Indonesia’s free meals for kids program has left thousands of youngsters with food poisoning, and returned the country to the bad old days of military influence.
Duncan Graham
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Trick or treaty? Don’t know, can’t say
The Indonesian print media covering the one-day visit of President Prabowo Subianto to Australia this month has dazzled its readers with some splendid insights into a serious issue. (more…)
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Rewriting Soeharto’s story
Indonesian conservatives are rewriting the 32-year history of the late second president Soeharto, a former army general, champion of corruption and destroyer of democracy. (more…)
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The morality we need, the asylum they seek
Like many grumpy hacks from an age of lost standards, I’ve belittled colleagues’ usage of the perpendicular pronoun. We’re not the Mums needing attention – only the midwives bringing the stories of others into the world. We report and depart. (more…)
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Vanity, defence or just wanting to show off?
For a demagogue, what could be more stirring than to take the salute on a raised dais as thousands of armed men and women march past like robots in perfect synchronisation? (more…)
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Turmoil in tummies, pains in purse
The road to Indonesian hospitals is paved with good intentions and vomit. (more…)
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Out of darkness comes a shaft of cheer
The news from Indonesia this month has been dispiriting – natural disaster flooding in Bali and Flores, man-made maladministration, political chicanery, perpetual graft and rioting in the cities. The headlines imply the country is crumpling. It’s not, and here’s why. (more…)
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Xi targets Prabowo and ditches Trump
For the past decade, the most geostrategic country in Southeast Asia and the world’s third-largest democracy has been wooed by Washington and Beijing. (more…)
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Avoid Bali and the rest of Indonesia
Cashiered former general Prabowo Subianto was elected president of Indonesia last year on a contradictory campaign image. (more…)
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Absent – The 3D essentials: Discipline, direction and determination
Why did the Jakarta student riots of 1998 succeed in ousting President Soeharto while this week’s public displays of outrage seem doomed to fail? (more…)
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Know thy neighbour – he’s getting gun-happy
What does Australia’s legacy media think you want to know about Indonesia? (more…)
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Once Australia was important to Indonesia
Happy birthday, monster neighbour. Er, do we know you? We’re strangers here – our proper place is mid-Atlantic, ‘twixt the Old World and the New. However, we’re trying hard to cope by promoting trade and investment, while ignoring endemic corruption and avoiding deep involvement. (more…)
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No Indonesian high-speed rail wizardry for Oz
When PM Anthony Albanese was flying home after six days in Beijing, the Great Wall and a panda zoo, he told a newspaper that “Australia could learn from China’s fast-rail network”. The People’s Republic already has more than 45,000 kilometres of high-speed rail connecting 500 cities. We have zilch. (more…)
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The penalty for being late is to be doomed forever
Infected by wars and climate change is the other intractable issue: how to help 43 million refugees? More than 3,451 pledges to change the mountain-size misery have been made worldwide by governments, NGOs, and individuals, including Australians. The issue is less about gathering signatures, more about turning words into action. (more…)
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Collateral damage? Focus on the principle, not the fallout
Among his many defects, Donald Trump is a vengeful obsessive. Which is why poor Indonesians (that’s about 40 million of the 285 million rice-eaters) could soon be paying more for their essential starches. (more…)
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Not waving, drowning – Indonesia may lose warming battle
This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a flooding: With apologies to T. S. Eliot (more…)
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Scrubbing away the bloodstains, tipping out the truth
Lit lovers argue who first said “History is written by the victors”. It’s sharp enough to belong to Churchill, though earlier and longer versions come from politicians in the US and Germany – including fascist Hermann Göring. (more…)
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Let one version win – ours
The Church burned translators of the Latin Bible into English in the late 14th century and forbade its teachings, to ensure only one narrative ruled. Australian sinophobes want their version of what the People’s Republic of China is doing, thinking and planning to prevail. (more…)
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Pregnancy as a death sentence
Genuine good news stories involving government initiatives are rare. Here’s an exception. (more…)
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Is Marles the right fit for defence?
P&I readers don’t need to be told that Defence Minister Richard Marles is floundering when trying to make security links with Indonesia seem as though they’ve “never been in better shape”. (more…)
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As Keating advised, it’s time for Australia to seek its security in Asia
“The world America made for us is passing away. Its place is being taken by a new and harder post-American world, and we are at a loss to know what to make of it.” (more…)
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Don’t stir Semar – He seeks harmony
Ancient Javanese mythology, often inherited from India and adapted to fit local culture, is rich with striking characters in the wayang kulit shadow puppet theatre. The fat-gut wise clown Semar is charged with maintaining stability. (more…)
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Indonesia’s old guard wants its old world back
Anthony Albanese’s pilgrimage to Jakarta this week as the new prime minister follows the standard post-election Hi Neighbours goodwill wave. But this time the parades and handshakes may get blurred by heat from Indonesia’s simmering Constitutional crisis.
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Trump shoves Indonesia into China’s hands
Jakarta is not a charmer, but her assets are attractive. Beijing and Washington have long been wooing the Indonesian capital for her strategic power and influence. (more…)
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Free meals threatened – and threatening
Before the 18th century Enlightenment, church and state in Europe were one. In Indonesia, fears that Islam will infiltrate civic affairs go back to the founding of the Republic. Instead, the threats are not from the mosques, but the military. (more…)
