The Jakarta Globe is seeking fellows

The Jakarta Globe is on the hunt for early-career journalists and journalism students to take up a year-long fellowship, starting later this year. I've been at the paper for a year and had a great time, and I can highly recommend it to anyone else keen to get some professional experience in the industry and watch Indonesia up close.

I'm happy to answer questions in comments or via email.

Here's the notification. Applications close in a week.

Be a Jakarta Globe Fellow!

Getting a foothold in the media has never been more challenging for young journalists. Here is an opportunity to work for a year in an exciting emerging market on a multi-award winning daily newspaper and Web site with professional editors.

The Jakarta Globe, an English daily in a multicultural environment, is looking for the best young talent it can find. Can you copy edit in flawless English, write and think creatively? Are you curious about the world and ready to work hard? We will help you learn and grow.

The Jakarta Globe, which launched in November 2008, has already won numerous local and international awards for our dynamic news coverage. We are recruiting young journalists to copy edit, write and learn the news business from the ground up in Indonesia.

Make your mark in the world’s most dynamic region in one of Asia’s fastest growing economies. We need people ready to start in August 2012. Candidates will be selected on the basis of a competitive editing examination and an essay. A stipend and housing will be provided. We are seeking a one-year commitment. Details on remuneration and job descriptions will be sent to interested and qualified candidates. Recent graduates are encouraged to apply.

Deadline for applications - June 1, 2012

On the web at http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/

Send your resume to: Recruitment[at]thejakartaglobe.com

Jakartans’ business savvy shines through amid the gridlock

It's a rite-of-passage for foreign writers based in Jakarta to pen a piece on the horrid state of the traffic. My attempt, in which I merge it with a discussion on the entrepreneurial spirit of Indonesians, has appeared in The Weekend Australian this weekend and is available here.

Space crimped the effort a little, so I've decided to publish the full piece here:

Soon after you arrive at Jakarta’s international airport and head downtown, you become familiar with two of the city’s defining qualities: the entrepreneurship of its people, and the density of its traffic. With little new public transport infrastructure, the quantity of roads almost static and the number of vehicles steadily rising in line with a growing population and emerging affluence, experts say the Indonesian capital will reach a state of perpetual gridlock within a few years.

But these hours and hours that many commuters spend on the road each day have given rise to niche business opportunities that Jakartans have embraced with gusto.

During peak periods, some of the main streets are reserved for motorcycles as well as vehicles with three or more occupants. This has created a small army of “jockeys”, who linger on the side of streets near the entry points to the main road, their thumb sticking out like a hitchhiker, offering to help motorists reach the golden three. Mother-and-baby pairs are particularly highly sought by solo drivers.

Stories abound among the city’s drivers about the quick fingers that many jockeys possess, with anything loose inside the vehicle at risk of mysteriously disappearing. But given the paucity of alternative ways to get home, many drivers still take the risk.

Along the gridlocked streets are an army of mobile food cart operators known as kaki lima (literally, five legs – three for the cart, two for the proprietor) offering all manner of tasty local delights. Kaki lima push their carts along the footpath or a raised embankment between lanes, and drivers seeking to satisfy their cravings wind down their windows and place an order. So fixed is the traffic that there’s plenty of time for the operator to whip up some food – nasi goreng (fried rice) and steamed buns are the most popular options – before the traffic moves far.

Part of the reason for the congestion is the lack of quality public transport. The recent introduction of the TransJakarta bus service, with a modern fleet and dedicated lanes, has been a watershed, but its network is limited.

This leaves many people aboard the network of 20-seater minibuses offered by the Kopaja and Metromini companies. These rickety old things have been on the roads for decades, have their doors permanently open (locals call it “natural air-conditioning”), have a driver with a cigarette wedged between his lips and a conductor who spends his time hanging out the door or shuffling up and down the aisle collecting 2,000 rupiah (25 cent) fares off each passenger. One of the party tricks of conductors is, while the bus is moving, to ease himself onto the road out the front door and re-enter via the back door in a single, fluid movement. Impressive to watch.

There are plenty of buskers who ply their wares on board, often in rather tricky conditions. On a recent trip, a 20-something man with a guitar jumped on partly filled Kopaja and started strumming and singing an up-beat Indonesian folk song. Progressively the bus took on more and more passengers, cramming into every nook and cranny. Throughout, the busker continued without missing a note, contorting the neck of the guitar to all manner of awkward angles to accommodate passengers and using his legs to cope with the minimal suspension that become apparent as the vehicle lumbered across Jakarta’s potholed roads. The tips he received were particularly generous, and only some of it was for his music.

For sure, much of the creative opportunism on display is a product of grinding poverty and the lack of a welfare system, but it also shows an admirable determination to make the most of whatever one’s circumstances happen to be. It certainly makes the city are more interesting place.

Farewell, Femi

It's been a little over a day since the Sukhoi Superjet-100 went missing over the skies of Bogor, and the news since then has been nothing but gloom. About 50 were on board, and it appears none survived as the Russian-made plane hit the side of Mount Salak.

Each of those lives taken was a life taken too soon. Good times never had. Old age never reached. Proper goodbyes never said.

There was one name on the list of passengers that was familiar to me. Femi Adi from Bloomberg News (listed as Femi, but it has been confirmed that it is her) was a young journalist I met last May while observing a prayer rally organised in Jakarta by the Islamic Defenders Front to mourn the death of Osama bin Laden.

It was a fairly tense affair, with nearly a thousand slightly-riled, white-robed men crammed into a mosque to listen to speakers stoking their anger over the death of bin Laden. Clustered outside the back of the hall were me and more than a dozen journalists, mostly Indonesians with a handful from overseas.

I must have appeared a little bewildered by what I saw, because Femi approached me and said hello. She asked me where I was from and what I was doing there, and I answered and asked her the same. She then offered to translate some of the firebrand speeches for me, helping me to make sense of what was going on.

After a brief lull in proceedings, there was an announcement. She tugged at my shirt and said, "Come on, they're going to hold a press conference." The idea of extremists holding a press conference seemed strange to me, but emboldened by her confidence I wandered forward with the other journalists.

A microphone was offered to the journalists, and most of us were reluctant to speak up. But not Femi. She happily grabbed it, introduced herself by name and by organisation (there would be few more identifiably American news brands than Bloomberg, so it was an especially bold move) and proceeded to ask a question. I'm not sure what she asked, but she was impressive in her bravado.

Afterwards we swapped contact details and exchanged a few emails, including one in which I asked if she knew of any job opportunities.

There was nothing especially poetic in what either of us wrote via email, but just rereading her words today it struck me that they capture some of the joie de vivre she demonstrated in person:


Hi Ari


---Your name looks so-Indonesian. :) ---


Its nice to meet you too in the FPI event, Ari. I quit shortly after things done. :)


I have read your blog. Its a nice blog with informal writings wrapping the great content. I like it. :) I also have a blog, femiadi.com, but it is not as good as your blog. It's just a daily-life-stories about corkscrew, travels, friendship, etc.


So, you leave ossie to stay with your partner and work in Indonesia? That's amazing! I will let you know if any media needs a journalist. I have been working in Jakarta since 2003 for Kontan newspaper. My hometown is in Yogyakarta. I moved to Bloomberg since last year.


Let me know if you have some time for having coffee or beer. I have to go out to the south jakarta court for abu bakar bashir trial.


//regards,
femi adi


Sadly I never did take up the offer of a coffee or beer, and now it seems the chance has gone forever.

Bodies are still being pulled from the rubble, and so far no individuals have been confirmed as among the dead. So there's always a chance of a miracle.

I didn't know Femi well, but in this brief tribute online at Republika, she is described as gentle, kind and friendly. Sounds just like the person I'd met.

She was also very lively online, operating a blog at femiadi.com and being active on a swag of social media sites.

Farewell, Femi. The world's a poorer place without you.

My '90 percent theory' tries to explain why perfection is elusive

I've always been fairly messy in managing my personal space at home. I'm happy to let all sorts of trivial items - bank statements, magazines, pill packets, slightly soiled tissues - accumulate on my bedside table before feeling a need to clean them. And when I do finally clean it, I sort through most of it and leave it in a much neater state. Not spotless, but vastly improved.

My partner Melanie is different. She's fastidious in her neatness, letting only a handful of items accumulate before feeling the need to sort through them and clear up the space. Once she's cleaned up her bedside table, it sits in a very high state of tidiness, substantially cleaner than my side even immediately after I've completed my "cleaning". It is not unknown for her to assess my side after I'd clean it, and make some smart suggestions ways to deal with the handful of items I've left sitting there.

What intrigued me was not so much the difference in the states of mess to which we would allow our respective sides to reach, but the fact that both of us would consider that we'd achieved "cleanliness" at very different points.

It lead be to a theory I'll call my "90 percent theory" in the absence of a better name: basically, in any given task in which people seek to improve something, they will be able to improve it 90 percent of the way between how they found it and perfection.

So, applying it to my and my partner's bedside tables, from the point at which each of us decide to clean our sides, we will improve it 90 percent compared to how it was. Because I start at a more advanced state of messiness, 90 percent improvement will not make it as neat as my partner's side.

Furthermore, when she approaches my tidy-but-not-perfect bedside table after I've cleaned it, she will be able to improve it a further 90 percent on how she's found it, bringing it to 99 percent cleanliness compared to its initial state. Theoretically, were a third person to come along and seek to clean it again from the state that my partner had left it in, they would be able to improve 90 percent of what they see, bringing it up to 99.9 percent. But given the difference between 99 percent and 99.9 percent is so minimal when the entirety of the task is cleaning my bedside table, there is probably too little to notice.

It's worth noting, however, that by this rule perfection is impossible. Improvement is, in a mathematical sense, asymptotic. Each attempt gets us ever closer, but we can never reach it.

Human psychology is the main factor behind the theory. When we approach a given task, we generally assess the quality of the outcome relative to the quality of the starting point. It keeps us sane by preventing us from obsessing over every minor imperfection, but does also make us occasionally complacent and willing to forgo the pursuit of excellence.

I've noticed this theory playing out in another context, in my work as a copy editor at a newspaper. In the role, we take the stories filed by reporters and have responsibility for checking facts and spelling where possible, ensuring the expression is smooth and professional and making sure that the story is neat and logical. The task has an extra degree of difficulty because most of the reporters do not have English as their first language, and so the quality of the written expression is quite varied.

On the copy desk, the first person, usually but not always someone with less experience, will perform a copy edit; then they will pass it through to a check editor, who will give it further scrutiny; then finally a page editor will look at the page as a whole, keeping an eye out for anything that has been missed.

I've performed all three roles at one time or another, and can see that the quality of one's output is in part a product of the quality of one's input. So a copy editor dealing with a particularly poorly written story will work hard to improve expression, spelling, etc, but is likely to unconsciously let through some less-than-ideal parts because their focus is diverted to the more blatant imperfections. That same copy editor, however, working with "clean" copy in the first place, will notice and hopefully rectify much more minor issues that become more apparent because of the quality of the work around those issues.

Though I have the experience to work as a check editor, when in the role of copy editor I find myself overlooking errors that I know I should have picked up and suspect I would have were I to be a fresh pair of eyes reading it as a check editor. Improving beyond the 90 percent is remarkably difficult to achieve. (This also demonstrates my asymptote theory - despite three pairs of eyes picking up theoretically 99.9 percent of errors compared to the original story submitted by a reporter, errors still make it into print.)

You can even see the theory in action in a political context. Take traffic, or smog, or corruption, three issues that afflict Jakarta particularly badly. A government that commits to rectifying these ills will generally seek to rectify them by a proportion of the initial problem rather than to reach an absolute number. (Of course, few governments would be so bold as to seek to reduce any of these measures by 90 percent; instead they are seeking to reduce the discretionary component that may be responsive to change by 90 percent. An unchangeable hard-core will remain, and they are generally not the focus of public-policy efforts.) A government campaign to rectify any of these issues, if successful, might be able to alter 90 percent of the discretionary causes of the problem. But then it hits a wall, struggling to take it any further. Then only a new idea, often generated by a new cohort of politicians, can improve performance further.

So what does all this mean? I think it's significant for a few reasons. It means that the less severe a problem is when we first encounter it, the closer to perfection we can expect the end result to be. It means that we should judge our performance against the extent of the initial problem rather than some absolute measure. It means that one actor is not able to achieve the best result on their own, and is better working in coordination with others with the aim of improving upon each other's improvements. And it means that we should accept that perfection is impossible and we shouldn't be too hard on those who fail to achieve it.

This theory is borne exclusively from my own observations. It's possible there are some exceptional circumstances or people that confound it, but they would be few. It's also possible that the 90 percent figure is off the mark. I think of it as an average among people; some will be higher, others lower. It is also influenced by circumstances; time pressure or psychological pressure are likely to lower the figure. But for the most part, I think it explains plenty about why things are as they are.

Why I'm ditching mindjunk and reading classics

Back in my days as a journalist at a daily broadsheet in Australia, each day I'd head into the office and be confronted with half a dozen newspapers whose content I needed to be on top of. I'd log onto Twitter and scroll through the pithy contributions of the wise, the egocentric and the influential. I'd scan government reports, corporate propaganda and activist press releases. I'd come home and flick through magazines and hunt down quirky stuff on the internet. I might make some progress on a book on contemporary politics, business or culture before bed. And then I'd get up and do the same thing the next day.

In short, my literary diet was a poor one, filled with constant snacking on food of only moderate nutritional value. Largely out of a sense of "missing out" on something pertinent to my job, I was filling my stomach with things that seemed tasty at the time, but were unlikely to be remembered years, weeks, days or sometimes even minutes after they were consumed.

True, things could have been worse: I could have been among those who are constantly craving a literary sugar high, and satisfy their craving with swift and lurid morsels from the internet. Constantly raiding the snack machine for digital Kit Kats and Burger Rings, as it were.

But even if I'd dodged that fate, I sensed I was lacking literary carbohydrates and the occasional fine meal.

(Here endeth the metaphor.)

My own definition of a cultured, intelligent person is one who has a broad knowledge not just of his or her own time and place, but of others. Inherent in that is a familiarity with the major cultural objects of those times and places, which in many cases are the works of literature that helped to define them.

A familiarity with "the classics" was something I respected and admired. A person who could quote from Chaucer, Eyre or Rand with authority and conviction didn't just carry a veneer of intellect, but usually the wisdom and insight that comes with such knowledge.

I, however, was falling well short of my own definition. I'd read a handful of classics at school, and in a reflection of both myself and a modern university education, had no exposure to them during my time as an undergraduate arts and commerce student. Then as a working journalist I felt I didn't have the time or energy to spend on something without a clear, speedy benefit.

Moving to Indonesia and taking on a new job with a newspaper in Jakarta was the perfect opportunity for me to do something about it. True, I'd still have a daily paper or two to get my head around, and face the constant lure of interesting things from home and abroad online, but I felt content to remain out of the loop on the happenings I previously felt obliged to be intimately familiar with.

This was my chance to move closer to my idealised well-read person: Homo culturae, if you'll excuse my pseudo-Latin. I made it my mission to read the works of literature that have stood the test of time and helped shape the world. A daunting prospect, I know, but a richly rewarding one, as well.

I knew that in my lifetime, let alone just my few years planned here, I would barely scratch the surface in reading great things. My choices of books would be a little odd at times, driven by a desire to mix up the heavy with the light and the mainstream with the obscure. It would also be driven by the more pragmatic issue of what I happened to stumble across in Jakarta's eclectic sources of English-language literature.

First up was Heart of Darkness, the 1903 novella by Joseph Conrad that captures the folly of King Leopold II of Belgium's colonial efforts in the Congo and is perhaps most famous as an inspiration for Apocalypse Now. There's something about Heart of Darkness that resonates as a westerner living in a developing country, effectively the situation that Conrad's protagonists finds themselves in. One can only hope they avoid the madness and amorality that awaits Kurtz. This one I picked up at Drive Books, Not Cars, a fantastic second-hand book fundraiser.

Next up was Ayn Rand's 1957 tome Atlas Shrugged, an 1100-page epic considered a sacred text by libertarians and capitalists but derided by many others. I expected a treatise on economics and political freedom, and that I got. But what I didn't expect was the rollicking story filled with captivating characters and tremendous drama. It's a breathtaking piece of storytelling, ambitious in its scope but hugely satisfying in its execution. Rand's also remarkably persuasive in advocating her Objectivist philosophy not only in the political realm, but in the personal, demonstrating the need for a rational approach to sex as well as business. This one I picked up from Borders in Singapore.

Then it was to the Freedom Library in Menteng, where I found a copy of Mary Shelley's Gothic novel Frankenstein, a gripping and self-assured book all the more remarkable for the fact its author was just 21 when she wrote it in 1918. Then I picked up A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf's witty and caustic 1929 extended essay on the question of whether a sister of Shakespeare who possessed the Bard's innate talents would have had a chance to succeed.

Right now I'm wrestling with Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1866 book. This Russian one's tough to like, filled with characters that are tough to distinguish, a plot that seems to move nowhere fast, and prose so thick with fog that it's difficult to know what you're looking at. I'm half way through, so perhaps the payoff is still to come.

Trudging through Crime and Punishment does bring into sharp relief one down side of my personal endeavour: reading this stuff is not always fun. If I were reading strictly for enjoyment, I would have dismissed this one many chapters earlier. But I'm keen to understand the world view of the author and the time and place in which the work is set. And perhaps most of all, why this work has been revered for more than a century. It's possible that its place in the cultural canon is the product of high-minded literary masochism by generations of scholars, but more likely there's something at the heart of it that makes it worth celebrating. The challenge of the reader is to find that something.

Waiting ahead for me on the bookshelf is Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, an American classic that doesn't seem to resonate as much in the rest of the world, and Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, a work almost eclipsed by the film based on it. And then there's the content of the Freedom Library, whose shelves are heaving with tempting morsels.

Reading long and challenging books has become a lot tougher in the era of ubiquitous internet. Social media creates the opportunity for continuous social contact, meaning that when users log off there is a frequent, gnawing fear that they're missing out on something. And the nature of the writing on the internet has shortened attention spans, harming people's ability to stay focused on a task that lacks swift gratification.

But the rewards of reading classic works are great. There's something satisfying in knowing that the book you're reading has had its quality recognised across time and culture, and that the subjects at its heart are universal such that a reader living in a vastly different world to the writer can identify with the experience. It's awe-inspiring to know that the work you're reading has changed people's view of the world, perhaps even shaped history, and may yet shape the future. And when done well, it's a heck of a lot of fun to be guided by an author around a world that exists only in their mind - and soon yours.

Long after the newspaper article, vain autobiography or indulgent blog post has disappeared from memory, a great work of literature will stay in the reader's mind and shape their character. That alone makes the endeavour of reading from the canon a worthwhile one.

Interesting things happen when cars disappear

Every second Sunday morning, the fume-spewing metallic gridlock that permanently occupies Central Jakarta’s Jalan Thamrin and Jalan Sudirman disappears to make way for bikes, pedestrians, joggers, street performers and the occasional bookstore.

Car-free day has in recent years become an institution in the Indonesian capital, and in a city starved of open space, clear paths and fresh air, it’s little wonder that people have embraced the oasis of peace.

Jakarta is, in many ways, the Los Angeles of Southeast Asia. It’s a city built around cars, with those using other modes of transport a mere afterthought. The major thoroughfares accommodate several lanes of vehicle traffic, but are hostile to bicycles and in many instances offer not an inch of footpath for perambulators.

Cars are the physical embodiment of the city’s anti-social aggression; their presence, with their noise and pollution and hint of danger has a chilling effect on people who traverse the city on foot. Trying walking shoulder to shoulder with a chain of Avanzas and Xenias and Kijangs to understand why.

But on car-free day, those vehicles are pushed aside. What emerges is impressive.



Wandering the street on car-free day in late January, there were a steady stream of families strolling down the six-lane expanse, well-dressed parents de-stressing from their office drudgery while young children darted about unpredictably. Alongside them were hipsters who had embraced the retro appeal of “fixie” fixed-gear bicycles, simple and elegant machines that do away with every non-essential part of a bike, brakes included.

A group of cyclists with a keen interest in historic old bikes gathered in matching T-shirts to chat, ride, and admire each other’s facial hair. A group of Star Wars enthusiasts donned home-made costumes of their favourite characters, wielding light sabres in playful jousts.



A little further up the road was the “Drive Books, Not Cars” fair. The community fundraiser spends weeks gathering second-hard books, both in English and Bahasa Indonesia, and then sells them on picnic rugs and trestle tables just off the street. In the midst of a classic phase, I picked up a copy of Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” and a well-thumbed copy of Melville’s “Moby-Dick”.

A group of hippies claimed a stretch of open space to conduct demonstrate their fire eating, their meal punctuated with some playful slapstick in the proud tradition of street theatre. Middle-class families look on appreciatively, and the hat being passed around swiftly filled with 2,000 and 5,000 rupiah notes.

To understand the significance of such subversive activity, you need to appreciate the power that the street holds in the functioning of the city. Jalan Thamrin, as it is known in its northern stretch, and Jalan Sudirman, as it becomes further south, is a main artery of the thriving metropolis. Its four lanes of traffic in either direction are bumper-to-bumper at most hours of the day, and only a recently-established exclusive bus lane hosts vehicles that move through smoothly.

It acts as a microcosm for the city’s class divisions: its wealthy elite ride in cars (almost always as passengers rather than drivers), the middle-class weave in and out of the cars on ojek motorcycles, while the poor are on foot on the sidelines, begging, busking or vending whatever they can find.

The boulevard passes through the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle, an enormous water fountain next to the city’s first international hotel that has become a gathering point for youth whiling away the hours. In the middle of the pond stands the socialist-realist Welcome Statue, a young boy and girl (known to some as Hansel and Gretel) striving forward with unseemly vigour and enthusiasm.

A little further south stands the dignified statue of General Sudirman, the Indonesian military hero who commanded forces against the Dutch colonials during the battle for independence in the 1940s. The figure of the fighter, who died aged just 34, stares down, appearing to be in awe of the bustling parade before him. Continue to the southern end of the street and you reach another statue, officially the Youth Monument Statue but better known as Flaming Pizza Man because of its pose, which completely lacks Sudirman’s dignity.

The street has also borne witness to some of the city’s dark chapters. In the heady days of 1998, military snipers positioned themselves on building around the Semanggi cloverleaf, created by the elaborate intersection with Jalan Gatot Subroto. As student protests grew restive, police and soldiers fired into the crowd, killing a dozen people and staining the street with blood.

Come Sundays, through, the signs of state power are far more benign. Members of the city’s Inline Skate Police squad roll through the streets on their sleek footwear, looking about as threatening as a miniature schnauzer.



Officers in training even use the car-free space as an opportunity to practice their marching, with units trundling down the street in near-perfect formation to the chant of “kiri… kiri… kiri, kanan, kiri…”. Young’uns race up to march beside them for a stretch, while people flock to take photos of the scene.



Cars act as a metaphor for the city as a whole. In many ways the city is an aggressive one, with corruption, incompetence and crassness matching the mood of its streets. So dominant in that mind-set that it is difficult for anyone to cope without yielding to it, no matter how honest or compassionate they might be.

For a morning a fortnight, we can take the cars off the streets and see community and creativity and healthy vitality arise. It’s hard not to wonder whether the same values might thrive if only we could do the same thing to the city as a whole – an arsehole-free day, perhaps – and see what emerges.

Life's tough for Indonesia's atheists

The plight of atheists in Indonesia has been attracting a bit of attention lately, with the sad case of the man facing five years in prison for doubting the existence of god in a Facebook post coming on the heels of this interesting profile on an atheist activist in the Jakarta Globe.

While Indonesia often prides itself on its religious tolerance, that tolerance is not readily extended to adherents of faiths or non-faiths beyond the six religions recognised in the Constitution (Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism). And frankly, often adherents of those six have their rights violated, such as in the case of the East Java Shiites or the GKI Yasmin church congregation in Bogor.

Early on in my time in Indonesia, it was explained to me that Indonesians have a rather distrusting attitude to atheism. Many associate it with communism, which was demonised by Suharto after he ousted leftist Sukarno in 1965.

That may be part of it, but I think the explanation is a bit broader than that. Indonesians are a very spiritual people, be it in adhering to an established religion, the animist tradition or local folklore. To them, a person's religion is an inherent part of their character and identity, and so to deny your belief in a religion is to give the impression that you have all the facets necessary to be a fully formed person.

The commitment to rationalism the underlies most atheists' thinking is not well received in Indonesia. Here, people take their cues from leaders, from history and from superstition, and use that as the guide for acceptable behaviour. The idea that someone can assess the evidence before them and reach their own conclusion about the right course of action is unfamiliar, and perhaps even arrogant. Far safer, goes the thinking, to trust the judgement of others than to trust your own judgement.

Whatever the reason, there are very few people who publicly promote their atheism in this country.

Most foreigners who are atheists or believers of faiths beyond the six often decide that the safest option when asked about their religion in to nonchalantly declare themselves Protestants and let the matter rest. Engaging in a discussion on the topic can turn ugly quickly.

This can occasionally backfire for someone like me, who is atheist on matters spiritual. Last year, I was at a train station in Jakarta when an Indonesian man came up for a chat, and after the usual questions on where I was from, whether I was married and whether I had children, he asked my religion.

"Christian," I replied.
"Me?," he said, "I'm an atheist. So tell me, why are you a Christian? Why do you believe in god?"

Very good question. Served me right for not being more honest on these things.

Jeremy and Adelle, the singing diplomats

A story of mine on Jeremy Stringer and Adelle Neary, the Australian diplomats making a name for themselves in Indonesia on TV talent show Asing Star, is in The Age today, and is available online here.

For those interested, here's the full version of the story I wrote, and a picture and a couple of video clips to go with it.

By Ari Sharp
Jakarta

When Adelle Neary and Jeremy Stringer came to Jakarta to represent the Australian government, they were both keen to strengthen the ties between Indonesia and its southern neighbour.

What they didn’t expect was to become celebrities in the process.

Neary, a 29-year-old from Adelaide, and Stringer, a 41-year-old from Fremantle, are the singing diplomats who have taken center stage in the television program Asing Star, and Australian Idol-type show that invites foreigners to sing Indonesian songs.

“What’s great about Indonesia is that they just like to see people up there having a go,” Stringer said in an interview at an upscale restaurant near the Australian embassy.

“In other singing contests, people actually want to become famous as a singer, whereas on this one the novelty is that you’re a foreigner who can sing in Indonesian,” Neary added.

Both have won two episodes of the Asing Star (“asing” means “foreign” in Bahasa Indonesia) and are in the running for a possible final planned by private broadcaster Trans 7 in the next month.

When the program launched last year, producers put appeals for contests out to major expatriate employers, including embassies.

Neary, who is in her first year of a three-year posting with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, was a little reluctant at first to put herself forward because of a lack of performing experience. She’d had no formal voice training, and hadn’t sung publicly since her days in a school choir.

“I did what I now realise was an audition at their studio whereby they asked me some questions, took my clothes sizes, took a photo of me and then made me sing into a BlackBerry camera,” she said. “Then I found myself standing on the stage in the studio for a run through, and I realised it was really happening.”

Stringer, nearing the end of a four-year stint with the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), was a little more enthusiastic because of his years of singing in choirs at home in Western Australia, including one that had sung Indonesian songs.

“I turned a corner and boom, it was the whole deal,” he said of his first day recording. “A singer and dancers on stage, house band playing, celebrity judges sitting out front, the audience dancing, TV cameras and cables and technicians everywhere. My stomach dropped and I just thought, ‘I am supposed to get up there and sing in front of all of this?’ But despite the terror, I did, and it was fun.”

Each episode of the program features five foreigners singing a song each, with a panel of three judges – a sinetron soap opera star, a rock musician and a comedian – casting votes. The winner, or in some cases joint winners, go through to the next week. Each is able to win up to two episodes, making it through to a possible final if they do. Competitors come from all over the world – Brazil, India, Russia and the Ukraine have all had representatives on the show - and many are in Jakarta on short-term modelling contracts.

The show taps into the Indonesian curiosity about Westerners, particularly those who have taken the time and effort to learn the language and culture of the country. The tone of it is relentlessly positive, with contestants lauded for their willingness to have a go, even if they don’t always hit the right note, or choose the right word in a post-song interview.

The contestants each get to choose which songs they would like to sing.
For his first song, Stringer chose Bento, a song by rock icon Iwan Fals that stuck with him from his time in Indonesian in the mid-1990s and sent out a subtle but firm message of protest and social rebellion at a time during the Suharto regime when such things were frowned upon.

His second song was Alusi Ahu, in the traditional Batak language of North Sumatra. “One of the judges on an episode that I won said he was really proud that I could sing one of their national songs,” he said.

Neary’s first song Selimut Hati, was chosen with little thought because of time pressures, but it’s her second song that has really connected with audiences. Bengawan Solo is a popular song about the Solo River from generations ago and is seen by contemporary Indonesians as passe. Neary’s willingness to embrace its dagginess, and breathe new life into it, complete with retro dance moves during the bridge, endeared her to judges and fans.

Stringer and Neary are both realistic about the diplomatic potential of their involvement in the program, although their meeting with Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd early this week on his visit to Jakarta and a subsequent video of their brief chat did elevate its significance somewhat.

“It’s a bit of a getting-to-know-you exercise,” Neary said of the show. “It’s like the case in real life. The more you get to know somebody, the harder it is to impose a stereotype. So perhaps in that way, seeing a couple of everyday Australians up on the stage, singing in Bahasa and communicating in Bahasa in a pretty light-hearted and relaxed way, is an unexpected way to portray Australians.”

Stringer agreed, but saw some benefits flowing the other way. “I think Indonesia can seem quite inaccessible to Australians and I think that this experience might show Australians that [Indonesia’s] just like this, with normal everyday pop culture that is entirely accessible, that is entirely user-friendly,” he said.

As for the future, both say this is unlikely to prompt them to leave the diplomatic corp in pursuit of a singing career any time soon.

“Probably Australia’s interests are better served if I stick to my day job,” Neary said with a laugh. For now, though, she’s rifling through her extensive Indonesian music collection for a track to sing on the show’s Valentine’s Day episode.

The perils of being overly adaptive

Following on from my post last week about prolonged sensory overload being the explanation for many of the behaviors you see in Jakarta, I read an interesting piece in the Jakarta Globe (my employer) by Farid Harianto providing a similar explanation, although in slightly different terms:

Carol Graham of the Brookings Institute makes a powerful argument that a human’s ability to adapt to inhospitable conditions is a good thing for his or her psychological perspective but at the same time facilitates collective tolerance that leads to bad equilibrium. Humans can adapt to almost anything from poverty, unemployment, bad health, and high levels of crime and corruption. Adaptation is a very good thing, a human defense mechanism under unfavorable conditions.

The danger arises when this adaptability leads to surrender. Rather than attempting to change an all but intolerable condition, people collectively assume, and expect, that such a condition is merely a constraint that they have to live with.

Tolerance, such as is evident in the way our citizens approach the dreadful daily traffic of Jakarta, has led us to a bad equilibrium. While individually one can develop a human defense mechanism to cope with traffic jams (installing good audio systems in their cars, carrying the most current mobile gadgets or changing hours of work), the social costs of traffic jams are enormous. Every year in Jakarta billions of dollars are wasted on fuel and lost working time due to traffic, not to mention the costs associated with the increased stress of urban life.

The key to harnessing the power of human adaptability is to invoke strong disincentives and to create a collective expectation regarding what are good and bad behaviors. In particular, socially bad behaviors should be codified and harsh punishment consistently applied to offenders. The essence of such a state is that the rule of law is strongly observed and enforced.

He makes a fine point. I wasn't familiar with Carol Graham, but I am interested to learn more. This paper looks like a good place to start.

Invest in Indonesia: Rudd

Yesterday, I was among a group of Australian journalists participating in a briefing with visiting Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd on his visit to Jakarta.

I had a piece published in the Australian Financial Review on the discussion (page eight today, behind a pay wall online), but due to space limitations, there was no room for some of the content.

Here's the full version I wrote.

By Ari Sharp
Jakarta

The Australian corporate sector risks missing out opportunities in Indonesia as it moves toward its long-term place among one of the 10 largest economies in the world, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said on a visit to Jakarta.

Mr Rudd, speaking after meeting with the country’s new trade minister, Gita Wirjawan, urged large Australian companies to conduct one board meeting a year in Indonesia so that members could witness the growth in the world’s fourth most populous nation.

The Australian minister praised a trio of significant economic reforms that he said was part of “Indonesia 2.0” and made the country a more attractive destination to foreign investors.

The “landmark” reforms he identified were the introduction of 10-year tax holidays for many foreign investors, the passage by the parliament last month of a land acquisition bill that is expected to speed up the development of infrastructure, and the liberalisation of workplace laws that reduce barriers to the hiring and firing of staff.

The new trade minister, Mr Rudd noted, was a “dynamic figure” who would continue the “radical transformation of the Indonesian economy” instigated by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“The winds of change are definitely blowing when it comes to the liberalisation of this economy,” he said.

He noted that companies from several Asian countries, including South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore, had established a firm foothold in Indonesia, but Australian companies had so far failed to take full advantage of its close proximity.

“There is a grave danger that this one passes us by,” Mr Rudd said. “It’s important now for corporate Australia to step up to the plate.”

While Australian companies have long had a presence in the nation’s resources sector, Mr Rudd said Indonesia was becoming an appealing site for investors in the finance and services sectors. Australian banks ANZ and Commonwealth have both established a significant presence in Indonesia, while Rio Tinto has a significant stake in a Papua copper and gold mine.

Indonesia’s economy grew an estimated 6.5 percent last year, and the country’s central bank has forecast growth of 6.3 percent in 2012. While the targets dwarf growth expectations in the West, they are lower than that anticipated by many other countries at a similar point in their development. These figures also represent a reduction from the seven-plus percent growth experienced during the latter period of the Suharto administration.

“This is not a small economy anymore,” he said, noting that Indonesia’s current gross domestic product of $900 billion could surpass that of Australia, which currently stands at about $1.4 trillion, by the end of the decade. He predicted Indonesia would be one of the globe’s 10 largest economies by 2050; the International Monetary Fund currently ranks Indonesia in 17th place globally.

Mr Rudd acknowledged that Australian companies doing business in Indonesia faced some risks, but that those were far outweighed by the potential benefits.
“Life’s an imperfect beast,” he said. “If we wait for nirvana to be produced… then we’ll miss the boat.”

His comments came less than a month after several protesters were killed at the port servicing a mining site in West Nusa Tenggara province operated by Australian gold miner Arc Exploration.

On his two-day visit to Indonesia, Mr Rudd met with ministers for foreign affairs, trade and agriculture.

Mr Rudd and Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Marty Natalegawa on Monday announced they had made progress on cooperative efforts to thwart people-smugglers, many of whom use Indonesia as a transit country before heading to Australia. The two said they would share information on the flow of asylum seekers, and that Australia would offer its expertise on detecting and preventing document fraud.

Mr Rudd said he was keen for Wirjawan and the Indonesian Coordinating Minister for the Economy Hatta Rajasa to visit Australia soon to showcase the Indonesian economy to potential Australian investors.