From The New York Times:
“We have to be alert for diseases like typhoid, those transmitted by rats and respiratory infections,” said Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari. “Hopefully, there will be no dysentery.”
He urged people to try to keep clean to avoid spreading disease. “We know
it’s hard for the residents under the circumstances, but they have to,”
he said.
Note how the reporter confused the Health Minister's Gender to be a "he" when in fact she is a "her". Yes, Newspapers get lots of things wrong all the time, even The New York Times.
Showing posts with label Indonesia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indonesia. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Friday, February 2, 2007
Jakarta Floods
by Tika
Its flooding season again folks. Seem like its getting worse. Most of my life growing up has been spent outside of Indonesia, but I did manage to spend some time in Jakarta during my awkward pre-teen years. That was some years ago: the 1980's.
Whenever it rained, I would really have trouble getting the "bajaj" man to take me home from school. The bajaj is now an almost extinct, if not already gone, three wheeled mass transportation vehicle made of very thin metal structure. I say it is a motorized open air tri-cycle masquerading as something other than itself: a minature car-jeeplike vehicle with a canvas roof.
The older the bajaj you ride on, the more a passenger would have to hold on to something, or just pray, for fear of being ejaculated from her seat as the motor causes it to vibrate a lot. You can't step your feet onto the passenger feet platform, since it gets very hot when the bajaj starts its motor a good while.
So in the bajaj, you always feel like you are floating on hot vibrating steel with only your bottom supporting you, since it is only on the seat the bajaj is well protected from the heat of the motor. You can hardly see where you are going since your vision gets blurred from the vibrations.
I would wave for the bajaj, always dripping wet since during downpours is about the only time I would ride the bajaj. During non-storm days, the other mass transit vehicle I choose to ride is the mini-van-bus.
To go on to this mini-van-bus, known throughout the parts as the "mikrolet", you have to stand by the street, wave your hand when you see an ongoing one about to pass you by. If there were space for you, it would stop momentarily. A hand would try to grab you onto the doorstep. It would start moving again even though your whole body isn't fully inside yet. You are lucky if there are people behind you so they get to be the last one hanging on.
Anyway, during rainy days, I have to stick to the bajaj since the mikrolet is always packed making it impossible to get a spot there. Yet, it is almost as hard to get one bajaj to take me home. There would be several empty ones passing me by. But, once I told the bajaj driver man where I wanted to go, he would shake his head out of some fear of being drowned in a sea of rainwater.
Yes, the road to my house is always flooded during rainstorms, up to knee length high in some parts during really bad days. So the bajaj man would mumble a definite no and just whiz on by, splashing some more muddy rainwater on my already dripping wet school uniform.
But some bajaj men are more adventurous and they would take me in for triple the "usual" price. To ride the bajaj, you have to bid the price for a ride. This is why I try not to ride the bajaj since the other more preferable mass transit vehicle had a fixed price per distance.
So I would eventually get one bajaj to take me home. I would be just glad to be out of the downpour and be finally in an acceptable almost rain-free-chamber. I would have an umbrella during rainy days, but it is just too flimsy to help me out during downpours.
Dripping wet inside the bajaj, with some splashes of rainwater still coming in from the open air space I call the window, we would start to move. I would have my umbrella open and stick it out of the window to get some protection from these oncoming splashes of rainwater.
We would be moving very slowly over the standing rainwater, which is good since the slow movement causes less vibrations of the bajaj. One other good thing about the rainwater is that it has helped to dissipate the heat from all over the bajaj so I can actually rest my feet on the bajaj floor.
We finally get to my street with the really high standing water at its crossing. Amazingly the bajaj manages to zigzag through and actually find shallow parts to pass us safely out of the flood.
So here I am, many-many years later, able to stay intact after going through the many floods of Jakarta. But I'm sure many people went through even worse ordeals.
I had several classmates who are always absent during bad rainy days in Jakarta. At first I thought it to be some joke, since before I lived in Jakarta I was a resident of a trouble free and idyllic utopia called Ottawa, Canada. The teacher would holler their names at the beginning of class and some student friend would shout out "house is flooded!". The teacher would nod and move on down the list.
With more people and more settlements being built all over Jakarta, it's no wonder that the flooding is getting worse. Not to mention climatic changes due to greenhouse effects that has made rainy and dry season in our country even more chaotic.
This is of course just my biased and non-expert opinion. But I am not one to say that Jakarta people have not tried to work this out. It is a complicated ordeal to have to go through. I am sure people have been trying to think of a way out of the mess they are in. I think it is more of the lack of science than the lack of motivation to solve the problems of the flood.
I now live in New York City and sometimes, parts of the city can get flooded during bad rainstorms, which last only a day at most. But in Jakarta it is different. We have never ending tropical rainstorms during rainy season, lasting many-many days.
In an overpopulated city such as Jakarta, this is no easy problem. You have less money and less people to think and work on this problem. It's a tough job to have to get done. But I am optimistic than someday, Jakarta people will find a way to deal with the problem and make some new science the world has yet to learn from.
My utmost respect to all the Jakarta people for their resilience, perseverance and their never-ending hope in going through this storm.
***UPDATE. We just recieved news that our sister's house is flooded all over up the the waist. Our brother is trying to pick her up right this moment. It must be about 11 PM at night there when we recieved word. I remember visiting our sister's house last year. She was so proud of her home, however tiny it really was, because she just finished some little rennovations in her only son's room. I was so proud of it too. I dedicate this story, my attempt to tell my love for the city where I was born, to her family and to all those Jakarta people whose homes and lives are severely affected by this tragedy.
(*images taken from KOMPAS Newspaper, THE JAKARTA POST Newspaper and GOOGLE image search)
Its flooding season again folks. Seem like its getting worse. Most of my life growing up has been spent outside of Indonesia, but I did manage to spend some time in Jakarta during my awkward pre-teen years. That was some years ago: the 1980's.
Whenever it rained, I would really have trouble getting the "bajaj" man to take me home from school. The bajaj is now an almost extinct, if not already gone, three wheeled mass transportation vehicle made of very thin metal structure. I say it is a motorized open air tri-cycle masquerading as something other than itself: a minature car-jeeplike vehicle with a canvas roof.
The older the bajaj you ride on, the more a passenger would have to hold on to something, or just pray, for fear of being ejaculated from her seat as the motor causes it to vibrate a lot. You can't step your feet onto the passenger feet platform, since it gets very hot when the bajaj starts its motor a good while.
So in the bajaj, you always feel like you are floating on hot vibrating steel with only your bottom supporting you, since it is only on the seat the bajaj is well protected from the heat of the motor. You can hardly see where you are going since your vision gets blurred from the vibrations.
I would wave for the bajaj, always dripping wet since during downpours is about the only time I would ride the bajaj. During non-storm days, the other mass transit vehicle I choose to ride is the mini-van-bus.
To go on to this mini-van-bus, known throughout the parts as the "mikrolet", you have to stand by the street, wave your hand when you see an ongoing one about to pass you by. If there were space for you, it would stop momentarily. A hand would try to grab you onto the doorstep. It would start moving again even though your whole body isn't fully inside yet. You are lucky if there are people behind you so they get to be the last one hanging on.
Anyway, during rainy days, I have to stick to the bajaj since the mikrolet is always packed making it impossible to get a spot there. Yet, it is almost as hard to get one bajaj to take me home. There would be several empty ones passing me by. But, once I told the bajaj driver man where I wanted to go, he would shake his head out of some fear of being drowned in a sea of rainwater.
Yes, the road to my house is always flooded during rainstorms, up to knee length high in some parts during really bad days. So the bajaj man would mumble a definite no and just whiz on by, splashing some more muddy rainwater on my already dripping wet school uniform.
But some bajaj men are more adventurous and they would take me in for triple the "usual" price. To ride the bajaj, you have to bid the price for a ride. This is why I try not to ride the bajaj since the other more preferable mass transit vehicle had a fixed price per distance.
So I would eventually get one bajaj to take me home. I would be just glad to be out of the downpour and be finally in an acceptable almost rain-free-chamber. I would have an umbrella during rainy days, but it is just too flimsy to help me out during downpours.
Dripping wet inside the bajaj, with some splashes of rainwater still coming in from the open air space I call the window, we would start to move. I would have my umbrella open and stick it out of the window to get some protection from these oncoming splashes of rainwater.
We would be moving very slowly over the standing rainwater, which is good since the slow movement causes less vibrations of the bajaj. One other good thing about the rainwater is that it has helped to dissipate the heat from all over the bajaj so I can actually rest my feet on the bajaj floor.
We finally get to my street with the really high standing water at its crossing. Amazingly the bajaj manages to zigzag through and actually find shallow parts to pass us safely out of the flood.
So here I am, many-many years later, able to stay intact after going through the many floods of Jakarta. But I'm sure many people went through even worse ordeals.
I had several classmates who are always absent during bad rainy days in Jakarta. At first I thought it to be some joke, since before I lived in Jakarta I was a resident of a trouble free and idyllic utopia called Ottawa, Canada. The teacher would holler their names at the beginning of class and some student friend would shout out "house is flooded!". The teacher would nod and move on down the list.
With more people and more settlements being built all over Jakarta, it's no wonder that the flooding is getting worse. Not to mention climatic changes due to greenhouse effects that has made rainy and dry season in our country even more chaotic.
This is of course just my biased and non-expert opinion. But I am not one to say that Jakarta people have not tried to work this out. It is a complicated ordeal to have to go through. I am sure people have been trying to think of a way out of the mess they are in. I think it is more of the lack of science than the lack of motivation to solve the problems of the flood.
I now live in New York City and sometimes, parts of the city can get flooded during bad rainstorms, which last only a day at most. But in Jakarta it is different. We have never ending tropical rainstorms during rainy season, lasting many-many days.
In an overpopulated city such as Jakarta, this is no easy problem. You have less money and less people to think and work on this problem. It's a tough job to have to get done. But I am optimistic than someday, Jakarta people will find a way to deal with the problem and make some new science the world has yet to learn from.
My utmost respect to all the Jakarta people for their resilience, perseverance and their never-ending hope in going through this storm.
***UPDATE. We just recieved news that our sister's house is flooded all over up the the waist. Our brother is trying to pick her up right this moment. It must be about 11 PM at night there when we recieved word. I remember visiting our sister's house last year. She was so proud of her home, however tiny it really was, because she just finished some little rennovations in her only son's room. I was so proud of it too. I dedicate this story, my attempt to tell my love for the city where I was born, to her family and to all those Jakarta people whose homes and lives are severely affected by this tragedy.
(*images taken from KOMPAS Newspaper, THE JAKARTA POST Newspaper and GOOGLE image search)
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
The Question of Indonesia, Islam and the Modern World
by Tika
The vapid version of this post has appeared in the Dec 19, 2006 issue of The Jakarta Post.
The Question of Indonesia, Islam and the Modern World
Yes, the issue of polygamy is very hot nowadays in Indonesia since the recent second marriage of a very prominent Islamic cleric many thought led an exemplary purist family life.
I am a Muslim, non-antagonistic, pacifist stay at home mom, with side job as evolutionary biologist, and I say: in the modern world, where humanity have progressed to the point that women are free to be a self sufficient, free thinking feeling human being, insistence of polygamy is a violation of human rights.
Yes, they did it back then, some 1500 years ago: polygamy. Some 100 years ago, women in America did not have the right to vote either and slaves roamed the earth. If ever any Islamic law was put into place to deal with this issue, it was to curtail the number of women men were allowed to marry. Before, there was just no law to anything.
History notes that the prophet himself was married to only one woman most of his life, a remarkable feat in the days when most men would marry hundreds in addition to several hundreds more uncertified extramarital sexual exploits, without question. History has also noted that he loved his first wife most dearly and there was none other like her after for him.
After the passing of the prophet's most beloved wife, he did marry many women, but it was unlike his first marriage. There was no law telling him that he should marry only one woman and most women did not even have the chance to think and question. Everyone did it. Life was much too hard for women back then to have a chance to have a say in anything. And I daresay, that most women 1500 years ago in the deserts of Arabia would prefer to be married to a good man with many wives or even just a self sufficient man with many wives as opposed to being alone and vulnerable to the lusts of dishonorable men or destitution.
But that was 1500 years ago. Women are free to think and choose in our 2006 world and it is not a sin to reject a man's wishes if she feels that she is being violated by the act. The problem is, many Islamists try to impinge the rights of women who chose not to be in a polygamic relationship by saying that she is not a true Muslim. And many Muslim women just accept or keep silent because they are afraid to be judged in such a dishonorable way.
Many Muslims would very much like disagree with me, but besides everything, I do feel for the cleric and his two wives and their children. Being in the judging eye of every Indonesian must not fare well, especially for the children. I sympathize because I am a parent. As a Muslim and Indonesian and a parent, I say that having an opinion is important but it is more important to remember that with the current state of the world nowadays, it is better for Indonesian Muslims to support than argue with one another.
I was rummaging the bookstore for a wonderful book I think an Indonesian friend of mine should have. I read this book many years ago in a college course called "the rise of the west". This book is titled Candide, written by the great French writer and philosopher François-Marie Arouet, better known by the pen name "Voltaire", some 300 years ago. It is a satirical tale about the life of an honest and plain but beautifully physically featured young man name Candide who discovered, after multiple torturous experiences culminating in the Inquisition, that the world is not the best of all possible worlds and people are entitled to question the acceptance of such blind faith.
I think most Indonesians have never been exposed to this kind of literature. It's a shame because it is a must read for one to understand how the modern word came to be. This revolution of thought came to be known in the history of the west as the "Enlightenment". Indonesia has never been through this history. We came to the modern world from tiny huts to nano-technology without any knowledge of the history that happened in between. Unfortunately such a gap in-between makes the discovery of nano-technology bland in Indonesian hands.
Anyway, I found the book and was on my way to the check out counter when I came upon a horrid title "The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion". It was displayed most honorably in the new non-fiction rack in one of the largest bookstore chain in the United States of America. Yes, this book was paraded freely nearby the entrance of the bookstore in the middle of the most pluralistic cities in the world: New York City. Yes, there is this issue called freedom of speech in American Law, but I question many times why this type of freedom of speech is called 'racism' if the labels are put around.
How this came to be I sure know why but I never seem to be able to feel bland about it. Life following 9/11 in America has made me really understand how Rosa Parks and many felt in 1955 America, being told everyday by some bus driver to sit in the back of the bus because they were just a disagreeable marginal lot of American society that needs not to be heard or seen. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an unknown seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, became the venerable black woman who stood up for freedom and the rights of all Americans when she refused to give her seat to the white man. Muslims all over the world are now sharing her burden.
Most Americans probably do not know any Muslim person. They would take such writing that throws blame to a group of disagreeable people with no connection to their own without question because they want others to blame. Yes, many Muslims take the name of Islam to help Americans blame some more. And Americans, or just people anywhere who always wanted to blame many Muslims, took the state of the world nowadays as fuel for their cause. Ours is not a much different world from Candide's Inquisition.
So why am I writing all this nonsense? You know I should be thinking about what to write on my most recent scientific finding on the evolution of my favorite microbe, or mop the floor, or read to my three-year-old boy. These are many other interesting tales to be told yet I write about nonsense. I write because I am part of the mess and I am bombarded constantly by the result of this mess everyday.
My grandmother's name is Khadijah, the name of our prophet most beloved wife. Candide was one of my favorite books in college and I talk about Darwin in Graduate School. I live in New York City and was witness and victim to the fall off the two towers. My young cousin in a small West Java town quit his job as a engineer to pursue his idealistic dream: opening up a school so that future generations in his small town can have a chance to study and learn from people in places such as the United States of America.
He prays five times a day, if not more. He grows the signature "beard" on the chin as symbol of piety many male Muslims believe to uphold. He lives in a very humble house where I can find our grandfather's old Dutch written book of colonial Indonesia in addition to a giant picture of the Ka'bah hanging prominently in the living room.
I write because I am the gap in-between. I write because I have a vision that someday Indonesian Muslims can all be literate about Candide's adventures and understand Darwin's treatise on the law of science in the history living things while still able to proudly showcase a giant replica of the Ka'bah in their living room without some group of know it all people telling them that they can't and should not be able to. Those who like to defame my Muslim identity for their own agenda call people like me "apologetics" and a Muslim one at that. I have no need to apologize. I write the truth.
The vapid version of this post has appeared in the Dec 19, 2006 issue of The Jakarta Post.
The Question of Indonesia, Islam and the Modern World
Yes, the issue of polygamy is very hot nowadays in Indonesia since the recent second marriage of a very prominent Islamic cleric many thought led an exemplary purist family life.
I am a Muslim, non-antagonistic, pacifist stay at home mom, with side job as evolutionary biologist, and I say: in the modern world, where humanity have progressed to the point that women are free to be a self sufficient, free thinking feeling human being, insistence of polygamy is a violation of human rights.
Yes, they did it back then, some 1500 years ago: polygamy. Some 100 years ago, women in America did not have the right to vote either and slaves roamed the earth. If ever any Islamic law was put into place to deal with this issue, it was to curtail the number of women men were allowed to marry. Before, there was just no law to anything.
History notes that the prophet himself was married to only one woman most of his life, a remarkable feat in the days when most men would marry hundreds in addition to several hundreds more uncertified extramarital sexual exploits, without question. History has also noted that he loved his first wife most dearly and there was none other like her after for him.
After the passing of the prophet's most beloved wife, he did marry many women, but it was unlike his first marriage. There was no law telling him that he should marry only one woman and most women did not even have the chance to think and question. Everyone did it. Life was much too hard for women back then to have a chance to have a say in anything. And I daresay, that most women 1500 years ago in the deserts of Arabia would prefer to be married to a good man with many wives or even just a self sufficient man with many wives as opposed to being alone and vulnerable to the lusts of dishonorable men or destitution.
But that was 1500 years ago. Women are free to think and choose in our 2006 world and it is not a sin to reject a man's wishes if she feels that she is being violated by the act. The problem is, many Islamists try to impinge the rights of women who chose not to be in a polygamic relationship by saying that she is not a true Muslim. And many Muslim women just accept or keep silent because they are afraid to be judged in such a dishonorable way.
Many Muslims would very much like disagree with me, but besides everything, I do feel for the cleric and his two wives and their children. Being in the judging eye of every Indonesian must not fare well, especially for the children. I sympathize because I am a parent. As a Muslim and Indonesian and a parent, I say that having an opinion is important but it is more important to remember that with the current state of the world nowadays, it is better for Indonesian Muslims to support than argue with one another.
I was rummaging the bookstore for a wonderful book I think an Indonesian friend of mine should have. I read this book many years ago in a college course called "the rise of the west". This book is titled Candide, written by the great French writer and philosopher François-Marie Arouet, better known by the pen name "Voltaire", some 300 years ago. It is a satirical tale about the life of an honest and plain but beautifully physically featured young man name Candide who discovered, after multiple torturous experiences culminating in the Inquisition, that the world is not the best of all possible worlds and people are entitled to question the acceptance of such blind faith.
I think most Indonesians have never been exposed to this kind of literature. It's a shame because it is a must read for one to understand how the modern word came to be. This revolution of thought came to be known in the history of the west as the "Enlightenment". Indonesia has never been through this history. We came to the modern world from tiny huts to nano-technology without any knowledge of the history that happened in between. Unfortunately such a gap in-between makes the discovery of nano-technology bland in Indonesian hands.
Anyway, I found the book and was on my way to the check out counter when I came upon a horrid title "The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion". It was displayed most honorably in the new non-fiction rack in one of the largest bookstore chain in the United States of America. Yes, this book was paraded freely nearby the entrance of the bookstore in the middle of the most pluralistic cities in the world: New York City. Yes, there is this issue called freedom of speech in American Law, but I question many times why this type of freedom of speech is called 'racism' if the labels are put around.
How this came to be I sure know why but I never seem to be able to feel bland about it. Life following 9/11 in America has made me really understand how Rosa Parks and many felt in 1955 America, being told everyday by some bus driver to sit in the back of the bus because they were just a disagreeable marginal lot of American society that needs not to be heard or seen. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an unknown seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, became the venerable black woman who stood up for freedom and the rights of all Americans when she refused to give her seat to the white man. Muslims all over the world are now sharing her burden.
Most Americans probably do not know any Muslim person. They would take such writing that throws blame to a group of disagreeable people with no connection to their own without question because they want others to blame. Yes, many Muslims take the name of Islam to help Americans blame some more. And Americans, or just people anywhere who always wanted to blame many Muslims, took the state of the world nowadays as fuel for their cause. Ours is not a much different world from Candide's Inquisition.
So why am I writing all this nonsense? You know I should be thinking about what to write on my most recent scientific finding on the evolution of my favorite microbe, or mop the floor, or read to my three-year-old boy. These are many other interesting tales to be told yet I write about nonsense. I write because I am part of the mess and I am bombarded constantly by the result of this mess everyday.
My grandmother's name is Khadijah, the name of our prophet most beloved wife. Candide was one of my favorite books in college and I talk about Darwin in Graduate School. I live in New York City and was witness and victim to the fall off the two towers. My young cousin in a small West Java town quit his job as a engineer to pursue his idealistic dream: opening up a school so that future generations in his small town can have a chance to study and learn from people in places such as the United States of America.
He prays five times a day, if not more. He grows the signature "beard" on the chin as symbol of piety many male Muslims believe to uphold. He lives in a very humble house where I can find our grandfather's old Dutch written book of colonial Indonesia in addition to a giant picture of the Ka'bah hanging prominently in the living room.
I write because I am the gap in-between. I write because I have a vision that someday Indonesian Muslims can all be literate about Candide's adventures and understand Darwin's treatise on the law of science in the history living things while still able to proudly showcase a giant replica of the Ka'bah in their living room without some group of know it all people telling them that they can't and should not be able to. Those who like to defame my Muslim identity for their own agenda call people like me "apologetics" and a Muslim one at that. I have no need to apologize. I write the truth.
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