We listed politicians who have negative track record and socialised the list to many parts of Indonesia. The campaign was proved relatively effective as the votes for the black-listed politicians dropped and many of them were not re-elected.

However, we heard that mas Meil got ill about four years ago, not long after the 2004 election. He couldn’t move his fingers properly and therefore faced difficulties to write. He went to many hospitals and asked many doctors, but none of them seem to have one single opinion of what’s happening with him. He traveled to Singapore, Australia and China to find the answer. Finally, he was found to suffer ALS (Amyotrophy Lateral Schlerosis), a rare illness, which has no cure. The ALS made his muscles, one by one, to lose power.

Even in his sickness, he still wanted to help people. Based on his experience dealing with ALS –which has spent a considerable amount of money for merely diagnosing it—he developed a website to inform people of what ALS is and how to deal with it. The website is still running until now, which can be accessed at this link.

Good bye, mas Meil! You are one of –a few—Indonesia’s good examples. Knowing you is truly a blessing. Continue>>