Pesta Blogger+ and Blogshop

 The annual gathering of Indonesian bloggers a.k.a Pesta Blogger 2010 will take place in Jakarta on 30 October 2010.

Unlike the previous three Pesta Blogger which were only attended by Bloggers, this year the event will also be attended by other people who are active on online social media like Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Before the event, there will be Blogging Workshop (blogshop) that will be carried out in ten cities, starting in Makasar on mid August followed by Padang few days ago and soon in Manado, Pontianak, Banjarmasin, Bandar Lampung, Banda Aceh, Surabaya, Madura and Yogjakarta.

For details, please read the following articles :
-  Kick-off Conference Pesta Blogger+ 2010
-  Blogshop dan Mini PB+ di 10 Kota Resmi Dimulai!
-  Blogshop and Mini Pesta Blogger+ in Padang

22 Baby Komodo at L.A Zoo

This morning I read a very wonderful news on the L.A Times blog (below) about the newly hatched 22 baby Komodo at a Zoo in Los Angeles, U.S.A

I hope that this success will also be followed by other Zoo, especially in their natural habitat in the Island of Komodo, Indonesia, so that the numbers of Komodo would increase.

It's a boy! It's a girl! It's ... 22 baby Komodo dragons?

Big news for endangered, giant reptile enthusiasts: 22 Komodo dragons have hatched at the L.A. Zoo since Aug. 8, all offspring of a single female.

Lima, the babies' mother, laid 23 eggs in January. This is the first time the L.A. Zoo has successfully bred Komodo dragons, and it's one of only a handful of zoos in North America that has managed to do so. The hatchlings aren't currently being exhibited for the public, but the zoo expects to eventually move some of them to its Winnick Family Children's Zoo. Eleven of them will eventually move to Ohio's Columbus Zoo, a zoo curator told the Associated Press, and experts with the Assn. of Zoos & Aquariums' Species Survival Plan program will determine where the rest of the babies end up.

Komodo dragon hatchlings typically measure between 14 and 20 inches in length and weigh between 3 and 4 ounces. As adults, they'll weigh up to 200 pounds and can measure as long as 10 feet!

The species is native to a few islands in Indonesia, notably (and perhaps unsurprisingly) Komodo Island. They're extremely effective predators that can fell even a huge water buffalo with their serrated teeth and run up to 13 miles per hour in short bursts. These are important skills for a giant reptile to have, since they can eat 80% of their body weight in a single sitting.

Last year, a research team using magnetic resonance imaging scans discovered that Komodos produce a powerful venom that prevents the blood of a bitten animal from clotting properly. That typically sends the animal into shock and hastens its death, if the force of the Komodo's bite doesn't kill it first. The venom, one expert told the Times of London, makes the Komodo "an amazing killing machine." It also makes it an animal you don't want to run into in a dark alley -- one of the best reasons, in our opinion, to never move to Komodo Island, where you might actually run into one.

Indonesia and Malaysia Today (Part 2)

In the last few weeks, the media have been reporting about the arrest of 7 Malaysian fishermen by officers of the Indonesian Maritime and Fishery Ministry (KKP), and 3 KPP officers by the Malaysian Police.

Although the governments of both countries have settled the case amicably i.e. by releasing the arrested persons, however some politicians and social activists in Indonesia were not satisfied and therefore reacted by demonstrating harshly and childishly every day in front of the Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta.

This situation reminded me of an article (below) that I once read on the blog of Rima Fauzi, an Indonesian Singer/songwriter living in Brussels, Belgium.

Indonesia vs. Malaysia: Why are Indonesians easily provoked?

09.03.09  

As a people, Indonesians have become more and more hot-headed by the minute. It is actually something to be ashamed of as hot-headedness is one of the typical signs of being uneducated (thus not being able to keep one’s cool).

Not only are we getting more hot-headed, it seems that we are also falling deeper into ignorance. Which is a shame, because there should be no more excuses for one to be stupid and ignorant seeing as there is almost no restriction on the information flow into the country, nor is there a shortage of ways for a person to educate one’s self auto-didactically (by ways of internet, television, books etc).

We have also become a nation that is stubbornly disrespectful to other nations; people who are different to us; and also our own culture. And by our culture I mean our indigenous culture, not the one you see nowadays in Indonesia or Indonesian television which is full of telenovelas, gossip shows and rich people/celebrities sporting their hedonistic lives on national television for everybody to drool over.

The upside of being this way is none, while the downsides are many. By being hot-headed and ignorant, we often miss simple truths and even more often this trait will make it easy for us to be provoked by the smallest of things. The most recent issue that has taken Indonesia like a storm is how our Malay brothers and sisters from Malaysia are “thieves” of our so-called culture.

While it may come as a surprise to some Indonesians, we should all acknowledge that many Malaysians have Indonesian ancestors, whether from Sumatra, Kalimantan or Java. Even the great Malaysian actor/comedian P Ramlee’s ancestry can be traced back to Aceh, where his father is from.

And let’s not forget the Malaysian students who went to Indonesia five or six decades ago to study, many of which ended up marrying Indonesians who they brought back to Malaysia and produced Malaysian-Indonesian off-springs with.

So basically what I’m saying is as it is apparent that Indonesia is made up of people with Chinese/Indian/ Dutch/Portuguese/Arab/Polynasian/Aborigine ancestry, the same goes for Malaysia. The difference is that in addition to the Malay, Chinese and Indian ancestries that the Malaysians have, Indonesian ancestry is also in the mix, hence the many similarities in our foods, clothing materials, music, etc.

Yet we accuse them of stealing this and that, from our culture to our cuisine. While in fact we are both originally Malay people (the race of which people from the northernmost part of Thailand and people from the Philippines also belong to) sharing many of the same culture and cuisine traits that it’s a little absurd (not to mention difficult) to claim which is whose first to be stolen by the other second.

Personally, instead of calling Malaysia thieves, I think we should ‘steal’ something from them. You all know how in the 60s and 70s we were much more progressed and advanced than them that they sent many of their students to study in Indonesia and hired many teachers and lecturers to teach their younger generation in Malaysia. What I don’t get is why it’s the other way around now, six decades later.

We all know Malaysians aren’t perfect and neither are we, but I do salute their determination and ability to turn up trumps, as today it’s us who send our kids to study in Malaysia; it’s us who are less progressed and are less advanced (technology and economy wise), and it’s us who are lagging behind. I think we should learn from them and ‘steal’ their tips and tricks in pulling a 180 from being blah to hurrah!

After the lengthy explanation above on the origins of both nations and all my positive observation about Malaysia, you may:
a. hate me, or
b. think, “Ok, so we share many traits with Malaysia, but it still doesn’t explain them using the Balinese pendet dance, because Unlike Kalimantan, Sumatra and Java, Bali is very specific and unique, that their culture is not found anywhere but Bali.”

For those of you who chose ‘a’ I will advise you to take a number and wait in line. For those who opted ‘b’ Ok, point well taken. But the thing is, the recent debacle over the Pendet dance that we claimed to have been used by the Malaysian government in an advertisement they have made to promote their country, an issue that turned countless Indonesians angry, with our Minister of Tourism hastily sending a letter to his Malaysian counterpart, demanding the ad campaign be removed, is a more complicated than it seemed.

Turns out, the whole thing was a misunderstanding and a BIG mistake on our part. And let me emphasize on the BIG MISTAKE. Apparently out of the 250 million or so people living in the beautiful archipelago we call Indonesia, none of us did our homework thoroughly before blasting bullets to the so-called ‘enemy of the state’ a.k.a, Malaysia because,

1. The advertisement wasn’t made by the Malaysian government or anybody in Malaysia,
2. The ‘advertisement’ isn’t even an advertisement to promote their country as we have made to believe,
3. The ‘advertisement’ was an ad created by the Asian Discovery channel to promote one of their TV shows. The TV station have acknowledged their mistake and apologized for it, after where some embarrassed Indonesians re-directed their anger at, what with Discovery channel being owned by the usual suspects and all (and by usual suspects I mean Americans and Jews – who most Indonesians believe are the evil culprits who monopolize all information flow in the world *yawns* thus are TRUE ‘enemy of the state’ as opposed to Malaysians because at the end of the day, we are all a big beige/brown nation sharing the same culture, language and religion)

Yet after knowing that this parade of anger and belligerence towards our Malaysian peers is baseless, did we apologize to them and acknowledge the truth publicly? No. We just swept the truth under the rug and continued calling Malaysia names. Basically we remained shameless and stubborn bullies, as always.

Some people went as far as protesting in front of the Malaysian Embassy over their ‘unauthorized use of the Pendet dance’ in their ‘mysterious advertisement’ and a small radical group even performed ‘raids’ on Malaysians on the streets of Jakarta, against stern warnings from the Indonesian Police Force. Why the Indonesian media blew the accusations out of proportion which created havoc but didn’t really publish the truth after they found out (with the exception of The Jakarta Globe), is beyond me.

But as I wrote in one of my older posts, the Indonesian media is as responsible to many of the things happening in our country as the Indonesian people themselves (who are easily provoked by these so-called ‘news’ and then usually go run amok like a drunken bull before getting all their facts and figures straight).
Now as if that’s not embarrassing enough, our resurfaced accusations of Malaysians using one of our folk songs called Terang Bulan and turning it into their National Anthem has really put us in a shit-hole.

Leading Indonesian musician and artist, Remy Sylado, as quoted by The Jakarta Globe, said the so-called Indonesian song “Terang Bulan” (“Moonlight”) was actually an adaptation of “La Rosalie,” which was composed in the 19th century by Pierre-Jean de Beranger of Francey.
Citing a Dutch historical text on national anthems, Sylado said the song became popular in the former French colony of the Seychelles and arrived in the Malay archipelago at the turn of the 20th century, where it was eventually used as the basis for Malaysia’s anthem, “Negaraku” (“My Country”).

With this new finding, Malaysians can easily accuse us as thieves ourselves. The question remains, Who’s the thief now? Who stole what from who? And, Who is the thief first?

Why are we that easy to provoke, especially when it comes to matters of religion and the relationship of Indonesia and Malaysia? Weren’t we at one point ONE people? Why do we keep on blasting Malaysians for ‘stealing’ our cultural heritage but don’t do much to promote it ourselves? Why do we get angry when a country ‘steals’ our cultural heritage but feel at ease about stealing other people’s culture? (This is in relation to the fact that the Indonesian ‘indigenous’ culture is actually heavily influenced by the Chinese, Arabs, Indians, Aborigines, European, Portuguese, other South East Asian countries, etc.)

Now as a person and a member of our nation we must all ask ourselves. Why are we easily provoked?
We should stop this silliness and learn to contain our emotions. Most importantly, true to the saying that those who live in a glass house should not throw stones, we should be aware of our own weaknesses, of the things that we ‘stole’ before accusing other people of ‘stealing’ anything.

Think about it, maybe the truest ‘culture’ we have now is corruption, collusion and nepotism. And that’s not even something to be proud about.

Online Porn Sites and Rapes

One of the reasons for the issuance of the Pornography Law was because some politicians alleged that Online Porn Sites have increased the numbers of Sex Crimes including Rapes in Indonesia.

And based on the same reason, the Minister of Communication and Information Tifatul Sembiring has decided to block Online Porn Sites.

In this regards, I would like to share an article on Viva News written by Ari A. Perdana, an Indonesian Post Graduate student at the University of Melbourne, about two studies in the United States showing that the number of Rapes has decreased after the Internet, including Porn Sites, come to existence.

The two studies, by Anthony D'Amato of the Northwestern Law School titled "Porn Up, Porn Down", and by Ted Kendall of the Economic Dept of the Clemson University titled: "Pornography, Rape and the Internet" show that the number of Rapes in the U.S has decreased between early '90s and after the existence of Online Porn Sites.
.
Kendall quoted a survey showing that in 1993 there were 1.6 Rape case in every one thousand people, compared to 0.4 Rape case in every one thousand people after the arrival of online Porn Sites in 2004.

Both studies show that existence of Online Porn Sites does not necessarily mean that there will be an increase in Rape cases. Therefore, in my opinion blocking of those sites would only be effective if followed by law enforcement not just on online Porn sites but also offline Porn materials like DVDs  which has long been declared illegal but not difficult to find.

Does Miss Universe has to speak English?

Last Monday night, Miss Mexico Jimena Navarette (22) was crowned the winner at the Miss Universe 2010 contest that took place in Las Vegas, U.S.A.

At the said contest, Miss Indonesia Qory Sandriova (18) did not get any title. Some media assumed that her failure was caused by her inability to speak proper English during the preliminary round of the contest.



However, I don't think that English was the main reason for Qory's failure to win, because Miss Mexico spoke through an interpreter at the event,  therefore it is very difficult to say that she can speak English.

Details can be read on the following articles :
-  With Miss Universe win, Miss Mexico becomes national icon
-  Miss Indonesia's "Broken English' Sparks Online Ridicule

The Controversial Sentence Remission

As in previous years, during the commemoration of Indonesia's Independence on 17 August, President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono (SBY) granted Sentence Remission i.e. reduction of jail term, to many people who are serving jail sentence.

This remission has enabled many of the inmates to be released from jail before their time.

This year's decision has caused strong protests from many people, because many of the released inmates were people who were jailed for Corruption, including the father in law SBY's son.
Some members of the House of Representatives have even proposed to end Sentence Remission as reported by The Jakarta Globe (below).

Considering the above I hope that in the future decision to grant Sentence Remission would be done more carefully based on the best interest of the people and country, and not on personal and/or group interests.

Legislators Differ Over Call To End Sentence Remissions
Anita Rachman | August 23, 2010

Haris Rusly of pro-democracy group Petisi 28 files a protest to the president via the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights regarding the ease with which clemency is granted to graft convict. (JG Photo/Afriadi Hikmal)

Jakarta. A call to cut out a host of clemency options currently enjoyed by corruption convicts has drawn a mixed reaction from the House of Representatives, which has produced a fair amount of such convicts over the years.

House Speaker Marzuki Alie, from the ruling Democratic Party, said that denying graft convicts sentence reductions, presidential pardons, parole or social reintegration programs would require amending the entire 2006 Corrections Law under which they are regulated.

“While it’s possible, it’s not as simple as some might think,” he said on Monday.

“I’m not going to take sides before we hold a discussion on the issue and hear what the legal experts have to say about it.”

On Sunday, legislators from House Commission III, which oversees legal affairs, proposed discussing the ban for corruption convicts.

Those making the call include Tjatur Sapto Edy of the National Mandate party (PAN), who is the commission’s deputy chairman, and Golkar legislators Nudirman Munir and Bambang Soesatyo.

The issue came to the fore last week following the early release of several high-profile corruption convicts, including former Bank Indonesia deputy governor Aulia Pohan, the father-in-law of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s eldest son.

Aulia had only a day earlier also been granted a remission, or sentence cut, in commemoration of Independence Day on Aug. 17.

Meanwhile, House Deputy Speaker Priyo Budi Santoso, from Golkar, said he supported the ban to prevent giving graft convicts a “Get-out-of-jail-free” card.

“As long as it doesn’t affect clemency articles in the Constitution, I believe it’s worth looking at the ban,” he said.

He added the controversy spawned by the seemingly favorable treatment given to graft convicts should serve as a wake-up call for the government to punish corruptors more harshly.

However, Anis Matta, a deputy House speaker from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), said that while the proposed changes should be evaluated, he warned against rescinding all options for clemency for graft convicts.

He argued that much of the bad publicity was based on isolated cases and that such lenient treatment was the exception rather than the rule.

“Personally, I back only the call to phase out the option of remissions,” Anis said.

He added that in some cases, the graft convicts were themselves “merely victims,” but declined to elaborate.

“Even if we do get rid of remissions, we should be prepared to make exceptions in certain cases,” he said, again declining to say what those cases were.

However, Bambang said that the proposal was relevant to the current state of the corrections system, adding that Commission III would seek to push it into the law books.

“At their trials, these criminals get the minimum sentence, then when they’re eligible for it, they get the maximum remission,” he said.

“What does that say about the system?”

He added that ending remissions, parole and reintegration programs would ensure that corruption convicts were “truly punished” for their crimes.

The Murder of TV Reporters

Two TV reporters have been murdered in the eastern part of Indonesia, in three weeks..

On 30 July, Ardiansyah Matra'i, a reporter of Merauke TV in Merauke, Papua Province, was found dead. His death was allegedly linked to his coverage of Illegal Logging practices in the province.

Last Saturday, Ridwan Salamun, a reporter of SunTV Network, was found dead while covering a clash between two rival group of people in Tual, Maluku Province.

I hope that the above murder cases would be investigated thoroughly.

For details, please read the following articles :
-   Papua Journalist Found Dead After Going Missing for 2 Days
-   TV reporter killed during group clash in Maluku