Jakartass Home thoughts from abroad. Alien thoughts from home.

There are loads more songs about loneliness and isolation, all of which are a testament to mankind’s innate need to be social. That has been increasingly difficult in recent years, especially here in Jakarta with its gridlock. It is little wonder that many gravitate to their local den of consumerism, not that many buy. They are places to see and be seen: there’s the illusion that you’re never alone in a crowd.

Sales of Strand cigarettes were poor and they were soon taken off the market. The public associated smoking with being lonely and were put off from buying them, even though ‘lonely’ and ‘alone’ are different concepts. Some of us don’t crave crowds, or cigarettes, and are content with our own company.

This frequently updated blog may indicate otherwise, but I don’t have a herd instinct. Assuming you are a regular reader here, then consider yourself to be privileged, because you are privy to my thoughts and obsessions.   

[The first known use of 'privy' was in the 14th century; it was derived from the Anglo-French privé, which in turn came from the Latin privatus, meaning private. As a noun, it originally referred to toilets, and as such remains in colloquial English.]

It is the concept of privacy which exercises me at present, a notion that we are entitled to our secrets.

The UK
Back in the 70′s and 80′s in the UK, we didn’t have mobile phones, emails or online social networks, so our anti-establishment activities were planned, not by voicemail but by male (and female) voices, often in closed meetings. Because there were laws forbidding ”interference with Her Majesty’s mail” – all mail in transit being considered as belonging to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II until it was/is delivered to the intended recipient – snail mail was a means of communication with those we wanted to keep in the loop but who were out of reach.

A more recent Postal Services Act 2000 presumably – I haven’t read the small print – outlines procedures and regulations regarding the state’s authority to open someone’s mail if it is considered necessary to prevent a crime or there are “national security” issues.

Still in the UK, telephone tapping was until 1985 covered by the Interception of Communications Act. However, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg said surveillance procedures provided inadequate protection against abuses of power. The Act was replaced by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act in 2000.

Interception of a communication is allowed in the interests of national security, for the purpose of preventing or detecting serious crime and for the purpose of safeguarding the economic well-being of the United Kingdom.

Apart from those ‘in authority’, national security is a nebulous concept for we mere mortals, and there are few of us who know what constitutes a crime against the state.

And there are few of us who know when the state commits a crime against us or indeed what it is.

Just this week, we learn that documents related to “some of the most shameful acts and crimes committed during the final years of the British empire were systematically destroyed to prevent them falling into the hands of post-independence governments.“

For example, newly released documents reveal that during the Malayan Emergency (1948 to 1960) British officials in Kuala Lumpur interpreted virtually all anti-colonial protests as evidence of a planned communist takeover. The colonial overlords therefore operated a system of ‘elimination’ of communists.

Read the chilling story of how secret justice cost a couple their £5m home – and £700m business through the machinations of ‘secrecy laws’. Note that this story is published by the Daily Mail, generally a supporter of the Britain’s Conservative Party which is behind a proposed law, Communications Capabilities Development Programme (CCDP).

Much of the detail has not been released, but there are suggestions that CCDP could involve two different systems. The first would involve ISPs intercepting webmail, social media and forum chat, and storing the data showing who talks to whom and when. Much of the surveillance technology is already being exported to repressive régimes which monitor dissident groups.

The second proposal would allow the police to gain access to the same “communications data” from big web companies. They would be able to get this data without a warrant but merely by a police officer signing a form.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who devised the World Wide Web, now serves as an adviser to the government on how to make public data more accessible. He says that the extension of the state’s surveillance powers would be a “destruction of human rights” and would make a huge amount of highly intimate information vulnerable to theft or release by corrupt officials.

“The idea that we should routinely record information about people is obviously very dangerous. It means that there will be information around which could be stolen, which can be acquired through corrupt officials or corrupt operators.”

Indonesia – take note!

Indonesia
Retired Admiral Sudomo’s death yesterday brings a renewed focus on the secretive operations and crimes against Indonesians committed by Suharto’s military regime, and, as Sudomo admitted in an interview, the role played by the CIA in the genocide of 65/66.  

From 17th April 1978 to 29th March 1983, Sudomo was commander of Kopkamtib, an acronym for Komando Operasi Pemulihan Keamanan dan Ketertiban or ‘Operational Command for the Restoration of Security and Order’, which was a secret police operation in Suharto’s ‘New Order’ that continued issues arising from the transition to the New Order, including “surveillance of citizens”.

From 1983 to 1988 he was the Minister of Manpower and Transmigration. He was then appointed as Suharto’s Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security, a post he held until 1993.

He thus effectively kept two beady eyes on Indonesia’s downtrodden masses for fifteen years. There are many with long memories who will not mourn his passing, yet as I post this online, he is being interred in Kalibata Heroes Cemetery.

One can only wonder how he would have used the internet.

Law 11 of 2008 Electronic Information and Transactions Indonesia (.pdf)  broadened the authority of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCI) to include supervision of the flow of information and possible censorship of online content. Obviously this involves an element of filtering with ISPs being tasked with blocking access to certain sites. There is a distinct religious fundamentalism at work here, with Law No. 44 of 2008 on Pornography setting the boundaries of what may be viewed online.

This is what your browser will display if a site is blocked.*

Last year the government forced Blackberry maker Canadian company Research in Motion Ltd (RIM) to set up a pornography internet filter in Indonesia. What is perhaps more sinister is that RIM complied with several other requests from the government, including building a server in Indonesia so authorities could “conduct investigations against perpetrators of crime.”

Electronic ID card
For the past couple of years, the government has been developing an electronic identity card system. Not unexpectedly, the programme has been marked by a lack of co-ordination between the central government and local offices mandated to process the citizenry: the deadline, the end of this year, will net be met.

Now comes news that the National Police Criminal Investigation Division has launched the Indonesia Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (Inafis) “aimed at improving its services”.

According to National Police detective chief Comr. Gen. Sutarman, the card will also contain information about its holder’s bank account, certificates of house ownership and criminal records.

“A simple example would be when dealing with a person who has just violated a traffic rule. With Inafis in place, the person doesn’t have to give his fine to the court. The state can automatically withdraw the amount from his or her bank account.”

That’s tantamount to giving a fox free range in the chicken house!

What is clear is that as citizens we should have the individual right to know what information about us is stored by authorities. There should also be the right of reply and/or redaction.

Take action
How can we tell whether a request for an extension of powers is a reasonable demand or simply another case of bureaucratic empire-building at the expense of liberty?

Or is it at the behest of internet behomoths such as Facebook and Google seeking to monetise the vast amounts of data they hold on all of us online?

Shield your computers and mobile devices with any number of adblockers, malware shields, firewalls, spam filters ….

In the UK: The Open Rights Group, based in London, exists to preserve and promote rights in the digital age.
Sign their petition.

In the USA
Avaaz.org relates how over 100 Members of Congress are backing the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) that would give private companies and the US government the right to spy on any of us at any time for as long as they want without a warrant.

Those of us whose websites are hosted on USA servers – yes, including Jakartass – who communicate online with American friends, family and business associates via the World Wide Web, would not be immune from surveillance.
Sign the Avaaz petition.

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*Unfortunately, this means that I can’t access the recording of an interview I gave the BBC in 2007 about Jakarta’s floods. If you’re keen to hear my dulcet tones, I’ve since uploaded it here.)

Two of the leading candidates in Jakarta’s gubernatorial election have tried to be ‘with it’ by appealing for votes from newly enfranchised youths. Yesterday, however, they managed to upset more mature electors by clearly demonstrating their ignorance of the meaning of finger gestures.

The middle finger is a phallus symbol, a sign mimicking a penis and testicles. In essence it says: “My cock is bigger than your dick!” and has done for over 2,500 years.

The governor said after visiting SMA 89 high school in East Jakarta, “I had no idea what the gesture means, even until now. I just followed the band members gesturing the middle finger. Apparently all band members do that, don’t they?”

No they don’t, Guv. Get with it or the electorate will do without you.

Not to be outdone, Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, currently Mayor of Surakarta (aka. Solo), gained support from members of rock band Slank. Naturally the press were there and took this photo.

In the UK (and some other English speaking countries) this is as bad as “flashing the finger”, and is used to taunt someone in hope of enraging them. Up Yours! is a nasty finger signal, and one that could get you in a lot of trouble! Not a way to order two beers in the UK.

In order to demonstrate my multi-cultural sensitivity, it should be noted by newly arrived expats here, who may use the one- or two-fingered salute ‘back home’, that their equivalent in Indonesia is what I call the ‘Half’ …

… but others call the Fig.

The mano fico (literally ‘fig hand’) is a gesture of Roman origin, used as a positive gesture to encourage good luck and fertility, and ward away the ‘evil eye’. The sexual nuance comes from the hand’s resemblance to the female private parts (fica is actually Italian slang for ‘vulva’), with the nub of the thumb representing the clitoris.

Apart from denoting a letter T in American Sign Language, there seems to be a lack of positive meaning to this sign these days.

In 1988, the then American presidential candidate George H. W. Bush famously said, “Read my lips: no new taxes.” In 1990, he did just that, which lead to his losing to Bill Clinton in 1992.

Here in Jakarta, electors are being given another message by the candidates: read their fingers.

The Guardian has a Camera Club and had this to say: 'Top Gear' is a fantastic title and an interesting image. The low angle is excellent and it's a real scar in the woodland. Considerable thought has been put in to capturing the reflection in the screen – it gives a perfect sense of place.

With but four games to go before the end of the football season, 'my' team, Charlton Athletic, on 91 points which matches their previous highest total, are sitting top of the Tier 3 table, with a six point gap (= two wins) to the club in second place, Sheffield United. We also have a goal difference in our favour of three.

Yet we are not yet certain of promotion, let alone as champions.

Sheffield Utd are scoring freely, playing at home and can be expected to beat Leyton Orient, the east London club currently languishing in the 20th slot, one place above the relegation zone, with a goal difference of minus 25. A home win looks like a banker.

The next four teams are in the playoff zone and face a race for the coveted final promotion slot into the euphemistically named Championship.

The other Sheffield club, Wednesday, are currently top dog of the four on 83 points. This is eight fewer than Charlton, but there are still twelve points to play for, so it is mathematically possible for them to grab second place and automatic promotion – but only if Charlton lose three games and they win all four.

In terms of points won in the last ten games, Wednesday are the form team, but they are playing away at Colchester, who have only lost four home games out of 21. I suspect, and hope, that this match will end in a draw. So, if Charlton win, then we would be assured of promotion.

CAFC Picks is a Charlton fans' site and before the start of each season, we predict the results of each fixture, win, lose or draw. (I'm currently in second place having correctly predicted 20 results.)

For our match at Carlisle, the town on the Scottish border, I predicted a draw and for a personal reason I'm sticking with that.

On April 8th last year, a good friend passed on. I'd known him for 23 years, from about a year after I arrived here in Jakarta in late '87. He too had arrived that year. We'd both been primary school teachers with responsibility for boys' sports, but had left the profession to explore the world and ourselves.

Dave's family came from Carlisle, where his mother still lives. I had lived in West Cumbria in the late 70s and had scaled the same peaks and hiked the same fells. We could converse about the perils of the Windscale nuclear processing plant – in 1977, I was an objector at the Windscale Inquiry.

We shared a horror of Margaret Thatcher, one he took somewhat further than me in his espousal, via emails to me and a few others he thought might be like-minded, about worldwide dictatorial tendencies.

A major interest we shared was our respective 'home' football clubs. You know mine; his was Carlisle United, a club which, like ours, had in our lifetimes reached the heights, and suffered unwanted slumps, Carlisle somewhat more deeply than Charlton.

On 30th April, a group of us scattered half of Dave's ashes on the slopes of Gunung Salak, one of the volcanoes which on a rare clear day can be seen from Jakarta. Dave had retired to Bogor so he had a view of Salak as he sat in his room and read whatever tome was to hand, most probably about an aspect of Indonesia, and composed an article or book review.

The other half of his ashes were returned to Carlisle by Dave's sister Anne to be buried in a plot next to their father. Anne has written to me to say that she'll be at the match today and will be thinking of Dave, as will I.

He would be 'over the moon' at Carlisle's current run of form which has brought them to the brink of the payoffs and I would have been pleased to share his joy and a few Bintangs with him.

So, I don't want Charlton to beat Carlisle..

Not today.
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11pm Jakarta time
But we did, 1-0, so we're promoted and I can't say that I'm too upset!

British Prime Minister David Cameron arrived in Jakarta yesterday, obstensibly to grab a few business opportunities. Coincidentally (?)*, earthquakes off the coast of Aceh in North Sumatra occurred almost simultaneously.

He and SBY witnessed the signing of $2.54 billion deal between national carrier Garuda Indonesia, which is majority owned by the Indonesian government, and the European Airbus.

Coincidentally (?), a Garuda Indonesia aircraft got stuck in the grass after it skidded off the runway at the Sentani airport in Jayapura, Papua yesterday morning.

Cameron, with his accompanying horde of businessmen, also touted "some of the best defense equipment in the world."

Weapons to be used against Papuan 'rebels' perhaps? After all, Indonesia has announced that it plans to buy eight AH-64 Apache attack helicopters from the United States which ETAN says "would pose a significant threat to West Papuan citizens."

The Indonesian military (TNI) regularly conducts "sweep operations," involving attacks on villages where innocent villagers are forced from their homes. The coalition of NGOs write  that "Papuan civilians either flee the attacks to neighboring villages or into the surrounding forests where many die or face starvation, cut off from access to their gardens, shelter, and medical care."

But enough of genocide.

What of high jinx in high places?

Cameron, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (i.e. Finance minister) and Boris Johnson, the Tory buffoon who is currently seeking re-election as London's mayor, are all graduates of Oxford University where they were members of the Bullingdon Club. This is an exclusive rich boys boozing and brawling (and marijuana smoking) 'dining club'.

The Club's modus operandi has often been to book a private dining room under an assumed name, as most restaurateurs are wary of the Club's reputation for causing considerable drunken damage during the course of dinner.

Occasionally, a few arrests have been made, but damage to premises having been paid for, and the fact that the members of the club  have to be invited by other members, all being from the monied classes, including royalty, sanctions have been light. (If you or I were to have such evenings, we could expect much more severe sanctions from the forces of law and disorder!)

I only mention this because Nathaniel Rothschild, a billionaire hedge fund investor, was a member at the same time as George Osborne. And Nat jumped into bed with Indonesia's Bakrie Family only to discover that "there are problems in dealing with debt-addicted billionaires from the other side of the world who have rather different ideas about the way a PLC should be run."

He was referring to his role as an investor in and then co-chairman of the heavily leveraged Bakrie company formerly known as PT Bumi Resources. That the Bakries have since sold off half their shareholding in Bumi PLC to meet a billion dollar debt owed to a consortium of Swiss and other financial houses holds little of interest to me.

What does, is that, try as they might to appear to be simple honest folk, all the Bakrie Boys would have been suitable candidates for the Bullingdon Club.

After all, it's only seven years since Abnormal, the patriach of the clan and self-pronounced candidate for the Indonesian presidenccy, admitted that he "probably met Michelle Leslie" who was arrested and deported following her conviction for possession of the party drug ecstasy.

No doubt AB and Cameron have had a fun couple of days together this week.
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*Of course it was coincidental. This is why planet Earth burped.

How do I know what I think until I see what I say?
E.M. Forster (1879 – 1970)

Way back in the mists of my search for companionship, on the rebound from marriage number whatever, I'd thrown myself into various causes, one of which paid me from the grants I'd solicited from a number of charitable foundations, (Irrelevant – Ed).I placed a 'personal ad' in Time Out London. I can't remember the exact wording – it probably mentioned my motorbike, an MZ ETZ 250 with a front disc brake …… (Relevant or an interesting titbit? – Ed)

Anyway, what attracted one lass, who I'm still in touch with 25 or so years later, was my description of myself as an auto-didact. She was intrigued because she had to look the word up in a dictionary. It has its roots in the Ancient Greek words αὐτός (autós, or "self") and διδακτικός (didaktikos, meaning 'teaching'). (Informational 'cos not a lot of people know that – J)

And in that word with ancient roots lies my motivation for putting my right forefinger to keyboard: I write because I want to know if I can. And this post is about the 'knowing'.

I'll let you, dear reader (No need for condescention! – Ed), make of it what you will. However, please note that, as with our cavemen forefathers' (and mothers') cave drawings, what you see is a mere spoor, a trace of where I am and where I've been. In the timescale of things, it matters not a jot except for one key element: it has taken me quite a few days to construct this post.

I like to think of myself as a weaver of words offering a cornucopia of connections in order to make sense of it all. So this is not a technological tweet, a piece of ephemera of little value except to gossipmongers or those craving their 15 seconds of fame.

No sirree. It's (hopefully) a well-crafted exercise in eloquence, an example of my erudition, an expatriate expatiation, an experimental expectoration …. (That's quite enough alliteration, thank you! – Ed)

Writing Rules – OK?
The main benefit of blogging is that I don't work to a deadline, except to one of my choosing. Commissioned work, such as the occasional book reviews, require a greater focus of energies. In general terms then, these are steps I usually take before posting online.

One rule of thumb, or whatever digit you type with, is to consider what your anticipated readers know or might be expected to know.

1. Plan
First, I need to have a spark of curiosity.

Occasionally, it's lit by an incident I witness, something sent me by an email correspondent, a picture, or just a distinctive title.

Generally though, my daily news reads, the paper edition of the Jakarta Post or the Guardian-online, are favoured sources. If the former, I tend to cut out and save the article(s) of interest. If the latter, or other sites, I copy and paste sections in WordPad, with the URL, and save these notes in a pending file.

Like a good wine, I allow them to mature, adding connections until I feel able to link my notes through a rough mental picture, with an introduction, a middle section, which can be likened to the filling in a sandwich, and a conclusion. It's only then that I set out to write a draft, offline.

2. Organise
Unlike me, Jenn at The Writing Smithy in the UK, is not usually a planner – but because [of this] there’s a lot of fun and freedom in first drafts. All the decisions open to a writer are up for grabs and [she doesn't] feel any great pressure to fix on a tense, a theme, a point of view or even a plot at this stage. It is only when the first draft is more or less complete … that [she] can start to see, more or less, what the shape of the thing might be.

At this point I'll do some additional research, remembering to copy the URLs of whatever I'm quoting, and often end up with something very different from my original concept. So this is but the beginning because, to quote Ernest Hemingway, "The first draft of anything is shit."

Let's assume that after much rewriting, interspersed with a few meals, episodes of The Walking Dead and a sleep or three, you think you've cracked it at last. You're ready to publish … or are you?

If you're writing something to be published online, then I recommend a browser add-on called ScribeFire, which is a simple to use editor from which you can post, or save as a draft, much as you can with WordPress, Blogger and other blog dashboards, but without their occasional glitches.

And this is where I get to put the finishing touches to what you see herein.

3. Proofread and/or Copyedit
i.e. Check and double-check before publishing or you could appear to be foolish!

Yesterday being the first anniversary of the passing of much-missed friend David Jardine, I re-read the obituary I wrote last year. I was abashed to discover that I'd written 'exhibition' instead of 'expedition'. This is, of course, now corrected. It may be a blow to my self-esteem, but nowhere as serious a cock-up as those committed by the professionals in the mass media.

Example 1
The Australian arm of the publishing firm Penguin has ordered 7,000 copies of a cookbook to be pulped after a  highly embarrassing and potentially offensive error resulted in a recipe calling not for "freshly ground black pepper", but for "freshly ground black people".

Example 2
Indonesia's Deputy Health Minister Ali Ghufron Mukti said that at least 96 million people, or 40 percent of the country’s poor population, would be eligible for the universal health coverage once it takes effect in the early (what?) of 2014.

If 40% = 96 million, then 100% = 240 million; this was the total population counted at the last census in 2010. It makes a change for a minister to be so open about the government's failings.

Some serious blogs about writing.

- Laura Payne may enjoy a Walk in the WoRds, but she is serious about the mechanics of English and offers a "linguistic tour for people who love having fun with words and language."

- I'm more of a left-brained individual, so I prefer Mark Forsyth's Inky Fool blog which explores the connections of words, as well as good writing.

"An academic fellow once told [him] that the best way to spot the weak point in a long essay is to flick through and find the longest paragraph, because that will always be where the writer was most confused. It's a rather good trick, and saves actually reading things."

- Putative pulp fiction writers would do well do browse through Joel Stickley's How To Write Badly Well. This he does – erm – rather well.

- Finally, I'm a subscriber to Michael Quinion's World Wide Words email newsletter. 'Sic' is my favourite section and he once published a contribution from me taken from the Jakarta post: Crocs Go Hungry Due To Lack Of Tourists.

To quote Kurt Vonnegut, "So it goes."
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Did you spot my deliberate spelling error?

During his career he produced a number of striking book cover illustrations for Penguin, highlights of which can be seen here.