Indonesian bloggers mourn the sudden death of Inong popularly known as Bunda Zidan (Mother of Zidan) who died on August 31, 2006 aged 32 leaving her two kids and husband. Many condolences being attributed to her by Indonesian bloggers who knew her personally or through her blog.

Here, I pick one taken from For the Love of Baking blog who apparently knew her very closely. I apologize for the blog owner for not asking her permission before I post it here.

I have an online American Jews friend. The first time we met a few years back was when I was zealously trying any of internet tools available. In brief, I met her online through Yahoo Chat and still continue through YM. Once she knows that I am a Muslim (I was and still am always telling anyone I meet that I am an Indonesian Muslim), she asks me: “What do you think about Jews? Do you believe in prejudice?” By then, I thought that her question was about Jews-Muslims relation. I was wrong.

She told me that common American Jews are put to blame for whatever wrongs happen in the US. American Jews are the victims of prejudice. She gives me some examples. I’m amazed and a bit shocked. I dont know whether it’s true. But she looks an honest woman to me. But if that’s the case, it’s an unknown revelation to the outside world. What we know the Jews in US enjoys the priveleges that non-Jews minority can only dream of.

Then she asks me about my personal opinion.

Aug 23, 2006
Despite the fact that the Indonesian blogsphere is not as diverse as its culture and traditions, you’ll find that the country’s bloggers have tried to passionately deliver their voice in various topics and approaches.

Written in two languages, English and Bahasa (to which its neighboring Southeast Asian visitors such as Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei which can speak Malay can catch up with), Indonesian bloggers have presented their own style and character in their blogs.

In commemorating the 61st anniversary of independence day, Indonesian bloggers have many ways to celebrate it.

Agusti Anwar highlights the meaning of flag as a symbol of nation and nationalism:
Flag is indeed a formal expression of recognition. To that effect, if a people dispose or pull out recognition of others, accepting or protesting, the flag would do service either way. Protesters of different nationals would burn the flag of the opposed and that has been a full statement at best.

Remember when our founding fathers and patriots fought against the colonial power of Dutch, those brave young heroes ran to the front against the shooting bullets to pull down the red-white-blue colonial flag just to rip out the blue part and put it high again. The red and white was on the air. The red and white is on the air. And that time, patriots fell down in smile.
He reminds us, however, that the same national flag could mean both ways, good or bad:
Yet, when everyday you read news on corruption, that so many of the rich are in fact embezzlers or pirates of national budgets, you may worry that the extravagant red-and-white exhibition simply equals theatrical gambits of falseness. You may then worry that short after the celebration of 17 August, the house owners would be seen in TV with handcuff and sadly bowing heads, being brought to court for corruption trial. However, you may also worry too much.
Sid Bachtiar, an Indonesian software engineer stays in New Zealand, writes an interesting finding about some names of softwares which seems incidentally similar to familiar names in Indonesia:

From historical perspectiveHerman Akbar Fajar writes an interesting story that it’s only one year ago that the Dutch which colonized and ruled Indonesia more than three and half decade recognized and agreed about the date of Indonesia’s independence day:
The Netherlands, having taken in a number of loyalist exiles who (for various reasons) viewed Sukarno’s government as illegitimate, would only recognize the date of the final withdraw of Dutch forces from Indonesia on December 27, 1949. This changed in 2005 when the Dutch Foreign Minister, Bernard Bot, made several well-publicized goodwill gestures: officially accepting Indonesian independence as beginning on August 17, 1945; expressing a regret for all that suffering caused by the fighting during the war; and attending 61th anniversary commemoration of Sukarno’s independence proclamation, as a part of the first Dutch delegation to do so.
In the meanwhile, Lalita, a mother of two daughters, expresses her concern over the ignorance among Indonesian youth who even don’t have a clue about who wrote the national anthem:
Today, we are celebrating our 61st independence day …. And how sad to watch the news that many of the younger generation don’t even know the composer of Indonesian anthem.

I asked my daughters whether they know about the composer of Indonesian anthem, and they gave me the same answer as seen on TV.
Among young generation, independence day seems to mean nothing. For them there are more important things to do: to fight to get proper education and better job.

August 17, 2006 is the 61st anniversary of Indonesia’s independence day. We celebrate this day with joy every year. The context of celebration is we have freed ourselves from the colonialism, occupation and justice inequality of one country (Netherlands) against another (Indonesia). We gain this freedom not for free; it’s a hard-fought and hard-earned struggle.. Some lessons we learn after 61 years we drove the Dutch away from Indonesia?

The idea among common people to resist and drive the colonialist and occupier away is that (a) our country is rich with natural resources and we got nothing as the Dutch robbed them all; (b) all people will get equal opportunity to education, the mother of all progress and development.

The facts after 61 years: (a) we are still poor and is still named developing, some say underdeveloped country with continuous “awards” as one of the most corrupt country in the world.; many if not all the so-called natural resources are also subcontracted to the MNC’s company; (b) education subsidy is sinking further which almost close the opportunity for the poor to have decent education to enable them to make decent living.

When citizen journalists or ‘ordinary’ bloggers are making political statements on current Middle East conflicts between Israel and Lebanon, they are usually talking with their hearts. They write whatever they want to write without any consideration of impacts. But when a minister of the largest Muslim country in the world like Indonesia is blogging, he must have been facing difficulties to speak up his mind and hence has to walk in the tight rope between personal statement and the portfolio of ministership he’s holding. Hence the ability to read “between the lines” is needed to understand what he is actually talking about.

That’s what happens to Juwono Sudarsono, the Indonesian Defense Minister, the first and only Minister to have a blog who is also former professor of international relations at the prominent Universitas Indonesia.

In his latest post he wrote about the current Middle East conflict from various angles especially from the diplomatic point of views.

On the incapablitity of UN and “awkward” position of US stand:
The UN in New York issued its predictable litany of diplomatic statements, underlining its helplessness in having credible leverage over any of the protagonists.

The US Secretary of State rather awkwardly wanted “a ceasefire in days, not weeks” but found her words undercut by intensified shelling and missile attacks by both Israel and Hizbullah.
The deep divisions even among the Arab countries:
Heads of states and of governments in Arab capitals differ in their approaches to seek a solution, depending on the respective Arab government’s strategic attitudes toward Israel, Lebanon and Iran.
He equally states that both Israel and Hizbullah have acted beyond their respective backers i.e. the US and Iran respectively.

What the root cause of the conflict?
The intense hatred arising from anger, fear, deep vengeance and radical rhetoric, combined with personal as well as collective sufferings on both sides have led the military conflict run unchecked.
He thinks that the war will last longer than predicted because,
Hizbullah found new methods of running a total war effort, confounding the Israeli military with their ingenuity and skill in deploying rockets and missiles from wide and dispersed areas. It can ignore calls for a cessation of hostilities so long as its human and military resources remain intact. The Israeli defense force, under increased international pressure to agree to a ceasefire or cessation of hostilities, can only do so if it feels that the Hizbullah forces are dismantled, if not destroyed, entirely. Neither side can afford to be seen as having to step down from its absolute minimum military threshold. So longs the war of military attrition continues, an agreed diplomatic formulation will have to wait for the appropriate balance of military forces.
The post attracts some interesting comments which you can read below:

From Masindi:
I don’t see this conflict purely as a result of tension between Lebanon/Hezbollah and Israel, but rather, the two Greater Forces are using the smaller ones to fight each other for whatever objectives that they wanted to achieve.

In my opinion, U.S. is using Israel as an extension of its arm to fight against Iran (Hezbollah gets its military armament from Iran).

All in all, this war can only be stopped when U.S. agrees to give Iran some space to breathe.
Seeharry worries over some Indonesian voices which call for the boycot of the US products, yet he agrees on switch to other currencies instead of U$D:
Right now, I hear some voices to ban american/ european product such as McD, carrefour, starbucks and others. I do not agree with them, because there are some indonesian people who work at those companies. I think we should try to find another way to push america/ israel such as not to use USD for international trade.
Qisai does not seem to agree with the Defense Minister’s “elegant” opinion:
Suggesting to “wait for the appropriate balance of military force” before “an agreed diplomatic formulation” could be acheived is, in my opinion, only making the matter worse, especially for the civilians trapped between the conflicting parties.

Should we ignore their desperate plight for peace and security? Or should we force the fonflicting parties to end the hostility for the sake of humanity?

In this current conflict in the Mideast, I see the US govt as an important player that should mediate or take immedate decision in ending the crisis. As the sole superpower in this rather unilateral world, and in its apparent support to the Israeli military agression, I have little doubt that once the US tell Israel to stop all its milatary attacks, ultimately Hizbullah would also stop launching its rockets to Israel.

No diplomatic solution could be achieved by the international community without any active role from the US govt, even when “an appropriate balance of military force” is achieved. And unless there is no change of US policy in the Mideast, a sustainable resolution to the crisis would remain elusive and more and more civilians would only become the victims in a prolonged crisis.
The writer thinks of more radical action agaisnt the powerless UN: dissolve the UN!

Breastfeeding Day

In the meanwhile, Lita, a mother of two kids, at Banana Talk posts an article about breastfeeding day being celebrated around the world. In her introduction of her post she says:
According to the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (the organizers of the week), over 60 countries have legislated all or many provisions of the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes (the Code), which regulates the marketing of breastmilk substitutes. The week will celebrate this success and draw attention to the work still needed to improve breastfeeding practices worldwide.
In the post, Nyam comments that “Kemaren nonton beritanya di tipi. ASI tetep yang terbaik untuk bayi….. “
I watched the news on TV. Breastfeeding is still and will always remain the best for baby.

the BBM’s (petrol, gasoline, etc) hike, and all price in the market follow suit predictably make ordinary indonesian’s life more miserable. with most poor people earn less than a dollar a day, their life turn from bad to worse.

who to blame? the first answer is President SBY (susilo bambang yudhoyono). now, some politician, activist and political commentators start whispering as to whether in present system–direct elected president–the incumbent president can be impeached? and if so will he be impeached? many say no. but some hi-fi politicians start saying ‘yes’.