Before he left for a brief trip to Sydney, Indonesian President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo took a stab at reconciliation. It’s unlikely to succeed. (more…)
Duncan Graham
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Be a man, consume till it kills. It will
The World Health Organisation’s No Tobacco Day last month had Australia announcing tough new ways to get smokers to quit. Next door the fag makers were doing the opposite. (more…)
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Compromise worked in Aceh – why not Papua?
There are parallels between Indonesia’s Aceh where an Ozzie surfer faced a flogging, and Papua where a Kiwi pilot is facing death. Both provinces have fought brutal guerrilla wars for independence. One has been settled through foreign peacekeepers. The other still rages as outsiders fear intervention. (more…)
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Indonesian’s embrace democracy – but do its leaders?
More Indonesians than Americans are likely to vote in key presidential elections next year. But Australia is focusing on distant North America, not adjacent Southeast Asia, the zone where the Titans could clash. (more…)
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The ‘Ugly Aussies’ rubbishing our reputation in Indonesia
Here’s a rough guide to Westerners visiting Indonesia. (more…)
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Indonesian politics scores an own goal
It’s the biggest story next door but barged offside by the Australian media for the Trump indictment and the ‘No’. There’s another factor: Soccer’s not our national game. (more…)
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Wake in fright but fear not; Ramadan’s here
It’s 1444 on the Islamic calendar and the holy month of Ramadan is well advanced with four weeks of fasting, prayer, introspection and goodwill. All commendable – though in the land next door the noise spoils the values. (more…)
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Indonesia’s untouchables stay that way
The outcome of a massive police-caused tragedy on Indonesia’s Java Island got less media coverage than a silly white woman’s argument with a brown cop in Bali. (more…)
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Blasts from the past
Wellington 26 January 2035: Ten years ago this week the first nuclear-armed missile landed on Australian soil, remembered as Invasion Day. Duncan Graham recalls what happened. (more…)
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Lock up your resources, the Aussies are coming
Ignorance and fear can be effective weapons in a manipulative politician’s arsenal. They’re guaranteed to pierce the armour of those least protected by doubt and most susceptible to flannel. (more…)
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Indonesia seeks Myanmar peace talks
Indonesia is chair of ASEAN this year and using its position to try and end the two-year crisis in Myanmar that’s already cost more than 3,000 lives. (more…)
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What’s in a name? Ardern’s pledge
In the applause showered on Jacinda Ardern at the close of her term there’s one credit missing: The NZ PM swore to never mention the name of the 2019 Christchurch mass murderer. (more…)
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Killing Times: Indonesia grapples with legacy of government-organised mass murder
When is a purge a genocide? When a young Australian researcher finds solid evidence that’s long eluded international scholars, proving the minds of millions have been poisoned with lies. (more…)
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Season’s fearings in Indonesia this Christmas
Will it be safe for Christians this Saturday night in Indonesia? The signs of the festive season used to be plastic mistletoe and corflute Santas in shopping malls. Now in East Java’s second biggest city it’s armoured cars outside churches. (more…)
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Indonesian sex ban: One law for us, another for them?
It seems Indonesia’s new bonk-ban laws are discriminatory and racist. Bad news if you believe legal systems should be impartial, but good tidings for ‘bule’ (white skin foreigners). So sayeth a governor. (more…)
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Indonesia bans sex outside marriage amid sweeping law changes
Lock your bedroom: The state is perving.
The G20 in Bali last month was a splendid success – and not just because world leaders talked to each other proving differences can sometimes be understood, if not always accepted. (more…)
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Infatuated with US politics, does the media remember the third-largest democracy in the world: Indonesia?
Americans will get to the ballot box in late 2024. Such is our infatuation with US politics that by Guy Fawkes’ night we’ll have absorbed enough minutia to know more about their electoral system than ours. Does anyone in the media remember Indonesia? (more…)
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Sending a 13-year-old Indonesian child to an Australian adult prison
Sentencing 13 year old children to adult jail is injustice of the highest order. On some lists Australians are world leaders in shame. Like locking up and brutalising children as Four Corners has shown – and not only our own. We’ve treated Indonesian kiddies just as badly. (more…)
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How did Dag Hammarskjöld die? The CIA and Indonesian connection
More than six decades after his plane crashed it remains the great Cold War mystery: Was UN secretary-general (1953-61) Dag Hammarskjöld killed by sabotage, a technical fault, pilot error or air attack? If he was assassinated who was the mastermind? (more…)
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G20 forecast: Bleak outlook, chances of thunder
It’s the meeting season in Indonesia, but the chances of viable offspring are slim. Too much hate, too little harmony. That’s bad news for all. (more…)
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Sex, drugs and confusion: Sharia law in Bali?
Bali tourism is slowly picking up as Covid apparently retreats. The new threats are laws on drugs, religion and sex. (more…)
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Kanjuruhan tragedy: Malang seethes with fury at police
The most widespread slogan stencilled on the Indonesian city’s walls, scrawled on posters, splashed on bedsheets in red and draped from powerlines and bridges is Usut Tuntas. (more…)
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Bali Bombings: The blasts that blew neighbours apart
The Bali bombings of two decades ago, remembered with anger and sadness, did much more than kill 202 partygoers, wound 209 and scar families for years. The blasts also ripped apart an Indonesia-Australia relationship that has now slumped into indifference. (more…)
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Indonesia suppresses data on critically endangered Orangutan habitat threats
Outsiders doing business in Indonesia are urged to be polite and follow cultural norms. That also goes for academics, and the ones in this story have been exemplars of courtesy. But that hasn’t stopped their findings from getting rubbished and motives trashed. (more…)
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China is muscling Indonesia but not with war threats
Unlike Australians, Indonesians don’t fear war with China. Their concerns are more prosaic – debt, work and the virus of atheism. (more…)
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Getting away with mid-air murder
Studying in Europe was to be a highlight of Munir Said Thalib’s career. The voice of the Indonesian activist and forceful critic of the army’s human rights record was being heard internationally. His opponents hoped a spell abroad might silence the censure. Instead, it was amplified. Now it’ll be turned off as time for action expires. (more…)
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Suffer the little children
The plains are polluted. On a windless day – and they’re common – there’s no need for a sniff-o-meter to count the particles – just stand in a high place and scan the smogscape below. (more…)
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Sex, lies – but no videotape
Governments love distractions and there’s a doozy gripping the people next door: A lurid tabloid tale running for five weeks and counting is keeping electors focussed on spice rather than the erosion of democracy and corruption controls. (more…)
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Indonesia’s unfinished business
Acknowledgements of Aboriginal land as preludes to formal events are now rarely contested, a belated acceptance that Australia has a bloody history that needs to be publicly discussed as a move towards reconciliation. Indonesia also has a grim past, but still shies from recognition – and healing. (more…)
