Indonesian Representatives, Lie to Me No More

By Yohanes Sulaiman & Weilin Han on 08:23 pm Apr 07, 2014

A while ago there was a TV series called “Lie to Me” where the main character, Dr. Cal Lightman (Tim Roth), was a psychologist helping law enforcement agents to analyze a suspect’s face and body movements to determine whether he or she was telling the truth.

Ahead of this year’s elections, hosts of TV programs and talkshows in Indonesia are suddenly turning into amateur psychologists. Walking in Lightman’s footsteps, they are analyzing people in similar ways, inviting experts to help reading gestures of various electoral candidates, interpreting and adding meanings, giving seals of approval and disapproval.

Those who felt threatened and humiliated by such analyses responded by claiming that the television hosts were campaigning against them. At the same time, those who were praised in the shows are using the analyses as marketing tools for self-promotion: to show what great candidates they are.

By the end of the day though, these analyses have no objective value. It’s pure entertainment. There is very little correlation between how candidates make gestures and whether they will perform well once they are elected (if that’s the case, then psychopaths would be the best presidents).

On the other hand, there is another familiar way to determine whether a candidate will do as he or she says. It is called a track record. The candidate has to prove what they have done and how they manage conflicts. He is expected to give evidence of his performance, and not what he wishes he had done. An academic CV and list of previous positions may be important as a gauge of a person’s qualifications, but they are less important than experience in actually getting something done.

To some degree though, it is possible to combine both Lightman’s method and actual track records during this year of campaigning. By this we mean that we are taking scores of candidates’ past promises and gestures and see if they keep those promises.

For instance, one promise that often comes up during the campaign is that education will be improved.

“I promise that education should be free and accessible for everyone,” “we have to increase our education quality,” “we will pay attention to the teacher’s welfare” — and many other promises are blurted out in order to garner votes. In reality, though, while officially education is free, people are still saddled with various fees: study trips fees, uniform fees, donations, etcetera.

Moreover, records show that in the last two years, our Education Ministry made many promises, only to break them: look at Kurikulum 2013-gate (K13). The ministry boasted that this curriculum was the only savior for our education system — just like an advertising quack with tales of countless cures to every imaginable disease.

Let us refresh your memory on the broken promises surrounding K13. During the K13 socialization process, it was said that the state would bear the costs for production and dissemination of the books, teachers would be very happy because they did not have to spend a lot of time developing lesson plans and assessments. And since K13 was a progressive curriculum, the state would also provide a new format of the report card, which would show the student’s capacity holistically.

Grade-10 students would take cross-stream subjects that they like instead of following a rigid schedule. The school would use their past report cards and psychological test to make decisions. K13 training would only be carried out by certified and qualified trainers who master the concepts. The list goes on and on.

Let us be fooled no more. In reality it is all business as usual. The original “free books” was just a teaser. Schools must purchase K13 books now. Available lesson plans (which are very poorly written) were samples and teachers in the end had to create their own lesson plans. At the same time, the problem is that most teachers don’t have any clue about how to create their own K13-based lesson plans because not only were trainings limited, the trainers also were not briefed and prepared ahead of time.

Report cards? Schools must be creative, right? So, be as creative as you like. Choosing your cross-stream subjects? The guideline provided during the training officially mentioned that the students could do that only in Grade 11 — and not 10 as boasted. Some schools obediently follow the former instruction and some follow the latter. Monitoring, who cares?

In the end, talk is cheap and people should keep the old adage in mind: Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

We have learned the hard way that those who made promises turned out luring us into muddier and murkier conditions — and, to make matters worse, they used our tax money to do so.

We should now use the limited time available to learn about the track records of candidates. Obviously, we can always just shrug, believing there is no use in voting. Or, we can think that they are all liars anyway. But are you sure you want to lose your chance? Have we not learned to reject stiff-necked crooks?

We use our time to learn about candidates, because we don’t want to have ravening wolves in sheep’s clothing representing us.

Yohanes Sulaiman is a lecturer at the Indonesian Defense University (Unhan).
Weilin Han is a teacher-trainer and school consultant.

Corruption: Koran Scandal Shows It’s Time to Clean House

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Corruption: Koran Scandal Shows It’s Time to Clean House
Yohanes Sulaiman | July 09, 2012

Is nothing sacred anymore? That’s a predictable reaction upon hearing that the Corruption Eradication Commission has named Golkar Party legislator Zulkarnaen Djabar a suspect in a graft case related to the procurement of Korans at the Ministry of Religious Affairs. 

This entire scandal again feeds the perception of our politicians being so out of touch with ordinary people and having such self-importance that they think themselves to be above the law — not only the law of the state but also the law of the divine. 

As usual, everyone expressed their shock, surprise, anger and contrition over the whole sordid affair. 

Kemas Roni, the lead prosecutor of the antigraft body, known as the KPK, declared his shock that someone was audacious enough to steal money from a Koran procurement project. 

Nasaruddin Umar, the deputy minister of religious affairs, said he was surprised that the scandal had happened in his ministry, adding that he had made it clear to ministry officials that corruption would not be tolerated. 

Golkar, seeing that this scandal has the potential to wreck its plans for the general elections in 2014, has already moved into damage-control mode with Nurul Arifin, the party’s deputy secretary general, asking Zulkarnaen to at least temporarily step down from the House of Representatives. 

Irianto Syafiudin, the head of Golkar’s West Java branch, was more blunt, calling for Zulkarnaen to be fired. 

Zulkarnaen cried mea culpa . The entire case, he said, was a warning from God that he needed to increase his “vertical communication.” 

By the close of play, however, life will likely go on as it has these past few years. Already Abdul Karim, an official in the Ministry of Religious Affairs, has accused the media of blowing up the case and insinuated that certain interested parties were trying to discredit the ministry. He warned that should the ministry be closed down, Muslims would suffer. 

That reaction suggests the ministry is more interested in saving itself than cleaning up its act. This despite the fact that the Koran procurement scandal is no doubt only the tip of the corruption iceberg in the ministry. 

Take the example of the corruption allegations surrounding the hajj pilgrimage organized by the ministry. As early as 2009, Indonesia Corruption Watch uncovered evidence suggesting money set aside for the pilgrimage had been misappropriated. 

On Jan. 6, 2009, the anticorruption watchdog reported that Muhammad Maftuh Basyuni, at the time the religious affairs minister, improperly received hundreds of millions of rupiah from the hajj pilgrimage fund. 

Considering how much money is involved in the hajj management program — about Rp 39 trillion ($4.1 billion) — the Rp 35 billion Koran procurement scandal is peanuts by any reasonable comparison. But despite the accumulating evidence, the investigation in the management of the pilgrimage has gone nowhere, even though the KPK itself on Nov. 29, 2011, declared the Ministry of Religious Affairs to be the most corrupt institution in Indonesia. 

In addition, there have been revelations that lawmakers from House Commission VIII, which oversees religious affairs, received thousands of Korans from the ministry. While Ida Fauziah, the head of Commission VIII, argued that distributing Korans was a good deed, the problem is that receiving them for free from the ministry smacks of conflict of interest and is certainly morally questionable. 

In most democratic nations, rules are made to address these kinds of issues, imposing limits and bans on gifts that a lawmaker can receive from any government or non-government institution. 

One cannot help but notice that efforts to clean up the hajj fund management have stalled in the House. 

The legislature has not approved the creation of a commission to supervise the hajj pilgrimage and there is no law in place to regulate the management of the pilgrimage fund. 

With so much money flying around and the credibility of both the House and the Ministry of Religious Affairs at stake, both institutions would be well advised to start cleaning up their houses and behaving more transparently. And at the same time, they should avoid anything that could be construed as a conflict of interest. 

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Yakty-yak

11:57am Jul 10, 2012

@Yohanes I immensely enjoy your candor and analysis, however your conclusions are, invariably, always the same, namely, expecting the very malfeasant politicians, parties, institutions, and bureaucratic agencies that systematically perpetuate these corrupt practices to clean up their own mess:

"....both institutions would be well advised to start cleaning up their houses and behaving more transparently."

This conclusion, like many similar ones you've expressed previously, that call upon the National Police, AGO, DPR, similar actors to "clean up their own house - is naive at best, academic apathy at worst.

Its not the the latter as you come across as an intellectual activist in the best sense of the spirit but your conclusions belie your analysis. These institutions have zero incentive to "increase transparency"; and given the impotence and complicity of Indonesia's regulatory/enforcement bodies the shadows in which these corrupt practices exist will only grown longer.

exbrit

12:31pm Jul 10, 2012

It has been time to clean house for a long time but there is a shortage of cleaners. The birds of a feather are already downplaying the case, worrying that they may be next in line. As Yohanes Sulaiman suggests, nothing is likely to change because the house is not serious about cleansing itself

Yohanes-Sulaiman

2:20pm Jul 10, 2012

@Yakty-yak: Thanks for your comments. I am aware that people are starting to get tired of my tireless and tiresome suggestions for the institutions to self-reform.

Frankly, I am tempted to just advocate the Ministry of Religion to abolish itself, because I find that it creates more troubles than it worth, but that might draw lots of trolls from the woodwork.

Plus, I kinda find it useful to soften the blows from my criticisms that sometimes some people find rattling and it seems that such ending is expected, if you read the op-ed in Indonesian newspapers.

Still, I have to concede that I personally am also tired of having that kind of ending.

Probably it is best, next time, if I get rid the redundant last paragraph "advise" and just focus on the analysis.

@exbrit: shortage of cleaners and everyone profits under this stupid system.

Normalaatsra

4:39pm Jul 10, 2012

Time for another reshuffle

Yakty-yak

8:07am Jul 11, 2012

@Yohanes: To reiterate I very much enjoy your writings and analysis. My intention was to simply highlight a relatively weak conclusion at odds with the balance of your spot-on analysis. Regardless of audience I would strongly encourage you to finish with a bite rather than a whimper to drive your analysis home, critics and trolls be damned. As the saying goes "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing".

By the way I do occasionally read bahasa op-ed pages but primarily that of Tempo, which doesn't shy away either in its analysis or conclusions of calling out those that are shamelessly corrupt regardless of reaction - as evidenced by past aggressions.

Keep up your writings.

Pelan2

9:29am Jul 11, 2012

@Yohanes - With the current and next generation, going into government service, having known nothing but this style of corrupt leadership, where does Pak Yohanes expect the change to come from, and from which segment of the society - Trims.. PS Thanks for your articles, always good to read..

Yohanes-Sulaiman

1:23pm Jul 11, 2012

Thanks to both Pelan2 and Yakty-yak for your kind comments.

@Yakty-yak: I will try to address those nice criticism in my next article, hopefully up in a few days.

@Pelan2: The change should come from two sides: the top and the bottom -- on the bottom side, the professionalization of a couple of NGOs, notably ICW is a much welcomed development, and we need more grass root movement pushing for accountability. Unfortunately what often happens is that the NGOs are sloppy in both their researches and/or pretty ineffective in garnering public support outside of just the general idea of anti-corruption.

From the top, I still believe that leadership matters, that a strong executive could help shaping the system. Unfortunately, they are cut from the same piece of cloth and as a result, we don't have too many good people on the top.

Not Even SBY Is Above the Law

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Not Even SBY Is Above the Law
Yohanes Sulaiman | June 14, 2012

With a national consensus both that rules are made to be broken and that the ends justify the means, there is simply no need to pay close attention to the details’

Earlier this month, the Constitutional Court ruled that the appointments of deputy ministers made last year by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono were illegal because the law used to justify the appointments was unconstitutional.

A presidential decree has since been issued to reappoint the deputy ministers, but the ruling reflects badly on Yudhoyono’s presidency, as it makes one wonder if this administration is truly competent in legal matters.

The ruling also shows that 14 years after the fall of Suharto, Indonesia still has a long way to go in strengthening both the rule of law and the concept of legitimacy in government.

For many Indonesians, it seems that the question of legality is always an afterthought, and not something to be taken seriously. This is a direct result of Indonesians’ daily struggle with red tape; that in order to interact with the government, they have to deal with bureaucratic procedures that make things more difficult rather than easier.

In order to cut through all of the red tape, people turn to bribing officials.

Paying a bribe is so common that a clean and incorruptible official such as Solo Mayor Joko Widodo, currently a candidate for the governorship of Jakarta, is seen as an anomaly. People are genuinely surprised when civil servants refuse to accept bribes.

With a national consensus both that rules are made to be broken and that the ends justify the means, there is simply no need to pay close attention to the details. The law is seen as an afterthought; it is expected that anything can be conveniently swept under the rug with enough improper payments.

The legal travails of Yudhoyono’s government are the symptoms of this national disease. The government has been outwitted a number of times by noted legal scholar Yusril Ihza Mahendra since the beginning of the president’s second term.

When Attorney General Hendarman Supandji first indicted him, Yusril managed to successfully question Hendarman’s legitimacy in his role. That led to the Constitutional Court declaring Hendarman’s position and his decisions void.

Since then, Yusril has become a bit of a legal pest, succeeding in making life difficult for Yudhoyono’s administration. Many people believe that that is the reason why the government stopped its investigation into Yusril’s alleged corruption during his tenure as the justice and human rights minister. Many think that by halting the investigation, Yusril will get off Yudhoyono’s back.

Yudhoyono would have avoided the entire headache had the government been more diligent in researching the legal justifications for its actions. The administration could have trained or recruited more people with strong legal backgrounds. Perhaps more importantly, the administration should have taken legal matters more seriously by tackling many of the Constitution-breaking regulations, notably the proliferation of religious-based local ordinances.

Yudhoyono could have achieved more had he decided to govern based on the letter of the law and not through political expediencies, as Adnan Buyung Nasution, also a noted legal scholar, notes in his new book, “Advice for SBY.”

While some of Adnan’s pieces of advice aren’t politically convenient, like his push to bring late former President Suharto to trial, the book is revealing in that it shows how many of Yudhoyono’s decisions are made very slowly, with the fear of making new enemies, rather than the desire the follow the letter of the law, his main consideration.

This brings us back to the problem of the legality of the appointment of deputy ministers.

As a face-saving measure, the Constitutional Court suggested that Yodhoyono reappoint the deputy ministers by using the presidential decree — which he did. It probably would have been better for the president to go back to the drawing board and ensure that his decisions are backed by the law. This will save him some grief in the long run.

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zerodiversity

11:45am Jun 14, 2012

I think we all know by now that Pak SBY is more interested in securing favors/benefits for his party rather than doing what is necessary for the country. He is already putting his mind in the upcoming election and how his party can secure power position despite him being done with his 2 terms.

JohnGalt

12:23pm Jun 14, 2012

As you say Yohanes, SBY and the rest of the politicians feel they are not necessarily above the law but that it is theirs to selectively utilize when expedient. Cronyism, fear of upsetting people and just plain avarice is the order of the day with the rule of law coming second or third.

With the national examples set at this level, is it a surprise that mobs take the law into their own hands? that radicals and hard liners rule the streets and that more and more Indonesians are feeling disenfranchised at almost every level and no longer care about the rule of law or the constitution as long as they can get through one more day and prepare for the next?

This government has set the country back so far that it will take decades to repair it, sacrificing the social wellbeing of the people for the supposed economic development of the country that still only benefits a few and leaves the rest battling to survive.

Pelan2

12:35pm Jun 14, 2012

The election is 2 years off. As we know, even 2 days is long in politics.

The only chance that Partai Demokrat can have some credibility during the next campaign is if the President have all of the top figures in the party arrested and jailed, not only Angelina. Not sure if that's going to happen though. Still feel that Prabowo has the best chance of the lot IF he can be perceived as someone who can clean up this mess. Keeping in mind recent surveys on the popularity of current and previous presidents, a certain Mr, Suharto came up tops!!!!! Why? people had jobs, the country had growth, no FPI, no bloody loudspeakers from the mosques. People seem to longing back to those days minus the negatives....

exbrit

5:39pm Jun 14, 2012

What law? The bought and paid for one?

Yohanes-Sulaiman

8:44am Jun 15, 2012

Dear all: thank you for your kind comments. I agree with all your comments, especially Pelan2 is raising a great issue regarding the constant popularity of Suharto. Yet, sadly, under him and Sukarno, the rule of law is undermined as both ruled by fiat, "whatever I want, so it shall be," without setting up the legal basis/foundations -- though the trend, I think, worsened after the fall of Suharto with many of the rules and regulations have to be reexamined.

I think the biggest travesty of the reformation era is in the lack of progress in setting up the proper rule of law that govern the relationship between state and people, central and regional governments, etc. with executive, legislative, and judiciary are more interested in playing politics than govern.

It is not a surprise that people in the end are pining for the good old ordered days of Suharto, regardless how misguided it is.

ambiga

9:00am Jun 15, 2012

wonder if the same circumstances had happened in Malaysia n singapore, would those Mahathir+cronies and Lee/Lee be above the law? answers any one?

Yohanes-Sulaiman

9:36am Jun 15, 2012

@Ambiga: Lee Kwan Yew rules the state autocratically, but at least he knew how to set precedents/rules/regulations that had to be obeyed by everyone. That, I think, is the main reason why Singapore, in spite of its authoritarianism, is a magnet for investment from all over the world. Well, we can make an arguemnt that Singapore has its own self-enriching elite, e.g. on their high salaries, at least though, they tried to have a legal basis/foundation in order to set it. Malaysia, on the other hand, has a stronger legal system compared to Indonesia, but much weaker compared to Singapore, with erratic BN government. Don't think anyone dare to touch the corruption of BN there.

ambiga

9:43am Jun 15, 2012

How about corruption with NKF Scandals in singapore?

Pelan2

10:18am Jun 15, 2012

@ambiga - the big difference is that, in Singapore,no matter how high ranking you are, the law will be applied in full force and everybody knows that. Ref recent cases of the arrests an pressing of charges against the previous heads of CNB & SCDF. If the same principle of law was applied here it would be very good. To be able to charge, prosecute and convict one need to have a good legal system in place and that is sadly lacking here. That is why you end up with people being randomly sentenced to e.g. 3 months for stealing an apple and 6 months for murder.

@Pak Yohanes, thank you for another spot on article. Sad but true, in countries where a few have a lot and many have little, the political winds of change does quite often go from one extreme to another. I believe most Indonesians had high hopes after the summer of 98 and were ready to embark on a new road forward. Today, many are of the opinion that their high hopes have constantly run into road blocks which is the real reason why Pak Harto is topping the Top 6 charts. People want stability, jobs that can make them care for their families, educate their children, remove radicalism on both sides. I therefore believe that even a controversial candidate with a checkered background can emerge as winner in 2014, as long as he can be perceived as one that can clean the house and move the nation forward..

DrDez

10:51am Jun 15, 2012

you just keep in banking off... when will you stop your idiotic posts?

State’s Identity Card Concession Doesn’t Fix Problem With Its Stance on Religion

So, why do we need the "religion" column in our ID cards?

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State’s Identity Card Concession Doesn’t Fix Problem With Its Stance on Religion
Yohanes Sulaiman & Phillip Turnbull | February 23, 2012

'The purpose of the state is to protect the well-being of its citizens, not tell them what to believe'

In a move likely to stir up controversy and opposition from hard-line militant religious groups, the Home Affairs Ministry is floating the idea that those Indonesians who do not subscribe to one of the six officially recognized religions but belong to another may leave the religion column on their identity cards blank.

For many years, the religion column has caused much controversy. Ever since 1965, when President Sukarno decreed that there were only six recognized religions in Indonesia, minority religions have been under pressure to conform.

Clearly some in the government have recognized the problem with this situation and want to do something about it. This is to be welcomed. However, one must ask whether they have clearly identified the problem.

On one hand, the move is meant to further develop and implement the founding principles of Pancasila, which guarantees religious freedom and tolerance, and to include those minority religions in the community that do not fall under the broad ambit of the six recognized monotheistic world religions acknowledged as legal here.

This is obviously a good development for adherents of minority religions, who have seen more than their fair share of repression. As late as 1978, the office regulating “minority religions” was transferred from the Ministry of Religious Affairs to the Ministry of Education, a move that insinuated that these were less than true religions.

As a result, and because the New Order regime had decided that Confucianism would no longer be recognized as a religion, the minorities were forced to pick one of the remaining five “real” religions.

Now, even if minorities are allowed to leave the religion column on their ID cards blank, they still might become the victims of discrimination, not to mention the fact that beliefs still won’t be considered a religion by the state.

Basically, adherents of minority religions would be lumped together with those whose belief in God is suspended and those for whom God simply does not exist. And these people were all discriminated against and treated with contempt due to the legacy of the bloody struggle against communism.

A central tenet of the communist creed is atheism. During the tumultuous years of the Sukarno era, the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was popular among poor villagers thanks to its poverty alleviation programs, ranging from the redistribution of land (often forcibly) to low-interest loans for struggling farmers.

In order to curb the PKI’s growth, religious parties and organizations and even the secular nationalist parties that were also threatened by the rise of the PKI used the issue of “communists as atheists” as a stick to beat the party.

When the communists were found to be involved in the failed 1965 September 30 coup against Sukarno (often known by its official acronym, G30S/PKI), the PKI’s atheism was used to convince people that only atheists were capable of torturing and murdering six Army generals. While the accusation of torture was later refuted, the damage was done. People were led to believe that all atheists were capable of heinous acts, and the bloody suppression of communists was justified.

The victors subsequently associated communism with everything unpatriotic and whatever might pose a danger to the country. Belief in God hence became tantamount to being a patriot. Besides, to forge a national unifying identity, the young country needed a symbol of oppression to fight and guard against and “communism” — a very broad term applied to anyone who opposed Suharto’s New Order regime from the latter half of the 1960s — was at hand as a convenient bogeyman. And that included atheism.

Minority religions were caught in the vise. Most of their adherents were poor villagers, people who were naturally inclined to support the PKI due to its poverty alleviation programs. As a result, they were accused of being closet atheists and suffered greatly in the aftermath of the failed coup.

Now times have changed. Communism is no longer a credible threat to Indonesia. But for their own purposes, Indonesian politicians and religious leaders like to keep up the pretense that the “communist” bogeyman is hiding behind a tree and the country will disintegrate if they acknowledge there are people here who do not believe in God — and a state-sanctioned one at that.

What this state mentality has created is confusion and contradiction. While people have a right to express their religious beliefs publicly and privately, by so forcefully regulating religion in the public sphere, Indonesia got into something that it should have stayed out of. Like continental Europe in the 16th century after years of social and religious upheaval, Indonesia attempted its own form of cuius regio, eius religio , whereby European rulers attempted to create national harmony and conformity by regulating that citizens of a particular region adopt the religion of the ruler or move on.

In Indonesia’s case, this was applied to the whole country. All citizens were required to adopt one of the six official religions. But those who don’t adhere to one of the six state faiths are still here. They exist and thus they cannot be ignored. Nor can they be forced to exist in a way that conforms to an arbitrary system of identification that clearly needs to be reconsidered in the light of history and changing attitudes in society. Even if someone should claim that all people must have a religion and those who do not or adhere to minority religions are in error, it has to be pointed out that even those who err have rights.

Every person in Indonesia is an unsolved puzzle trying to make some sense of life. Some will say God is the key to understanding that puzzle and many in Indonesia would agree with that.

However, the fact remains that the state has no right to make distinctions between believers of different traditions, favoring one group above another, nor of making distinctions between believers and nonbelievers. To do so is an infringement on the fundamental rights of human beings.

The purpose of the state is to protect and foster the well-being of its citizens, not tell them what to think and believe. That is the right of the individual. The state’s role is to create peace so individuals may seek answers according to the dictates of their consciences.

This proposal of the Home Affairs Ministry is to be welcomed as a first step in a wider discussion. Let’s just hope there is no shouting.
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trueblue

5:28pm Feb 23, 2012

@Sulaiman/Turnbull

To avoid any misunderstanding allow me to nail my colours to the mast! In principle and practice I advocate a secular Constitution e.g., France. The concept of "one nation under God", just simply does not work for me. And it is proven that it doesn't work anywhere! It is impossible to forcibly via a constitution frog march an individual to select from a six pack of faith.

That's as curious as Freemasons who have to believe in the Great Architect, a catch all requisition whereby belief in Superman, The Tooth Fairy or Mickey Mouse as the nominated "Great Architect" suffices.

Although I make no apologies for being a person of religious faith, I am emphatic that faith and belief cannot be legislated.

padt

6:42pm Feb 23, 2012

trueblue - I think the last four paragraphs of this article - diplomatically couched in measured language - would indicate that the authors of the article agree with your view that it is not the role of the State to legislate for faith and belief. The second last paragraph in particular says this in so many words. That's how I read it.

The role of the State is to provide a peaceful climate for those who wish to pursue their beliefs - in private and in public - with freedom from oppression from any source and without State interference - so long as the secular law of the land is upheld. The role of the State is also to provide a peaceful climate for those of no religious beliefs to live according to the dicates of the conscience in freedom and security, with all the benefits that living in society affords to all citizns.

The last paragraph is a call for a wider discussion of this matter than is currently taking place.

The wives of Freemasons frighten the hell out of me, by the way.

Yohanes-Sulaiman

7:15pm Feb 23, 2012

Of course, the best government is the government that interfere least to individual's personal choice, notably in religion. The problem, however, even today we still have all these unfinished debate on the role of state and it relations with religion. In Indonesia, the ministry of religion is created as a compromise with the political Muslims as far back as in 1945, especially after Bung Hatta (God bless his soul) decided to get rid of the requirement to do shariah from the Pancasila in order to maintain the unity of the nation.

In France, to ensure equality, the country adopt secular constitution. In Indonesia, however, the current status quo is seen as a compromise, and thus you keep hearing so many Islamists complaining that they got the short end of the stick and wanting to put the shariah back in the constitution.

Thus, you are right that faith and belief cannot be legislated, but at the same time, this is the card that we are being dealt with at this moment.

nonredneck

8:32pm Feb 23, 2012

padt: "The wives of Freemasons frighten the hell out of me, by the way." Any difference from any other wives ?

principe

7:27am Feb 24, 2012

Rules, regulations and laws are based on a communities' norms and values. These norms and values often derive from a communities' history and tradition. Often they are thought of as "for the sake of the community" they derive from. For the common good so to speak. And also very often they derive from the deities and rituals they (used to) worship and practice. Legislation therefore can't escape those roots. Also an Atheist will have an opinion about right and wrong on. He or she may wonder where that feeling or opinion originates from. Surely it is not genetically motivated, so that leaves us with how, by whom and why we were taught these values. So, are sense of righteousness has its origins somewhere. If we dig long enough we may arrive to those origin's origin where we may end up with some belief in the evolution of Godly beliefs giving structure to what we know and accept as our sense of right and wrong, our sense of justice. can religion really be disconnected from that ?

wasnotis

7:49am Feb 24, 2012

The absurdity with the idea of choosing one of "six officially recognized monotheistic religions" is that three of the given choices are not actually monotheistic. A little knowledge about religious history would be useful in this debate.

imaji

9:10am Feb 24, 2012

People's personal belief should not be the concerns of others, let alone the state. Erase religion from ID cards!

DrDez

9:26am Feb 24, 2012

nrn... oh yes there is a difference

trueblue

9:45am Feb 24, 2012

@wasnotis

Your point is correct. Theologically the Abrahamic religions would be monotheistic. On that basis alone another would need to be added.

Red Tape and Company: What a Toll Road Blockade Says About the Economy

The idea for this article came when I was working on completely different short article for the Indonesian navy, on the topic of Indonesian seas as means of unifying the country. It was then when I found out these interesting tidbits, such as the fact that it is much cheaper to ship a container to Singapore than to Padang.

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Red Tape and Company: What a Toll Road Blockade Says About the Economy
Yohanes Sulaiman | January 26, 2012

'Bad policy choices will have a long-term impact on Indonesia’s ability to attract foreign investors.'

Last Thursday, a dispute between a workers union in Bekasi and the Indonesian Employers Association led to the blockade of the Jakarta-Cikampek toll road. The incident is a symptom of deep trouble in the Indonesian economy, arising from bad policy choices by both the central and local governments, the union’s inability to understand the problems faced by Indonesian businesses and entrepreneurs feeling the squeeze of rising costs and overseas competition.

The negotiations between employers association Apindo and the Bekasi Workers in Action (B3) union stalled as both sides accused each other of acting in bad faith. The union argued that Apindo reneged on its promise to withdraw its court challenge to a Bekasi wage regulation, while Apindo declared that it challenged the regulation in the court because the regulation was misguided from the beginning.

Apindo’s complaint is that the Bekasi city government determined the minimum wage simply by averaging the Apindo and the union’s proposed wages, in efforts to woo workers ahead of elections.

While it would of course be great if workers could be paid more than just the minimum wage, the problem is that factories will see profits fall due to higher production costs and increasing international competition.

One of the major components of production costs in Indonesia is transportation. In fact, according to former Finance Minister Fuad Bawazier, it could amount to 30 percent of production costs.

As many who regularly drive between Jakarta and Cikarang can attest to, even without the protests, the traffic is horrible. Trucks with supplies have to line up for hours in order to go past the Cikarang toll gate. After they pass it, they have to navigate narrow, traffic-jammed streets to reach their factory of destination, wasting precious time and fuel in the process.

And even when trucks with goods reach the port of Tanjung Priok, the problems don’t end. The port is both inefficient and backlogged, with a six-day wait before it can process goods, adding to costs.

Not to mention the dreaded red tape. According to data compiled by the World Bank’s Doing Business project in 2011, in Indonesia it took 17 days to clear goods for export and 27 days for import. In contrast, in Singapore it only requires five days to complete export procedures and four days for import.

Not surprisingly, shipping between Indonesia’s many islands is a very expensive venture. The World Bank’s Indonesia Economic Quarterly noted in its June 2011 edition that it would be cheaper to send goods from Jakarta to Singapore than from Jakarta to other ports in Indonesia.

In fact, it costs $600 to send a 20-foot container from Jakarta to Padang, West Sumatra, while it only costs $185 to ship the same container to Singapore.

Due to this very costly transportation system — far exceeding the global average of just 10 percent of total production costs — and not to mention the prevalence of bribery, it should be understandable that factory owners are reluctant to raise wages. This would severely undermine their competitiveness. But predictably, this angers laborers who say that the minimum wage they receive is not enough to cover basic expenses.

Both the central government and the regional government should be blamed for this dysfunctional relationship.

In the case of the central government, its failure to rein in corruption, to improve national infrastructure and to craft a coherent economic policy is making it difficult for factory owners to lower their production costs. And these failures are partly due to corruption.

The 2008 report of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) stated that 30-40 percent of the national budget was stolen each year — and that is added to the usual bureaucratic waste and inefficiency that eat up part of the remaining funds.

Considering the vast size of Indonesia and the already small portion of the national budget spent on infrastructure (10.7 percent in 2011), it is easy to see why transportation in this country remains fraught with difficulties.

While the government is asking the private sector to pick up the slack, misguided populist policies are preventing the private sector from investing in infrastructure.

For instance, the Kompas daily newspaper pointed out in October that in spite of the rising costs of fuel, the government has refused to raise the official transportation fee for cement from Makassar in South Sulawesi to Kendari in Central Sulawesi, even though that fee was set in the mid-1990s .

The private sector, seeing that there is no profit to be made, refuses to be involved and those willing to invest have found that it is becoming harder and harder for them to maintain their fleet faced with such price controls.

All these factors work in tandem to increase the transportation cost in Indonesia and in turn, squeeze businesses’ margins of profit and make it harder for them to accommodate their workers’ demands.

To further exacerbate the situation, regional governments are also often behaving irresponsibly by pushing populist measures of their own. Usually, these are the result of promises made ahead of elections, such as drastic increases in minimum wages.

When unions in the end decide to hit the bricks, regional governments often blame the factory owners, emboldening the union and making it increasingly unlikely for the two sides to reach a compromise solution.

Bad policy choices of this kind will have a long-term impact on Indonesia’s ability to attract foreign investors.

Already, potential investors are spooked by high rates of corruption, massive red tape and uncertainty caused by substandard and the overlapping local and national regulations.

With labor disputes and uncontrolled industrial action now thrown into the mix, it is highly questionable whether the Indonesian economy will remain as strong as Moody’s Investors Service thinks.
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Jason88

9:52am Jan 27, 2012

Excellent analysis. Poor infrastructure is a main threat to stability (economic, social) in this country. Would a new president be able to solve the matter? Is anyone capable and willing and bold enough to get this country on track for a better future? Why can't we have a Lee Kuan Yew type of leader and PAP type of party here - is it a cultural rooted matter we all arranged ourselves to live with incapable, greedy administrations?

Yohanes-Sulaiman

1:28pm Jan 27, 2012

@Jason: Thanks for your comments.



We used to have someone like Lee Kuan Yew: Suharto. The problem, however, is that he failed to create a professional bureaucracy and actually demolished it in order to ensure the longevity of his rule.



I think you can have a strong and effective president in a democratic society. The problem, however, is whether the leadership is competent enough to push for good policies and to actually craft a short term and long term planning, and really follow through the plan, not just throwing the topics depending on the whims.

DrDez

2:50pm Jan 27, 2012

infrastructure, failing education, 40% theft of budget (sic), mob and religious violence, uncertain legal framework, protectionism, ineffectual judicial process, mafia's, gangs, drug syndicates, uncertain wage structure (min wage) a high proportion of the administration facing corruption charges, police violence increasing, media freedoms eroded, mobs running unchallenges, growing radicalism etc...

On the positive we have lots of minerals and a growing middle class oh and a presidential jet

Yohanes-Sulaiman

4:48pm Jan 27, 2012

@DrDez: Don't forget the national treasure, such as the two billion rupiah-toilets, twenty billion rupiah meeting room, and four music albums, composed by our Great Leader.

RuleBritannia

6:32pm Jan 27, 2012

@DrDez - ever considered making an alternative advertisement for Indonesia to run on CNN in the mornings with the official one?? I think you've just about covered the salient points for anyone wishing to come and invest here!

DrDez

8:46pm Jan 27, 2012

Can you imagine how prosperous the whole nation could be if only we could tackle some of these issues? It could be spread and national properity wouold follow. Investment would be incredible and the standard of living of every Indonesian could improve dramatically. SBY had a mandate to change but in my opinion it is worse now than at anytime in the last 43 years

That is what sickens me most I feel.

DrDez

8:49pm Jan 27, 2012

RB - I dont need to. Any investor here should be aware of the risks and if they weigh the returns to be greater than the risk then it will continue.

Our GDP by population growth alone is about 2.5%, last year investment GDP was about 2% leaving about 1.5% actual growth...