republikbabi

Just went home after the heavy rain and through endless traffic jam. A package from Netherlands just arrived, I opened the package and wow. Words failed to express my overflowed joy at the moment, so let me share the pic:
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Council of God, aka Majelis Ulama Indonesia, a body who got spiritual legitimation from God, the one that authorizes what’s morally wrong, morally good, and act as moral police has just recently condemned the establishment of PKI at Facebook.

The english news about the PKI revival was getting dramatic coverage in internet and local news, one snippet could be read at Jakarta Post.

The power of Facebook to rally for social and political causes has triggered a number of left-leaning Indonesian Facebook users to re-establish the banned Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in the virtual world.

The existence of a PKI 2010 Facebook group was first reported by news portal detik.com on
Saturday.

As of Sunday afternoon, the group had gathered more than 2,000 supporters.

In its information tab, the group claims it will strive to clear false allegations against the PKI, which was declared an illegal party by the New Order regime following an alleged coup d’etat attempt that cost the lives of a number of Army generals in 1965.

Following the alleged coup attempt, millions of people, said to be affiliated with the PKI, were slaughtered by security forces.

Millions were eithered killed, kidnapped or exiled. The children and families of these victims had to state on their identification cards that their relatives were connected with the PKI, and for decades were being discriminated against until the downfall of the New Order regime in 1998.

Ribka Tjiptaning is a victim of the PKI stigma who managed to survive the repressive New Order. She is a Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) legislator at the House of Representatives.

“Back then, we had to survive using whatever means necessary. I went through college working
day and night, doing everything I could from pick-pocketing to working as a bus conductor. I hunted mice and cats for food. The only person supporting me was my mother,” she told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

Ribka also said she considered the criminalization of the PKI was wrong.

“A political party can only die if its members choose to disband through a congress. The PKI, once the largest party in the country, has never been officially disbanded through a congress,” she said.

“If we are a real democracy, then we should allow people to re-establish communist-based parties like the PKI. Let the people judge whether the party’s ideas suit them or not,” she added.

A researcher from Imparsial Human Rights Watch, Bhatara Ibnu Reza, said the existence of a pro-PKI group on Facebook showed that communist ideas had managed to draw the attention of a younger ge-neration, who have sat up and taken notice despite a prohibition by the government.

“This group is a reaction to the government’s policy of banning everything communist-related. The government must realize that banning a party does not necessarily mean it will stop the ideas from developing. Ideas, once absorbed, will never die,” he said.

“So, we should all calm down about communism. I believe Indonesians in general are smart enough to determine which ideologies suit them. Let them choose. I believe freedom of expression should always be embraced, upheld and respected,” he added.

A number of political figures, however, have supported the ban against the PKI, saying it was still relevant.

“We think the [PKI] must be forbidden. Not only because party officials committed treason, but also because communism is antithetical to democratic ideals,” Anas Urbaningrum from the Democratic Party said.

Golkar Party’s Azis Syamsudin said the existence of the PKI was a violation of the Constitution and therefore the ban was not debatable.

A legislator from the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura), Akbar Faisal, said if the government really wanted to prevent communism from growing in the country, it should truly serve the people and fulfill their basic needs.

“The government must be able to resolve the basic issues such as poverty and education, otherwise, Marxist ideologies have plenty of opportunities to take hold in the minds of the people,” he said.

There are also several other groups supporting the PKI in Facebook as well as those critical of communism and the PKI.

In addition to the alleged 1965 coup attempt, the PKI had launched an earlier coup attempt in 1948 against the Indonesian government, which was facing Dutch aggression at the time.

The PKI had also tried to stage a revolt against the Dutch colonial authorities in 1926.

The news is not complete though, they didn’t add the part where Council of God from Sitobondo “encouraged” the people from their faith to cease any friendship of people who has joined facebook, as cited from detik news.

Communism has long story of being demonized in Indonesian history. The G-30S PKI remained the most controversial and darkest period of Indonesian history and still unresolved.

Atheism and agnosticism are forbidden in Indonesia, because 5 principle in Indonesia states explicitly that everyone MUST have a religion officially, otherwise you won’t be recognized as citizen here, no matter how brilliant your brain are. The Council of God has important duty to impose and judge what is good and bad for the society, though they unfortunately, reluctant to prevent FPI sweeping the foreign tourists from Indonesia.

I guess this event solidify my disgust toward these holy men.  They are still much better compared the Council of God in Saudi Arabia, the Mutaween, who has amazing record of human right violence in the name of God, but it’s not impossible that they will someday evolve into one if the horrible syariah law applied to our country, because Aceh also has Syariah police, which just recently gang-raped girl in the name of God.

Hi there, just a quick post. At 1 January 2010 my BenQ Joybook S41-447 gave me a big surprise: the VGA chipset (nvidia 8600m GS) was broken all of sudden. Using my sister’s laptop, I able to connect to internet and found out this Joybook S41-447 was equipped with a defective VGA card. Many people complained similar symptomps. Their monitor goes blank all of sudden.

Unfortunately, my warranty has over (the warranty only covers one year for spare part), and I most probably must pay $300 for damage I didn’t do.

Congratulation BenQ, you just have destroyed my customer loyality. I swear I will never ever buy any product from this manufacturer in the future.

For these who want to buy a gaming notebook, just follow my tips: NEVER buy anything from BenQ, especially their joybook series, because it has a lot of problems and equipped with crappy optic drive.

If you still decide to buy a BenQ Joybook even after reading this post, dont tell me I didnt warn you.

The latest development of democracy in our country may has reached turning point. With the domination of Demokrat in our parliement, which makes the government is too powerful, we could expect the imbalance of power from the start of this new government.

The latest national drama of KPK, century bank bailout between KPK, police, and our top executives just reached new development: The government just recently banned a book about the corruption scandal.
here is the news from Jakarta Globe:

The Democratic Party has labeled a controversial book about the Bank Century scandal as being merely “entertainment,” likening it to mystical soap operas and celebrity television news programs.

The book, titled “Membongkar Gurita Cikeas: Di Balik Skandal Bank Century” (“Unraveling The Cikeas Octopus: Behind The Bank Century Scandal”), was written by prominent sociologist and anti-Suharto activist George Junus Aditjondro. The book accuses the ruling Democratic Party of using non-profit foundations associated with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to transfer funds to its coffers during the 2009 elections. The book also claims that state funds used to bail out Bank Century were diverted to one of the foundations.

“It looks like entertainment because what George expected was for his book to be exposed and for him to get free promotion to boost its sales,” Anas Urbaningrum, leader of the Democratic Party’s faction in the House of Representatives, told Metro TV on Monday.

Anas said the book was full of sensationalism only and poor analysis. He said George’s data was baseless.

“He used secondary data, it’s so biased,” he added.

Anas encouraged all parties written about in the book to make public clarifications and if necessary, press charges against George Aditjondro “so nobody will mess with truth and other people’s dignity again.”

JG

Snippet news from random Indonesian news sites: the ban of book itself has increased public curiousity, and everyone now looking all over book stores for it. Gramedia Book stores, has decided to drop the title from their shelves, leaving only Gunung Agung (another book chain stores) the only place to find the books. Not surprisingly, the remaining books sold out in a day.

This is not the only books banned this year though, there are about 5 books banned by justice court because they are threatening pancasila and against the UUD 1945. The powerful government has shown the bad example of democracy, the victim now victimizer.

I remembered Demokrat popped out as winner out of our dissatisfication toward the previous ruling party (Golkar, PDIP), in the past, we have experienced long period of suppresion, now we may enter another period of media suppresion. Of course, our freedom of expression is much better than China or the Syariah countries, still… it’s kinda disappointing to see this development.

SBY himself has repeat several times that public shouldn’t believe of lies and forgeries. The book author himself, George Junus Aditjondro, fortunately has not been detained, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he is now listed in the black list.

Perhaps democracy is against the Javanese norms? We know Indonesia’s culture is dominated by Javanese norms. The principal of javanese is to protect “harmony”, democracy should be fair and not antagonizing people unfairly.

The 1998 revolution could change our government in a day, but to change a culture is more than decades, maybe a century.

What have I learned in 2009?

Well, finally the end of year is here. I finally able to find some time to sit down and recollecting what I have learned in 2009.

Let’s see…

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Just recently I found this information posted in some bulletin board. Back then before the Indonesia government took over the government and the country, many places in Indonesia is given dutch-sounding name. You could see the list as follow:

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Haven’t updated this blog for quite time. I’m actually in several personal project, including making hundred sites, a cultural project, and nanowrimo. The goal of nanowrimo is to write 50,000-word novel based on quantity, not quality. Which means you write everything you think, edit it later. It’s okay if you write garbage, but the goal is to turn off the inner editor and try to bypass the writer block.

I must admit it’s not easy as it sounds. Take a look to my friend who has English as her 1st language.

This is the first time I write an english-language novel. Bad grammar, non-sensical plots, repetitive words. I lost count how many times I wrote “said he”, “said the boy”, “he said”, etc.

This novel will ultimately turn into garbage or crappy novel. But this is a good opportunity to test my skill, and also my attempt to one step getting closer into writing english-language novel. There are not much asian novelists out there who write novel in english, I hope I someday could be listed as  one of these asian writers.

The progress is far from finish. At the moment I’m writing, I have written about 17,914 words of 50,000 words. My stamina is not enough to squeeze 1,667 words per day constantly.

I have been planning to write this novel for quite time actually, so I have basic outline in my head, only the plot is getting nonsense each time I continue the story. I guess I will just go through with it and continue writing. Editing could be done later.

I actually like the overall plot, but since this event discourages editing, I will just try not make my life harder by analysing the plot holes (yet). I think every pages are plot holes >_>.

I remember I have this my ongoing novel, which plot has been revised for three times I guess. I have deleted 150-200 pages scene and write again from scratch because I think the plot is too typical, badly written, unintersting, illogical and such. The hardest part is when you must delete several key plot, key characters you thought it would be interesting.

I remember the first time I write this novel, I have setup the characters, their roles, and so on, but as I write, several go undeveloped and some attached too me too much and I ended up deleting all these underdeveloped characters, removing many scenes related to them and simplify the plot.

After I wrote my novel or short stories, I make a habit to read it myself and put my position as reader, and try imagine how the readers’ feel each scenes I wrote, does this scene suck? Is the flow too fast or too nonsensical? Or perhaps there are too much characters and concepts in the entire novel? *press backspace*

I try not too idealistic and try to make a book enjoyable to both myself and reader because I know how it feels when you read a bad book. The plot flow is uninteresting and alienating reader. But again, it’s always subjective, since some books we don’t like might be thought interesting by other.

Anyway, I don’t think I will reach 50,000. The most realistic number would probably 20,000-30,000. My 1st novel I wrote during high school (unpublished) was 53,000 words and it took 4 years to finish! And here I’m challenged to write 50,000 in one month. O_o

“Je bent niet alleen” my oma said once to my mother during her last moments. This is just a memory of my oma shared by mother, few days before she passed away. I wrote this so I won’t forget.

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Actors: Anneke Grönloh, Gepke Haakma, Ilse Bloem, Jaro Wolff, Joep van der Geest
Directors: Marion Bloem
Production Date: 2008

Not too longtime ago, one of friend posted the trailer of this movie in the Dutch-Indonesian Groups.

This movie tells story about Barbie, an american indische who was travelling to Netherlands to find her extended dutch-indonesian family. This film is portrayal of second generation of Indo people who still practicing their eurasian culture in US.

In 1945, Eurasians became target of hostility from native Indonesian, commonly called “Bersiap”. Many were traumatized and lost family members during “Bersiap”, regardless, it was barely mentioned in Indonesia history books because Eurasians were long time regarded as “Dutch” and “Kompeni” (allegory to VOC).

There is approximately 300,000 or more Dutch-Indonesian people expelled from Indonesia in 1950-1964.  My mom said her family actually supposed to move to Netherlands in 1964, but the Dutch stopped the migration program because there had been too much eurasian in Netherlands. The totok protested government because they must compete job with migrants, and as the result, many later migrating to USA.

After watching the trailer, I couldn’t help but  want to watch this movie because it’s a movie about Dutch-Indonesian, a rare topic indeed. I wonder if the Indonesian cinemas will someday air it.

The good news is there is a dvd release with english subtitle. But the bad news is, it’s practically impossible to buy in Indonesia because everything in the stores are the hollywood craps. Importing isn’t easy either.

I have tried several methods to get the dvd. One of my friend is living in Germany. he said he might able to import the DVD and give it to me when his mom visit Indonesia, he gave me bad news that Amazon Netherlands doesn’t send goods to Germany. Holy crab. And here I thought EU has higher freedom of movement of goods. My friend amazed how hard it was to import just a single DVD from Netherlands to Germany which is an EU zone.

The second one is asking my friends who live in NL. She said even worse, she must import it from UK which will increase the shipping cost. And oh, Amazon NL is actually located in UK. Duh.

I haven’t given up though, I have emailed my cousin in NL, there is still possibility that I could ask him to send this to Indonesia. Is this movie popular at all in Netherlands anyway? I barely heard any movie magazines talking about this movie. It’s not even featured in Jakarta International Film Festival. It seems I must check local Erasmus Huis since it has been ages since last time I went there.

Anyway, for these who are interested to Dutch-Indonesian related subject. This movie is probably a must-watch. Even the music from trailer is pretty catchy and easy-listening. Really hope this movie could get more exposure and featured in our local movies.

References

Official Site
IMDB Page
Trailer

Have been absent for a while since I’m busy with my work, but there are also some activity to be shared in indonesian booksphere. Here’s what I could share about about Indonesia books in 2009:

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