24 Oct
LOCATE, LOCATE …
Yeah, I know. My heading should be ‘Location, Location’, because it’s supposedly everything.
However, last Thursday, at a meeting in the very desirable pad occupied by H.E. Martin Hatfull, Our Man in Jakarta, the message was as in my title.
LOCATE is a computer data base in London which has been set up by the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office in order to trace British citizens and (possibly) others entitled to the protection of the UK government. However, it is a voluntary scheme: Brits have to opt in. There was little discussion of transient visitors such as tourists and business folk on short-term visas. They can obviously register whilst still back in Blighty. However, the British Consulate here in Jakarta (with a sub-consulate in Bali) is anxious that Brits here use the service, and that was the focus of our Thursday morning meeting.
I was there as a local warden, one of a network of generally long-term residents who can be called upon in the event of a local emergency, of which there have been a few – such as the Bali and Jakarta bombs and the earthquakes in Sumatra and Java. Thankfully, my services have yet to be called upon, even though the recent hotel bombs were in the area adjacent to ‘mine’.
I certainly had an interesting time being a Brit again and found all the consulate and embassy staff including H.E. and his wife to be very open to our views and pleasant to chat with. Living and working at street level in Jakarta, I am immersed in Indonesian life, yet I was happy to switch masks, to proudly proclaim my status as a Charlton supporter ~ thus demonstrating my true allegiance, ‘Er Indoors notwithstanding.
However, and there’s always this caveat, I do wonder how much in touch with local ‘reality’ H.M.’s government is.
For example, the consulate’s duty officer is some unknown body in London who cuts out ‘frivolous’ enquiries, thus allowing the local staff some off-duty time rather than being on call 24/7. However, it is primarily a cost-saving measure. Brit’s here may not have realised that our consulates are funded from our passport fees – currently £60 for a slim line 40 page version – and that the consulate is only open during working hours. Much as local banks are in fact.
Naturally, all embassies are the ‘face’ of the governments of their respective countries, promoting trade objectives and political alliances. I do wonder, however, why ‘face’ should take precedence over local objectives.
For example, we were told that it was felt that the Embassy did not react appropriately in the aftermath of the Bali bombs in 2002. I recall a meeting with the then-ambassador, the much-loved Richard Gozney, the day after he returned from the site. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a distressed visage, such a face haunted by what he had witnessed.
Again, criticisms were levied at the Embassy by their ‘performance’ during the ‘week of living vicariously’ in May ’98 (see archives), yet I found that they offered sound advice. This was before the dawning of the age of internet here, one we’re still stuck in seeing that in the past few days I have been unable to download more than 200 kbs at a time before losing the connection!
I have since got to know one of the volunteers at the Embassy back in May ’98 very well, and I asked him later on Thursday if he had registered. Unlike me, he has long had supposed broadband, yet he found that the centralised LOCATE website gave him the runaraound.
And therein lies the problem with LOCATE. I failed to reregister ‘Er Indoors or Our Kid as I couldn’t stay online long enough. Others at the meeting echoed my comments; some wondered why our registration here was characterised as a ‘trip‘, something I haven’t been on since my hippie days way back when.
Having once had some forty or more folk registered in my warden’s area, there are now just nine including me (but not my family). Two major reasons for everyone’s diminishing returns, and I doubt that there are many fewer Brits here. One is that the UK is now one of the most surveilled countries in the world – yet still not immune from terrorist attacks – and there is a distrust of a country which is regularly in the news for the loss of databanks of supposedly private information..
Secondly, the LOCATE website is bloody awful. I can think of a good dozen Brits who have not reregistered because they can’t stay online long enough and ~ well, what’s the point? We all have our networks, be they through work, residence or online, and communication with loved ones operates free from governments. As much as I applaud the efforts of our consular staff, nice folk all, as long as they are hidebound by their bureaucratic strictures which appear to take little account of local conditions, then their well-intentioned labours as our ‘guardian angels’ are doomed to relative failure.
Until LOCATE was set up, we registered locally in a relatively simple process. The consular staff certainly had a broader perspective of the British presence here. Now that costs are paramount, the ‘service’ does not – cannot – meet its objectives, so another approach is needed.
We made various suggestions, primarily about using networks based on the mutuality of our local interests rather than those of faceless and distant bureaucrats. So you can expect to see a consulate stall at next year’s Highland Gathering, tentatively scheduled for May, and Marie-Claire Joyce, the current Consul said that she would be prepared to attend other gatherings of Brits. There are far more Brits here than the five hundred currently registered and most of us are prepared to do our bit.
It must also be born in mind that we live multicutural lives. In other words, if push comes to shove, which I doubt, then nationality is not that important in Jakartass Towers. I’d even help my Irish friends.
And a final note: H.E. Martin Hatfull told me that he wished that the regularly updated Travel Advisory for Indonesia opened with a positive paragraph, one pointing out that one reason that so many of us live here is because it is a much safer and friendlier country than the media would have you believe.
Why else are we here?
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This posting has been lengthily delayed thanks to power cuts and the inability of any internet provider here to – erm – provide. As for registering with LOCATE, if in Jakarta, there is a dedicated computer in the Consulate available during their office hours. And if in Bali, there will be one some time next year when refurbishing is complete.
If itÂs any consolation ÂJÂ, the Australian System is little better. I had an occasion to contact the OZ embassy recently at just after 5pm on a Friday(to do them a favour not me). All calls were referred to some pleb in Canberra (WTF ?), who refused to pass any message or provide a local contact number. Best part, refused to give his name when requested. You will have to ring back during business hours, you canÂt expect us to be available 24/7 (actually I can and I do), particularly in places like Indonesia.
Although the idiot was dumb enough to answer with his name when I rang back an hour later (Thanks numbnuts got your name now…clunk!).
I did get a nice letter of apology from the Minister and head of the department (and one can only hope the idiot got a right royal reaming) after I wrote a few letters of polite abuse quoting their own website mission statement (which includes the requirment to identify yourself).
Not sure if anything changed for the average person in the street though. Like you not a big issue, as I have my own network of phone numbers and helpers but the arrogance of Public SERVANTS annoys me at times.
As far as I understand helping the Irish is already the duty of the UK embassy as the Irish diplomatic representation in this massive country is an honourary consul who I believe is a local businessman with an inaccessible office in the Stock Exchange building, amazingly the Irish feel the need to have a full embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Bangkok but apparently the Emerald Isle needs no proper diplomatic representation in the world’s fourth largest nation.
Further to that, if you are a citizen of an EU country you are not restricted to your own nation’s consular assistance, any citizen of the EU can avail of the services of any EU national consular service, something worth bearing in mind.
As to the UK Consular staff in Jakarta I have to heap praise upon the lovely lady who handles the office in the Deutche[sp?] Bank Building (and we pause for a moment to reflect on the amazing tin eared decision to locate the UK Consul there, can anyone imagine the Germans locating their consul in the, for example, British Airways Tower with a big Rolls Royce symbol spinning majestically overhead?), her name escapes me at the moment but she handles all enquiries with quiet, polite and pleasant efficiency.
However under no circumstances will I be signing up for the LOCATE programme. One has only to read the news in the UK to see how that country is turning into an Orwellian surveillance state, with ever increasing state powers to snoop on and interfere in your life and in that of your family. No doubt this new data base is set up with good intentions but how long will it be before Big Brother decides it is a useful tool to extend its powers overseas?
Oh to be sure they will tell us we have nothing to fear as it’s only to catch those nasty terrorists/drug dealers/paedophiles/tax avoiders/people traffickers* (*delete as appropriate) but soon you’ll find the man from the ministry is breathing down your neck here in your quiet little corner of Jakarta.
Thanks but no thanks, they can just mind their own business as far as I’m concerned.
Must admit I do my best to avoid any contact with the embassy in Bangkok. They were at one time a useless bunch of jobsworths – maybe they have improved, but I believe that when they work a full day on Friday. I once had one tell me that Bangkok was considered a hardship posting.
We were assured that there is very limited access to the LOCATE data. Except I did ask the new Trade Attache if the MI5 operate in the manner portrayed in that very good BBC TV series Spooks (available in good quality DVDs from Ratu Plaza), to which she replied that she hadn’t a clue.
And furthermore, she commented that we were depriving Brits back home of jobs. I failed to retort that pirated DVDs provide loads of folk here, including the police, of a relatively decent income.
Still, we’re remain Brits (or Irish) at heart, don’t we?
And the nice polite lady in the Consulate, if an Indonesian, is probably Endang.
Incidentally, some 20% of Brits back in Blighty don’t have an internet connection. These include my father and sister, who have both visited here for “trips”. I suspect that the figure is higher.
H.E. Martin Hatfull occasionally reads Jakartass which is a very good reason for me to be a voice of reasonableness. So, sir, if you (and Marie-Claire) do get to read these comments, I’d like to proffer a suggestion.
LOCATE should be for those leaving the UK for hardship/ backpacking/ package holidaying/ business doing … etc. etc. ‘trips’ abroad. Local consulates should resume their friendly local registration for those who like to be kept in the loop.
Well Im glad you have sorted out, at least in your own mind, the economic value of copyright piracy to the world. Would you care to pass on your advice and knowledge to the providers of the intellectual property you so blithely rip off??
Go talk to Brett
International – Latest news (October 22 2009)
EU injects Â4.5 million into ASEAN anti-counterfeiting action
The European Commission has donated Â4.5 million to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to help protect IP rights in the region. The finance is part of a four-year, Â5.1 million cooperation programme, to be implemented by the European Patent Office.
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Comment
Although both are rip offs, counterfeiting is not the same as piracy.
J
Once upon a time, the British Council spread its wings and engaged with the hoi-polloi through its library, which had a lending service for periodicals and, you may not believe this, episodes of such gems as Fawlty Towers.
(It also operated a testing service, which I was part of, thus enabling Indonesians to gain admittance to British universities.)
I do have one episode of FT, and loads of other DVDs (including episodes of Spooks) which were, and presumably still are, given away by various UK newspapers.
How many Indonesians can afford the ‘full’ price – c.£10 (Rp.160,000) ~ for a single DVD?
I have been known to buy ‘legal’ DVDs here, at c.Rp.60,000, and would buy more if the range were beyond the already commercially successful.
Many of the DVDs I do buy are for my ‘library’ and I’ve already watched and paid for them through my subscription to HBO et al.
My ‘promotion’ of Spooks, for example, can be viewed as fulfilling the cultural exchange which the UK govt. used to provide.
So, how many pirated DVDs have you got, Anong?
yep there are plenty of issues in buying pirated stuff here. You have answered a few. Luckily Im spared as I dont have time to watch or use the stuff.
I must say I flog stuff from the internet all the time to suit my “business” purposes. Maybe that makes me a bigger criminal than you!!
Why do so many otherwise law-abiding and socially responsible folk feel no twinge of conscience when scooping up armfuls of DVDs in the Jakarta shopping malls?
Might it be due to decades of being ripped off by greedy, rapacious media conglomerates, a cartel that has stitched the world up into zones of convenience and lobbied their way into completely rewriting the laws of copyright?
Might it be due to a growing public awareness of the pittance that the actual creators of their products receive?
Might it have something to do with the vicious bully-boy tactics of their legal watchdogs, harassing and humiliating (often innocent) individuals into paying ‘fines’ to avoid lengthy prosecutions in court?
To all those media moguls who have been ripping me off for years, I raise the traditional two-fingered salute.
I dare say Rev old man, you raise 3 good points; but all are debateable. I think most of us can only see things from the side of the consumer and are to that extent blind to the deserved level of royalties of the artist or inventor. Now that we are all artists (bloggers?, future laws may be fairer. No?
Your English is better than mine, so what does this mean please??
The car-free day is effective in reducing air pollution in Jakarta, says the city environment agency.
The Jakarta Environmental Management Agency (BPLHD) announced on Sunday that the amount of dust particles had decreased by 34 percent, Carbon Monoxide (CO) by 68 percent, and Nitrogen Monoxide (NO) by 80 percent during the last car-free day.
“That is the result from our analysis seven days before and after the car-free day,” Peni Susanti, the head of Jakarta BPLHD, said during the car-free day on Sunday, as quoted by kompas.com.
Is it good or bad news??
Good question, Anong, and worthy of a separate post.