Thoughts Outside The Indonesian Box

If I were the Jakarta Governor - a year on.

2009-02-11T15:30:00.000+07:00

by Thomas R. Belfield of the Jakarta-Indonesia Urbanblog

Last year I contributed a section to Thoughts Outside The Indonesian Box outlining what I would do if I were Governor of Jakarta. This is how it began: Traffic, floods, H5N1, dengue fever, inappropriate land use, rapid urban expansion, air and water pollution, corruption, crime, street brawls, kampungs, and evictions appear like clockwork in the Jakarta news.

One year on I cannot see that there is any change in the pattern.

In a Jakarta Post article published on 31/1/2009, it was reported that while Governor of Jakarta, Fauzi Bowo, was out jogging near MONAS (formerly Merdeka Square with Sukarno's "last erection" and now Jakarta's logo), he was furious to find damaged park lights, dead trees, puddles of water and piles of garbage in some spots in the Monas park…

The article states that… he claimed it was not the first time he had noticed the shabby condition of the park but said he preferred to keep silent and hope for an improvement.

"But until today there is no such attempt [from Monas management] to improve this [messy] condition. I’m very disappointed,” Fauzi said, adding that there were too many institutions involved in the maintenance of MONAS.

When I visited Jakarta in February of last year I noticed the same things and I have the photographs to prove it. Mr. Bowo should get out and see his city more often. It’s not just MONAS that is in need of attention.

Mr. Bowo is also fond, apparently, of mega projects such as the Jakarta Subway and the reclamation and development project for high end housing and recreation along the North Jakarta coast. All the while people wade up to their knees in flood water.

Mr. Bowo is representative of a symptom of the “blinkered short-termism of nearly every Indonesian city”. His policies are reactive rather than proactive while Jakarta survives by its wits and through “typical ‘third world’ ingenuity” of its informal economies.

In Christopher Silver's Planning the Megacity: Jakarta in the Twentieth Century, he notes that the planning vision for Jakarta states as its overriding objective the creation of ‘a humane, efficient, and competitive capital supported by a participative, prosperous, well behaved and civilized society in a safe and sustainable environment’.

But like the traffic in Jakarta these guiding planning principles are gridlocked and where they are not they appear to be tilted toward the moneyed interests.

Such was the case that through the 1990s there was actually an 'ungreening' of Jakarta. For example, Silver notes that up through the 1990s there were banana trees growing along Jalan Sudirman, the main thoroughfare of the business district. In the 1970s open and green spaces represented - I know it is hard to believe - between 40 and 50 per cent of Jakarta’s surface area of 63,120 hectares. By the 1990s 246 of the city’s 412 public parks had been converted to some other function.

To compound all of this the Singapore-based Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA) ranked Central, North and West Jakarta at the top of a list of administrative regions most at risk due to climate change due to the rise of ocean levels. A World Bank study noted that unless action is taken much of the coastal city of 12 million will be submerged by sea water by 2025.

This is further compounded by the fact that Jakarta is sinking under the weight of out-of-control development exacerbated by factories, hotels and wealthy residents drilling deep-water bores to bypass the city's shambolic water grid, sucking out the groundwater and causing further subsidence.

Of all the apparently intractable problems of Jakarta one that stands out to be me is trying to get a handle on just what is meant by ‘Jakarta’. Is it the city proper? Is it DKI Jakarta? Is it Jabodetabek? Demographia now ranks Jakarta as the second largest urban area in the world with a population of over twenty-million people. How is this to be managed, if at all?

Traffic, air pollution, green space, poverty, crime, police corruption. There is a long litany of problems which face Jakarta. Most everyone knows something that is in need of being done or being fixed in the city. The easy thing to do is to point at the problems. The harder thing to do is to try to fix them.

This year I propose the following:

That the managing budget of Jakarta be devoted to investment in its people and the re-greening of the city.

The health, education, and welfare of the citizens of Jakarta must be the priority of city government: clean air, water, sanitation, schools, affordable housing; investments in kampung improvements, open green space; restoration of the North Jakarta mangrove forests; urban agriculture, sustainability, alternative energy, recycling programs and environmental protection; extension of no car days, large scale mass transit and the return of the bicycle and becak at the expense of the car; support and investment in the informal economy; zoning laws which support people over property; progressive and enforced taxation by representation; preservation and restoration of Jakarta Kota; city planning from the bottom up not the top down; and reformation of the judicial system and police.

All of these issues can and must be addressed at the local levels of neighborhoods, kampungs, and districts. As Governor of Jakarta I would turn Jakarta over to the people who live in it. My job would be to assist them with the finances, the information, and the skilled personnel they need to organize and create the livable city they deserve.

In short, I would grow banana trees along Jalan Surdirman.

And as usual my guiding principles are:

1. Democracy: A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly.

2. Transparency: It is essential to the democratic process that citizens have the right and ability hold government officials, elected and appointed, accountable for their actions.

Of course, if the business-as-usual option continues, nothing of significance will be accomplished. This does not mean that Jakarta will implode or fall into the Java Sea. Jakarta will find its way regardless. But this ‘do nothing’ option does speak to the lack of creativity and the political will to make choices from opportunities and options that are out there by the score.

It is the difference between thinking inside or outside of the Indonesian box.

Thinking Outside The Indonesian Box - 2009

2009-01-09T10:30:00.001+07:00

It is nigh on a year since I invited readers of Jakartass to uphold SBY's dictum to "Think Outside The Box". However, whereas he was then extorting the world's leaders to reach a consensus regarding the Bali round of Climate Change Conferences, I suggested that folk in greenhouses shouldn't throw stones and perhaps local politicians should be admonished for their myopic visions.

A number of fine essays were contributed which I published in this blog and they received general acclaim worldwide, particularly those which were concerned with Education.

This year will see at least two rounds of national elections: for the President who, with his/her government, will determine the country's direction, and the national legislature which may or may not ensure that government programmes and policies are adopted. Independent observers tend to be cynical as the legislators seemingly follow their own agendas such as seeking financial 'rewards' from granting infrastructure projects which invariably cause environmental destruction. They also seem to kowtow to Islamic groups, presumably because they are a sizeable proportion of the electorate, and prioritise non-essential and sectarian issues such as an anti-pornography law.

This most recent parliamentary session has seen a slew of politicians, both national and local, bureaucrats and other public servants, such as ambassadors and government ministers (both current and former), and from such institutions as Bank Indonesia and the Attorney General's office, face allegations of corruption. Many have been imprisoned - for which I believe SBY deserves much praise for allowing their prosecution and not interfering in the due process of the law.

The next round of elections will see some changes. The current House of 'Representatives' consists of handpicked cadres ranked according to their fundraising power by the political parties. Because electors voted for particular parties, who were allocated seats according to the number of votes cast for the party, rather than directly voting for particular candidates, this has ensured that the entrenched Suhartoist elite have clung on to their vestiges of power.

It has also lead to an incredible proliferation of political parties - 38 for Indonesia as a whole and four for the semi-autonomous region of Aceh (this list needs amending) - established by politicians who have slipped down the pecking order of more established parties and are therefore fearful for their sinecures. Of course, there may well be one or two which have been established for purely altruistic reasons, but I don’t intend to examine each and every manifesto, assuming they yet exist, because there’s virtually zero chance of true independents getting within sniffing distance of a seat.

And therein lies another problem.

Although the Constitutional Court has ruled that candidates receiving the most popular votes should represent their parties, only candidates from those parties receiving more than 2.5% of the national vote will be allowed to take their seats, thus ensuring that the same old, same old parties, and the splinters thereof, are likely to grasp power.

There are few electors who can differentiate between the parties other than perhaps recognising those which are pluralistic and those which promote religious values. Most parties, if not all, rely on personalities, recognisable from news media or popular entertainments.

To put it simplistically, who is Indonesia’s Obama Barack? Where is the promise of sound leadership for all Indonesians? Who has a manifesto with a clear vision offering security, welfare, reassurance and, above all, hope for future generations?

"Leaders with statesmanship should (must?) prepare a strong foundation for their successors. By contrast, most politicians merely lay traps to hold citizens hostage by making them dependent on the ruling regime."
- P.Agung Pambudhi. Executive Director. Regional Autonomy Monitoring Ctte. (KPPOD)

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As Jakartass, I am once again asking folk to join in a group writing exercise. Can we offer the manifestos which are - ahem - manifestly missing? Judging from last year’s contributions, this should not be a task beyond our capabilities.

As before, this blog will host the contributions, with links from my blog and hopefully yours too.

Who can contribute?
Anyone who has the best interests of Indonesia and its multifarious folk at heart.

Writing what?
Just think outside the box about how Indonesia could be a better place for all if visionaries of an ecumenical persuasion were able to promote their manifestos.

Please email me with your suggestions, questions and, hopefully, contributions.

Deadline: February 13th which is, purely coincidentally, my birthday.

Possible topics/titles

-- Green architecture
-- Leftovers are all right
-- Your country needs YOU
-- Indonesia - a model democracy?
-- Now, why didn't they think of that?
-- A healthy nation is a wealthy nation.
-- How religions can help offset climate change
-- The world I'd like your grandchildren to live in
-- Assessing the education of the education assessors.
-- What if the State paid everyone a basic social allowance?

Writing style?
From academic to awful, from serious to satirical, from readable to risible ~ whatever you're comfortable with.

I'll send formatting guidelines later to all prospective contributors.

Small Print
I reserve editorial rights, although these would only be exercised with your approval.

Thinking outside the curriculum: Changing education

2008-04-06T12:00:00.001+07:00

Salvatore Simarmata
(Originally published in the Jakarta Post 29th March 2008)

Many experts have made genuine suggestions on how to improve our education system, which is essential for the prosperity and liberty of our nation. But debates continue because there have been no significant changes -- an opinion shared by Abdullah Yazid in his opinion piece in the Jakarta Post (March 15, 2008).

As a teacher, I agree with his ideas but offer different solutions. It has been widely reported university graduates find it difficult to find work. They lack the skills and creativity necessary for the workplace.

Individual institutions should not be blamed. We need to be critical of our overall education system covering elementary to tertiary education, which is in need of transformation. We need an serious strategy to solve these problems.

A Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, who wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed, explained true education goals could only be achieved by allowing the development of students' power to perceive and think critically. They should think about their existence in the world and they come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process or in transformation.

Students and teachers discuss real problems existing in their society and proudly offer solutions through a dialectical process.

Of the four essential elements of education, curriculum is the most crucial aspect alongside the teacher, students and method. Comparing our curriculum with ones used worldwide might open our eyes and bring us to question our paradigms. Let us look at two prominent curricula and their strengths.

First, the University of Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) successfully offers a variety of programs around the world, including Indonesia, to provide international qualifications for students aged 5 to 18. Many schools have adopted this curriculum. Many schools combine the Cambridge and our national curricula so their students can sit for the UAN final examination as well.

Schools using the Cambridge curriculum emphasize flexibility. From primary to secondary levels, students can choose electives based on their interests, which allows them to explore less theory-based subjects.

Second, the IB (International Baccalaureate) curriculum, a program for students aged 3 to 19, helps develop intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills, which are much needed in today's globalized world. I am impressed by its primary curriculum designed to give students skills to cope with their future, something we need to focus on in our disorganized primary curriculum.

Students study transdisciplinary subjects of global significance that provide a framework for self-exploration. They question who they are, how they express themselves, how they organize themselves and so on. Essentially, the flexibility and constant transdisciplinary inquiry are elements we could incorporate in our curriculum.

Such a curriculum allows teachers to create an active learning environment where students can identify their strengths and abilities to change their social conditions and problems.
Most of us are so controlled by our curriculum we are forced to study prescribed materials which are then tested in a national examination. I like raising challenging issues to my students to be debated and discussed. They come up with their own alternative solutions to problems. Last December, for example, we discussed the UN's Millenium Development Goals. To do so, I decided to skip a few modules from the curriculum or teach them less thoroughly.

Last February, the government announced sociology would be included in the UAN examination. As a sociology teacher, I now have to push myself just to make sure students remember and understand how to answer the questions. Should we restrict what we teach to the curriculum?

Adapting the curriculum has always been at the teachers' discretion. Teachers expand on the basic framework of the curriculum. It is an essential skill all teachers should be familiar with.

A teacher should be a facilitator and cultural educator encouraging students to critically articulate their opinions on social issues of concern and to suggest ways of resolving conflict in the real world. Cultural education is a tool, a helpful beginning which brings people and ideas together, people with a desire to accept responsibility for social change instead of living under the domination of powerful elites.

This kind of education could eradicate our severe corruption problems and other immoral acts if we also encourage vibrant, critical and broad-minded leaders.

We teach students many subjects at school every day, yet we do not teach them how to learn. There is a missing link; we want them to be successful but abandon them when they ask how to do so. I suggest students be taught learning skills from an early age and learn how to think critically so they become independent and pure learners throughout their lives.
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The writer is a sociology teacher at Dian Harapan School. He can be reached here.

Out Of Our Boxes 2

2008-03-08T10:30:00.005+07:00

21 Uses of Old Coffee Grounds

From repelling ants, removing furniture scratches to exfoliating skin and repelling dog fleas, there are loads of uses for used up and flavourless Java (Toraja, Sumatra, Mandailing, or whatever your taste is).

But not Nescafé.

A Tearless Onion

And why not, eh?

Scientists have developed a tearless onion that means cooks may no longer have to suffer stinging eyes and crying in the kitchen.

The breakthrough by New Zealand's crop and food research institute after six years of research has been made using gene silencing technology. But although the tearless onion will be welcomed by cooks everywhere, it is still at the prototype stage and will not be in kitchens for at least another decade.

Sixteen years working on something which isn't needed? After all, an alternative is to peel and chop the onions in a pan or bowl of water.

What next - square watermelons?

Oh.

What I’d Teach The Teachers

2008-03-01T07:00:00.002+07:00

Let me start off with a little background. First, I started teaching 32 years ago, and I’ve taught students from ages 3 to age 60. What’s that mean? I’ve either been fairly good at what I do, or I’ve been lucky, or I’m an expert at CYA. Most probably a bit of all three. Second, I have a lot of respect for many of the Indonesian teachers that I’ve met - they work for peanuts in crumbling schools with few resources and little parent support (not to blame the parents either as most of the ones that I know are occupied with trying to scratch out a living and provide as best they can for their children). My wife and I give as much support to the schools as possible, but here are a few things that I’d like to teach the teachers.

Don’t teach to the test
Students will respond to interesting lessons
Long fingernails may be personally irritating, but they don’t have much to do with education.
Use your time wisely.
Individualized education is a possibility
Listen to what students have to say, you might be surprised at what you hear
Professional development, professional development, professional development
Parents are Partners - include them in the education of their child
Organize and develop a real teachers’ organization

Don’t Teach to the Test

This isn’t just for Indonesian teachers, although the amount of time that my children spend cramming for the national exams is outrageous and takes away precious time that could be used for some real learning, i.e. that is developing knowledge and understanding, not memorizing facts and figures. Barack Obama said something very interesting recently in a speech in Virginia when he was discussing education. He said that the US needs to expect excellence from our students, but that we need to stop teaching to the test. High stakes testing is found everywhere these days; it’s time that we all realize that doing well on a test is not the same as education. Take a look at the 21st Century Literacy movement. It’s where we need to go.

Students will respond to interesting lessons

Reading from the book (when our students have them) and parroting back answers is boring. It’s boring for the students and boring for the teachers. Bring in outside resources, get the students to do the presenting, break them up into groups and have a debate, let your personality come through in your lessons. One of the things I almost never hear an Indonesian student say about their teacher is that he/she is interesting or cool or fun. Education shouldn’t be a drag.

Long Fingernails and Hair

I don’t know how many times I’ve watched a child run back in the house because they just figured out that they might get punished by the teacher for having fingernails that are too long or hair that needs a trim. I thought the hair thing went out in the 70s. Take a look at the hair on kids on TV; quite a number of the cool ones are a bit shaggy. Shaggy might be cool. I can’t quite figure out why my kids are more concerned with the length of their hair and nails than their homework.

Use your time wisely

The school day for most Indonesian children is short enough as it is - my son in 6th grade does a period a day less than my students do. That’s ok if you use all of the time for teaching, but what about all the days that kids spend hanging out doing basically nothing around exam times, and the days spent sweeping the school? The schools should have a sufficient janitorial staff to take care of these duties. Provide some jobs for the folks that need them.

Individualized education is a possibility

We can individualize our teaching. I watched an Indonesian teacher at a “good” school spent forty-five minutes on a lesson that most kids had figured out in 15 minutes because a few kids didn’t get it. One size fits all only in cheap nightgowns. Students learn and work at their own pace; we can keep them engaged if we give them lessons that challenge them. A class that is always all on the same page may look good to someone, but it most likely won’t be to the students.

Listen to what students have to say

Students have a lot to say about a lot of things. They think, they question, they want to understand how the world works and that means that they have to work at it. They’ll get more from telling you about a concept or an issue or what algorithm works best for them, than they will from you telling them about it. What ideas and backgrounds and mindsets are they bringing to class? That’s where we need to start. It’s old hat now in Western education to say that teachers should be guides rather than the final authority, and most of us have gotten that (well, I hope so).

According to Edgar Dale’s book, Audio-Visual Methods in Technology: "After 2 weeks we tend to remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, 30% of what we see, 50% of what we hear and see, 70% of what we say [and] 90% of what we both say and do." It’s time this lesson reached Indonesia.

Professional Development

I can’t stress enough how much good PD has done for my teaching and my understanding of what it is that I do everyday. And there’s still so much to learn. Read about your subject, think about it, talk about it, discuss it with your colleagues. Push for PD. See below for more.

Parents are Partners

As a teacher, I know that some parents can be irritating, rude, and difficult to deal with, but the overwhelming majority want what’s best for their children, and they will support a communicative teacher with all their resources. Let them know what their homework is, give them regular updates on how they’re doing, create a school or class newsletter. Have an open house night for parents to see what’s going on in the classroom. Get them to provide extra resources if they have them. Children will be more responsible for their education if they know that there is regular communication between school and home.

Organize

Teachers need to be paid more, they need professional resources, they need professional development, they need modern technology in the classrooms. They won’t be given all this by bureaucrats and politicians. They have to demand it, and they need to do it with their students and their parents as partners. It’s time that the government takes education seriously and realizes that by shortchanging children today, they’re shortchanging the country tomorrow.
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Dr. Bruce started his international teaching career in 1989 when he moved to Indonesia. He specializes in maths and technology.

The pitiful state of foreign language education

2008-02-26T16:00:00.001+07:00

An acquaintance of mine, let’s call him Danu, a graduate who majored in Japanese Literature in a public college in Padang, recently appalled me when he told me that the the highest achievement he ever attained in Japanese language is a decent pass in level 3-JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test).

I was even more surprised when I asked Danu if his kanji-reading ability has always been his weakness, and if he is much stronger in speaking the language instead. He said yes. I inquired no further as I fear it might hurt him somehow to see the surprise in my face having discovered his poor grasp of Japanese.

This should come as a shocking alarm to those who aren’t appalled as I am: passing a level 3-JLPT means that he could only read merely 300 kanji, which is just 15% of the ±2000 kanji necessary for a “literate” life in Japan.

Not that I am not going to make my own definition of “literacy” here. Being “literate” most of the time means that one can read the ABCs (some bigwig professors have extended the definition of “literacy” as the ability to say in words who or what you are, but this is not the main issue here), but being literate in a Chinese character-based countries like China or Japan may mean a different thing.

It is known that the ability to read 500 kanji is sufficient for one to read a Japanese newspaper. However, the fact that someone who studied Japanese Literature for four years in college could barely read anything in a Japanese novel should come as a blow - and a wake-up call - for most language educators in the country.

To my knowledge, majoring Japanese Literature in Japanese and American universities gives students the ability to produce essays that discuss the historical and contemporary Japan, to provide literary comments on haikus of well-known poets, or even discourse at length with Japanese native-speakers, all written and spoken in Japanese, of course.

Another example is Tuti (not her real name too), an English Literature graduate from a public college in Jakarta. When I first met her, I greeted her in Indonesian. Then I tried to converse decently with her in English, yet she could barely manage to speak the language fluently, with a lot of stutters here and there. I first thought that she is the kind of person who stutters a lot. When I switched back to Indonesian, all her stutters suddenly disappear, making me wonder how on earth she could have managed to write her thesis in English and defend her arguments there.

It is an irony that in British curriculum-based secondary schools in Jakarta, children of affluent Indonesians and expatriates alike know very well that taking the subject of English literature means that they would discuss poems and Shakespearean plays in detailed depth as far as they could manage to handle, akin to my own experience in studying English Literature subject in a Singapore secondary school. Due to the tough nature of the subject, many non-English native speakers often find it hard to cope with, and choose to drop the subject instead. I myself could only manage a decent pass in my Literature ‘O’ level.

Of course, picking examples of public college graduates and comparing them to the international standards does not mean that I am picking up the “bad fruits” as examples to disdain. A bigger and more comprehensive survey that encompasses all levels of education, be it international, private or public, could always be conducted by scientific think tanks anyway. Instead, such public colleges that one has never heard of are the truest examples of where the average-income Indonesian normally matriculates; hence they give a better measure of what kind of standard is accepted for an average Indonesian university student to graduate.

Taking a look at the top-notch educational institutions such as the Pelita Harapan University or Bina Nusantara University would only give us the wrong depiction of what the Indonesian higher education looks like, because such examples have already applied a more extensively international standard in their qualifications. Taking a look at the traditionally Indonesian-based top universities too, such as the University of Gajah Mada in Yogyakarta, Petra University in Surabaya or University of Indonesia in Jakarta could generate a similarly fallacious impression, since only the best minority of Indonesian students could manage to enrol there.

All in all, comparing the language studies across differing spectra could turn some of us sceptical in viewing the future of language education in Indonesia. There is undeniably a need for a better standardisation of language education, starting not just from high schools, but from the very early grades of primary school. A lot of secondary schools - public and private schools alike - in big cities across Jakarta have already started to pick new foreign language subjects like Mandarin, Arabic, or German, only to find the graduates being able to converse no further than introducing themselves.

If even most high school graduates today are unable to converse eloquently in English, which is the main second language in Indonesia, how on earth could the school have high expectations for their students to master a third or even a fourth one?

A friend of mine, a high-school student who is currently studying in one of the main Japanese language course centres in Jakarta, once joked that he himself is the most multilingual person he has ever known: apart from learning Japanese which is a subject unavailable at his school, he is compelled to take five other languages in school, that is to say Indonesian, English, Arabic, Mandarin, and French! I do not question his ability to comprehend English, as proven by his devouring of the latest English language edition of Harry Potter soon after it was sold in the book stores, but I have yet to know his current grasp of the other four foreign languages he is currently learning.

The fact remains that having a trilingual education is perfectly okay (that is, if the pupil can manage to learn two new languages at once), but tetralingual is not. Scientific researches have shown that it is highly unrecommended for humans to study more than two foreign languages at once, as the meanings of different lexicons and grammatical structures could jumble up in the Broca’s area, the part of brain responsible for the articulation of speech and the producing of language, especially if the languages he/she is learning are closely related to each other or belong to the same language family (such as studying the Romance languages of Italian and Spanish simultaneously).

There are four aspects of a language, namely Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Writing. The first two aspects determine the ability to comprehend a particular text/audiovisual message, while the latter two determine the ability to produce them. From the way I see it, language education in Indonesian schools and universities tends to focus language-teaching methods on the first two aspects, while the latter two are mostly left uncared for.

It is of no wonder then, that nowadays language course centres in big cities tend to be laris bak kacang goreng (sell as well as roasted peanuts), as the real demand to see their children to be able to grasp the four aspects of the language has finally come to the attention of students and parents alike.

Ironically, this linguistic problem is not found merely in a developing country like Indonesia. In Japan and South Korea, two of the most economically and technologically advanced countries in the world, there is a similar demand for language course centres, and the only difference from the Indonesian ones is that almost all of them focus in teaching solely English.

In both Indonesia and the two East Asian countries, we can trace back the root of the students’ lack of mastery in the four language aspects in their educators themselves. If not even the teachers are qualified enough to teach them all the basic principles of the language, how can we thus expect the students to master it well? It is a well known fact that most Japanese teachers of English language often stumble when they converse in the very same language they are teaching, a similar case I found in Tuti.

In Indonesia, there would be no problem at all in finding such course centres for those who live in the big cities, but what about those in the rural areas? They would be hard-pressed to find any, and even if there does exist such a centre, most parents there would not prefer to enrol their kids there due to the high expense they bring. Being able to enrol their kids in the public schools which cost next-to-nothing is already an attainment they are gratitude for, let alone affording additional expenses.

It should also come to our attention that in this era of globalisation, our neighbours like Malaysia and Philippines have taken an earlier step in increasing the quality of English-teaching education in their schools. English language has become the main language in both urban and rural areas alike, and this is indeed a thing that is apparently nonexistent in Indonesia. The Indonesian government - particularly the Ministry of Education - has not taken any similar measures to ensure that Indonesia’s young generation today are well-equipped with foreign-language skills, apart from their own Indonesian language.

To ensure that there is a holistic and wholesome approach to the increase in quality of language-teaching across the country, the Ministry of Education needs to ensure that most - if not all - language teachers across Indonesia, regardless of whether they are to teach in international schools, private schools or public schools in the big cities or rural areas alike, should be given a chance to dive deeper into the language by learning them first-hand by either inviting native speakers into the country or sending those teachers-to-be abroad. Scholarships should be made available for those who cannot afford them, and only then can we see the standard of linguistic abilities in public educational institutions being put at on equal par with the more reputable ones.
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Toshihiko Atsuyama is a teenage blogger who currently lives in Tangerang. He graduated from a Singapore secondary school with an 'O'-level degree in 2006, and is now seeking to pursue his higher education in Washington state, USA in June 2008. His blog can be found here.

Education: is it all about the money?

2008-02-22T06:00:00.003+07:00

Our constitution has made it clear that the government must allocate 20% of its annual budget to be spent on education [1]. This allocation, however, still remains elusive. In the 2008 budget plan, the figure will only be 12%. It is already higher than 2007 (11.8%) or 2006 (9.7%) but a long way away from the 20% demanded by the constitution [2].

It gets more embarrassing once you read this:
Indonesia invests just 3% per capita national income annually per primary student. The East Asia and the Pacific region has a median of 15%. In contrast, expenditure is at least five times higher - ranging from 15% to 22% - in Australia, Fiji, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea and Thailand. Countries in North America and Western Europe tend to spend close to 22%, Central and Eastern Europe 17%, Sub Saharan Africa 13%. Indonesia and Myanmar are the lowest two in the world ! [5]

How embarrassing is that?

Those facts have become a handy scapegoat when it comes to our frustration with regards to education. "Bad schools? Incompetent teachers? Bad curriculum? What do you expect? If only the government allocated the 20% ... if only we have more money.... if only, if only."

It all depends on the money.
Does it not?

Read on. The facts below may help you to think outside your money box:
Between 1980 and 2005, USA increased public spending per student by 73%. It employed more teachers, reduced class sizes, and launched thousands of initiatives aimed at improving the quality of education. The result? Almost no change in actual student outcomes (slight improvement in math, but reading score of the 9, 13, and 15 year old remained the same in 2005 as it was in 1980) [3]. America is not alone. Australia has almost tripled education spending per student since 1970. No improvement.

The same again in England: The British government has changed pretty much every aspect of education policy in England and Wales, often more than once. The only thing that has not changed has been the outcome [4].

Surely not all countries have failed? Indeed not. Canada, Finland, Japan, Singapore and South Korea have consistently come on top in the best performing countries as measured by the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment.

So what do they do right?
Is it the money? No: Singapore spends less on each student in primary education than almost any other developed country.
Longer study time? No again: In Finland students do not start school until they are 7 years old, and even then they attend classes for only 4 to 5 hours a day for the first 2 years [3].

So what do they do differently?

This report [4] suggests that the top performing school systems do 3 things well:
1. Get the right people to become teachers
2. Develop these teachers into effective instructors
3. Ensure every child benefits from it.

Aha! So how do you attract the best people to become teachers? By offering more money, surely?
Wrong again: If money were so important, then countries with the highest teacher salaries such as Germany, Spain and Switzerland-would be among the best. They are not. In practice, the top performers pay no more than average salaries [3].

If it is not the money, then what is it?
It's the status. In top performing countries, teaching is a high-status profession.

So how can teaching be a high-status profession if it pays no more than average salaries?

There is a lesson from South Korea:
In South Korea, it is more difficult to be a primary school teacher (who must have an undergraduate degree from selected universities and must get top grades) than it is to be a secondary school teacher (who only requires a diploma from any of the 350 colleges). This has created a huge supply of qualified secondary teachers, with 11 new secondary teachers for each job. As a result, secondary-school teaching is the lower status job in South Korea; everyone wants to be a primary-school teacher.

Or a lesson from Singapore and Finland:
Singapore screens candidates selectively and accepts only the number for which there are places. Once in, candidates are employed by the education ministry and more or less guaranteed a job. Finland also limits the supply of teacher-training places to demand [3].

A right government policy, apparently, can help boost the status of teaching jobs to a higher level.

Of course the top performing countries do not stop there:
Singapore provides teachers with 100 hours of training a year and appoints senior teachers to oversee professional development in each school. In Japan and Finland, groups of teachers visit each others' classrooms and plan lessons together.

But hey. If we can just start with fixing the selection process, we're already on the right track.

So what are we saying? That we do not need the earmarked 20%?

That is not what we are trying to say. It is the obligation of the government to obey the constitution, and if the constitution demands it then the government must deliver. Even more so when we already knew that we have spent too little so far.

What we are trying to say is this:

We do not need to wait for the 20% to start fixing. Some changes in the policy on teacher selection and placement will do so much without the additional cost. We have been changing the policies back and forth all this time anyway! It is just a matter of doing it right this time around: learning from the best, focusing on selecting the teachers, coming up with the right initiatives to support that and discarding the others that we know did not work and are not going to work. Now with decentralization, it can even be done right away at a smaller level, either regional or city level.
And for once, stop thinking that nothing can be done without money !

Yes folks, Look at the failures of some countries above and the successes of the top performers and you can see that it is not always about the money.

Because we are still haggling with our government on when we would get our 20%, we don't have the money yet, so it is good to learn from the top performers that getting good teachers depends on how we select and train them, and that teaching can become a career choice for top graduates without paying a fortune [3][4].

For the sake of our children, let us start now with our teachers.

After all, as a South Korean policymaker said, "The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers." [4].
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[1] Indonesia's Constitution (in Indonesian)
[2] House of Representatives report
[3] Economist - How to be top in education
[4] Mckinsey report - World's School Systems (PDF file - 9.52 MB)
[5] Unesco Education Fact Sheet '07 No.6 (PDF file - 300 kB)
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Indonesia Anonymus is a group of Indonesian professionals who work and live in Jakarta. The group blogs anonymously to -- in their own words -- exercise their rights to be grumpy. Their blog can be found here.

The Literacy of Littering

2008-02-16T08:00:00.003+07:00

Today we went to the water park. A very popular place as evidenced by the very large number of families about. Lovely day, sun shining, kids running about, music playing and all seemingly orderly yet there did occur a discordant note that made me reflect on life in Indonesia.

A large family was settled in tables and chairs to our front and side, while a smaller family had taken over the tables directly in front us. I noticed the family to one side ranging in ages from small children to grandmothers had finished their lunch. You could tell because they had dropped everything made of plastic onto the ground. Cups, plates, napkins and other detritus littered the ground around them. The group in front of us did the same, allowing their napkins to blow gently across the cement and into the tots pool, while leaving the larger pieces of rubbish strewn about, despite the fact that there was a bin directly behind them no more than arms reach away.

They are not schooled in the art of rubbish disposal. No wonder though that Indonesia has a serious litter problem. Children from a young age are shown that it’s okay to leave it to someone else. There is little in the Indonesian consciousness of littering, it just doesn’t make any impact on their sense of right and wrong. Everywhere you go in the city, rubbish litters the roads, the rivers, the pavements and so on.

So how is it that environmental responsibility of ones own and communities actions are all but ignored? It’s not a labour issue; there are plenty of people out of work. It could be a financial issue in that there might not be any funds to pay the people to keep everything orderly. It could also be that environmental awareness is just unimportant in day to day survival. However, be that as it may, this does not excuse the rampant disregard for the environment. Rivers are choked by rubbish, the city is weighed down with it, the streets piled with it, and few people realise the strain they are placing on their habitat.

It comes down to just one thing.

Education.

Educate the children as they go to school, run grass root campaigns to raise awareness of what is happening in their part of the world. Provide the simple utilities to help contain, recycle and compost rubbish. Show people what they can do and why. Develop a literacy of littering, that is, a knowledge base and competency in action and consequences. Consequences both in results and in action.

Results could be highlighted by focussing on the economic, social and environmental benefits from a clean and healthy environment. Sustainable development which incorporates these three aspects has at its base the notion that by thinking of the issues before an action takes place, the action is thus mediated towards a more responsible effect. Using the framework of BDA (Before, During, After), the group or individual undertakes a quick three step of what they need to do before they take an action, what they do during it, and what they would do after it. While simple, it does take some thought.

A community could set up a committee whose main task is to analyse each and every decision that may affect the community. That is, an analysis of the best outcomes based on the 3 aspects of sustainable development for any activities undertaken in the community.

A wedding is to be held. An analysis of the social, economic and environmental impact both positive and negative acts as a catalyst for further discussion and hopefully, better informed decisions. How would the community benefit from the wedding and what are the best options available to ensure that the pros far outweigh the cons.? If organisers were instructed in what could and could not be done in order to make the smallest environmental impact, the community benefits.

Another example is the food sellers in a community. Take the regular nasi goreng vendor who wraps the fried rice in waxed paper. Educate him/her to stop using wax paper and instead use banana leaves (as earlier generations used to). Or provide him/her with plates to use. Provide communal sinks and running water for washing. Grey water is then distributed or recycled. Provide a recycling bin. Make it a condition of operating that all food waste is composted in a central area.

The community committee could organise for an NGO to participate in an educational drive throughout the area. By highlighting the issues that impact on that area from a social, economic and environmental viewpoint gives both autonomy and empowerment. Once armed with information and strategies, the communities can take on responsibility for their own area.

Consequences need to be addressed as well. What if a member of the community acts in an irresponsible manner? The community as a whole decides on what sanctions should be put in place. Community service, a fine, a restriction, attendance at a local course in environmental responsibility could all act to provide barriers to wrongdoing. With guidelines and community education in place, the community is provided with the means to act as a cohesive whole.

This obviously is taken a further step in the greater community. The citizens of a city are educated through mass campaigns such as TV advertisements on littering and sustainable development. Fines and restrictions are put in place and enforced. People are made aware of the consequences of their actions both from an individual and a global perspective.

At an individual level, again a BDA analysis is required. Once used, each time becomes simpler, a tacked on thought process that allows responsible actions to take place. The use of water and electricity, rubbish disposal etc. all incorporates a decision making process that uses at its foundation what could be done to minimise impact. It is not the big things make a difference, it’s the small stuff.

And it could all start with that one family instead of sitting amongst the rubbish they had strewn about their table, to reach behind them and dump it all in a bin, showing their children the right thing to do.

One small step on the pathway to a literacy of littering.
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An Australian, Dominic resides in Surabaya with his Irish Muse, 2 gorgeous children, a cat and lots of fish.
His blog is here.

When the oil runs out and the plantations run dry …

2008-02-13T18:30:00.001+07:00

We live in a “Back to the Future” era where most of what powers our daily lives is in essence “Time Travel”. Exploiting the compressed remains from prehistory - the constant rain of plankton onto the ocean floor and the settlement of vegetation in anoxic swamps during the Carboniferous period - we are mining and extracting our distant past for acceleration in our present.

Our future, if we proceed as we do now, depends on the presumption that the past is not expendable.

The common view from the Energy Majors is that that this situation can be extended by opening new oil fields and by using unconventional oil (for example, oil extracted from tar sands). But these may cause environmental disasters of their own. Around half the new discoveries the oil companies expect over the next 25 years will take place in the Arctic or in the very deep sea (between 2000 and 4000 metres).

In either case, a major oil spill, in such slow and fragile ecosystems, would be catastrophic. Mining unconventional oil, such as the tar sands in Canada, produces far more carbon dioxide than drilling for ordinary petroleum. It also uses and pollutes great volumes of freshwater, and wrecks thousands of acres of pristine land.

The idea that we can simply replace this fossil legacy and the extraordinary power densities it gives us, with ambient energy is the stuff of science fiction. There is simply no substitute for cutting back.

Alternative energy supplies are always in discussion, the most common option within the world forum is the “Biodiesel Saviour”. Although proven technology, the use of biodiesel in the west will do nothing for South East Asia except make a few wallets very much fatter.

In promoting biodiesel, as the European Union, the British and US governments and thousands of environmental campaigners do, you might imagine that you are creating a market for old chip fat, or rapeseed oil, or oil from algae grown in desert ponds. In reality you are creating a market for the most destructive crop on earth.

Figures obtained last year in the UK by the activist group Road Block show that for the widening of the M1 alone the government will pay £3.6 billion, more than it is spending on its entire climate change programme. Instead of attempting to reduce demand, it is trying to alter supply. It is prepared to sacrifice the South East Asian rainforests in order to be seen to do something, and to allow western motorists to feel better about themselves.

Before oil palms -- which are in relation to the original vegetation, diminutive and bush-like - are planted, the vast canopies, containing a much greater store of carbon, must be felled and burned. With the incentive to plant more, the drier lands are already inundated with these straight lines of oil palm and the plantations are now moving into the swamp forests.

These swamplands grow on peat. When they’ve cut the trees, the planters need to drain the ground. As the peat dries it oxidises, releasing even more carbon dioxide than the trees. In terms of its impact on both the local and global environments, palm biodiesel is more destructive than crude oil from anywhere in the world.

Almost all the remaining Indonesian forests are at risk. Even the Tanjung Puting National Park in Kalimantan is being illegally ripped apart by oil planters. Throughout the nation animals are suffering!

The orang-utan is likely to become extinct in the wild, Sumatran rhinos, tigers, gibbons, tapirs, proboscis monkeys and thousands of other species could go the same way. Thousands of indigenous people have been evicted from their lands, and in some cases, it has been rumoured that Indonesians have been tortured when they tried to resist. The forest fires that every so often smother the region in smog are mostly started by palm growers. The entire region is being turned into a gigantic vegetable oil field.

Plantations are also "biological deserts". Because they are of one species they will by definition exclude the rich and diverse flora and fauna that lived on the site before the plantation was planted.

Plantations thus challenge the laws of nature.

More rationally a large concentration of one species will provide a food source for an insect predator that the same species scattered through a forest would not. This will allow the predator to escalate in numbers to an extent that it will devastate the plantation species and then after the plantation species is consumed, inflict severe collateral damage on any adjacent forest species because of high populations of starving insects.

The only control over the insect population would be of a chemical nature. This may prevent the scenario described above, but, will cause damage as the toxins such as pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, leach into the water system and poison the environment.

Thus, two environmental impacts are taking place one in the short term, before the plantation is established, and the second in the long term, an attrition over many hundreds of years that will leave Indonesia with nothing for the future.

As mentioned above, monocultures are more susceptible to pests and diseases: plantations risk poor health due to environmental stress from soil nutrient decline; climate change and an increase in UVB light; soil nutrients are being lost; forestry machinery causes sedimentation in waterways and subsequent damage to aquatic life; and perhaps, more importantly, many bird species and animal species are absent from plantations, and given the drive for Biodiesel may have nowhere to run, swing, slither or fly to for their future.
Re-thinking our planting, avoiding plantations and creating a new bio-diversity appears to be the only rational action!

If this approach were followed, Asia’s new forests would, besides preventing floods and landslides, soak up carbon dioxide. But they are less diverse than those still disappearing. Some are plantations of eucalyptus for papermaking, or other fast-growing species such as poplar, used for building materials. Others are fruit orchards. Nevertheless, even in plantation forests, if managed in an environmentally sound manner, nature subversively reinvades and populates them with a variety of other species.

In some places - Thailand is one example - there are projects to restore something pretty close to the original, diverse tropical forest. Nature does this by itself if left undisturbed. But conservationists are lending a helping hand by planting fast-growing “pioneer” tree species which provide a high canopy of foliage. This in turn speeds the regeneration of the original moist forest. If this were to take place, not only will Asia-Pacific’s forest area begin to regrow, but after centuries of shrinking there are even grounds for hope that some of its rich diversity can be re-created.

Within Indonesia, as you fly above almost all off Sumatra and Kalimantan today, the tranquillity that you seem to see below is in fact hundreds of thousands of square acres of straight lines comprising oil palm trees to satisfy biodiesel demand. The atmosphere above what used to be pristine rainforest is becoming more like the streets of Jakarta with these clouds of ash also drifting throughout South East Asia and polluting other nations into the bargain.

As with all peoples in the world, Indonesians need to make money, however, after many years of corruption at both major and minor levels, the mechanics of normal business routine and the wheels of commerce have been so badly tarnished that without some form of grease they will seize and nothing will happen at all.

This grease has prevented the formation of any kind of sustainable resource group as the brown envelopes are bigger carrots to businessmen and officials than the threatened snarl from public bodies trying to change both the mind set of the perpetrators and save a huge natural resource at the same time.

Two years ago, on my way to meetings within the heart of Riau Province, the landscape turned almost desert like. Yes there were oil palm trees, laid out like parade soldiers, however, there was an arid quality to the road and forest behind; dust clouds blew, smoke permeated everywhere and the few last arboreal giants stood naked, without leaves, merely waiting, towering above the non native palms to fall to their graves, because in truth they were already dead, and worse, unlikely to ever return.

Late last year, on the same road, I was shocked to discover how bad things actually were, scenes from Mordor in “Lord of the Rings” seemed tame compared to the devastation that continues throughout this area, and presumably, throughout the rest off the country.

If the Indonesians cannot see what is happening, or worse, are not aware that their children will only have memories of these once great jungles, I do indeed shed a tear for them, however, I cannot forgive them as what they are taking from the world is not theirs to take.

The only question worth asking is what we intend to do about it.

There might be a miracle cure. Photosynthetic energy, supercritical geothermal fluid drilling (such as the “hot rocks” project in Australia), cold fusion, hydrocatalytic hydrogen energy and various other hopeful monsters could each provide us with almost unlimited cheap energy. But we shouldn’t count on it. The technical, or even theoretical, barriers might prove insuperable. There are plenty of existing alternatives to oil, but none of them is cheap, and none offers a comparable return on investment to the “Energy Majors”.

Currently, geothermal energy provides Indonesia with its best option, which, if developed and a moratorium placed on new oil developments, would certainly be a move towards a greener and self sustainable future.

Oil production for fuel could be halted; the use of petrol and diesel for vehicles is a costly waste of oil’s true potential. Deplete the oil fields and you lose many off the materials we take for granted in our daily lives, although getting rid of Jakarta’s indigenous black plastic bag population would not be a bad thing. Sensible and ecologically sound exploitation at minimal levels would provide Indonesia with raw materials for many hundreds of years without the current need for “production for propulsion”.

The governments move towards LPG for cooking and transportation would at least allow the existing gas fields, which are sufficiently large to provide power for at least a century, to fuel the archipelago until other sustainable fuels are developed.

Weaning the country from the hydrocarbon tit is urgent, and may I add, not only within Indonesia. Unless we accept this the consequences do not bear thinking about!

When the oil runs out and the plantations run dry….. I’d say it was a better day all around for Indonesia!
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Dilligaf, Scottish, stuck in Jakarta, in an industry he loathes, but rather enjoys at the same time, he's better known for his 'other' contributions to Indonesian life on other forums (NSFW?). (But do read his blog Hardship Posting.)

If I Were Jakarta’s Governor.

2008-02-09T13:00:00.000+07:00

Traffic, floods, H5N1, dengue fever, inappropriate land use, rapid urban expansion, air and water pollution, corruption, crime, street brawls, kampungs, and evictions appear like clockwork in the Jakarta news.

The problems must be addressed simultaneously. Generally, they fall under the headings of health, education, and welfare. Take your pick. The interrelated nature of the problems cannot be understated.

Traffic
In the short term traffic must be mitigated, managed, and mass rapid transit projects initiated and completed.

First, I would immediately halt the proposed subway project but more than double the mileage of the Busway projects by laying elevated tracks adjacent to the ring road toll corridors so as to interconnect the suburbs of Bekasi to Depok to Tangerang. I would also extend the mass transit service to Soekarno-Hatta airport.

Standard fares and services would be established for all. Lower fares and mass transit costs would be subsidised by an increase in toll road fees for private passenger vehicles. If mass transit is clean, safe, efficient, and cheap it will be used resulting in a reduction in the number of vehicles on the road which would in turn also save energy costs and the dependence on rapidly reducing oil supplies.

I would urge the central government to nationalize the toll road system because it is inappropriate that a basic transportation service should be privately run for profit. Above all, it is a matter of Indonesian national security.

Improved air quality would be had by having fewer vehicles on the road plus a requirement to fit catalytic converters on all vehicles. An improvement in fuel quality is also required. The recent regulation requiring all vehicles to be made roadworthy must be rigidly enforced.

The on-going car free day experiment in Jakarta demonstrably improves air quality although it has had its problems. The Jakarta Post called it “no clue day” - Governor Fauzi Bowo arrived at the opening ceremony by car! - but because it is a new emergent idea in Indonesia, the more often it is held the more Jakartans will get used to it.

Urbanization
Traffic problems are essentially a people related problem, namely, too many of them. In 2007, it was reported that more people on the planet now live in urban areas than not. Indonesia is no exception.

Cities are attractive because they represent a perceived and real economic opportunity. In the long term, the key toward solving the traffic problem, and most of Jakarta’s other problems, is to slow the process of urbanization. This means that the economic activity which generates the wealth of Jakarta, which in turn makes it attractive to migrants, must be decentralized.

The economic wealth generated by Jakarta must not simply be reinvested into Jakarta creating a vicious cycle of development and growth. New economic investment must be made equitably through the towns and villages of Indonesia, starting with Java, as that is the island with the largest number of urbanizing cities. If it is economically attractive to stay in your village or town then you will.
Disinvestment in Jakarta and reinvestment dispersed throughout Indonesia would be a high priority.

Floods
Jakarta has had floods from when the city was first named Batavia. In an excellent report titled Flooding in Jakarta: Towards a blue city with improved water management, M. Caljoun, Peter J.M. Nas, and Pratiwo conclude that “a completely different view of the city and its problems are required, one aimed at furnishing ample room for water. Instead of a grey or merely green city, Jakarta should also aspire to become a blue city”. What they are implying is that water will go where it will and over the long term it is best to let it go there and adapt to the new reality.

In the long term I would address the flooding issue through comprehensive survey and mapping of the Jakarta watershed from Puncak to the Java Sea. Simultaneously I would survey, map, and preserve the segmented patches of remaining agricultural land that remain on Jakarta’s fringes which can provide important ecological services such as water retention, micro-climate control, green space, and the conservation of visual quality.

Essentially I would make water work for Jakarta by creating a series of small dams throughout the watershed to slow the course of the water flow, divert it into manmade ponds and lakes; clean, restore, and maintain all diversionary canals; reforest stream banks and coastal mangrove forests.
The slowed and stored water could be used for a number of projects including aquaculture, the provision of clean drinking water, and for the treatment of sewage.

A Comprehensive Urban Plan
This is what Jakarta immediately needs. As governor I would revitalize the city planning office, make it the central management office of my administration, and provide it with state of the art geographic information technologies.

In Towards Sustainable Cities: Urban Community and Environment in the Third World (1996), Peter Nas and Margriet Veenma wrote, “Urban environmental management has to cut the Gordian knot” of special interests… , “not like Alexander with a stroke, but more cautiously, most probably in a step by step application of environmental plans”.

I would develop a “think (out-of-the-box) tank” of young urban geographers and initiate comprehensive planning legislation based on community driven approaches to development.

Kampungs
Giok Ling Ooi and Kai Hong Phua, in Urbanization and Slum Formation , argue that “city governments have to first recognize and then act to establish the link that is crucial between economic development, urban growth, and housing. This is the agendum that has been largely neglected by city and national governments that have been narrowly focused on economic growth with the consequent proliferation of slum formation as a housing solution”.

Basically, slum formation is a product of having no housing solution. As governor I would embark on creating large scale low income housing unit projects, not high rise cinder blocks, but based on the needs of the community and with access to community services which would include clean drinking water, sanitation, education, and job training.

As governor, I would cease all evictions unless the occupants of an area are threatened with an imminent health crisis or natural catastrophe. People would not be moved until they had a place to move to and in the interim a full spectrum of social services would be provided

I would reinstate a kampung restructuring policy, formerly a successful symbol of social welfare. In conjunction with this I would enforce a moratorium on the building of malls and require that all housing projects include affordable low income units.

Recycling
A report from The Environmental and Natural Resources Policy and Training Project titled Jakarta, Indonesia: The Economics of Water and Waste states that, “Jakarta has an extensive recycling system. No sooner has solid waste left the household than scavengers begin to pore through it. These are people with bags or carts who seek a living by collecting discarded items that can be recycled or reused. They collect not only items that are recycled in industrialized countries, such as paper, plastic, glass, and metals, but also discarded household durable goods, wood, bone, sawdust, boxes, and cigarette butts.

“Also, until recently, officials considered scavengers to be urban undesirables.”

As governor I would place a redemption tax on all plastic bags, bottles, and aluminum cans. I would make household garbage worth enough so as to not have it simply discarded.

The XSProject is a good example of what can be done with it. They buy “plastic consumer waste from Jakarta’s trash pickers at well above market price, providing them with much-needed extra income. Working together with other foundations and small cottage industries, the waste is then transformed into functional accessories that make a strong environmental and social statement”.

As governor I would promote and support small scale projects of this type. In addition there is real potential for turning the organic waste into biodiesel, for mining the Bekasi landfill, and for letting nothing go to waste.

Greenspace
The best out of the box thinking I have seen is on Erwin Maulana’s blog, Rwien Universe, which features an interview with Marco Kusumawijaya, architect and greenspace advocate. He is noted for defending Indonesia’s urban public spaces through his books - Kota Rumah Kita (The City as Our Home, 2006) and Jakarta Metropolis Tunggang Langgang (The Scrambling Jakarta Metropolis, 2004) and by introducing the Green Map movement to Indonesia.

Kusumawijaya states in the interview that “The issue of green open spaces is perhaps one of the smaller problems; the big problem is how to change the pattern of consumption and production; (to implement) a pattern of consumption that produces as little waste as possible, as well as a pattern of production that produces as little waste as possible, or the reusing of waste as much as possible-that’s the essence of sustainable development.

“Sustainable development is not only about physical development, it is also about social and economic issues. Green open spaces fulfil the role of social-cultural space The point is sustainable development implies changes in consumption and production patterns as well as in behaviour”.

He is the kind of person I would want in my government.

The Internet
Myrlyna Lim, has written in Cyber-Urban Activism and the Political Change in Indonesia that “the ability of Internet technology to provide spaces for interpersonal dialogue has in many countries bolstered the potential for a more democratic public realm.

“…for democratization, the Internet has all the features that are suited to civil society and grassroots citizen action in a manner that is less easy for a small number of people or groups to control. These features include: one-to-one communication, low/affordable cost, ease of use, broad availability, and relative technological resistance to surveillance and censorship.”

The internet has emerged as a potent economic and political tool where information is moved at the speed of light. And information is power. As Jakarta’s governor I would promote free broadband wireless access to the Internet. Every school class room would have a computer terminal and students would have mandatory courses in internet technology.

My guiding principles are:
1. Democracy : A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly.
2. Transparency : It is essential to the democratic process that citizens have the right and ability hold government officials, both elected and appointed, accountable for their actions.
There are few immediate fixes to Jakarta’s problems, but there are answers and in some cases the answers have long been available and in great detail.

So, there is hope.

A former resident of Jakarta recently said this about hope: “Hope is not blind optimism. It is not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It’s not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and work for it, and to fight for it… hope is the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us… by those who are not content to settle for the world as it is but who have the courage to remake the world as it should be”.

His name is Barack Obama.
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Thomas R. Belfield lives and works and writes Jakarta Urban Blog on the island of Hawaii. He makes the long pilgrimage to Jakarta about once a year staying with his wife's family in Citayam where he drinks innumerable cups of tea and smokes innumerable kreteks while "talking, talking, talking" late into the night.
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Holy Cows in the Big Durian

2008-02-07T12:00:00.000+07:00

Since March the fifth, 2003, I have been in Indonesia. That day I arrived at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport around noon, greeted by a blazing sun - and a traffic jam of inhuman proportions. It took the taxi three hours at snail’s pace to arrive at my hotel. Halfway we got company of the rain; rain pouring down did certainly no good to our tempo.

Back in the Netherlands, I am sure drivers would have gone totally bananas, showing their middle fingers, yelling at one and another, banging their heads on steering wheels, and eventually abandoning their cars to ventilate their anger elsewhere. But then here, in this big stinky durian, one seems to be much obliged to accept fate.

I start to feel at home here though. Indonesia is nesting underneath my skin - the dust, the dirt, the heat, the jams, the noise - the thrills for me, the urban junkie. It has been and surely still is a valuable lesson in slow living. Now I am a denizen of this city too, a citizen with no right to vote.

Here in Jakarta, congestion can be treated as a virtue. When traffic comes to a halt, when the traffic lights turn red, then it is time. It is the time to sell tofu, slices of mango, nuts or krupuk, cold beverages, maps and dictionaries, a whole range of newspapers and magazines (including the latest edition of Playboy), nail clippers and razor blades. It is the time for the lame & blind to beg for some change. It is the time to sing a protest song in honor of Soekarno or to read some poetry in favor of a local pesantren.

Others gnash their teeth and give out some change or wave beggars off with a lofty hand. Others catch up with their reading. It is the time to clean one’s nose, to stare in oblivion or just to doze off for a second or more.

Currently the average speed of the 2.5 million private cars and 3.8 million motorcycles is 14.75 km/hour. Every single day 300 new cars and 1200 new motorcycles enter the 7500 kilometers of Jakarta’s roads. On average 50 percent of the travel time is wasted at intersections - there are many spots of such chronic congestion. The total amount of cars in the city of Jakarta increases per annum by 11 percent. Jakarta is close to a final gridlock.

Urban-based societies are generally considered civilizations. Perhaps Indonesia urbanized too quickly; concerning Jakarta it is Dante’s inferno that comes to mind. The streets of Jakarta are a paradise, though, around midnight. Then it is sheer pleasure to drive around this nocturnal city of concrete asphalt and multifarious lights. Take a joyride: roll the windows down, feel the wind and hear P.J.Harvey sing ‘Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea’

We wanted to find love
We wanted success
Until nothing was enough
Until my middle name was excess
And somehow I lost touch
When you went out of sight
When you got lost into the city
Got lost into the night.

Political philosophers tell us that every one’s freedom is limited by the freedom of others; freedom is a relational concept. These philosophers also claim that accumulated private vices can become public virtues. They speak then of asocial sociability. Here in Jakarta private vices do not add up to a virtuous situation, a civilized society. Nevertheless, no one wants to hear that a change in the way we live our lives is needed.

Recently I bought a map of Jakarta. To my surprise, the only green areas indicated are Monas, Senayan sports complex, a few cemeteries and some golf courses (quite a few actually). Nature has been colonized. So how many more toll roads and flyovers can this city absorb? With how much more asphalt can the city be flooded? The TransJakarta Busway and the three-in-one policy during peek hours meet mockery, and ust because it's felt by the well-to-do that it eats up ‘their’ space.

There can be no blueprint to solve all Jakarta’s problems at once. Piecemeal solutions, though, should come from a public - i.e. political - approach. How to use the space of our mega-metropolis is open to political debate for all its users - poor or rich, indigenous or foreigner (Indonesian poet and essayist Goenawan Mohamad writes that in Jakarta everyone is a foreigner, in Jakarta everyone’s place of origin is somewhere else). Every Jakartan needs to have a stake in a just space.

That solutions can only be implemented in a piecemeal manner does not mean however that we cannot open our minds to think outside the confines of the box. This is usually the territory of science fiction. Sci-fi speculates on future uses of science and technology. For example, Steven Spielberg’s 2002 Minority Report movie with Tom Cruise is a showcase of new transport modes we imagine to use in a not so distant future.

Henry Ford (1863-1947) was the founder of Ford Motor Company. The Model T was in 1908 the first mass produced car (sociologists call this mode of production Fordism). Ford wanted every one to buy a Ford, simply because he wanted to make as much money as possible. We have become habituated with the idea that if we can afford a car we will buy one. We should not forget, though, that Ford did not create the right to privately own an automobile.

Can we imagine our city devoid of combustion engines? (This is not a question from an environmentalist perspective; I’m discussing the city’s congested space, so trading in the petrol fueled automobiles and motorcycles for an environmental friendly variant will not help.) At today’s markets models for every aesthetical taste and use can be purchased. The choice for a type of transportation mode depends on its efficiency, flexibility, costs, cleanliness, and prestige.

Talk about the holy cow is a taboo. The car seems these days an expression of the self. Talking about banning the car from our streets rocks people’s identity and will get you branded as a communist. People want to distinguish themselves from others, even in a traffic jam. A few weeks ago I saw two teenagers driving very slowly a convertible Ferrari through the congested streets of the snobbish neighborhood Pondok Indah.

Can we phase out private ownership of automobiles and motorcycles in Jakarta while at the same time making public transportation efficient, flexible, cheap and clean? It would not help much if we individually decide not to purchase a motor or car. We together need to answer that question. And for this we need the esprit of a polity.

A certain degree of snobbery should be tolerated as a translation of the unequal distribution of prestige. In Jakarta’s polity this ought to have no extra political weight. If public transportation can be made efficient, flexible, cheap and clean, then prestige has to be channeled through other means then car ownership. All Jakartans have the right to take part in discussions on a fair use of space.

I love to hate Jakarta. I hate to love Jakarta. However, I am a Jakartan.
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Roy Voragen, from the Netherlands, lives in Jakarta and teaches at Parahyangan University, Bandung. His weblog can be accessed here.

What If No-One Owned Land?

2008-02-02T09:30:00.000+07:00

When I accepted Jakartass’ kind invitation to think outside the box with regard to land ownership I envisaged a fairly simple discussion on the philosophy of private property, comparing the ideas of Proudhon (“Property is theft!” to misquote him) as opposed to those of Hume, Locke and Smith. (Is it just a coincidence or do all the very sensible political thinkers come from the British Isles while the harebrained crackpots almost invariably emanate from France, or Germany?).

However whilst browsing in a bookshop the other day I came across an interesting tome. It looks just like a big glossy coffee table book designed for tourists but it’s actually more than that. Indonesia in the Suharto Years, Issues, Incidents and Images [1] tells the major stories of the rule of the late president Suharto, by means of photo images from the time but also, much more pertinently, by short essays about the relevant events written by actual participants.

What caught my attention was the article written by one of the perpetrators of the mass murder of Communists and suspected Communists following the 1965 coup attempt. This man, a devout Muslim, explained that his motivation to kill the Communists was reactionary in the literal sense of the word. The Communists had been seizing land in his village, land in particular which belonged to Islamic institutions, and kyai (Muslim scholars) had been abducted by Communists.

Eh? Land seizures? In Indonesia? How come we’ve never heard about this before? We’ve always been assured that the massacres of the Communists were purely inspired by the army, but if the PKI had been stealing people’s land and property, well it would certainly put a very different light on the whole affair and might go some way to explaining the willingness of so many of the population to rise up against the “Reds”.

Wishing to find out more about these land seizures I got my hands on a copy of Rex Morton’s Indonesian Communism Under Suharto [2] and sure enough, there it was: Chapter 7, ‘Class War in the Countryside’. In 1963/4 the Communist cadres, emplaced in the rural kampongs by the PKI Jakarta leadership, began takeovers of land belonging to ‘landlords’, traders and those involved in money lending. According to the Communists, a landlord was defined as anyone with a land holding above a maximum of between five and fifteen hectares (depending on population density), Morton confirms that lands owned by prominent Muslims, Islamic institutions and Haji villagers were particularly targeted for takeover.

Of course the Communists did not get it all their own way and met with considerable resistance at a local level from villagers not very keen on having their land expropriated by Communist apparatchiks. This resistance grew throughout 1965; it took very little for the army to unleash the popular anger against the Communists by the end of 1965 and the start of 1966. It’s worth mentioning that the ‘actions’, or aksi as the land confiscations were called, mostly occurred in three very specific places in the Indonesian archipelago: East Java, Central Java and the island of Bali. The massacres of the Communists largely occurred in three very specific areas in Indonesia: East Java, Central Java and the island of Bali.

Now I’m not saying that the abolition of land ownership automatically leads to genocide; I merely point out that on the major occasions when it has been attempted - Stalin’s Ukraine, Mao’s China and Pol Pot’s Kampuchea - horrific genocides were the ultimate result.

So what's my point? Simply this, allow the right to private property and enforce those rights in free and fair tribunals and, worse case scenario, you end up with boring societies like Singapore and New Zealand. Attempt to abolish the right to private property and more specifically the ownership of land and you get to live in interesting times as our Chinese friends would say - Stalin’s Five Year Plan, Pol Pot’s Year Zero and the Year of Living Dangerously.

No, in Indonesia as with the rest of the world, when it comes to land ownership, it is always best to keep your thinking absolutely within the box.

However this is hardly what our host is looking for, so in the spirit of celebrating the virtues of land ownership let me put forward a modest proposal for Jakarta slightly outside of the box.

Along the litter strewn banks of the canals and rivers of our fair city are gathered the flimsy shacks put up by squatters; these homes are an eyesore, a health hazard and undoubtedly contribute to the squalor surrounding them. What to do? Evict them? Demolish their homes? That’s been tried and failed.

So here’s an idea, offer the inhabitants the chance to own the leasehold of this land on the basis of ‘working their passage’. Tell them that if within five years they have brought their homes up to a certain minimum standard of safety and hygiene then they can remain (perhaps insist on more improvements every further five years) but on the condition that they clean and maintain nominated sections of waterway; they will be responsible for removing all trash and garbage from the water and keeping the banks to an acceptable standard. To this end they can nominate or elect their own RT’s (community leaders) to liaise with city inspectors. All children would have to be registered with the local health and education boards and they would be prohibited from begging on the streets.

Turn squatters with no stake in society into property holders with a responsible role and just watch the miraculous transition from squalor to at least minimal levels of decency. I predict that given the hope of some sort of future these people would beg, borrow and, yes, steal the tools, materials and provisions to build themselves a better life.

Of course to create this situation one would require the Jakarta city administration to employ fair, incorruptible, humane, efficient and dedicated staff, ah, but now I really am thinking outside the box!

Sources:
----1. Indonesia in the Suharto Years, Issues, Incidents and Images, eds. John H McGlynn et al., The Lontar Foundation, Jakarta, 2005, 2007.
----2. Indonesian Communism Under Sukarno, Ideology and Politics, 1959-1965, Rex Mortimer, Equinox, Jakarta, 1974, 2006.
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Miko is a 40 year old Irishman living in Jakarta, he is the proud father of two Indonesian boys and husband of an Indonesian woman with exquisite taste in all things except her choice of husband.

Out Of Our Boxes - 1

2008-02-01T18:00:00.000+07:00

Change The Margins

Several weeks ago, I was doing research for an environmental documentary, so Green issues were constantly present in my mind. As I was doing my usual margin-changin' thang while printing out a document for my boss, a light bulb went off in my brain. What if you could get people to adopt changing paper margins on a large scale? What if you could get companies to adopt narrower margins as their printing standard? It would result in a lot less paper consumption. Which of course means saving a lot of trees and cutting down on a lot of waste...but only if a massive amount of people changed their margins.

It's not a new idea. It's not complicated. But if we all did it, it just might work.

2. Bamboo PC is Environment Friendly and It Looks Nice Too

3. No Left - or Right - Turns

............. sitting in the left lane, engine idling, waiting for oncoming traffic to clear so you can make a left-hand turn, is minutely wasteful — of time and peace of mind, for sure, but also of gas and therefore money.

UPS, with 95,000 trucks delivering packages every day in the US, set up routes which largely eliminated left turns thus shaving 28.5 million miles off its delivery routes, which has resulted in savings of roughly three million gallons of gas and has reduced CO2 emissions by 31,000 metric tons.

And, no doubt, vastly increased profits.

But no matter. This could work in Indonesia but first the traffic police need to pass their driving tests ....

Think Outside The Box

2008-01-31T23:59:00.000+07:00

In a well-received speech to the delegates at the Bali Climate Change Conference in December, SBY was able to convince the USA delegation that to avoid universal condemnation, they ought to join the global consensus. This is part of what he said:

Future generations will remember whether we rose to the occasion and seized the opportunity before us or let it slip through our fingers. Too much is at stake. It is time to think outside the box.

I commented then that with the destruction of Indonesia's rainforests and the country's reputation as the world's third largest emitter of greenhouse gases through the draining of its peatlands, then perhaps Indonesia should make an effort to put its own house in order.

The principle is simple: people in greenhouses shouldn't throw stones.

There are some obvious macro solutions such as a moratorium on the issuance of logging and plantation permits whilst a thorough environmental audit is conducted of those projects underway. However, it is the small initiatives which have the greatest consequences. After all, every tall tree starts off as a seedling.

As Jakartass, I am asking folk to join in a group writing exercise. This site will host the contributions, with links from my blog and yours too. I hope that this site will develop a a life of its own and serve as a think tank. Who knows, but SBY might even thank us.

Which folk?
Anyone who has the best interests of Indonesia and its multifarious folk at heart.

Writing what?
Just think outside the box about how you think Indonesia could be a better place for all. Please email me with your suggestions, questions and, hopefully, contributions. These are some possible topics/titles.

-- If I were SBY
-- Keep it simple!
-- Lost generations* ~ taken by Gradgrind
-- Leftovers are all right
-- The Literacy of Littering* ~ taken by Dominic
-- Education for ALL ages?* ~ taken by Indonesia Anonymus
-- Your country needs YOU
-- If I were Jakarta's governor* ~ taken by Jakarta Urbanblog
-- Indonesia - a model democracy?
-- What I'd like to teach the teachers* ~ taken by Dr. Bruce
-- Now, why didn't they think of that?
-- Alternative uses for shopping malls.* ~ taken by The Count
-- A healthy nation is a wealthy nation.
-- Psychology and Indonesian social ethics* ~ taken by Marisa Duma
-- How religions can help offset climate change
-- The world I'd like your grandchildren to live in
-- When the oil runs out and the plantations run dry ....* ~ taken by Dilligaf
-- Were things better when our grandparents were children?

What if .....
--- no-one had A/C?
--- no-one 'owned' land?*~ written by Miko
--- everyone obeyed the law?
--- we thought before we ate?
--- Jakarta was permanently flooded?* ~ written by Jakartass
--- every Indonesian had easy internet access?* ~ taken by Marek
--- the State paid everyone a basic social wage?

10-point plans
--- Create a civil society.
--- Solve Jakarta's transport problems* ~ taken by Indramin
--- Solve Jakarta's waste management problems* ~ taken by Toshihiko Atsuyama

Writing style?
From academic to awful, from serious to satirical, from readable to risible ~ whatever you're comfortable with.

Some recommended background reading
World Changing
Changing the World by Danny Hillis
Whole Earth Catalog
Isman asks 'What if ...?
Ten People Who Could Change The World

An aside: A good friend suggested that perhaps Indonesians should first think inside the box. How else can one explain the well-reported fact that one reason for the delay in reaching a consensus at the Bali Conference was that there were only four photocopy machines servicing the delegates from 188 countries?
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Acknowledgment
The idea for this group writing effort owes its genesis to Pelf in Malaysia. and, of course, SBY.