Erwin Wirawan

Does History Repeat Itself for World War III?

2012-01-15T11:11:00.000+07:00

World War III is looming. By imposing unbearable sanctions on Iran, America plays again a dangerous game. It is called a game because it can be not to play. And, if played, that game would claim a lot of lives and sufferings. America will likely win the war against Iran, but astronomical price must be paid amid unfolding economic crisis. Iran is better equipped than Taliban or Iraq. The capture of American spy drone by Iran last month speaks volumes.

Back to pre-World War II, surprisingly what America does today to Iran the way America did to Japan decades ago. America throttled Japan’s economy and pride through harsh sanctions and humiliation and eventually left Japan no choice, but war.

Patrick J Buchanan, American politician and columnist, had the details of why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in article entitled Why Did Japan Attack Us?

Japan was American ally in World War I and contributed to win the war. But America reluctantly shared the booty of land in Shantung, China, German- occupied territory which in fact captured by Japan. Worse, America asked British Navy to end its alliance with Japan. And when Japan tried to play Western-style imperialism to rob natural resources in southern Indochina, its assets was frozen.

The defining moment of American hostility to Japan was when it embargoed Japan’s oil needs. This sanction inevitably threatened its basic survival. Starved-energy Japan can no longer live with this. The only loophole was to take it directly from the source in Southern Resource Area (Southeast Asia). To ensure the successful of occupation, Japan attacked American Navy in Pearl Harbor and triggered WWII.

This is reminiscent of recent American hostility towards Iran.

Iran as the base of Shiite nation was isolated among the region by centuries-long hostility between Shiite and Sunni. After toppling down America-backed regime, Iranian Islamic Republic was proclaimed. Shortly afterward, Sunni Iraq’s Saddam Hussein supported by America and it Arab allies launched assaults. But it failed.

Later with rapid military buildup Iran grows as commanding regional power. Moreover it becomes the most independent country among America-dependent Arab countries. Worse for America, Iran’s defiant stance on Palestina issue is crystal clear: to wipe off Israel – American proxy in the region – from the map. Israel which has conquered all Muslim power in modern era remains unchallenged. Israel is also the country with nukes at its disposal. Consequently, it draws Iran to develop the same arsenal seeking balance.

This is the nub of American (and Israeli) problem with Iran. America asks for Iran to abandon its nuclear program. Certainly that’s weird demand. Iran must not have nuclear weapons, but how about them?

To stop Iran nuclear program, America relies on economic sanctions and alleged assassination of scientists. But so far Iran pooh-poohs the threat and goes on. And the last option, other than war, America has is to stop Iran’s revenue from oil export which is the main source to run the government.

It is tantamount to America impeded Japan to get oil for domestic use prior to WWII.

Now Iran has been pushed to the position of Japan in 1941. Will Iran do what Japan did in Pearl Harbor by closing Hormuz strait or launching missiles strike to America 5^th fleet in Bahrain? At this point Iran must be ready with make-or-break war plan.

Fortunately, one factor probably shuns the world from war. Today Iran has no formidable allies with similar situation. North Korea is under protection of China and has no reasons to wage war outside Korea peninsula. Venezuela is too weak. China, Russia and Turkey show no sign to protect Iran militarily. Conversely in WWII Japan could make alliance with Nazi German which also inflicted by Versailles treaty following the German defeat in WWI.

However, should the world keep going on the hook to serve American interest? The game must change!

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Kiat Esemka: Hoped-for National Car?

2012-01-09T10:35:00.000+07:00

Solo Mayor, Joko Widodo makes headlines again. With splashy action, he replaced his official vehicle, Toyota Camry with vocational student-made, Kiat Esemka. It suddenly rekindles the long awaited national car. And it draws both supports and criticisms.

Truth be told, Kiat Esemka has neither been long tested yet nor prepared for mass production. Solo Mayor, who in fact has good intention, is too fast to make it his official car.

Many also question who really design and build the engine as the important part of the car. Does it the solely work of vocational students? Or does it imitate other manufacturer? Or do they buy it from other countries such as China?

Making a car is less difficult. Many can assemble it. All parts of car can easily be bought from all across the world. But the real car maker is the one who master the design, who master the engine technology and who master how to sell. Without these basic requirements, it can’t compete with long standing brands.

After all, Solo Mayor has made a good sales pitch for Kiat Esemka. Some have shown interests to buy the cars. But those buyers are still insignificant. So, the next uphill task of Kiat Esemka will be to make the car and spare parts mass produced, to establish research and development center for endless innovation, to market them, and to conduct after-sales services.

Can Kiat Esemka do these?

At this point, in my opinion, the government should guide the process. And on ground of similarity of culture and capacity, Indonesia’s Kiat Esemka can glean lessons learned from Malaysia’s Proton. The essence is that government intervention is a must.

Proton was established in 1983 as a government-linked company. It was the brainchild of the then Malaysia’s Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohammad. Without adequate industrial management and skills, Proton can by no means build the car on its own. It asked Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors to cooperate. At first the product was 100% made by Mitsubishi. What Malaysia created was only Proton brand and management control.

Later Proton found the technology hardly transferred. Naturally foreign company will be reluctant to share its knowledge with local one. Nobody wants to borne a future competitor deliberately. However Proton shrewdly relinquished its dependence on Mitsubishi by buying another car manufacturer with state-of-the-art technology, Lotus in 1996. Since then, Proton has no barriers to access to the source of car technology. Mitsubishi sold all stakes in 2004.

In terms of marketing, Mahathir Mohammad unequivocally admitted that Proton domestic market had been protected during his era. He said that without protection, Malaysia would have no car industry. He also pointed out that Proton sales are hampered in Japan and Korea through Approved Permits policy. In a similar vein, Britain, America and German do the same, so why bother doing?

Proton sales have been ups and downs. But as a car maker, it has relatively been well established with technology mastering and market share. And the success of Malaysia developing its national car is inextricably linked with government support.

Foreign car brands have ruled the roost in Indonesia’s domestic market for decades. It’s time to change the game. National car is not merely about making car. Sometimes it can quench national pride. And in the process it can also grow the economy with value added products.

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The Greek Tragedy: Failure of Welfare State and Democracy

2011-12-08T14:03:00.002+07:00

The recent Greek woes leave us several good lessons learned regarding with much-praised welfare state and democracy. What has happened in Greece only confirms the downsides of those systems. Welfare state only works if the government provides corresponding financing. And in turbulent times, democracy is likely not the best option.

After ruled by military junta for several years, in 1974 the Greeks regained its democracy. This also brought prominent Papandreou dynasty coming back to politics. Back to 1963 George Papandreou became Prime Minister and was toppled by military coup d’etat in 1967.

In the new democracy era, Andreas Papandreou, the son of George Papandreou, American-trained economist came into power after landslide victory in 1981 legislative election. His party was PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement). Andreas was a charismatic leader. During his tenure, he had done so much for the Greeks to prosper. He rolled out welfare state system in which the state took care of its citizens generously from cradle to grave. He took office first in 1981 – 1989. Marred by alleged financial scandal, he lost election. But in 1993 he took the helm again until his health deteriorating and retired in 1996 and died in the same year.

For Greeks, memory of Andreas Papandreou is still commanding influence. In 2007 and 2010, people voted him as the best Greek Prime Minister.

Then the economic crisis came and Andreas’ welfare state system heritage is in question. Andreas brought prosperity with untold consequences. Enormous spending to run welfare state system turns out to be a time bomb that is exploding now. Many see that the welfare system is the culprit of the unfolding Greek tragedy.

For instance, the Greek pension system is “better” than that of German.

In Germany, the retirement age is 67 increased from 65, but in Greece is trying to increase from 61 to 63. In Germany, 40 years of service allows the civil servant to get pension fund of 70% of final basic salaries, but in Greece only 35 years, if they have reached 58, and get 80%.

Not to mention, in Greece if you are a daughter of civil servant and somehow you don’t get married then the government will give you special stipend.

As a matter of fact, Greek government can certainly give more to its people as long as Greeks are more productive. It means the government can get more money from taxes or other sources. Unfortunately, it can’t. It relies merely on government bond as a last resort. The government sold pieces of paper to investors and pledged to pay the debt in the future. And now the Greek government can no longer pay the debt.

Greek welfare state fails. But this is not the end of the story.

Given the huge debt, the solution is very simple: austerity measures coupled with raising tax! The pension age should be raised, pension fund decreased, some entitlements deleted. The problem is you can’t do these painful policies through democracy. After enjoying for decades the benefit of welfare state, no ruling parties can implement these without protests. No political parties can ask people to sacrifice. If they do it, they will lose popularity eventually lose power.

And George Papandreou, the son of Andreas Papandreou, the Greek Prime Minister during crisis, must leave office because of this.

Facing this dilemma, Greece turns to technocrat who is unelected through election to lead the government. Lucas Papademos, a former European Central Bank vice president, has been asked to be a hoped-for savior. And several days after Papademos sworn in, Italy which is also in economic crisis follows suit. It is Mario Monti, former EU-commissioner, another unelected technocrat, to become Prime Minister.

This action reveals that democratic government doesn’t work in economic crisis, particularly, when quick, difficult, unpopular policy is needed.

Another blow to democracy and China is laughing!

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From Papua With Goals

2011-11-17T13:01:00.000+07:00

In the future, please forget naturalization players. Indonesian soccer team might not need them anymore.

Instead, Indonesian team can rely on Papuan soccer players. In 3 games against Cambodia, Singapore and Thailand, 7 out of 11 goals were scored by Papuan players. They are very dynamic, attractive, fast and very skilful. Titus Bonai, Patric Wanggai, Oktovianus Maniani, Stevie Bonsapia, Lucas Mandowen always cast a spell with attacking football. Indonesia will play semifinals and Indonesia pins hope on Papuan players to clinch gold medal.

It is not the first time Papuan strikers stunned us. In 1980s Adolf Kabo who played for Perseman Manokwari was also a powerful goal-hungry striker.

Unfortunately their dominance and great contribution in national team is plagued by the rise of long-standing problem of Papuan integration with Indonesia.

It’s been a long time for Indonesia to solve this problem.

Indonesia who was given mandate from United Nations should admit that the 1969’s Act of Free Choice was held unfairly. It’s gone afield of the Act. Pursuant to the act Indonesia should involve all adult Papuans to vote. But it turned out that Indonesia selected 1022 people – after influencing them - to vote publicly. To win the vote, it is said Ali Murtopo entertained the tribal heads at brothel in Semarang. Certainly the result was in favor of integrating with Indonesia. And United Nations approved it.

The process is utterly wrong, but it had also been legalized.

To compare the European never asked Indians for approval to grab American soil. Neither the prisoners from England asked Aboriginal for agreement to occupy Australia. Furthermore, the European massacred Indians in America and Aboriginal in Australia. Even they brazenly said about Indians: “the only good Injun is the dead Injun”. Now their offspring preach vehemently about human rights, freedom, justice etc.

All the process of colonialism/annexation was wrong. But, since it had been legalized, the world must accept it.

As a matter of fact Papuan soil is still for Papuans. The local leaders pervading governors, regents, etc are by and large still the Papuans. The Papuans have rights to select their representatives. It is the Papuans themselves to plan the development with huge budget without any obligation for Central Government’s approval. And there is no discrimination for Papuans in Indonesia the way white Americans did to the Negroes in the past.

How about natural wealth that allegedly goes to Central Government?

On August 17, 2005, Head Deputy of East Java Representative Councils (DPRD), Ridwan Hisyam, demanded 50% return of tax contribution. He expected East Java’s tax contribution was Rp. 100 trillion and in return East Java got only Rp. 24 trillion. He compared Aceh and Papua got 70% of oil & gas revenues. That’s special and that’s autonomy. In short, in the matter of enjoying local revenues, thanks to special autonomy, Aceh and Papua are luckier than East Java.

Finally, I hope Papuans will always be part of Indonesia. The government should work hard to right the wrongdoings and live up to its responsibility of welfare. And the Papuan players give more goals and attractive games.

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Indonesia Can Nationalize Freeport!

2011-11-14T11:41:00.001+07:00

Some of us might think it is a crazy idea to nationalize foreign concerns who have invested much money here. That’s an unprecedented dodgy action and unachievable, because it infringes a business contract. And the unintended consequence is foreign investors will shy away from doing business in Indonesia.

Is this true?

Based on our own experience 3 decades ago, nationalization is not harmful as expected. Back then Indonesia had first-ever nationalized an outstanding foreign company in which it was executed so elegantly by the then-President Soeharto administration.

Late Cacuk Sudarijanto, one of Indonesia’s best business managers recounted the following in his biography, Belajar Tiada Henti (Lifelong Learning).

In the wake of New Order, in 1967 US-based ITT (International Telephone and Telegraph) was welcomed investing in Indonesia. It was the second American company who came in after Freeport. ITT established PT. Indosat (Indonesia Satellite Corporation) with a hundred percent of shares. Indosat was to provide telecommunication services including construction of Jatiluhur earth station, whereas Freeport to mine: copper, gold, etc in Papua.

After having completed the construction of earth station for satellite communication in 1969, ITT would have concession to operate it for 20 years (1989).

It was not explained further, but in September 1980, Pak Harto signed a Presidential Decree to buyout all shares of ITT in Indosat. It was an uphill and almost impossible task since the contract would be ended in 1989.

Led by State Minister of Administrative Reform, JB Sumarlin as chief of government negotiators, Indonesia somehow managed to takeover Indosat gracefully by buying it at reasonable price. In 1967 ITT spent to the tune of $6 million, and in 1980 Indosat was priced at $43.616 million.

Of course this takeover rattled the existing Indosat’s high-salary professionals. Egregious government bureaucracy cast shadow in the advent of Indosat’s new era. Assuming unruly management of government couldn’t survive Indosat, let alone made it better.

Many of Indosat’s management, Cacuk included, think of exodus. However, the then Finance Minister, Ali Wardhana, invoked their nationalism and asked Jonathan Parapak, Johannes Djajadi, Cacuk to be the directors of Indosat. He convinced them that the government would stay out, their salary remained high and they can continue the modern management practice. Even Ali Wardhana challenged them to make Indosat to be the best State-Owned Enterprise (SOE).

Indosat didn’t collapse and but enjoyed a crescent progress. Indonesian managers had proved they could do it. Indosat declined the consulting management firm and in the process developed management system with self-confidence. Later Cacuk was asked to take the helm of sluggish SOE, Perumtel/Telkom and made it much better.

Unfortunately this nationalization movement had never spread out. Pak Harto administration stopped short of nationalizing Freeport which was foolishly given contract renewal in 1991.

Holy smoke, in 2002 under Megawati administration who promoted people’s economy divested most of government’s shares in Indosat to Singapore Technologies Telemedia Pte. Ltd and Indonesia became minority in ownership.

The essence of the story is that Indonesia must not fall for convention wisdom of harmful nationalization. Indosat is a case in point. Indonesia can nationalize Freeport or other foreign company operating here through negotiation and the time is right now before the mining is used up. But Indonesia needs the smart negotiators who are armed to the teeth like JB Sumarlin and Ali Wardhana.

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On American Inequality

2011-11-08T10:17:00.000+07:00

According to recent American government study, the richest 1% becomes far richer over the last three decades than other brackets. This situation in part prompts protests from Occupy Wall Street movement who claims as the 99%.

But the intriguing question, who is really the 1%? And why do they become the 1%?

According to Forbes published in 2011, the richest man in America is Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft. Its product overwhelms the world and almost nothing to do with Wall Street’s bad image. In the next list names Larry Ellison of Oracle as no. 3, while Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin/Larry Page, Michael Dell and Bill Palmer as no. 13, 14, 15, 18, and 19, respectively. The list shows the 1% is dominated by dotcom billionaires.

They are separated from the list. They represent the materialization of American dream. They manage to create high value-added products which in return give the most profit. All of them are rich in young age merely because of their talents. No hanky-panky, no manipulation, no corruption are the features of these billionaires’ businesses. They are by no means the ones who to blame for the increasingly inequality.

Nor should the Wall Street, let alone capitalism, take ALL responsibilities for American inequality. Instead, there are at least 2 (two) driving forces leading to greater chasm in society, namely: (i) thriving scalable profession and knowledge-based economy and (ii) globalization.

First, being super rich is the upside of scalable career. It is Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author of best-selling book, Black Swan, coined scalable and non-scalable profession. Writer, singer, dot.com entrepreneur are scalable profession, while doctor, employee, barber are non-scalable profession. The output of the scalable work is unpredictable, because it can be repeated infinite times. As a result, a successful scalable profession will be very rich. Conversely, non-scalable career is relatively stagnant in term of incomes.

Information technology revolution was born in America. Many American youths begin the startups. Some of them flop, but some do so well. The successful startups become so profitable because they can sell the products in the bigger market – this means scalability – and the products are the most value-added – this means knowledge-based economy. Accordingly scalable profession added with high value-added product is the best combination to become the richest and Bill Gates is the poster child.

Second, as suggested by Robert H Frank and Philip J Crook, American economists, in their book, that the world sees ‘The Winner-Take-All Society’. It puts forward that competition results in the absolute winner. And customers prefer to buy products from the winner. The loser’s product will be sidelined and eventually vanished. And in globalization era customers come not only from America, but from everywhere, from Russia to Australia, from Jamaica to Indonesia. This pumps up the volume of sales. As consequence, the winner gets the biggest market share and become super rich.

It brings us back to American inequality.

America has been seeing the 3-decade widening inequality coinciding with the era of spawning dotcom companies and spreading globalization. Given the above account, this inequality is ironically byproduct of America’s success in growing dotcom companies, one of scalable profession and knowledge economy which unfortunately need fewer workers. And this success is exacerbated by the winner-take-all effect that operates globally.

The Wall Street protesters must realize these and should not bark on the wrong tree.

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The New Ministers with Old Challenges

2011-10-25T08:47:00.002+07:00

The boring reshuffle ‘party’ is over now. Some ministers stay, but some go. Some new ministers spark a glimmer of hope, but some remain questionable.

To be precise, Indonesians can pin much hope from Dahlan Iskan as State-Owned Enterprises Minister. But Mari Pangestu as Tourism Minister and Jero Wacik as Energy and Mineral Minister, in my opinion, don’t fit the bill.

Based on their track record, Dahlan Iskan made good as PLN chief. He seems to be very rational person, steeps in problems and knows aptly what to do. His health condition aside, he deserves presidency. Conversely, no outstanding initiatives have been borne by Mari Pangestu and Jero Wacik in their previous posts.

Why do SOEs, Tourism and Energy and Mineral Resources matter? Why should we focus on those?

To be effective, any government should do 3 things simultaneously, namely: raise revenues, cut spending and invest for the future. And SOE, Tourism and Energy and Mineral Resources are money creator for both government and people.

Let’s take a look, what the government has done in these sectors in accessible language.

SOEs

First off, do you know cigarette tax excise contributes more money compared to dividends of all SOEs combined?

Thanks to the smokers, the government’s revenue stemming from cigarette tax excise is expected to the tune of Rp 68.1 trillion in 2011. While the dividends of all SOEs combined is only Rp. 29.5 trillion in 2010.

Despite in total SOEs targeted to contribute Rp. 160 trillion in 2011 inclusive of taxes and dividends. And I admit that I have no data of total contribution of cigarette industries to government’s revenue excluding tax excise. But see what Petronas, a Malaysia’s SOE can do for its country. In 2009 Petronas made payment to Federal Government inclusive of taxes, royalty, export duty and dividends as much as RM 67.8 billion (Rp. 191 trillion).

Dahlan Iskan must have understood his challenges and prove his business acumen.

Tourism

Do you know in 1998 Malaysia drew only 5.5 million tourists, but then surged to 24.6 million in 2010? In contrast, do you know in 2004 Indonesia drew only 5.3 million tourists and grew at a snail’s pace to 7 millions in 2010?

What’s wrong with us? Given more cultures, more coasts, more mountains, more lakes, more water falls, Indonesia doesn’t deserve less tourists than Malaysia.

This is the challenge for Mari Pangestu. Given her previous performance, I cast doubt she can make miracle in our tourism industry.

Energy and Mineral Resources

We are told for many times and for long time that Indonesia is rich with natural resources: gold, coal, tin, iron, copper, aluminum, nickel, etc. You might think that Indonesia is natural resources-fueled economy. It is absolutely not. Do you know, the revenue of this sector is ‘only’ Rp. 15.4 trillion or 1.6% contribution of government budget? That’s right, it’s only a fraction. Please refer again to cigarette industries’ contribution of Rp. 68.1 trillion. This clearly confirms that Indonesia isn’t the boss of its own natural wealth. The foreigners control our natural resources and take the most benefit for their own.

The next uphill task is none other than removing Oil and Gas law which allegedly driven by foreign agenda. It is the very law which cripples Pertamina, gives less revenue and gives away control, discourages investment and in the process, benefits the foreigners.

And, frankly speaking, that’s nearly mission impossible for Jero to be a hero.

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Nobel Economics Prize Should Go To China, Not America

2011-10-18T14:06:00.001+07:00

Of late 2 Americans – Thomas J Sargent and Christopher A Sims - are awarded Nobel Prize in economic sciences. This adds the number of Americans clinching the prize. Based on Wikipedia data, 46 out of 69 of prize economics winners are Americans. They might deserve it in the past, but today it is questionable.

It seems Nobel committee to be out of touch with today’s reality, given the fact America (and western countries) whose economies are operated based on the works of their scholars studded with Nobel Prize are grappling with economic/financial crisis.

You may say that they are scholars and nothing to do with the policy made by politicians. But to make Nobel economics prize valuable, the theory should wed the practice, unless it will be meaningless and world’s laughingstock.

My two cents, at present day in awarding the winner, Nobel committee should take into account the today’s reality: (i) grim western economy, and (ii) rise of ‘Communist’ China’s economy.

First, West’s capitalism must have been in trouble. To give the market total freedom and restrict the government’s role on economy in 1980s proves wrong in 2000s. Apparently without adequate regulation, financial sector dominates the economy.

In America, the economy shifted from production-based capitalism to financially-driven capitalism. Production-based capitalism is to create money from goods and services, while financially driven capitalism is to create money from ‘money’. The culprit of this change might be the cut-throat competition with eastern developing countries. Spreading of technology due to globalization makes eastern developing countries apt, nimble and productive in manufacturing. They became main producers of goods and services which once the west dominantly delivered.

In financially driven capitalism, they create money out of the thin air. They created the complex and hard-to-understand financial instruments and traded money itself. It works for some time until the moment of truth comes. The data shows the income inequality widens in America, when financially driven capitalism taking over production-based capitalism. The few becomes richer and the many poorer.

Now the pent-up dissatisfaction among Americans likely materializes in Occupy Wall Street cause.

Second, we see the spectacular show of Chinese economy which combining capitalism and socialism, free market and central plan economy, people’s initiatives and state’s directives. Without democracy, human rights, or other western directives, it manages to grow economy and in the process eradicating poverty. It really works, but it doesn’t appear in mainstream textbooks. And UN, World Bank, ADB or others don’t encourage nations to follow suit.

The good economic research should go down to earth, see and explain the new phenomena that change the direction of global economy. The one who should be awarded Nobel economics prize is Chinese economist or Chinese economic planner or whoever, but Chinese. I am afraid, on Chinese success, the Nobel committee holds the old saw that goes “it works in practice, but does it work in theory?”

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Steve Jobs and the Spirit of American iCulture

2011-10-09T10:39:00.000+07:00

Apple (along with Microsoft, Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) can only thrive in America, not in China, not in South Korea, let alone Indonesia. China gave birth Baidu, South Korea raised Samsung, but they only the followers – of course shrewd followers – not the inventors. And the greatness of American technology and business is not merely about human resources or technology mastering, but it’s about culture.

What does really make America incredible? Is it spirit of capitalism that offers freedom and brings competition?

It reminds us to Uni Soviet’s technology, the then American arch enemy. After World War II, in 1957 Uni Soviet launched successfully unprecedented manned space aircraft, Sputnik. Yuri Gagarin became the first man to go outer space. It proved Uni Soviet invented as much technology as America, particularly in space technology and military equipments. Until now Uni Soviet/Russia had never devoid of great scientists or engineers compared to western capitalists.

But why do they fail to produce Steve Jobs-like inventors?

Some people said it is because of no-competition culture in communist countries, so there is no incentive to invent commercial products (not limited in IT industry). This reason by no means is wrong at all. Best products with affordable price only transpire in free market circumstances.

But I want to propose the best account that I have ever heard about the triumph of capitalism/free market. It came from Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author of best seller book, Black Swan. He coined Black Swan referring to highly improbable occurrence that finally gives highly influencing impact. His underlying idea is never to believe of any predictions. Nobody can predict something from anything stretching from the event of war, country’s economy, stock market to finding your would-be wife/husband.

‘You-can’t predict-anything’ law prevails in business products that will overwhelm the world as well. For instance, IBM, the computer juggernaut, can’t predict the rise of personal computers and its lucrative operating system software by letting Microsoft rules the world since the early years.

Accordingly, given this unknown factors of business success, capitalism offers better chances than other ideology such as communism. It brings great opportunities to play with any ideas that some flop, but some succeed. In Taleb’s words:

“The reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or incentives.”

Unsurprisingly, neither Steve Jobs always launched great products, since he made several failed products including LISA, the first futuristic personal computer with mouse, and once get sacked from Apple on ground of Mac’s sluggish sale. He was just very lucky in his final years with string of success through iPod, iPhone, iPad.

Only the chosen few can muddle through free market’s cut-throat competition. Every American start-ups should be ready with grim reality. According to US small business administration, majority of start-ups vanish in five year and two-thirds sink forever in ten years.

Finally, the rise of America/capitalism, the rise of Steve Jobs/Apple is enabled by ‘trial-and-error’ culture. Somehow something good with great impact (Black Swan) can pop up from the very culture. As Taleb said:

”The strategy is, then, to tinker as much as possible and try to collect as many Black Swan opportunities as you can.”

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The Death of Einstein’s Theory!?

2011-10-05T14:16:00.001+07:00

Nothing can exceed the speed of light.

That is according to the most famous physicist on earth, Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity (1905). The theory also determines that the age of something that travels fast approaching the speed of light can significantly prolong its age. This has been observationally verified with evidence of the longer age certain particle in atmosphere going down to the earth.

Then, of late, the news from CERN, the world’s largest physics lab came and made Einstein’s theory of speed of light questioned. The CERN’s scientists had sent a beam of subatomic particles, neutrinos, from Cern, Switzerland to Gran Sasso, Italy traveling 732 km long and surprisingly, the speed recorded was 60 billionths of a second earlier than if traveled by light. It's very small, but it's enough.

The result announcement soon made headlines and merited highlights.

However, the researchers’ speaker, Antonio Ereditato, don’t make any claims and still cast doubt. Instead, they ask for other researchers to carry out the same experiment in other places so that their result can be confirmed or refuted or find any mistake in that research.

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Einstein might be “wrong”. His theory might be tumbled down the way he trumped long standing Newton’s theory. But if Einstein’s theory collapses, it will corroborate other theory, the philosophy of science!

And it brings us to Sir Karl Popper.

He is the first one who defined science as it is today. Previously, since Ibn-Haytham era, the best explanation of science was the truth that came from experiments or observations. Popper didn’t satisfy with this, because this account can’t make difference science to, for instance, astrology.

Although in astrology, the prediction of zodiac draws data from biographies, but it only considers the hoped-for result, while denying and abandoning data against it. Of course, it is impossible to describe people under zodiac of cancer in one same narrative. So astrology along with Marxism, psyco-analysis are not science.

Simply put, experiment, field data, observation aren’t the underlying feature of scientific status. So now what?

Karl Popper came up with the famous criterion of scientific status of a theory which was its FALSIFIABILITY. Theory is scientific when it is vulnerable to be proved wrong, when a single data, only a single data, can prove the theory wrong. He said: “Every ‘good’ scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.”

That’s why Einstein theory is a good scientific theory, simply because it doesn’t allow others, but light, as the universe’s fastest speed. If scientists could find a thing which is faster than the speed of light, it would be enough to topple the Einstein’s theory down. And they likely find one.

That’s how Karl Popper’s philosophy of science works.

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Source:

1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484
2. http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html

Uncle Sam’s Problems

2011-09-26T11:04:00.001+07:00

One of the big problems inflicting America is unemployment hovering 9-10%. Obama turns left embracing Keynesian solution relying on government spending. Nowadays he is appealing the Congress to approve his second $447 stimulus through jobs bill. But, many cast doubt. Will it work after the failure of first $825bn stimulus?

Of course there is no silver bullet in this recent crisis. Keynesian did work in the past, but different era brings different problems and asks for different solution.

There are 2 matters ruling the possibility of the success of Obama’s jobs bill. First, technological progress kills jobs, and second, globalization spreads the jobs.

Technological Progress

I don’t know why most American people abandon Jeremy Rifkin, American thinker, who gives clear messages on the end of work. The culprit of disappearing jobs is clearly the brainchild of human progress: technology. Finally it rears its ugly head in this era. Production becomes easier and much more productive, but the downside is that all are done with fewer workers!

Some people blame China for the America’s jobless. As matter of fact it’s not the case. Even in China many jobs disappeared forever. Yes, forever. They are taken over by robots (or computers). It’s true some robot’s future jobs still exist in developing country, but it’s only a matter of time, those will vanish forever.

So, the next jobs market will be entrepreneur with new ideas, engineers who design robots and unique, human services those robot and computers can’t do (barber shop!).

Some Americans lost in this new era because not all of Americans are as good as Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Some of them are ordinary people with standard skills, just like us :D, and eventually they are conquered by their own robots and computers.

Globalization

Globalization is the next culprit of the lost of American jobs. Thanks to information and communication technology progress, most of goods and services can be assembled and provided anywhere.

As described by Thomas Friedman in The World is Flat, in globalization era, if you are an accountant and live in America, then you are in trouble. Since America and India is highly connected, America’s companies can easily hire Indian workers to do accounting jobs with less money. Even Indian doctors can replace those of America. What an irony, Americans invented internet to kill jobs in America and give them to India.

Not to mention that Apple designs its gadgets in America with relatively few workers, but produces them massively in China with huge number of workers.

Globalization also brings justice in terms of salary. If American unemployment still wants the jobs those can be produced and assembled in China or India, they have to be paid on par with others. So, in the future the American living standard will be lowered, unless all of them invent something like Apple, Google or Microsoft.

Well, we live in the different world now and Uncle Sam should adapt with the new world and realize that it can no longer rule the world by bombs, guns or … veto!.

* * * * *

Indonesia The Country We Love

2011-08-18T15:50:00.000+07:00

After 66 years of independence, we need a survey to know what kind of feeling Indonesians have on this country. Are we proud and happy to be Indonesians? Do we have good reasons for those?

I think we have mixed feelings. Compared to Somalis and Afghans, certainly Indonesians are much more fortunate. There’s no civil war here, it’s easier to make a living without having to be a pirate, the kids go to school, you go everywhere all across the country safely, the democratic government really exists and so forth. In short, Indonesia has been well-rounded sovereign state for a long time.

But, living in mediocre state must not be the goal of our founding fathers. Our government is disappointing. It’s devoid of inspiration. The policy is unprepossessing. Confidence is plunging instead of rising. And I don’t think we are proud of our country as much that of the Chinese, Indians or Singaporeans. We are not a spirited nation. I see Indonesia like a small-brained dinosaur.

In observing independence, what’s saddening is Indonesia can’t escape from the long-standing problem for decades: corruption which is Indonesia’s no.1 issue and enemy. Last Sunday, Dwi Koen, Kompas’ Panji Koming creator, published the same cartoon of 1985 about corruption which is still relevant with today’s situation. Corruptors really do a number on all of us.

Independence is also about to bring justice for all Indonesians which is still badly managed. Jusuf Kalla said there at least 15 conflicts in Indonesia that claimed more than 1,000 lives and 10 out of 15 are arisen by injustice. And after 66 years, the government can’t enact justice – minorities are haunted, corruptor attended freely tennis match, heart-rending stories of poverty is still rampant and development is centralized in Java.

But, what’s emboldening is the problem of corruption has no causality with economic progress. To some extent corruption doesn’t jeopardize economy. Economy has fared well with relatively high growth. Apparently economic investment is blind which can’t differ between ill-gotten money and well-gotten money. Money including corruption-source one invariably can move economy.

Of course, if things don’t change, in the long term we can go further to the next stage of development.

This is just a comparison. After overwhelming the world with cheap products, now China is scrambling to move up value chain, not only assembly foreign products. It is struggling to churn out its branded products, not only to serve the low ends ones. It is trying to compete with other nations in renewable energy, outer space research, high-speed train, health research of stem cell and other cutting-edge science and technology. All in all China has gained steam to be a developed country.

We don’t see these things happening in Indonesia. Indonesians quarrels on politics and abandons knowledge-based economy which is well-trodden path to economic development. Innovation as the essence of knowledge-based economy is the hallmark and archetype of developed nation ranging from China, Singapore to Japan. Without innovation, Indonesia’s economy will finally be out of steam and caught in middle income trap. But our movers and shakers seem unaware with this.

Since the first day, Indonesians had lofty expectation for independence. We realize our founding fathers cobbled a plan of independence, but we have had 66 years to fix it. And as of today independence still reneges on its promise to deliver justice and prosperity. And in my opinion developing knowledge-based economy is the only way to fill in our independence and fulfill the promise.

But whatever happens our loves for Indonesia endure. Freedom!

* * * * *

Al Ghazali: The Great Skeptic

2011-08-09T14:35:00.000+07:00

After Prophet Muhammad (570 – 632) and Rashidun Caliphate (632 – 661) era, in terms of epistemological course, Muslim has been divided into 2 (two) schools of thought, namely: Mu’tazili and Asy’ari. Simply put, Mu’tazili was the rationalists relied on reason and human intellectual power, free will and embrace of Greek legacy of science, in contrast Asy’ari embraced religious source of Al Quran and hadith, no-natural-law principle and occasionalism.

In the height of Mu’tazili’s sway in Abbasid caliphate (750-1258), Muslim was very dynamic society and left many legacies to the world. With caliphate endorsement, Muslim interpreted and learned knowledge from all sources, particularly from Hellenism. They developed math, chemistry, physics, medicine, and even epistemology. If now Muslims tell about their scientific achievement, all transpired in this era.

As mentioned above, along with Mu’tazili, another path of Islam also thrived, Asy’ari. They were afraid with eclectism in Muslim way of life. For them, Muslim should only embrace Quran and Hadith. Moreover scientific method can’t seek Truth and sufism was a better approach.

Al-Ghazali a.k.a Algazel (1058 – 1111) was the star of Asy’ari. He was once a prominent Islamic jurisprudence in Baghdad under Nizam al-Mulk. After experiencing personal crisis, he doubted the senses and reason in seeking truth and subscribed to Asy’ari. He landed his faith in Sufism and severed his connection with earthy matters. And Al-Ghazali exerted his great influence to ward off Mu’tazili’s progressive thought. He threw cold water to Muslim great passion of science.

For this reason, he took responsible for the diversion of the course of Muslim society from rational society to irrational one, from dynamic community to static one, from world-class scientists to, at last, fiercest terrorists. To some extents, he was one to blame for the backward of Islam among other civilizations.

But, is it true Al Ghazali totally wrong on his conviction? Absolutely not!

Sometimes skeptics were not really anti-science, they even made science perfect and real. An in this part Al Ghazali had a great contribution.

To encapsulate the main idea of Al-Ghazali skepticism is as follows:

First, we can’t accept any causality automatically; causality is non-permanent.

In his own words, Al-Ghazali said: “The connection between what is habitually believed to be a cause and what is habitually believed to be an effect is not necessary, according to us [al-Ghazali]

Second, causality that we believe is a product of past experience.

He said: “The continuous habit of their occurrence repeatedly, one time after another, fixes unshakably in our minds the belief in their occurrence according to past habit.”

And the all causalities happen only under God’s will and it didn’t need to repeat by itself.

Al Ghazali’s denial of causality cast a spell and resounded beyond his time. Later the western philosophers defined it as Problem of Induction. Inductive inference is made by observing past occurrences. People think there is no black swan, because for some time people can only see white swan in their limited circumstances. But when black swan was found in Australia, the conviction of all-swans-are-white collapsed.

This very idea is expounded by Nassim Nicolas Thaleb in his best-seller book, Black Swan. People simply can’t predict. It’s true some causality repeats until today, but there’s no guarantee it will be the same tomorrow. The tumbling of stock market, economic crisis, world war, 9/11, Arab spring can only be explained by black swan approach.

Finally, Al-Ghazali did make great understanding of knowledge, even though it seemed he refuted scientific method and hinged foolishly on God.

Let’s test Al-Ghazali’s conviction of God’s factor in modern science.

Despite making much headway, human thought is still limited to make out “natural law”. Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727), the king of science, concocted remarkably the movement of celestial bodies of earth and sun, but later Henry Poincare (1854 –1912) found that the calculation didn’t match with reality. He suggested the movement was in chaotic order (and this laid foundation of chaos theory), rather than predictable path. And nobody knows whether this diversion throws the earth outside solar system or makes the earth swallowed by the sun which can be taken place any time.

And it implied that our earth can still evolve the sun without slipping the necessary orbit is because of something unknown … and it can be GOD!

Source:

1. http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ma/works/ma-gz-ps.pdf
2. http://www.ghazali.org/articles/gz1.htm
3. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/books/chapters/0422-1st-tale.html?pagewanted=print
4. http://ptrow.com/articles/ChaosandSolarSystem5.htm

Ibn al-Haytham: The First Scientist

2011-08-02T13:56:00.000+07:00

With more than a billion-people strong, Islam dignity has been tainted by some of its adherents’ behavior. They hijacked planes, bombed buildings, committed suicidal attacks and killed the innocence. Worse, until now neither a few good men can elevate Islam status. All in all, Islam is experiencing long dark ages.

But for consolation and catharsis, Muslim can evoke sweet memories of the heyday of Islam, when Muslim ruled the world with significant contribution for civilization. One of the remarkable works of Muslim scientists is the invention of scientific way of thinking.

We do agree that modern times owe much to the Greeks. Most of modern scientific, economic and politics concepts hail from this remarkable-but-already-backward society. It was also the Greeks who tried to explain nature “scientifically”.

But, unfortunately Greeks stopped at the theory or argument. Despite they have skills in creating theory, but they fell short of knowing whether the theory is true or not. As a result, they can’t settle problems of competing theories explaining one subject.

To exemplify, they can’t solve the mystery of vision or how we see thing. At that time, there are two competing theories. In the first theory, the light emitted from the eye to the observed object. It was proposed by Euclid and Ptolemy. On the contrary, the second one suggested that the eye received the light from the object. It was put forward by Aristotle.

Then, Muslim scientist got into the brawl.

About a thousand years ago, Ibn al-Haytham (965 – c. 1040) a.k.a. Alhazen gave groundbreaking solution for centuries-long dispute about vision. At this historic juncture, he introduced unprecedented way to solve problem, namely: through experiment.

He invited observers to prove the lights came into our eyes. He asked them to look at the sun, and they felt burning eyes. Therefore, the light simply comes from the object and not vice versa. I wonder the other experiment would be you can’t see any objects in the darkness. Nowadays, it seems very simple account, but it needed centuries to get there from the first human intellectual activity.

Getting the truth from experiment soon caught on with western scientists, as the Arab power started debilitating. The Arab cities in Spain were taken back by Christian Europe. So did the libraries. They translated Muslim works including Ibn al-Haytham’s.

And then Roger Bacon (c. 1220-1292), an English philosopher, adhered to his brainchild and fleshed it out.

In “Opus Majus” (1267), he recast the lesson of Ibn al-Haytham that: “Argument does not remove doubt, so that the mind may rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it finds it by the method of experiment”. This is completely the birth of science. And later this way of thinking spread all across the world.

The rest is history. Science-based applications stun and dominate the world. And Ibn al-Haytham’s contribution is still worth remembering.

Source:

1. http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/18/magazine/best-idea-eyes-wide-open.html

SBY and Warren Harding Error

2011-07-26T15:28:00.000+07:00

SBY is under fire. Every day he must overcome unrelenting criticism over his feeble leadership.

The last one lashed out at him coming from Anies Baswedan, rector of Paramadina University. In his much-praised article (Kompas, 25/7/2011) entitled “Warning To Leader”, he criticized SBY’s negligence, indecisiveness, sluggishness, doubtfulness. At one point, SBY has ammunition of people’s support in presidential election, but it seems he never exercises this power. SBY doesn’t back his words with deeds. As matter of fact, there is nothing new with these.

Given his poor leadership, is SBY to blame?

By all odds, it’s not his fault. His ascendance was people’s choice. He did offer himself and people bought it. So we can ask how 60% voters can be so dumb in 2009 (and also 2004).

To me, in 2004, the best choice would be Amien Rais-Siswono, and in 2009, the best pair to lead Indonesia would be JK-Wiranto. Indonesia is fledgling democratic country with enormous basic problems of law enforcement, economy and politics, so it needs a strong leader who dares to take the bull by the horns. And SBY doesn’t fit the bill.

So why did people vote for SBY?

The answer might be simple: people get in love with SBY’s appearance. SBY has the best presidential look compared to Amien Rais, JK, or Megawati (We need Yingluck Shinawatra :D). With 175 m-tall, good-looking face, robust body and commanding voice, SBY attracts people, especially mature women.

In contrast, JK is short, not-so-handsome and too talkative. But in leadership, he is better than SBY. He can think and act faster. He used to be an entrepreneur, so he knew how to materialize plan, and solve problems with brainy solution. His adlib is always inspiring. He can shrewdly and wittingly answer barrage of tough questions. Unfortunately, he is not blessed with good physical appearance to support his capability. This also happened to Amien Rais, the father of Indonesian reformation.

How appearance has big impact in everyday life is a very serious matter and experts have studied it well.

To some extent, by voting for SBY, Indonesians is trapped in Warren Harding Error, coined by best seller author with thought-provoking insight, Malcolm Gladwell. In his book, Blink, he expounded how snap judgment can be good or bad.

By feeling the aura of an antiquated statue, expert can determine quickly it is real or fake. You can identify one’s character by observing one’s private room. Even experts can predict how long the longevity of marriage by listening few minutes of couple’s discussion. Observing few things can tell everything in a fast way.

But certainly the snap judgment has the downside too. It can go wrong and lead people to prejudice. Last year, in America a black professor who lost the key and tried to open forcedly the door of his own house, was precipitously arrested by a white man police. Soon it became national hot debate and drew President Obama’s intervention. The white man police must have prejudice, that if black man opening the door that way, he must be a thief and unlikely a professor.

Appearance can deceive. People looks good and capable can be bad and weak, and vice versa. This brings us back to Warren Harding Error.

He was the 29th President of United States. He is not smart, talented or able man, but he is handsome, even, great looking. Since the first time, he plunged into politics, a king maker, Harry Daugherty, had known his huge potential to be a president. It was merely just because Warren Harding had convincing presidential look. Nothing else.

In the 1920 election, he won by the largest presidential popular vote landslide in American history (60.36% to 34.19%) – see, it was almost the same percentage of SBY’ landslide win in 2009.

And according to many historians, Warren Harding is one of the worst American presidents!

* * * * *

Tantric Yoga Spirit and Masterpiece

2011-07-20T09:30:00.002+07:00

In 1977, the late Muchtar Lubis, our crusading journalist, put forward Indonesians’ traits covering, among others, spendthrift, impatient and lazy. Nowadays, it turns out the very behaviors are still relevant and rampant.

Like it or not, Gayus Tambunan, the wealthy tax officer, and M. Nazaruddin, the wealthy ruling party treasurer, can be regarded as typical Indonesians rush for money or power, that the end justifies the means. Gayus’s malfeasance and Nazarudin’s collusion inevitably represent Indonesians who like to earn easy money, quick win, through corruption, rent-seeking, hanky-panky, rather than sparing no effort to do something great.

To compare with, American culture is paragon of robust connection between wealth and works. In America, many rich people are knowledge-based millionaires with technological masterpieces. Achievement takes precedence over cash. Likewise, Japanese have a profoundly ingrained habit of wanting to achieve perfection, ranging from making swords, inventing technology, presenting meals, to arranging flowers. Certainly, Americans and Japanese are not perfect, but at least, in these societies, achievement is the most appreciated and promoted, and then wealth is only the side effects of achievement. 5

Do Indonesians have a chance to emulate Protestant ethics-driven American culture or eclectic source of Japanese culture?

Fortunately, we have it, by reviving Japanese-like Javanese perfection tradition of “tantric yoga”, dating back to Hinduism or Buddhism tenets, in which magnum opus must be gained by integrating oneself with God through hard work, sacrifice or other ascetic means. In this way, Javanese masterpieces, e.g. kris, literatures, dance or arts, are created. The late Professor Zoetmulder, Javanese literature expert, expounded this in his book, Kalangwan.

Most Indonesians, myself included, are going too far in adoring shallow materialism & penchant of low-hanging fruit. In my opinion, to improve Indonesian social life, including corruption eradication, the forgotten “tantric yoga” spirit should be encouraged and inculcated through education, so as to become habit and ethics of Indonesians.

* * * * *

Petronas Towers

2011-07-15T10:42:00.001+07:00

Malaysia would never be the same, when Petronas Towers was completed. The then-Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad’s brainchild including Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) really changed Malaysia. The glowing towers not only epitomized success story of Malaysia development, but gave the new identity of Malaysia in the world map as well.

The 451.9 m tall including antenna spire twin towers was built in 1992 through 1998 and recorded as the tallest building in the world, until Taipei 101 tower surpassed it in 2004. The building cost to the tune of USD 1.6 billion.

The Towers must have partly contributed Malaysia’s tourism surge since the building completion in 1998. Now Malaysia ranks the World’s Ninth Tourist Destination with 24.6 million tourist arrivals in 2010 four-fold that of 1998 with 5.5 million tourists. (Our beloved Indonesia grew at a snail’s pace of 4.6 million in 1998 and 6.2 million in 2008)

Thanks to National Geographic Channel unfolded inspiring story during its construction.

First, incredible shape of towers.

Cesar Pelli, the Argentine architect, who had already won the design contest, was ordered to change the very design. However, after several proposals, the Client still felt unsatisfied. In this stalemate situation, it was Mahathir himself came up with solution by proposing Islamic art-inspired Rub El Hizb consisting of 2 overlapping squares. Bingo!

Later Cesar Pelli added circular sections at the intersections to increase building space that made the building even more beautiful.

Compared to other skycrappers, Petronas Towers with stainless-steel cladding looks very impressive, unique, and photogenic! To me, many previous towers, such as the collapsed Twin Towers, seem to have no soul resembling tall boxes on the ground.

Second, the connection bridge, prescient idea of 911-disaster evacuation (If only 1 tower is attacked)

A skybridge connecting between the two towers on 41st and 42nd floors can also serve as a safety device. In the event of a fire or other emergency in one tower, people can evacuate by crossing the skybridge to the other tower.

Third, ingenious project execution by sparking competition, between 2 towers, and between 2 ever-competing nations.

The completion had been set perfectly since the beginning. Tower 1 was built a month sooner, than Tower 2 was. As a result, Tower 1 team tried hard to maintain its advance, while Tower 2 team played catch-up.

Moreover, Tower 1 was built by a Japanese consortium led by the Hazama Corporation, while Tower 2 by a South Korean consortium of Samsung C&T and Kukdong Engineering & Construction. It brought, as usual, harsh competition between 2 nations: Japanese and Koreans. In this race – the first team reaching the top – Koreans edged out Japanese.

This brings us back to what Indonesia can do.

I do love Indonesia. I want to see Indonesia “beating” Malaysia, our “arch enemy”in megastructure. But after nearly 66 years old of independence, unfortunately Indonesia’s building can’t match Malaysia’s, nor the old-sick man Pertamina can outperform relatively newly-established Petronas.

And the best Indonesian government-led building is 132 meter tall Monas.

which has to compete with 451.9 m tall Petronas

It’s a no brainer to conclude the winner.

* * * * *

Blame His Men, Does Pak SBY Learn It from Sun Tzu?

2011-07-11T08:58:00.000+07:00

In the last Cabinet meeting, President SBY publicly criticized its Minister for their low performances. He lamented that less than 50% of instructions haven’t been carried out without further accounts of neglected instructions. And he gives them 3 months to shape up.

Some thought this was the blame game covering his own weakness and abdication of responsibility.

However, I guessed Pak SBY learns it from Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese thinker, who wrote Art of War about 2300 years ago. As the China’s oldest military literature, Art of War was at first to serve military strategy. But somehow now it is widely used in business.

One of Sun Tzu’s philosophy suggests:

“If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, the general is to blame. But if his orders are clear, and the soldiers nevertheless disobey, then it is the fault of their officers.”

SBY must have been so sure that his orders are crystal clear and doable, but some ministers were lazy, even they might have been forgetting the instructions. Is this true? Why don’t ministers implement them?

To me, ministers’ capability aside, Indonesia’s problems are so complicated. It might be the instructions are so normative to solve convoluted problems. For instance, problems of law enforcement demands comprehensive actions from different ministers and institutions. This herculean task must be led and orchestrated by president himself.

As for who to blame when failure happens, soccer management offers the best paragon. Given the result of World Cup 2010 failure, Argentine Football Association (AFA) sacked the coach, soccer living legend Maradona, but neither Messi or Higuain, the players. Likewise, in Europe’s world-class clubs, the managers took the brunt of it when the club can’t get a trophy.

It makes sense that the leader must take the responsible. The buck stops here.

Whatever happens, the ministers were the president’s choice. President SBY through prerogative rights selected his own ministers the way club managers have all powers to buy and sell the players. Furthermore, at that time, the process was so unique including inviting the candidates to Cikeas, conducted psycho test and elimination process and widely covered by media reminiscent of Indonesian Idol.

And if it is true that Pak SBY takes Sun Tzu to find scapegoats of his failure, then he should also realize another Sun Tzu’s doctrine, that is:

”A skilled commander seeks victory from the situation and does not demand it of his subordinates.”

My two cents, Pak SBY can learn much about effective and decisive leadership from his senior, the late General Benny Moerdani, Indonesia’s arguably best general.

In Mata Najwa television program, Subagyo HS, former Army Chief and then-member of anti-terrorist squad who stormed the hijacked air plane in 1981 recounted his experience with his superior, Benny Moerdani.

During the last training before action, they asked how if the hijackers covered themselves with hostages as shields. Benny ordered them to “just shoot” and anything happened following the operation was his responsibility. The squads were reliefs to take bold actions including, if necessary, unintentionally hostage shooting and the operation was remarkable success.

Focus on goal, analyze the situation, set priority, act and finally take risk and not to blame subordinates. That’s true leadership.

* * * * *

God Bless Still-In-Trouble America

2011-07-07T08:37:00.001+07:00

America is undoubtedly the world’s only superpower with great achievement ranging from politics, economy, science & technology to culture. Their remarkable string of successes makes us believe what is good for America will be good for the world.

In 1992, after the fall of Uni Soviet, Japanese American thinker, Francis Fukuyama, bragged about that human civilization had come to the end of history and liberal democracy prevails.

Well, not so fast.

Despite still ruling the world, America as the main promoter of liberal democracy, is now definitely staggering. The aftermath of American-created financial crisis in 2008, the problem of unemployment coupled with enormous deficit paints a bleak economic picture.

Surprisingly, the debacle doesn’t stem from its competitiveness, productivity or deficit escaping solution. With top-notch products such as iPad, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Intel and Microsoft, America can still proud of its creativity and innovation. But, the culprit is their system promoting freedom too much. America leaves its fate in the hands of politicians which are laden with either bind ideology or bind interest of their fund provider in the election.

As a result, the government is run ineffectively.

Thomas Friedman of The New York Times recounted his discussion with Singaporean thinker, Kishore Mahbubani about Obama’s strategic initiative on eight strategic innovation hubs to solve eight world’s biggest energy problems and eventually create new jobs. Friedman told Mahbubani that the project cost “only” USD 25 million for each center, but it was hampered by the Congress on grounds of austerity. Kishore Mahbubani was taken aback, because he thought it was mispronounced of USD 25 billion. In comparison, tiny and no-significant-opposition Singapore easily spent USD 1 billion for biomedical science hubs without any obstacle from its “Congress”.

Likewise, in addressing deficit, the work of Simpson-Bowles commission has been available and plausible. But it must be undertaken regardless party’s ideology. One must accept the tax increases and the other must accept entitlement spending cuts. And until now they are still at variance and frittering valuable time away.
One of the criticisms of Fukuyama on benevolent dictatorship which can also bring success is “the problem of bad emperor”. When the emperor is good, the state will be good. In contrast when the emperor is bad, the state will be bad either.

It turns out in democratic America, “the problem of freedom” arises. The long-standing conviction is the more people solving problem, the better. But it should be rectified. As seen in America, divided people’s representatives with the equal power no longer make faithful decision, instead they make things worse.
The developing story of America should be paid attention. If America can be crippled by freedom, let alone developing country like Indonesia of which freedom rearing its ugly face since the day one of so-called reformation!

Finally, as Uncle Sam in the West looks feeble and self-destructed, the Dragon in the East flexes its muscle and shows off the result of its effective one-party system. Liberal democracy is absolutely not the end of history and nor it is without alternative. The history is still in the making and as Chairman Mao said we must [keep] seek[ing other] truth from the facts.

* * * * *

Democracy Tends To Corrupt, Absolute Democracy Corrupts Absolutely

2011-06-28T10:32:00.000+07:00

Sometimes people think democracy is a powerful system to eradicate corruption. Refer to what has happened in Indonesia, they are absolutely wrong. Democracy unexpectedly brings corruption as much that of authoritarian regime.

On paper democratic system offers transparent government where checks and balances exist. The regime will be selected regularly based on meritocracy with ridiculous assumption people automatically choose the best in general election. But it is not for real.

Nowadays money turns out to play main role in democracy. Money controls democracy, be it in general election, legislating law or executing policy. This transpires not only in fledgling democratic country, such as Indonesia, but in advanced one, like America, as well.

Gamawan Fauzi, Minister of Home Affairs put forward something wrong with Indonesia’s regional general election. Based on his back-of-the-envelope scribbles, to be a governor, a candidate should raise fund Rp. 60-100 billion. The average salary of governor is only Rp. 8.6 million or if incentives added about Rp. 90 million per months. So in a year, the governor can only collect about Rp. 1 billion or Rp 5 billion until his last day in office. It’s clearly well below their campaign fund. And then, it makes sense that 155 regional heads implicated in corruption case and 74 out of that are governors.

The recent news of corruptions reveals more evidence that Indonesia’s democracy tends to corrupt.

As treasurer of ruling party, Nazaruddin has reasonably to provide finance to the party. Member contribution will not be enough. Owing to party’s domination in ministerial posts, the project kickbacks are the plausible source of fund. This might be also done by members of coalition party who hold certain portfolios. So finally the ministry is a cash cow for the party interest.

Furthermore, a brave lawmaker, Wa Ode Nurhayati divulged that central government budget allocation to regional governments is determined by collusion between the party and regional officers instead of regional need.

But, we are not alone. Surprisingly, America has also been contaminated by democracy-based corruption.

According to Joseph Stiglitz in his book Making Globalization Work, it was businessmen rather than politicians who shape the country’s policy. But, in contrast with Indonesians, they do bribery with dignity and sophisticated ploy. Outright bribery has been done in the cloak of political campaign contributions.

Forty-one companies (including General Electric, Microsoft, and Disney) invested$150 mil- lion to political parties and campaigns between 1991 and 2001, get, in return, $55 billion in tax breaks in three tax years alone. Pharmaceutical companies spent $759 million to influence 1,400 congressional bills between 1998 and 2004. So they get special treatment to set up the inexorable prices, even though the government is the largest buyer of their products.

Finally, there’s something wrong with democratic system. Lord Acton’s resounding words should be revised. Democracy is now on par with power or absolute power as the den of corruption!

* * * * *

Trias Politi-Crime: Execu-Thieves, Legisla-Thieves, Judica-Thieves

2011-06-15T09:24:00.002+07:00

(With apologies to Montesquieu)

Indonesia is on course for cleptocracy in which state is commanded by thieves, said Kompas in yesterday’s headlines. And the existence of thieves spread wall-to-wall ranging from executive, legislative to judicative. Poor Indonesia, before bearing fruits, this incipient democrazy soon becomes cleptocrazy.

In fact that’s stale news. Indonesia is the defending champion of corruption for years. Transparency International-Indonesia shows in 2010 Corruption perception Index (CPI) was 2.8 on a scale of 10 maintaining the same figure in 2009. In comparison of ASEAN countries, Singapore is nearly corruption-free country by 9.3 following by Brunei, Malaysia and Thailand, but Indonesia bests Vietnam, Philippines, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

Be positive thinking please, we are still not the worst!

Day by day, legal officers seem to be incompetent to manage corruption case. Nyu-nyun, the suspect of disbursing graft to lawmakers in return of supporting a deputy governor of Central Bank, easily fled Singapore and then to Thailand and now reportedly Nyu-nyun was in Cambodia. By moving from country to country, her amnesia might have been cured. Nazaruddin, the suspect of graft scandal in SEA Games’ athlete dormitory construction project, with his sixth sense managed to abscond a day before the KPK imposed a travel ban on him. Previously, super Gayus ridiculed this nation by traveling to Bali, Macau, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore while in detention.

On the other hand, Antasari Azhar, the ablest KPK leader, has to be in jail with tawdry allegation and the judges deliberately ignored some important facts of his innocence. Even Law Graduates Association said that Antasari was a victim of errant legal system.

In a nutshell, Indonesia’s corruptors can proudly flex their muscle. They are roundly condemned, but they eminently call the shot.

Worse, the dishonesty not only implicates high profiles, but common people as well. Ikrar Nusa Bhakti recounted this bleak story of our society.

Of late, in Surabaya, a smart primary school boy had been asked by his teacher to fudge by giving answers to other pupils on national exams. His mother reported this to the headmaster and got ignored. Then she brought this to higher level, school committee and national education office and had the same response of neglectfulness. Finally, the press blew up the news and as a result the headmaster and teachers are forced to discharge.

Ironically, this honest mother unexpectedly became public enemy. Other parents scolded her and then dispelled her family from neighborhood.

This is utterly a sick society. Now community turns to communi-thieves.

Then, is there any good news of Indonesia’s corruption?

Fortunately, yes it is. Despite debilitating impact, hobbling economy, Indonesia with rampant corruption can still make headway compared to its peer in Africa. Experts on corruption put forward the account.

It turns out Indonesia’s corruptors undoubtedly love their country so much, so that the ill-gotten money is still rolling in Indonesia. Morality aside, money of corruption can still move the economy either by investment or by spending. On the contrary, the African corruptors saved their money in the Swiss banks.

I proposed for Theory of Corruption, Indonesia’s corruptors should be classified as benevolent corruptors.

* * * * *

Indonesia’s Economic Liberalization? Why Not!

2011-06-10T15:43:00.000+07:00

Xenophobia emerges.

Kompas (23/5/2011) expressed concerns that strategic sectors largely owned by foreign investors. Foreigners own 50.6% of banking industry and 75 % of oil and gas mining industry. They are also dominant player in telecommunication and palm oil estate.

And recently the government moves further by wanting to review mining contract.

Is it the backlash to the invited foreigners who partake in developing our economy?

Of course foreigners aren’t to blame for the domination. Jakarta Post editorial gave the background why those sectors went to foreigners. In fact foreigners “helped” the government to buy the nationalized banks as well as palm estate aftermath of economic crisis. While in the hydrocarbon industry, which needs huge investment and high technology, can’t be provided by national players.

Economic liberalization is inevitable. It’s the best recipe for right now, because the best resources - cutting-edge technology, up-to-date management, high quality human resources and most of all, investment fund - are not invented here, but out there.

Indonesians, myself included, have already been experiencing the advantage of economic liberalization.

I always remember in 90s, I spent Rp. 20.000 - 25.000 in public phone booth every Sunday to call my parents in Pontianak. Then economic liberation came and Telkom was not a single player in communication service anymore. Since then, harsh competition had begun and resulted the price going south. Now, by using Simpati’s talkmania, it only takes Rp. 2,000 for the same call. Viva liberalization!

But, despite the upside, economic liberalization has also the downside that Indonesia has seen, particularly in banking sector.

Foreign-owned banks are driven most by profit rather than national development. Certainly they have to do so, they aren’t charity foundation. So they prefer allocating the credit for profitable personal consumption over the risky domestic manufacturing development. Unfortunately, Indonesia lets 99% foreign ownership of this strategic industry, while in other liberal countries such as US only 30%. This might in part contribute to Indonesia’s deindustrialization. In this case the government’s policy of liberating banking sector is wrong.

Finally, all in all economic liberalization is useful. However, the power of liberalization should be guided to the right places that give advantages to all of us.

* * * * *

Good News and Sexy Figures

2011-06-02T13:42:00.003+07:00

In recent years Indonesia is being poured by good news coming from foreigners. All the cynics at home must get disconcerted with those sexy figures.

There are at least 3 (three) good news on Indonesia which might make the government flattered.

The latest good news is Indonesia: The Next Silicon Valley?. The title is self-explanatory. Wow!

Foreign companies and investors start buying local start-ups. Yahoo bought locally-made Foursquare-like Koprol; Chicago-based Groupon took over e-commerce platform disdus.com, and so did East Ventures, a Singaporean and Japanese company to Tokopedia . Several investors from Hong Kong and China, Singapore, United States and Japan reportedly invest to several Indonesian start-ups. Even the lucrative cigarettes industries have eyes for the dotcom companies.

Not long time ago, the second good news coming from BBC survey that Indonesia is the best place for entrepreneurs to start a business. Wow!

The survey asked for question: (1) valuation of creativity/innovation in own country, (2) difficulty to start own business in country, (3) valuation of people who start own business, (4) ease of putting ideas into practice.

And the result is Indonesia topped the chart outdoing USA, Canada, India and Australia.

Previously, the third good news and repeatedly discussed is Goldman Sach’s report entitled The N-11: More Than an Acronym paint the bright picture of Indonesia.

After introducing BRIC that stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China in 2003, Goldman Sach conceived the notion of N-11, Next Eleven consist of Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Turkey, and Vietnam. The main reason of this selection is based on large population beyond the BRICs and, to a lesser degree, consistent high growth. To cut the story short, in 2050 Indonesia’s GDP will be the world’s 7th largest surpassing G7’s Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada and Italy.

However, later the expectation proved “wrong” as Vivanews report this. It turns out Indonesia bests the Goldman Sach’s oracles. The estimation of Indonesia’s GDP in 2010, USD 410 billion, but the realization as for November 2010 was more than USD 700 billion.

Despite the good news, some attentions must be paid.

First, Indonesia’s information technology development appears promising, however, we have yet Silicon Valley-like place. IT success story usually begins with combination of talented human resources and supporting environment. That’s why India developed Bengaluru, Taiwan built Hsinchu Science and Industrial Park or even Malaysia promoted Multimedia Super Corridor.

Second, BBC survey might be wrong, because the result is stark contrast with the World Bank data on Doing Business. According to World Bank’s 2011 report, Indonesia’s ranking was down instead of up. In 2010, the ranking is 115 and now 121 out of 183 countries or getting down 6 points.

Last, GDP size is not automatically indicated well-being. And the very report also shows GDP per capita, even for the BRICs, except for Russia, is still in middle income group in 2050.

Anyway, I fully agree that good news is better than bad one.

* * * * *

Moving Forward with Either Black or White Cat Ideology

2011-06-01T09:21:00.002+07:00

Today we observe the birth of Pancasila, our state ideology. In the last recent years, this ideology eclipses. However, amid the eroding religious tolerance and growing hardliners, some suggest that Pancasila should be revived. Is it true that Pancasila will resolve that problem?

When I was in Junior High School, I always remember our teacher told us that in western countries, people embraced capitalism which individual interest prevailed over community, on the contrary in communist countries, people live together abandoning their private ownership. Both ideologies are not good for Indonesians. So Pancasila is the resolution that lies on between capitalism and communism.

And later, despite my never-ending respect, I know my teacher’s account, particularly on capitalism, was wrong, given the facts of welfare state, food stamp, Medicare and so forth.

And later I also know Pancasila is merely normative words of wisdom and in order not to plunge into platitude, it should be NATO. That is “Need Action To be Operated” .

However, can words of wisdom overcome the real problem of life? Should we always open the holy book of ideology to make headway?

The Great Chinese reformer, Deng Xiaoping innovated how to develop nation by shrugging off any ideology. His famous words: “it doesn’t matter a black cat or a white one as long as it catches mice” resound all over the world. Moreover, he said that China had no blue print of the way to develop, so in making policy was like crossing a river by feeling for stones and one should be careful not to fall down. And with Chinese eye-popping development, this pragmatism approach proves workable.

Just the opposite America inherits ideological thug of war. In terms of economy, Republicans hold convictions of less government intervention, less tax, deregulation, free market, while Democrats promote otherwise. So in economic crisis, people tend to vote for Democrat President who will spend more money for the unemployment, subsidies and other allowance and in anemic growth owing partly to government intervention, people turn to Republican President who will deregulate market.

However, sometimes this ideological difference compound recent America’s economic crisis handling. Laden with huge debt, President Obama, Democrat President proposed to draw more money from tax payer, particularly the super rich. However, Republican-majority House of Representative denies this policy on grounds of ideology. For them the government should not get more money from its citizens and the economy will recover naturally by invisible hands, even in crisis.

As a result, during recent global economic calamity, China’s leader supported only by like-minded acolytes got through the crisis smoothly and left the country unscathed, while ideological rift leaves American economy still-crippling.

Fortunately, unlike communism or capitalism, Pancasila is created without specific idea of government or economy. Pancasila is exposed ideology, so that big or less government or market regulation or deregulation will be welcomed. Oil subsidy is okayed and so is 99% ownership of national bank by foreign investor. It seems Pancasila has significant role, neither in economic regulation nor government size preference.

So where does it work? Is it to overcome unremitting dreams of craving out Islamic State?

Since independence Indonesia – like other modern societies – has made its own constitution which also covering Pancasila in the preamble. And in our constitution, the final government form is unitary republic, not Islamic state. So referring to constitution, it’s clear what to do against religious extremist.

Finally, once upon a time ideology might be indispensable. However, this long-standing conviction has been challenged by idea of catching mouse by whatever the cat’s color.

* * * * *

Indonesia’s Maid-Based Economy

2011-05-25T10:24:00.000+07:00

To paraphrase Deng Xiaoping: It doesn’t matter whether a fat president or slim president, as long as he brings prosperity. If the president does care about his personal performance, he should also be bothered by the maid- sending policy which utterly denting his country’s image.

Instead of “knowledge-based economy” as much developed in Singapore and now Malaysia, in contrast, Indonesia – after 66 years of independence and 103 years of national awakening – is still grappling with “maid-based economy”.

Recent news suggests that this month Indonesia will resume sending maids to Malaysia, after two-year moratorium. This shameful policy should be taken, because the government – despite a plethora of opportunities including spacious lands, abundant workers and natural resources – can’t still provide descent jobs to its citizens.

Why can’t Indonesia create many jobs here?

First, the existing investments cannot absorb ever-growing workers. Besides, long-standing red-tapes and deep-seated corruptions hamper more investments, the recent news of increasing foreign-ownership – outcome of excessive liberalization – also pose a new threat of national economic development, particularly investment. Those profit-oriented banks by all means prefer serving consumer credits over financing riskier national manufactures. This trend compounds domestic job creations.

Second, the government still goes on with self-inflicted industrial strategy. The recent Merpati’s China-made airplane crash raised much concerns, not only for the victims, but on domestic products preference policy as well. Why must Indonesia’s State Owned Enterprise buy Chinese products, of which can be locally made? Since 1995, PTDI’s N250 – on par with crashed Chinese MA60 – had accomplished its maiden flight and with a few more steps poised for mass production.

Owing to these frivolous policies, national industries – as the main source of job absorptions – undergo perfect storm covering finance, investment administration and demand strategy and now free trade agreement. As a result, Indonesia sees deindustrialization in recent years amid vibrant regional economy. Indonesia’s unskilled workers scramble to find any jobs including being maids in Malaysia.

Sending maids to neighboring countries is merely not trivial matters. It does hurt our national pride. And without any significant progress of leaving ignominious ‘maid-based economy”, maybe, they keep calling us Indon whom actually deserve making planes rather than cleaning Malaysians’ houses.

* * * * *

Reference:

1. http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/04/26/indonesia-resume-sending-maids-malaysia-next-month.html

Without Pak Harto-Style Government Indonesia Is Going Nowhere

2011-05-20T14:38:00.000+07:00

Recent polling by Indo Barometer suggests people still regard Pak Harto as the best leader Indonesia ever had. The survey implies most people, myself included, that Pak Harto outperforms Habibie, Gus Dur, Megawati and SBY. New Orders led by Pak Harto did deliver undeniable results.

In the wake of Pak Harto’s fall, people thought democracy is panacea, but after 13 years, some begin to cast doubt that it doesn’t work here, at least not as expected. It turns out to be reform era wastes time and goes by frenetically without certain destination and significant achievements.

What’s saddening is that the best of Pak Harto’s legacy – stability, religious tolerance, striving industries, clear national destination, high economic growth – disappears, while the worst – corruption, collusion – remains.

I do agree with the survey result. Pak Harto deserves better acknowledgement. He had done a lot for this country.

In 1965, had Indonesia’s Communist Party grasped the power successfully, Indonesia would have been disgusting North Korea-like country which always led by mad man. Thanks to Pak Harto who led Indonesia took a different path and saved us from the communist calamity.

Some milestones should be noted too. In the late 1960s, Pak Harto backed by Berkeley-trained economists could control hyper-inflation, a legacy of Bung Karno’s administration. In 1980s, Indonesia transformed itself from rice importer to self-sufficiency. In early 1990s Indonesia became industrial country where industry excelled agriculture contribution in GDP.

Population is under controlled by aggressive family planning program. Economic growth was high and invariably higher than reform era. Strategic industries were established and in fact since then Indonesia was ready for knowledge-based economy. Security officers did their job well, so relatively Indonesians live in peace.

In short, there are many things make us proud as Indonesians.

Now, all is water under the bridge. Certainly, Indonesia cannot go back to the past. However, if democracy doesn’t work, this western-style system must be improved. Democracy is not sacred, so it subject to change.

Not all policy from the past is bad and out of date. Given its past success, New Order has left must-learned legacy. Indonesia must not throw out the baby with the bath water. Some New Order’s characteristics should be considered for current implementation.

First, economy must be put before politics, as the horse before the cart. Economy is the engine, while politics is the burden. It seems reform era repeats the some mistakes of Old Order which politics overwhelmed economy and finally caused economic debacle. Because of this, after 13 years of reform era, nothing remarkably achieved in terms of prosperity.

Second, revive the real presidential system. Bizarrely, Indonesians created new system which president elected must coalesce to gain enough power in parliament. As a consequence, a president must also share portfolios to other parties whether they are in line with a president’s policy or not.

This must change. The president should have adequate power to implement policy what he has planned and promised during campaign. The ministry must be led by able persons and not by know-nothing dud politicians.

Finally, Indonesia is a developing country which mainly needs continuity of development and strong government. Democratic system doesn’t suit this requirement. Fortunately, people begin to realize that our system goes wrong by remembering Pak Harto-style government. It is the first step to make headway.

* * * * *

Why Don't Indonesia Naturalize Singapore's George Yeo?

2011-05-15T13:34:00.005+07:00

Many people say that Singapore is run by meritocracy system which is: “let the best manage the rest”. However, despite People’s Action Party (PAP)’s landslide victory in recent election, we can dispute that dictum now. George Yeo, one of the best Singaporean minds lost, his seat in parliament and accordingly – following the rule of parliamentary system – he soon becomes “former” Singapore’s foreign minister.

George Yeo underwent extensive career both in military and civil service. This Cambrige-trained engineer, Brigadier General in Singapore Air Force (SAF), Harvard Business School Graduate had served in various portfolio namely the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Trade and Industry and at last Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Do the Singaporeans, particularly in Aljuneid district, dislike this talented person much by voting against him?
According to some pundits, the voters ousted George Yeo not because of his performance, but merely because Singaporeans don’t want Workers’ Party has no seat in PAP-dominated parliament. Unfortunately, Worker’s Party put its best team in Aljuneid district where PAP’s George Yeo contested. It must be the delicate choice for the voters.

As Indonesia citizen, sometimes I am jealous with the Singapore’s achievement. This natural resource–starved nation has succeeded to use only its citizens’ brains to make headway through innovations. Indonesia should learn much how these Chinese coolies stocks can transform itself from the Third World to the First.

* * *

Few months ago, the much-criticized PSSI chairman, Nurdin Khalid had launched naturalization program to boost national team’s performance. His initiative proved right. Christian Gonzales and Irfan Bachdim instilled new spirit in national team, even if they failed to present the trophy.

I wonder if naturalization can take place in sports, why it cannot in politics or government.

Singapore’s defeated George Yeo is worth naturalization. I compare him to much-praised Irfan Bachdim. Despite, he first honed his skills in Ajax, Irfan Bachdim has never joined the top clubs in Europe. And to me, as yet he is only a player with standard skills, not bad but also not good. While George Yeo worked for decades at the top-notch country in terms of … everything.

By recruiting George Yeo, Indonesia can learn how to make the effective, efficient and corruption-free government from the first hand. As if Indonesia has Lionel Messi in the national team.

George Yeo looked devastated on his defeat. He soon pronounced his resignation in political arena. When asked he could be the president of Singapore, George Yeo said he was a free spirit. I don’t know whether it includes helping other country to develop itself.

* * * * *

Dahlan Iskan For President

2011-05-08T07:13:00.003+07:00

If you are fed up with lawmakers’ junkets, it will be better for you to learn more about this inspiring PLN Chief, Pak Dahlan Iskan. Remarkably, he has turned around PLN from zero to hero only in a year. Along with Jusuf Kalla and Fadel Muhammad, I think he is one of few public officers who always put the brain on the right place and do the right thing, while serving people.

This journalist-turned-businessman shows eye-popping success story as if he were King Midas who turned everything to gold. He turned around small local newspaper, Jawa Post, to be national media mogul. He diversified the group’s business engulfing many areas including the owner of an independent power producer.

I don’t know where SBY got his inspiration or who whispered him to appoint Dahlan as then-troubled PLN new chief, but this time he was very right with his instinct.

At first many cast doubt on his ability to overcome electricity crisis on grounds of he is not PLN insider. He was plagued by demonstration from his own employees.

But within months the expectation proves wrong. Gifted with business acumen, he managed to solve many problems ranging from handling power shortage, enhancing service and promoting efficiency allowing many breakthroughs.

Now he enjoyed much respect from everyone from customers, president to infamous lawmakers.

As an outsider of PLN, he brings new perspective. For years, Indonesia sees power shortage. Dahlan is the first to define that the nub of the problem is not about money, but in fact about how to use resources effectively.

His trademark is to kill the power plant ‘eating’ the wrong ‘diet’ whereas sometimes the right ‘diet’ actually available. In Wamena, PLN used to hinge on diesel power which is costly shrugging off abundance hydro power. In Banjarmasin surrounded by coal also depend on expensive diesel power. This irrational nationwide practice leads to wasting money for years.

From him we know that there is no short of power in Java. The culprit is in distribution. Having changed purchasing system, out of the blue PLN hoards Rp. 2 trillion in cash. With this sizeable money, distribution problem is handled.

Despite his achievement, he is still grappling with Indonesian well-known red-tape such as he solved the eat-wrong-diet Semarang power plant. He has found the right diet, namely gas off Semarang coast. Petronas as the supplier and PLN have made a deal, but non technical problem arose. Both Petronas and PLN have no permit to build gas pipe from the well to Semarang. Facing this Achilles heel, he didn’t concede. He insists to make Semarang power plant closed and draw power from adjacent area. He denies any inefficiency.

As matter of fact, if Indonesia’s government agrees and supports him by allowing more domestic coal and gas for PLN, many rupiah will be saved and performance will be much enhanced.

From his experience, he also knows that Indonesia’s talents are ubiquitous. He finally knows that many of his brilliant staffs want PLN’s performance to be better. He sparks their creativity to solve their local problems. When PLN solved Gorontalo’s peak load, he got surprised that idea came from his staff graduated from University of Hasanudin. All he knows about that university is only student fighting.

Pak Dahlan Iskan’s quick success shows us that Indonesia can make big headway, if led by the right man.

I wonder what if Pak Dahlan takes the Pertamina’s helm. I think Pertamina will outdo Petronas in less than a year.

I wonder what if Pak Dahlan takes the Railways’ helm. I think Indonesia will be proud of its first double-track Shinkanzen-like train.

I wonder what if Pak Dahlan becomes Indonesia’s president. I think Indonesia will never send low-skilled migrant workers anymore, because a lot of decent jobs created here. Indonesia will never see a stupid suicide bomber anymore, because there is still ample heaven on earth to enjoy, rather than pursue imaginary nymph.

Few years ago, Pak Dahlan underwent liver transplantation in China. Given the fact that he managed to travel a lot during his first-year stint in PLN, the transplantation may considered success. Hopefully he is always in good health and continues serving our beloved country with his Midas’ touch.

* * * * *

Reference:

http://dahlaniskan.wordpress.com/

Terrorist Predator

2011-05-05T10:41:00.000+07:00

Since Indonesia’s communist uprising mounting in 1965, it seems nothing that posed real threat to our national security. Thanks to New Order’s heavy-handed policy, the strong government invariably managed to contain groups or parties scrambling to oust legitimate government or replacing Pancasila as ideology. As a result, Indonesia enjoyed stability for decades so as the government to focus only on development.

However, the sense of security goes awry in reformation era. The democratic government turns trepidation and indecisive in handling the religion-inspired agitators. Despite some successful crackdowns, terrorists and hardliners bloom at the alarming rate.

Indonesia has seen unprecedented attack ranging from bombing the churches, tourist areas, hotels, embassies and recently, the mosque, torturing minorities to sending booby-trapped books. What’s really thrilling is that some attacks were carried out by suicide bombers.

Indonesia is not Afghanistan yet. However, this nation is heading to that way unless the government takes immediate action to exterminate these horribly destructive groups.

* * *

First off, why the terrorists and hardliners thrive in democratic Indonesia but not in New Order era should be answered. Is it because of global terrorism network? Or is it because of social and economic injustice?

Surprisingly, in a way the explanation of Indonesia’s rising terrorism can be learned through the recent caterpillar outbreak.

Of late caterpillars attack Java islands stretching from Bali to Jakarta. Bizarrely, among the regions plagued, Probolinggo, where Mount Bromo had erupted, took the brunt of it. In Probolinggo, there are 14.500 trees infested by caterpillars, while other areas less than 50.

What is the common account of spreading caterpillars, particularly in surrounding area of Mount Bromo, and spreading terrorists and hardliners?

The answer is the disruption of the predator population!

As explained by insect specialist of Bogor Institute of Agriculture, Hermanu Triwidodo, the caterpillars overwhelming Probolinggo is caused by the absent of their natural predators which perish due to Mount Bromo eruption.

Biologically speaking, the relationship between prey and predator puts the ecosystem into balance. Predator plays dominant role in containing the growth of prey population. Once it is disrupted, the prey becomes more populous and uncontrollable, and finally ruins the entire ecosystem.

This biological point of view shed light on why Indonesia’s terrorists and hardliners thriving post-Pak Harto era. It is because their predators: resolute law enforcers of no avail. Security officers might be afraid to take firm action on grounds of human rights.

* * *

It’s not too late for the government to turn the course of security policy. The government can follow historical precedent of which good guys outdid bad guy on street justice stage.

The memory dates back in 1983, when the bad guys prevailed. It isn’t so clear why it happened, but suddenly the number of crime increased rapidly both in quality and quality. Ubiquitous robberies following with killings sparked deep concern to the stout-hearted then-President Soeharto. He regarded the thugs had been doing beyond the limit, and decided to wage wars against them.

It was Lt. Col. Mohammad Hasbi, Commander of Yogyakarta Garrison blazed a trail by launching Operation Crime Eradication. The first bullet had been shot in Yogyakarta. Later Commander of Defense Territory Command II, Lt. Gen. Widjojo Soejono announced this kind of operation will be implemented nationwide.

The operation sparked fears among the criminals. One by one they were shot dead. In his biography, Pak Harto explicitly acknowledged the criminals’ corpses - most of them marked with tattoo – deliberately abandoned on street with regard to giving shock therapy.

At that time in Pontianak I remembered, no youngsters dared to sing, playing cards and get drunk outdoor at night as they are used to. Nobody bragged about their tattoo. Nobody wanted to be conspicuously identified as bandits or gangsters which once useful to intimidate other people.

Despite human rights activists’ rant, the operation was very successful. The lawbreakers had been stamped out by unofficial law enforcement – the press called it mysterious shooters. It did worked and ward off crime, at least for some time.

* * *

Escalating terrorists and hardliners are definitely Indonesia’s clear and present danger. They churns out fast, becomes stronger and provokes anxiety, owing to their predators has been absent for so long time.

At this critical juncture, government whom naturally equipped with coercive power and rights must exert violence against violence. There is nothing to be afraid of. After all Obama ordered his predators to kill Osama without any trial and even he saw the killing operation through live broadcasting.

Human rights concerns must be placed rightly in broad security perspective. And Indonesians can judge it well too. In 1983 after the Pak Harto’s predators finished the jobs, 65% of Tempo readers approved the mysterious shooting operation.

Finally, Indonesians deserve peaceful life as seen for decades under the very strong government. Indonesia’s peace loving majority should be protected. Despite respecting human rights – by the way bandit and human rights is not suitable pair – if things has gone wrong, all options, deploying predators included, should be put on the table. And nature teaches us that predator does matter whether you deal with caterpillar or criminal.

* * * * *

References:

1. http://www.wildernessclassroom.com/members/teachers/Wolves.pdf
2. Caterpillars Everywhere, Tempo Magazine – English Edition No. 34/XI/April 20-26, 2011
3. Biography of Benny Moerdani – Profil Prajurit Negarawan by Julius Pour
4. Biography of Soeharto – Pikiran, Ucapan, dan Tindakan Saya by Ramadhan KH

Singapore Story: Up-and-Coming Sarah Pei Ling

2011-04-25T14:39:00.002+07:00

Singapore can be regarded as a very serious country when its then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew enacted the chewing gum ban. He got very angry for the gum disposal had dirtied public facilities, such as floors, starways, mailboxes, inside keyholes and even on elevator buttons. This ridiculous act implies clearly that the government regulates everything included trivial matters. And if you can’t chew the gums even if you will dispose them properly, let alone you can criticize the government in which you might make it looked dirty.

So, surrounding with draconian laws, can the Singaporeans make a fresh joke?

Yes, they can. In the runup general election slated next year, they can poke fun at government candidate, Tin Pei Ling. The jokesters jealously call her, Sarah Pei Ling, after American Sarah Palin. This Ernst & Young’s business consultant of 27 years old is the youngest candidate fielded by long-standing People’s Action Party. However, the critics level charge of nepotism on grounds that her husband is principal private secretary to the prime minister.

I don’t know much about Sarah Pei Ling, but her background coupled with several tests she had passed might bring her success in the future.

In contrast with Indonesia, to Singapore picking a candidate of Member of Parliament (MP) is not a joke at all. MPs are vetted from the best talented youngsters and groomed, not self-offered. PAP has spent much time for this encompassing background checks, psychology test and informal interview known as tea seasons. This chosen few with average age of 40 will serve as MP and later the best will be the next Prime Minister.

That is Singapore Story that really works.

PAP as the backbone of government has brought Singapore as one of the most prosperous country in the world. Its economy is vibrant, its social relationship is stable, its governance is capable and clean, its succession is clear and its future is promising.

Given this sustainable welfare, it seems the Singaporeans have been caught in PAP’s golden cage. No Singaporeans want to disrupt this. Criticism is needed, but must not hurt. Oppositions are needed, but limited only a few. Matthias Yao, the MP who would be replaced by Sarah Pei Ling, put up a convincing case. He said if you have 40 good people, why not put them in one team, not two teams as taken place in western-style democracy. It does make sense.

Finally, we get back to the question whether Singaporeans have a sense of humor.

It turned out they have. Even Lee Kuan Yew himself, under criticism that chewing gums might unleash creativity, replied:

“If you can’t think because you can’t chew, try a banana.” Ha ha ha …

* * * * *

References:

1. http://e.mydigitalfc.com/dcf/dcf/2011/04/19/ArticleHtmls/19_04_2011_164_022.shtml
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewing_gum_ban_in_Singapore

First Brigadier Norman Camaru: Indonesia’s Yearning for a Hero

2011-04-24T00:46:00.001+07:00

He merely tried to give his troubled colleague consolation by lip-synching an Indian song, then uploaded the footage on Youtube and out of the blue he becomes a celebrity. He unintentionally drives the nation into frenzy. He is First Brigadier Norman Camaru, a member of Police Mobile Brigade Unit of Gorontalo.

Why does he deserve the stardom without any significant achievement as a singer or a dancer much less a policeman? Do we live in sick society who can’t give a true appreciation?

In my opinion, it’s because we are dearth of heroes in every aspect of life.

In governance, we see no policeman matching former Police Chief, Hoegeng, no politician of integrity like M. Natsir, IJ Kasimo; no leaders with technological prowess inheriting Habibie, etc. Instead we are overwhelmed with the wrongdoing of barefaced lawmakers, incompetent-coward-feeble leaders, and corrupting government officers.

Moreover, our politics, the suitable arena to nurture a hero, fail giving birth of even a single hero. Instead, the politics becomes laughingstock to many of us. It gives us comedians, soap opera actress/actor to become regional leaders or lawmakers. Their speech is boring and uninspiring, their action is dull, their vision is … sorry, do they have a vision?

Neither does in business. There are no outstanding entrepreneurs or industrialists arise from Indonesia’s business environment with competitive-innovative products selling all across the world. Producing killing cigarettes, selling raw commodities, extracting coals/minerals from the earth, or assembling foreign-made products is still the most lucrative business in Indonesia.

In short, there is no one to be proud of.

In vacuum of hero, we desperately co-opt anyone – this time is Norman Camaru – to quench the national thirst. As our proverb goes if there is no rattan, roots will do.

Our subconscious seems to poke fun at our leaders, our government officers, our lawmakers who never show heroic struggle to improve people’s life. They have never been applauded sincerely as much as we give it to Norman. They just don’t realize they are being mocked by our adulation to Norman.

However, whatever happens, keep enjoying life and let us sing: chaiyya, chaiyya, chaiyya.

* * * * *

Free Trade: Good or Bad for Indonesia?

2011-04-15T11:02:00.001+07:00

ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA) had been inked since 2002 and the agreement would come into effect in 2010. Certainly, it’s not difficult to expect what would happen. Chinese products would overwhelm Indonesia’s market and out-compete locally made products. After a year of implementation, some industries affected by this agreement cry for government’s help. So, what should we do to deal with free trade wisely and effectively?

First off, does free trade really exist? According to former Malaysian Premier, Mahathir Mohammad it never does. All global economic ideas coming from developed nation are usually self-serving despite they call it win-win situation.

To exemplify, America, oft-described as staunch free market supporter, always hamper foreign products sales in domestic market by hook or by crook. Once, America banned palm oil due to its higher cholesterol content. It’s a black campaign from rival American soya bean producers. The research shows that it is true that palm oil’s cholesterol is higher than soya bean’s before cooking, but after cooking the palm oil’s cholesterol will be lower than soya bean. The threatened American catfish producer smashes unfairly Vietnamese producers by uttering that Vietnamese catfish is not a catfish. Moreover, America banned Malaysian gloves because one out of millions gloves had caused allergic reaction. And later they do the same to Japan’s Toyota who beats America’s General Motors as the world’s no.1 car producers.

All these are called non-tariff barrier. So Uncle Sam implies there is no free market for real anyway. He preaches free trade, when it comes to export his products worldwide. And in the same time he protects his domestic industries from foreign rivals by any means.

Second, free trade agreement gives great impact for a country with a lot of competitive products. Although investment is often touted, free trade is mainly about scrapping tariff. If our products are not good enough to sell in ASEAN and China, then no tariff barrier will be redundant.

As matter of fact, Indonesia has 8 years before the free trade implementation. However, the government never committed to industrial development. Post-Pak Harto era, this sector sees decreasing share in GDP. Indonesian producers cannot outperform foreign ones in Indonesian market itself, let alone in overseas market. Indonesian products can compete neither in price nor in quality. As a result, made in China, made in Japan, made in Taiwan, made Germany from low end to high end products are wall-to-wall presence here.

Domestic industries are stuttering. Unfortunately only Indonesia out of ASEAN countries complains about the adverse impact of free trade. So it will be shameful for Indonesia to renegotiate ACTFTA. The free trade agreement is water under the bridge. The show must go on, notwithstanding the crippling industries and threatening mass layoffs.

Third, the good news is that Indonesia’s consumers are blessed with cheaper products, we can buy more items. Free trade can also absorb domestic workforce of marketing and distribution as well as of manufacturing if followed by direct investment. Free trade is not so bad as the critics say. Based on 2010 statistics, SBY claimed the unemployment has declined on grounds of industrial, agricultural and service sectors development.

Finally, free trade is double-edged sword which can serve a country well by creating more jobs or kill the domestic industries. However, in the future free trade seems inevitable due to larger market attraction. The government must address this economic trend. Today’s era, government’s officers should have business acumen and technological prowess of industries should be encouraged. Indonesia must strengthen the chosen few industries with specific niche and pour the full attention, energy, and funding so as the products to expand to lucrative overseas markets.

References:

1. http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/04/05/attempts-postpone-some-parts-aseanchina-fta-fail.html
2. http://chedet.co.cc/chedetblog/2010/07/the-free-market.html
3. http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/04/13/no-talks-with-ri-asean-free-trade-pact-china.html
4. http://m.bisnis.com/articles/7334
5. http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/04/13/unemployment-indonesia-has-declined-president-claims.html

Free ‘Em All

2011-04-12T09:12:00.003+07:00

Published in http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/04/17/blog-imo-free-em-all.html
Twenty Indonesian sailors en route to Rotterdam, the Netherlands, were held hostage by Somali pirates in the Arab Peninsula on March 16, 2011. The pirates had increased the ransom from USD 2.6 million in the beginning to USD 9 million now. The hostages’ health is reportedly worsening, but as usual the government has no response on what to do.

Many people, myself included, suggest the government to send our commando to free the hostages right off the bat. It is the right time for TNI to show us that they still make us proud.

The last TNI’s show of force had been taken place in Don Muang Airport, Bangkok, 1981 when ill-fated Garuda airplane was hijacked by Islamic extremist. The operation was very successful and raised TNI to the world’s best commandos.

To ensure the hostage-freeing operation successful, we should remember what had happened in 1981.

First off, at that time we had our best leaders – President Soeharto and army intelligence chief Benny Moerdany – at their finest hour. These two men had been together in Mandala operation freeing (or annexing?) Papua. They both also had strong character and commanding leadership which are hardly found post-Pak Harto era.

The commando’s anti terror unit was not created overnight. It was Benny Moerdani who analyzed that the Indonesia’s plane hijacking would pose threat to national security. Then anti terror unit was established and later led by Sintong Panjaitan. They learned how other countries’ commandos work and Sintong concluded that the key of success in commando operation would have been unrelenting simulation training.

Second, Benny Moerdani had much confidence in his commando to release hostages. At that time the anti terror unit was at his disposal. He asked Pak Harto Harto not to negotiate with terrorists, military option should be chosen and let his men finish the jobs. Then Pak Harto okayed and gave permission to the attacking plan.

Confidence, quick decision and daring to take risk were the main key in this process. Should Benny have no confidence, there would have been no military action against the terrorist. Should Pak Harto have indecisive character, there would have been no chance for TNI to show his power. Louis Pasteur said that chance favors the prepared minds. And the well-trained commando had just got its chance to prove its ability on stage.

The operation was very effective and efficient. It took only 60 hours since the beginning of hijacking to the last gunshot. After the operation, TJP Purba, the anti terror unit member said: “our principle is very simple: silent, decisive and aggressive.”

Third, it was Benny who himself leading the commandos to storm the hijacked airplanes. He was already a general rank at that time and he didn’t need to risk his life in the battle, but he did it. He said the right place for him was with his troops (taking military action). What a brave leader he is!

It is reminiscent of Israelis army battle cry: follow me. The Israeli commanders must be in the vanguard – not in the tent behind the scene – showing their men how to fight the enemies directly. As a result, the leader will get much respect from his followers whether he is either finally dead or still alive.

It brings us to the current situation on our citizens held captive in Somalia. Do we still have the brave leaders with bold actions like Pak Harto and Benny? Are the commandos still at their best?

Pak SBY, to some extents, you have failed to protect Ahmadis, our minority citizens, now it’s time for you to prove your leadership by saving our citizens abroad where there is no pretext anymore.

* * * * * *

Reference:

1. Julius Pour, Benny Moerdani – Profil Prajurit Negarawan

Chinese Wisdom on Western-Style Democracy

2011-04-05T16:34:00.003+07:00

I burst out laughing knowing that Indonesia’s Foreign Minister was invited to Egypt to share the democracy experience – its successes and failures, particularly in general election and political party regulation. Are the Egyptians serious?

Why don’t they see the result of Indonesia’s democracy stretching from rampant corruption, collapsing legal system to lawmakers’ penchant of traveling and frenzy of 1-trillion-rupiah-worth building? In the name of freedom, Indonesians can speak anything freely whether the narrative is true or not, lawmakers – as people’s representatives – can do what they want, what they benefit from and the hardliners can show the killing spree of minorities. To some extents, Western-style democracy makes the government powerless and chaotic situation.

Moreover, look at what has happened in Iraq. Democracy absolutely doesn’t solve the very same problems in the dictatorship. Civil war between Sunni and Shiite seems irresolvable. I don’t know the real statistic data, but I expect that people died in democracy era are much more than during Saddam’s era.

The proponents acknowledge that democracy is messy, but to what level can we tolerate the killings? The proponents might also say that we have to be patient to see the result of democracy, but how can we be ensured that the chaos doesn’t lead to the state failure or even the civil war and never attain the pipe dreams?

* * *

Most people have stopped the wars of idea on western-style democracy. We adore democracy based on its success in western countries. However, many cases indicate the copycat doesn’t work well.

To me, the West gives unintentionally the wrong prescription of democracy to the East. To the West, based on their experiences, democracy really works. So they think democracy is universal. Certainly, freedom principle is universal value, but implementing freedom carelessly will bring a nation into relentless turmoil.

One factor should be taken into account prior to giving democracy prescription to a country or judging benevolent dictatorship. That is the way of thinking as ingrained culture. The experts said that there is huge different way of thinking on how the West and East seeing things.

If you ask for connection of panda, monkey and banana, the West will pick up panda and monkey – because they are in the same category of animal, while the East will choose monkey and banana – simply because monkey eats banana. The West pays attention in focal object while the East sees the big picture.

Given that kind of thinking, it’s understandable why Deng Xiaoping, the then-Chinese paramount leader, decided to quell the students protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989. He said that the protest would lead China to the civil war.

“And if a civil war broke out, with blood flowing like a river, what ``human rights'' would there be? If civil war broke out in China, with each faction dominating a region, production declining, transportation disrupted and not millions or tens of millions but hundreds of millions of refugees fleeing the country, it is the Asia-Pacific region, which is at present the most promising in the world, that would be the first to be affected. And that would lead to disaster on a world scale, “ Deng argued.

And Deng prescient remark – a civil war broke out, with blood like a river – has turned into reality in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Deng could see the big picture of a single event of demonstration. From the West’s point of view, the crackdown is the infringement of human rights, but if you look the big picture, in fact the crackdown will save more lives and finally save the country.

In Iraq the West focuses only on democracy itself and pushes the unprepared Iraqis to embrace democracy as soon as possible regardless the major prerequisite – the existence of educated people in majority who get used to obey rule of law. As a result, without those solid foundations, democracy becomes democrazy and brings hell on earth.

So it is time for the rest of the world to take Western-style democracy with a grain of salt.

* * * * *

Reference:

1. http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/egypt-asks-for-indonesias-help-in-implementing-democracy/432215
2. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB104881491132002400.html
3. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/dengxp/vol3/text/d1150.html

Ill-Fated Indonesian Soccer

2011-03-31T09:41:00.000+07:00

Why do human species conquer the world despite the existence of other stronger, quicker and bigger animals? It’s because only human can organize themselves effectively so as to protect themselves from any threats and through the very cooperation to achieve highest culture on earth. That specific trait has made human species prevails. The natural law is the better organization lead to more power.

We call it synergy which is to work in sync amplifying exponentially power of each part. It’s about developing cooperation. All human’s high achievements come from cooperation. The incredible moonshot stemmed from cooperation of American best minds rather than a work of one genius. Multinational corporations can only grow on ground of authority delegation and trust.

However, Indonesia seems to take the reverse way of human natural propensity. Indonesians prefer to weaken organizations rather than strengthen them. To exemplify, Indonesia’s political parties tend to be torn by strife, particularly after the party’s congress. Parties are usually established based on short term interest. People still join the party when they are given a good position in the party. If not, they will establish splinter groups.

It brings us to the recent chaotic Indonesia Soccer Association (PSSI) Congress in Pekanbaru last week. We see neither wisdom nor good will of incumbent PSSI officers. They have regarded PSSI as Indonesia’s political party. Taking up chairmanship of organization becomes everything despite compromising the future of Indonesian soccer.

The rule of organization should be so simple: to work together so as to achieve specific target in sustainable way. The rule for the chairman is also simple: if you can deliver the result, you can go on, if you can’t, please step down gracefully and pass the helm to other.

Nurdin Halid has assumed office since 2003 and has not given us any single trophy yet. In my opinion he has worked hard to make progress including the much-praised naturalization program, but to no avail. Worse, he fails to wean LSI off state budget whereas its competitor, Arifin Panigoro’s LPI, succeeds.

Organizational bickering devastates Indonesian football. Irfan Bachdim who has changed nationality can’t play for national team due to his club joins the banned-league. Now soccer fans talk about ousting Nurdin instead of how much progress Alam has done in Penarol. Much time and energy have been spent unseemly.

Frankly speaking, we are fed up with this relentless commotion of Indonesia’s organization including Soccer Organization which supposed to be ruled by sportiveness. We want to see the organizations that work well and bear fruit led by statesmanship rather than brinkmanship.

* * * * *

Indonesia’s Nuclear Power Plant: To Build or Not To Build

2011-03-23T13:55:00.002+07:00

In the wake of Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant calamity, Indonesians raise their concerns on the plan of first Indonesia’s nuclear power plant which is scheduled to be on stream in 2017. The government has been ready with the plan encompassing law, presidential decree, studies and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) approval.

Despite the nuclear energy is not a must, but people should know that Indonesia can no longer hinge on oil which now accounts for 51.66% of energy supply. Indonesia is not the oil-rich country anymore. In the mean time, the usage of non-fossil energy (hydropower and geothermal) constitutes only 5%. If Indonesia can’t shift its energy structure, it will jeopardize its economy due to the unstable supply and price of oil.

After carrying out simulations of supply and demand of energy to get the best combination, the government has planned to decrease oil fuel share in its energy mix, while increase coal, gas and renewable energy including nuclear power. The government envisions national energy mix in 2025 will consist of coal, gas oil, and renewable energy at the level of 33%, 30%, 20% and 17%, respectively. And the presidential decree stipulates that nuclear power plant will provide 2% of Indonesia’s energy demand in 2025.

The policy is reasonable and so does the option of nuclear power. Furthermore, there are 3 (three) candidate sites of nuclear power plant, namely: Muria Peninsula (Central Java), Banten (West Java) and Bangka Belitung. As yet, only the people of Central Java oppose conspicuously the idea. In contrast, Bangka Belitung council supports it.

However, the recent Japan’s nuclear incident has made the nuclear policy look bad. Now more people or institutions clamor against the nuclear energy and ask the government to abandon the nuclear energy policy. The main reason to reject the idea is either Indonesians is not ready with such sophisticated and risky technology or nuclear power plant is too danger given the catastrophes in Chernobyl and Fukushima.

In this case, I am on neutral ground. However, many accounts of the downside of nuclear power plant are exacerbated and in fact, the renewable energy sources are still pipe dreams for mass production.

First, nuclear power plant is not the most dangerous compared to other more common energy source such as coal. The nuclear power plant disasters are rare. The worst nuclear disaster was in Chernobyl claimed “only” 28 lives. Do you know that in China, 2,442 workers were killed in 1,401 coal mining incidents in 2010, while in the United States, 18 coal miners died in 2009?

Somebody may dispute about 6,000 cases of tyroid cancer caused by Chernobyl disaster. Recently the US Environment Protection Agency rules the limit of mercury and other toxins resulted in coal power plant that will prevent 17,000 premature death and 11,000 heart attacks a year.

This brings us to Josef Stalin who said: “Death of one man is a tragedy. Death of a million is a statistic." Statistically, nuclear power plants are safer than coal power plants which have largest share of world’s energy supply at 41%.

Nuclear power has a bad association with atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki which hundreds of thousands of people were dead, not to mention the science fiction of radiation-creates-Godzilla. Surely, the failure of nuclear power plant is possible but the incidence is definitely few.

Second, nuclear power has been inevitable at least for the next decades to satisfy the world’s energy demand. Of course, the renewable energy, particularly biofuel, solar and wind energy make headway, but in real life they won’t be enough.

Finally, Indonesia does need variety of energy to speed up the economic development while reducing the energy cost. And each energy source has its own advantages and disadvantages. Nuclear energy is neither the best nor the worst. Accordingly, the government must put this option on the table along with others.

* * * * *

Source:

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/business/energy-environment/21green.html?_r=1
2. Nuclear Energy Development In Indonesia, Achmad S. Sastratenaya & Ariyanto Sudi, Center for Nuclear Energy Development, BATAN

The World Does Need America

2011-03-17T10:00:00.001+07:00

Sometimes we hate America, but sometimes we need its superpower to restore the situation. We sometimes see America as a good guy referring to Balkan war, but in another time as a bad guy seeing what has happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s like Goethe’s Faust: “Two souls, alas! Are lodg’d within my breast.”

As far as world affairs are concerned, only America has the world’s tacit mandate to reward or punish other countries. When the Serbs killed Bosniaks en masse, the world asked America-led NATO for aerial bombing. And it repeated in Kosovo war which NATO bombarded Yugoslav positions. The wars only stopped because of American intervention.

In contrast, America fails in Iraq and Afghanistan. The then-American president George Bush leveled charge of nuclear armament ownership, but later the accusation is baseless. America left Iraqis mired in sectarian war, rampant corruption and incapable government. It also happened in Afganistan. After 9/11 calamity, Bush sent troops to Afghan soil hunting for Osama bin Laden. The already war-torn country became the guinea pig for the state-of-the-art American war machine from bomb-laden drones to cluster bombs. At last, American can neither catch Osama nor stabilize the war-ravaged country.

Nowadays, the Libyan crisis emerges. The people are fed up longtime dictator Gadaffi. Unlike the similar revolution in Tunisia and Egypt which settled amicably, in Libya Gadaffi shamefully uses the arm forces to crackdown the protesters. Despite the rebels cobble the provisional army, but it’s no match with trained and well equipped Gadaffi’s forces, not to mention the involvement of mercenaries. No wonder the world are infuriated with the lopsided battle. Then the world cries out in unison: “Hey Yankee, no-fly zone please.”

Surprisingly, this time America seems to be reluctant with the rising demand. America might either get tired of war or have financial problems. America passively let the United Nations taking charge for the solution. Having lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan war, American officials said to resolve Libyas’ civil war other countries should also put their skin in the game.

Given the case of war in Balkan or Libya, it turns out to be the world does need a superpower putting the world in order. It’s strange feeling belying our instinct that all countries should have similar rights and obligations and no country can dictate others. We realize that without a superpower notion, the world becomes lawless. Of course, the rogues are still out there either in Myanmar or in North Korea, but their influences are very limited. Deep inside my heart I want America to liberate Myanmar’s and North Korea’s people.

Unfortunately, the superpower America is crippling. The political spats have worsened the impact of resent world’s economic crisis. America brought the world into crisis and took the brunt of it. While America scrambles for recovery, China, the rising dragon, stares at the number one position. China is now touted to be the world’s no.1 economy in the next decades replacing America.

However, will China deserve the police of the world? Can we accept the China’s value of no-freedom government? Can China change to America-like superpower embracing human rights, freedom of speech, etc when it gains its prosperity?

Since we can’t answer it now, we must have no other love, but America.

* * * * *

Japan’s Armageddon

2011-03-16T12:54:00.000+07:00

Do you remember Bruce Willis’ Armageddon? In that film an asteroid headed to Earth and unless it was blocked, the Earth would be crashed and unimaginable disaster would come about. The solution was to implant nuclear bomb in the asteroid so as to explode it in outer space. The chosen few doing the job is given to the oil-drilling master led by Bruce Willis. I am so moved when seeing the team set out as the mellow soundtrack of Leaving on the Jet Plan was played. The fate of the world was in a handful of people.

In a similar vein, 71 year ago, during the World War II, when Britain threatened by German invasion, the British government hinged much on the chosen few Royal Air Force pilots. The situation was horrible due chiefly to the mighty of German war machine including German Luftwaffe. During the visit to RAF Operation Room, the then-British Prime Minister uttered the famous quotes: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

The huge temblor of 9.0 Richter scale has just rattled Japan. Unfortunately, the disaster becomes triple whammy: earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe. The earthquake and tsunami have made the cooling system of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station out of commission. The Japan’s technicians are now scrambling to fix it. However, the progress is still unclear whether the calamity is under control or not. And the last information said that to prevent the disaster Japan pins hopes on 50 workers who are still in the facilities. The brave 50 workers become the Japan’s so much owed by so many to so few.

Depending our survival on few people should become the last option. What will happen if they can’t manage the problem? It’s too risky. In terms of nuclear power usage, the bet of disaster probability must not be taken. The bad news is that many developing countries have installed the very nuclear facilities. It’s chilling picture of our earth. The well-prepared Japan has found it difficult to manage the emergency situation, let alone the fledgling experts in developing countries.

It’s better now to promote the research and development of renewable energy such as solar, wind, wave or bio material. We don’t want any Armageddon, particularly man-made one.

* * * * *

Adding Value to Mineral Commodities

2011-03-10T13:43:00.003+07:00

Sometimes the government thinks too hard on how to spur economy, but seems to forget picking up the low hanging fruit. And one of the ripe fruits is: to add value to the mineral commodities.

From time immemorial, Indonesia’s rampant natural resources extraction becomes conspicuously the fuel of other countries development. Somehow since the day of independence until now, the government hasn’t done its homework to make the most benefit from available value chains. For instance, Indonesia exports its iron ores to China and then imports irons and steels from China. Indonesia foolishly let China grabbing the values for the things that actually can be processed in Indonesia. In other commodities such as palm oil, cocoa, rubber, the same thing occurs.

Fortunately, the Mining Law No 4/2009 came out with the new paradigm. It has obligated the mining companies to add value to commodities before exporting. I think the law – if well implemented – gives the huge leverage to other aspects of development.

The first, it’s good for job creation. If the iron ores is domestically processed – instead of exported it to China, then smelters must be constructed and workers be hired. I imagine at that time the government utters the agriculture and fishery mechanization program, so the demand of machinery equipment made of iron and steel will rise. All value chain located in Indonesia, therefore all added-value will be enjoyed by Indonesians. It’s possible on grounds that Indonesia which its relatively huge budget can create its own feasible domestic market.

The second, it’s good for development equity. Since most of natural resources situated outer Java island and the following value chain development took place there, then it will push the development of very area. Naturally, the Java island’s population will decline due to voluntarily migration. It’s not only good for economy but environment as well.

The third, it’s good for national education. Extraction of natural resources needs limited span of technology. Only few scientists and engineers are needed. It might be the explanation for the fate of Indonesia’s experts who either flee this country or become bankers, or journalists. So the national education which spends much portion in state budget becomes futile. The law will encourage more research and development activities – as one indicator of nation progress – along with job creation of higher wage workers.

Finally, to some extent Mining Law is a very good law. In that law, the mineral producers should comply with the obligation of adding value to commodities by 2014 and coal producers by 2016. However, nowadays, after a year in effect, the mining producers begin to complain. They said that the policy would undermine Indonesia’s export and building smelters wouldn’t be economically feasible. It’s merely nonsense. The government should ignore these voices. And the people should watch the implementation starting in 2014. Hopefully, the policy bears fruit and the dawn of mass commodities-processing industrialization breaks.

* * * * *

All Roads Lead To Prosperity

2011-03-08T13:57:00.000+07:00

The way of country’s development is often considered as one size fit all. America-led market liberalization and democratization idea overwhelms all over the world. The governments – especially in crisis – are pushed to embrace the liberal idea either voluntarily or forcedly. Indonesians experienced this dilemma back to 1998. However, seeing what has happened in China and Germany, that long-standing tenet of liberalism or democracy should have been revised.

China is not democratic country. It clearly deprived its citizens of democracy and freedom of speech. Even it ridiculously bans Facebook and Twitter. It also insists to maintain socialism, but socialism with Chinese characteristic. It also upholds irrelevant Communist Party that turns out to give an impressive result. The stability-create-prosperity idea proves right.

Tellingly, the Chinese pave the new way of modern government. Chinese reveals multi-party system is not the only option. The single party system can deliver the same outcome. In China, the Communist Party in power doesn’t mean that other best minds aren’t accommodated. Two of Chinese ministers are not the party members. The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference transforms to be a big think thank covering the China’s best minds and all stakeholders. It implicates that all policies comes from people rather than from an arrogant power.

China has challenged the democracy idea as the best system with compelling result. China begins to outperform America. The best account why the China’s system works is that meritocracy prevails. Let the best manage the rest. The leadership is always reinvigorated by regular succession. In short the scorching political clout is not the sake of power, but to do good for all people.

The other success story is Germany – the steadfast welfare state – where the free market idea is ousted. Americans frequently look down this communist-like system regarded as inefficient, unproductive and out-of-date system.

To exemplify, the German’s powerful worker unions don’t allow lay-offs which is impossible task during economic crisis. Theoretically, every company can hire or fire the workers in flexible way so as to keep the business responsive to the market. The flexibility makes the enterprises easily to be restructured and compete with new innovations. However, given such conditions, German’s companies are neither uncompetitive nor unproductive. Even they can survive in economic crises.

The recipe is likely that German enterprises didn’t have an America’s habit of outsourcing. They still produce machineries or simple tools which now associated with Chinese expertise. Certainly German’s products can’t be cheaper than China. Relying on their superior technology, they compete in quality rather than price. Now some pundits name German as China of Europe.

German’s economic system might be obsolete and travel the different path with other developed countries, but it really works.

Both paragons of China and German confirm that there is no single way of development. The long-standing democracy-lead-prosperity faith now can be juxtaposed with meritocracy-lead-prosperity faith. The free market does seek efficiency and outsourcing is a way of it, but Germans show that outsourcing is irrelevant when quality in charge.

* * *

Towards Knowledge-Based Economy

2011-03-01T14:35:00.000+07:00

Developed nations invariably depend on knowledge-based economy. Whatever they do in business, they add unrelentingly the more value to goods and services. The secret has been revealed. To be rich, every nation needs only to mine ideas inside its citizens’ craniums, rather than to mine oil inside earth. Natural resource-starved lands could barely hamper Japan, Korea or Singapore coming out as world’s top-notch nations.

Once under Habibie’s influence, mastering technology was an up-and-coming way to develop this nation. Technology is instilled in country’s development. The zeitgeist gave us short-lived confidence of ability to make sophisticated products. Now it seems to peter out.

The Habibie’s strategic industries and science development centers come out as the powerhouse of high tech products. The apex of achievement is N250 turboprop carrier’s maiden flight in August 1995 which claimed as the brainchild of Indonesian engineers. Besides aircraft industry, Indonesia operates several cutting edge industries such as PT PAL for shipbuilding, PT Pindad for arms producing, PT Inka for train manufacturing. However, after decades experiences, they are still the world’s second or third class manufacturers due chiefly to post-Habibie government’s lack of attention. Their products are not the first choice in this country, let alone in the world.

Since the knowledge-based economy prevails, the government should prepare this nation for the harsh completion in the future. Both government and people must understand that world has changed, so has the rule.

I notice there are at least 3 (three) insights affecting every country’s economy. These ideas must be fervently grasped by Indonesia’s policy makers to pave the way for the next Indonesia’s economic engines.

Stan Shih’s Smiling Curve

Stan Shih, the founder of Acer, proposed idea of smiling curve which particularly regulate the IT-related industry. He observed that the most value added to products goes to the downstream (research and development activities) and the upstream (marketing), while the least value goes to manufacturing which lies in the middle of value chain. It makes the curve is like smiling. The curve indicates the company focusing on R & D and marketing will be more prosperous than manufacturing company.

Recently Indonesia’s government is upbeat with its economy because of footware manufacturing in China will relocate their factory to Indonesia. Should the government grasp the smiling curve, it will soon realize that Indonesia’s workers only gain the smallest value of the footware’s value chain. Nike, Adidas, Mizuno, etc who undertake the research will take the most profit.

Accordingly, start grooming Indonesia’s R&D-oriented companies, nurturing them by giving them finance or even government’s contract.

Jeremy Rifkin’s End of Work

The gist is robots kill the jobs. Automation not only overwhelms the developed countries’ factories but the developing one as well. The western’s flummoxed politicians might point their fingers at China’s factories for the lost of their people’s jobs. Outsourcing becomes the scapegoat of high unemployment. However, according to Jeremy Rifkin, China itself has lost 15% of jobs forever. Many politicians merely don’t know what kind of new economy dictates.

The trend eventually exacerbate Indonesia’s economy. The government should not be complacent with country’s status as the source of cheap, unskilled workers. The government should have known the automation trend disappearing traditional jobs. The idea of manufacturer-can- absorb-much-workers has been obsolete. In the future economic zones likely boost the economy, but not workers hiring.

Disruptive Technology: Fledgling Samsung beats Seasoned Sony

Despite the Indonesia’s staggering future, we can still see light at the end of the tunnel. Fortunately, the new trend of technology provides the developing countries big opportunities to compete, even outcompete the developed ones.

The reason why Samsung can outperform Sony lies in the prevailing structure of technology. In analog device Sony is the king, but in digital device Sony is the ousted king. In digital era there is no significant advantage of the experienced companies to the new ones, because the process to create product is totally different with the past. Now most products are built by components producing from different companies.

To exemplify, think about computer. Nowadays, in theory anyone can assembly a computer. Certainly, we can’t still make processor or memory, but those parts are ubiquitous in the market. The needed skill is to assembly. It leads the successful companies don’t need tremendous skill in technology as in the past.

Likewise, America’s inexperienced Dell rivals the juggernauts, HP and IBM merely because they have great expertise in assembling and marketing rather than technology invention.

Those are three insights which rule the knowledge-based economy included challenges and opportunities. Indonesia’s economy must move shrewdly in sync with the new trend.

To play in knowledge-based economy league, the apt policies are needed. People’s education must be the highest priority. Only the smart people with great initiatives and creativity can survive in the future economy. The state-owned enterprise must spearhead the shift to knowledge-based economy. In many cases, the assured demands of government can nurture the skill improvement of company prior to compete worldwide.

* * * * *

Indonesia’s Population: Challenge and Opportunity

2011-02-25T11:23:00.001+07:00

Experts call it window of opportunity. In 2020s, Indonesia population structure gives the best opportunity to prosperity. In that golden era, the dependency ratio will land the lowest point which means the maximum number of productive people (15 – 65 years old) carrying the burden of minimum number of unproductive people (0-14 and 65+ years old).

Thank to this kind of opportunity, coupled with the right economic policy, China can spur its development with double-digit growth for 3 decades. China enjoyed its last advantage in 2010 before the dependency ratio will rise and growing the economy will be harder.

Can Indonesia benefit from the very opportunity?

Unfortunately, Indonesia’s reformation era was too late. If China needs 30 years to get the momentum, then the reformation should have taken place in early 1980s. Ten years would be taken for political consolidation and stability, before starting the “real” development in 1990s. The next 30 years would be spent for “what China has done” – adopt the western-proven economic system with China characteristic, build world class infrastructure for economic zone, invite foreign investment and learn how to make good products, invest much money on education, adore meritocracy in selecting leaders and groom the national companies to be the top-notch ones. And the Indonesia’s golden era 0f 2020s would be achieved. I am dreaming!

Indonesia seems not to follow China’s track. However, as a citizen I only hope for change. The die is cast. Whatever our condition – getting busy with wasting-time of political bickering, ineffective leadership and no ambitious goal to make China-like neck-breaking economic growth – the window of opportunity should be grasped. At least it becomes our national awareness.

Besides political disarray and disintegrated development, another big challenge is the structure of labor force numbered 114.9 millions in 2010. The agriculture sector’s workers account for 42.1%, whereas industry and services make up 18.6% and 39.3%, respectively. There are too many farmers! Since the farmers sell commodities which priced lower than value added manufacturing goods, the national income per capita also remains lower than the highly industrialized country.

Indonesia had ever been touted as one of Asian Tiger due to rapid and dynamic industrialization. But now the Tiger looks very sick; Indonesia is experiencing deindustrialization which the share of industry sector to GDP declining.

Industrialization – as a vital source absorbing workers – runs out of steam. Industries can no longer hire more workers. There are 4.5 low-skilled migrant workers. Likewise the high-skilled ones fled this country. Habibie fretted that during his stint Indonesia had more than 48.000 experts of high-tech industry whom 16.000 were employed by IPTN. The current number of IPTN’s workforce is less than 3.000. In robust economy, these experts should strengthen local industries to compete with foreign ones.

Finally, given those facts, Indonesia can be dubbed as a country with the specialization of (i) wasting natural resources – prefer to selling them abroad instead of harnessing for domestic use, (ii) wasting time by unrelenting political spat, (iii) if not well managed, wasting its demographic dividend.

* * * * *

Indonesia’s Too-Slowly-Implemented Economic Corridors

2011-02-14T23:41:00.003+07:00

I admit that President SBY has tried hard to make good for this country. The long time-discussed economic corridors development shows his effort. However, as usual, the initiative is largely implemented on the table rather than on ground. To me, economic corridor story is the ensuing laughingstock of SBY’s government, next to law enforcement and religious tolerance.

There are 5 (five) reasons that economic corridors are likely doomed to failure.

First, it’s completely too late for the government to execute the program. The deliberation of economic corridor has begun since, at least, the onset of SBY’s second term. So why do it start the next April 2011? Certainly, time is running out bearing in mind SBY’s administration expired in 2014.

Economic corridor is not a novel way to boost economy. Ample best practices from China or Malaysia can be learned. All government of developing countries should automatically have thought about it since the first day of taking the office. Surprisingly, now Coordinating Minister of Economic, Hatta Radjasa, vehemently tells us about the benefit of economic corridors.

Second, the government is wasting time to marshal long-term plan on economic corridor until 2025. This work will be a boondoggle since the next president will think about development differently; reminiscent of Habibie’s abandoned Integrated Economic Zone (KAPET).

The most important thing for the government right now is to deliver the development now at least until 2014, and not in 2025. It’s none of its business.

Third, the government is not serious. Infrastructure development is indispensable to Economic Corridors. However, the good intention belies Indonesia’s Infrastructure expenditure which is the lowest among the developing country, reaching only 2% of GDP, while China 10%, Vietnam 8%. The expert says infrastructure development must be earmarked at least 5%.

Fourth, there are too many corridors for the limited budget. It’s planned 6 (six) economic corridors all across archipelago. The government encourages private sectors to finance the corridors through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme. Up to now this scheme is hardly undertaken. The now-Infrastructure Reform Sector Development Project (IRSDP) which mostly promoted the scheme moves at a snail’s pace.

Fifth, the initiatives might be ill-planned. During SBY’s visit to Surabaya Institute of Technology (ITS) in December 2010, the students held demonstration asking for Madura Island as special economic zone. The president okayed this demand. I am flabbergasted. How can the government determine the economic zone based on students’ directive?

* * *

I always respect Pak Harto due chiefly to his development result. Apart from his infringement of human rights as well as his family inappropriate wealth, he had left us legacy: first toll road, passenger vessels serving nationwide, ports, dams, strategic industries including first local designed plane, first-ever self-sufficient rice production, etc. He deserves as Indonesia’s development father.

My two cents: Pak SBY, You will have 10 years stint. Please, leave us impressive legacy which is, as yet, nearly none. We need something that can be remembered and referred as your work, your remarkable contibution to this country. Economic corridor could be the chosen one.

* * * * *

Let Ahmadis Live Side-By-Side With Us

2011-02-08T11:39:00.005+07:00

I wonder why many people are so keen to expect the change of Ahmadis’ belief. It will be futile efforts. You can kill them as well as torture them. But as long as belief is concerned, you can do nothing about it.

In today’s era, religion is seen differently. In the past, only certain people – with claim of representative of God – take control how we should practice religion. But now we cannot accept this out-of-date idea. Religion is purely private area. It is between you and God. Nobody has special right to tell us what to do or what to believe in. We can discuss about my belief and your belief, but at the end of our discussion let me do my own way with my own brain and you do with yours.

Human rights – freedom of religion included – becomes the universal idea. Indonesia has ratified International Covenant and Political Rights in 2006 which state to respect freedom of religion. Unfortunately our government is not consistent with this by upholding controversial blasphemy law which provides criminal penalties for those who express religious beliefs that deviate from the central tenets of the six officially recognized religions.

Indonesia’s blasphemy law seems to be implausible. I pick up one officially recognized religion, for instance Islam. In Islam there are at least 2 large mainstreams, consisting of Shiite and Sunni. They have many things which are the same as well as many things which are different. Can we judge Shiite as blasphemy of Sunni and vice versa? Of course not, since nobody can decide which one is right, which one is wrong. At last we let the people choose what kind of way they practice Islam. In my opinion, given this example we should give the same opportunity to the Ahmadiyah’s adherents.

Moreover, the Abhamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – intertwine. On the advent of Christianity, the followers were also considered as blasphemy to the old teachings. So were the followers of Islam. That is the nature of a newly-born religion. To Jews, Islam can be blasphemy to their religion since Islam includes Jews’ prophets in Islamic teaching. So why should we be bothered with Ahmadiyah creating new style of Islam. Can you imagine if the Jews forbid Muslims and Christians to take King David as one of their prophet, because King David is a Jew?

* * *

The startling moment of anti-Ahmadiyah violence is the absence of state in protecting its citizens. I have watched the footage on youtube the big-belly cop let the people lynch a powerless and bloody Ahmadi at hand.

And then after giving condemnation, the government officers were busy conducted meeting and meeting without doable resolution as if the occurrence in Pandeglang Banten was the first time of persecution.

Coward leader and incapable security officers must be blamed for this savage!

* * * * *

Sober Facts: Autocratic Egypt and Tunisia Are Richer Than Democratic Indonesia

2011-02-04T14:54:00.003+07:00

I often heard on Indonesia’s TV station in which the middle-east “experts” analyzed that poverty was one of the culprits of recent Arab’s revolution. It is true for Yemen, but not for Tunisia and Egypt. Let’s fiddle with figures.

Compared to Indonesia’s income per capita, Tunisia’s and Egypt’s are higher. According to CIA Factbook, Indonesia’s reaches USD 4,300, while Tunisia’s and Egypt’s amounts USD 9,500 and USD 6,200, respectively. It is true that Yemenis is poorer than Indonesians. Accordingly in terms of prosperity, apart from Yemenis, there is no reason to revolt.

By instinct, incomes distribution must be the next reason to topple the government. It might be true for Tunisia, but not for Egypt and Yemen. Based on UNDP data, Tunisia’s Gini Coeffient stands at 39.8. This is higher than Egypt, Yemen and Indonesia where the coefficient recorded 34, 33.4, 34.3, respectively. It means the income gap between the rich and the poor is much wider in Tunisia than in the remaining countries. The income ratio of the richest 10% and 20% also put Tunisia at the highest rank of inequality. As far income equality concerns, Egyptians and Yemenis thereby are going too far.

The next thing why people are up in arms with government is: inflation! Based on CIA Factbook, Egypt and Yemen experience high inflation of more than 12%. Tunisia’s inflation is on par with Indonesia around 4.5-5%.

From these indicators, Yemenis has the most reason to oust its leader. The Yemen’s leader’s effort to prosper the people is to no avail. They become poor as well as suffer from high price. Hosni Mubarak fails because of high inflation reminiscent of Indonesia’s woes in 1998. At last, poor Ben Ali, he did manage to make his people rich. Tunisia is much prosperous even compared to Indonesia. But unfortunately he didn't succeed in distributing income.

* * * * *

Grooming Leaders

2011-02-02T09:15:00.000+07:00

Democracy supporters always brag the best leaders invariably come from elections. It might be true for certain condition. However, democratic America’s worsening economy casts doubt about the primacy of democratic system. On the contrary, single-party-ruled China’s rising power gives another insight.

People wonder how China can develop amazingly in light of its terrible Communist party-led system. The success recipe might hail from leadership preparation and succession.

Even though the next succession of China’s communist party secretary and president will take place in 2012 and 2013, respectively, people have already known that the next China’s president will be Xi Jinping, now-vice president.

The future leaders of China are the youngest persons selected in Politburo Standing Committee, the most powerful decision-making body. They would be in the inner circle of power controlling the country for years. During this apprenticeship, they would have learned day-to-day government activities. They become also fully acquainted with problems and how to solve them. Previously, President Hu Jintao was also groomed by the same kind of preparation for years before taking helm.

As a result China’s president is ready to weather the country’s problem caused by internal or external factors. This well-prepared president knows exactly what to do and how to do it. Recent world’s finance crisis reveals how China managed to overcome the crises much better than US.

Certainly, leadership preparation is not a single factor contributing to the success or not of managing crisis. The country’s system also plays a major role. The US’ checks and balances power clearly make things worse. The divided lawmakers hampered the president’s policies and measures. Thanks to its system, China’s experienced president along with experienced team can make decision decisively without opposition.

Singapore has shared the same idea with China on successive plan. They prepared the leaders from their age of 30s. After being educated in the top-notch universities all over the world and serving for years in government, they will have dexterity and know-how in running the government. That makes knowledge-based Singapore can adapt to every world’s situation and win the game.

Sports match much with the idea of grooming leaders from scratch rather than choosing them in the short-term contest such as in an election. In sports, the first thing is the candidate of top performers must have talent. And then the talent is honed through harsh training. And the right time to do this is in the childhood. The next step will be the test of the skill in the real game. The top performers arise from this process.

And it is imperative to acknowledge that there will be no false top-performers in sports. Michael Jordan got his stature because he could dribble the ball nimbly and shoot aptly. So did Maradona. A slew of money cannot buy this. Let say if you are a billionaire, you can’t hype for Bambang Pamungkas to be a recognized world class soccer. Meritocracy always prevails in sports.

Unfortunately, democratic system has considerable downside on the way of seizing the throne. If you have money or even charisma, despite lack of ability, you can still win the election. Money can buy political power.

Finally, it’s time to rethink democracy as the best system. The paragon of China and Singapore now inevitably should be taken into account. Even the staunch supporter of liberal democracy, Francis Fukuyama included, begin to admit that China’s system does better in pursuing the nation’s goal. Another path has been revealed.

* * * * *

Whither Indonesia?

2011-01-24T13:47:00.002+07:00

Democracy has given a broad space to the press scrutinizing openly every single occurrence. We become overwhelmed with information. However the well informed public turn disillusioned since the blatant wrongdoings are never handled in just and logic way. We see evils have won many times.

Recently the court gave us startling verdict of Gayus' 7 years' imprisonment. How come? Gayus is corrupt tax officer. He has amassed unbelievable amount of money obtained from taxpayers. He freely had trips to Bali, Macao and Malaysia during his detention. And now he only has to serve in jail for 7 years. This false verdict clearly encourages young tax officers to corrupt tens of billions rupiah for eventually being punished just several years. It's worth to try.

On the heels of the lenient sentence, Gayus got his strength. He fights back by leveling charges at SBY's anti mafia taskforce for engineering the case to political affairs. He transforms from corrupt legal officer to whistle blower as if he never did anything wrong.

In another case, Nurdin Khalid, the chairman of Indonesian Football Association and once serving in jail during his tenure, is another unbeatable 'superman'. Actually he is not too-bad chairman, but he absolutely not good enough to bring the organization into modern one and deliver the achievement. He has taken the helm for two terms and now eyes for the third as if no other person can manage the organization. PSSI seems to be political organization instead of sports institution. People desperately ask for his resignation but it is of no avail.

To sideline him, some people try to hold Liga Premier Indonesia (LPI), a modern league wannabe competing PSSI-held Liga Super Indonesia (LSI). The best of LPI is that the clubs stop weaning from regional budgets. Sports are secondary need, so it's better to earmark the fund for much-needed sector such as poverty eradication.

Things get worse since some national players such as Irfan Bachdim joins LSI's Persema. Then Alfred Riedl, national U-23 team coach, left out him from his squad. It's no-brainers analyzing Irfan must be out because of his choice of LPI.

Accordingly, football management becomes in a great mess. The energy depletes not for achievements but for eliminating other parties.

The last example will be the development plan of new parliament tower. Lawmakers turn out to be troublemakers. Once they made overseas junkets in the name of comparative study. Once in Century Bank debacle they acted as prosecutors. Recently they pretend to be hard workers asking for more office spaces whereas they often sleep during meetings.

The fantastic budget to the tune of Rp. 1.3 trillion prompts public outcries. However no one can stop them due to lack of constitutional means. In reformation era, house of representative comes out to be super body that no institution can match.

These facts show Indonesia's crippling system: the winning bad guys, absent of meritocracy, politicizing sports. Should we neglect these – without reliable system of life – Indonesia would never be a developed country in the future. To fix this mess, inevitably we need a real leader who is never afraid to intervene and make a bold and decisive action.

On SBY Leadership

2011-01-20T09:07:00.003+07:00

Can you ask a shuttler to be a good soccer player? Or can you ask a back to be a goal-hungry striker? By all means you can't do that. It's not about will, but it's about 'genetic' traits thing you hardly deny. Accordingly you can't complain SBY's inaction on anti-corruption war. That's what he has got. Should you ask him more, you flog the dead horse.

Not long time ago Rizal Ramli analyzed SBY's leadership. He said that SBY fitted for UN Secretary General in light of SBY's passion of holding meetings instead of problem-solving action. He tends to tackle problems indirectly or ask other parties to do his own jobs. This recent legal handling of tax mafia cases brings the confirmation of his character.

Gayus Tambunan, the corrupting tax officer, rampages our legal system. He is like a powerful superman whom no one is able to stop him. Amazingly he somehow had a trip to Macau, Malaysia and Bali when detained. It is impossible for Gayus to do this alone. Many officers hailed from many institutions get involved. And it needs a superman also to unravel all the wrongdoings. That is why many people ask the President, the highest level executive, to act, but hampered by his character he never does.

People actually know his character well since this is his second term taking office. In his previous tenure, it was then-vice president, Jusuf Kalla, energizing the government through risk-taking action such as giving order directly to police chief to arrest Robert Tantular for his misconduct over Bank Century or shifting the national household fuel from kerosene to LPG. Unfortunately, now-vice president, Boediono, has the same style with SBY. He is a thinker without bravery to take any risky actions.

There is nothing wrong with SBY since people have voted him. Certainly he hardly changes his character. Religious figures or intellectual persons may frustrate seeing his leadership, but we have to accept this until the next presidential election.

* * *

To me, Indonesia's democracy is scary. In the wake of Pak Harto's era, we embrace democracy with great expectation that things will be better. And now we know it is not. The culprit is state system. It is said America's state system was established by genius so that an idiot can run the country. The well established system makes America's president's weakness not too much influencing to the government.

In contrast Indonesia's political, economic and legal system is not ready yet. Politics only brings us much ado about nothing. The only businesses thriving are natural resource-based and upstream ones such as coal or crude palm oil. The law enactment is tragic. It works to the poor but not to the rich. Given these sober facts, firm and smart leadership is much needed. The leader should make the system in order first before doing other things. And in Indonesia's democracy no one is in charge to restore this.

However lamenting Indonesia's democracy will be water under the bridge. What reasonable is to encourage the press to disclose all bad things in which they have done it well. The next thing we should do is waiting for the next election. People should choose carefully the next president by scrutinizing his/her track record and achievement.

* * * * *

Indonesia’s Low Trust Society

2011-01-13T20:07:00.004+07:00

As old proverb goes two head is better than one head. To carry out the big job, the more people are needed. And based on research, only suitable character can fuse different people in a team and get the result. And that character is: Trust.

Many Indonesians tend to bicker. It's an irony. Indonesians are oft-touted having a culture of teamwork – dubbed gotong royong in Bahasa. This proves wrong due to persistent bickering in all area. Bickering, instead of gotong royong, is markedly our real lifestyle.

The last fuss surprisingly occurred in sports management – the area where conflict should be resolved through sportsmanship.

Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) bans Arifin Panigoro-led Indonesia Premier League (LPI), because it competes with PSSI-managed Liga Super Indonesia (LSI). Sadly, it happens when public give much attention and have a great expectation on the heels of Indonesia's team good performance.

Previously, political spat is ordinary news. There is no big political party free from political rift which never comes to terms. The last case is among National Awakening Party (PKB) cadres – Yahya Muhaimin-led group versus Yenny Wahid-led group scrambling for party's leadership. Regional leader elections did the same. The losers usually leveled charges of vote-rigging and mobilized mass holding protest and then ending with riots.

Bizarrely, even among the lawyers – who know well on solving problems through negotiation and agreement – have 2 (two) contending lawyer groups, PERADI versus KAI.
In short, our country has seen bickering everywhere engulfing politics, sports and other social life.

* * *

Bickering reflects distrust among people. A society rife with it hardly achieves a big goal. American social thinker, Francis Fukuyama, put forward trust as the underlying character of the most advanced country. Fukuyama connected trust with the existence of large scale corporation.

It makes sense. To manage hundreds of thousands employees, delegation of power is the key. And to delegate authority inevitably means to trust.

This criteria – the ability to form world' biggest corporations – put United States, German and Japan as high trust societies. In these countries, non-kin relationship has expedited business activities and eventually makes the country's companies growing bigger.

In contrast, China, France, Korea and Italy are considered as low trust nation. In this case, people prefer not to trust anyone so that the big companies come from either unsustainable family business or government sponsorship.

Seeing what has happened, Indonesia is undoubtedly considered as low trust society. Propelled by this self-consciousness, Indonesia's society should find a solution to handle this bad genetic trait.
Chinese, French, Korean practices have paved the way how to deal with distrust. To keep everything running in order, the government should intervene. The government-sponsored initiatives have a bigger chance to succeed. My two cents, Indonesia should follow this path.

* * * * *

Are They Serious To Eradicate Corruption?

2011-01-07T20:50:00.004+07:00

It looks like President SBY is very serious to get corruption rid of this country by establishing Anti Mafia Task Force. But I feel terrible when I heard at Metro TV last Thursday morning; Deny Indrayana said that the main task of task force is, first, to raise militancy among public on legal issue and, second, to be dismissed.

Accordingly, he told us that the team is not to solve the problem, eventually to eliminate corruption, but only to make public aware that corruption is bad. What a silly goal!

We remember the previous team of President SBY, Team 8 was to investigate Bibit-Chandra's corruption case. Their recommendation is loud and clear that there is no strong evidence to level charges Bibit-Chandra of bribery. But this recommendation is impotent. The subordinates did not listen to the President-established Team.

Anti Mafia Task Force missed the target and so did Team 8. Does our president still commit to thrashing the corruptors?

The freedom of press prevailed here since reformation era has two sides. First, public know what really happen to Gayus, to Antasari through the news on TV, internet, tweeter, etc. Second, public become disappointed and up in arms seeing that our legal officers not serious to enforce law. Their jobs is very simple: to punish the wrongdoers and to let the good guys free. That is justice.

From Antasari's case there are many evidence remains unanswered. Why did Sigit, as Antasari's close friend, record his conversation with Antasari? Why did also Nasrudin ask his second wife, Rani to do the same? Who is the mastermind forcing them to do so?

Gayus is really bad boy, but in his plea he is upset why the police are hesitative to conduct further investigation on his information? Why is the police so quick and incredible in terrorism war, but so weak in corruption war?

* * *

I strongly believe that President SBY is a good person and clean. However, our country's situation is extraordinary. We really need extraordinary man too.

In a bid to terminate corruption, some of his efforts – establishing teams – should be appreciated, but it is definitely not enough. He let the bad guys rule our country by sadly saying that even though he is a president he cannot intervene the legal matters. It dashes our hope to have the corruption-free country right off the bat.

But he has still 3 years to prove his weak action against corruption wrong.

* * * * *

The Ugly Face of Democracy

2011-01-03T14:10:00.005+07:00

The gist:

• America is experiencing big deficit budget caused by financial crisis,
• To plug this America needs money immediately. One of potential source is tax revenue,
• The government can’t do this due to the rebuff of Republican majority in Congress,
• This will keep the prosperity of the rich during the recovery in the expense of benefits for the poor, competitive education, infrastructure and so forth,
• Democracy makes this happen.

America is in big trouble now. The unemployment is still high reaching nearly 10%. Their infrastructures are deteriorating. Their education is lagging behind other developed countries. To date America is still number one, but its future as the world’s largest economy and superpower will cast doubt.

In Newsweek’s world’s best country, America ranked 11, while Finland reached the top of the chart. The magazine analyzed education, health, quality of life, economic competitiveness, and political environment for the measurement. The ability of reading, math and science of American 15-year-old teenagers also lags behind the teenagers of other developed countries. For all categories, American boys and girls invariably ranked beyond top ten.

To a worse degree, Americans seem not to realize how bad their situation. And politics as a tool to fix nation’s problem, even exacerbates the conditions. Instead of solving problems, the politic come to be another problem.

As matter of fact, the problems have been well defined by American pundits itself.

To handle the high unemployment the economy need stimulus. In line with Keynesian economy, during the crisis it is impossible for private sector to expand their business, so the government must involve in reviving business by government spending. And to do this the government needs money.

For that to happen, tax revenue will be the plausible option. Certainly, the tax doesn’t stem from the poor, the unemployment, but it will hail from the rich. This is so simple idea. However, to obtain money through tax revenue became problem, since President Bush had enacted the temporary tax cut in 2001 and would be expired in 2010. Accordingly, 2010 is the schedule to lift the tax cut and the time is right to do this. Unfortunately, this much-needed policy can’t be undertaken. American rich embodied in Republic party rebuffed the tax cut revocation; they want to extent it for the next two years.

And they have got what they want. Surprisingly, the Americans elected the more Republican Congress members in November mid-term election. Republicans agenda is loud and clear on supporting the sustainable tax-cut policy and the Americans know what the consequences are, if they listen to their pundits’ opinion.

America is the land of democracy. Other countries always refer to America in practicing it. However at present a good example of the downside of democracy comes from the very same country.

American politics shows us government’s policy might head to the wrong place. One of the reasons is that the government has to share power with the lawmakers. And in certain condition the government likely succumbs to the interest of a handful of people. It proved true in America now where the policy is stirred by the rich.

Lee Kuan Yew, former leader of Singapore had a long time noticed the downside of democracy, particularly on elections process. To win the election, much money is inevitably needed. And only the rich can provide such a lot of money. And Lee said that the higher the cost of being elected to public office, the less clean the government will be. Logically speaking, there is no free lunch; the elected leaders/lawmakers have to pay back the money through the policy they made.

Democracy might be irreplaceable because freedom is our rights. In broad sense, democracy is much better than dictatorship. However, given the bad facts in American democracy, it is the time to take democracy with a grain of salt.

* * *

Lessons Learned from AFF Cup 2010

2010-12-30T12:36:00.012+07:00

Yes, we definitely lost to Malaysia in a bid to grasp the AFF Cup. However from biannual ASEAN countries' soccer tournament, many things can be drawn as lessons learned for improvement.

First, Malaysia shows us that naturalized players, foreign coach is unnecessarily as a single factor to win the game. Embraced by young guns, trained by local coach, this Malayan Tiger team confirms the shrewd approach of their soccer development system. As yet the very team has proved their ability to be a champion twice, in Sea Games 2009 and now AFF Cup 2010. In the future Malaysia can definitely rely on this team to make other records.

Second, Indonesia played well in this tournament.

It will be a bitter sweet memory of Garuda Team. Compared to Malaysia, Indonesia only lost once and invariably won in the other games, while Malaysia lost twice and draw once. Indonesia's goals scored: 15, goals conceded: 6; Malaysia's goals scored: 10, goals conceded: 8. Statistically, we are better than Malaysia.

I saw attacking football played by our team. It's very good and it should be the Garuda's team trandemark in the future. It also explained why the fans didn't vent the anger despite we lost the cup yesterday. We are satisfied with their attacking football. At least they have shown us determination to win. Finishing touch is quite another.

Another improvement is team's ball possession, the important thing to score goals. Apart from the game against Thailand, the team indicates much progress on this skill.

Third, soccer has become another kind of profitable industry. PSSI should manage all aspects well. Compared to Malaysia … again, Indonesia lagged behind … again. Our TV reporters in Kuala Lumpur got bewildered why there were no fans scrambling for tickets. There was no messy queue there, everything was quiet and in order. We expect that there will be only few Malaysia's soccer fans attending the first leg of the finals. And it was proved wrong when we saw crowded Bukit Jalil stadium. Ticketing is a simple matter, however it must be delivered in a good system. And PSSI fail to do the job.

Finally this AFF Cup 2010 has raised our nationalism. For a long time we have no proud as Indonesian due to political bickering, lack of law enforcement, not-so-good economic development. I don't know why I was trembling listening our national anthem, Indonesia Raya, before the match. Suddenly I was deeply in love with Indonesia again.

Time for Blame Game

2010-12-27T15:56:00.003+07:00

Malaysia has dashed our hopes by thrashing us with 3-0 victory on Sunday in Bukit Jalil, Malaysia. Despite laser beam incident, they have played a good game, while our team not in their best performance. Then to whom must we blame on? We direly need a scapegoat now.

First, I will blame on PSSI (Indonesia's Soccer Union). They not only fail to deliver well tickets to the soccer fans, but to treat the players in professional way as well. We don't understand why the team must attend some not-related-with-final-game-preparation events such as bonus giving from businessman-cum-politician, Aburizal Bakrie until mass praying, called istighosah, at Islamic boarding school.

Second, the blame goes to … us. Quite a few of us treat the player as if they have won the tournament. On TV we see the fans scrambling to the players, asking for their signatures or taking some photographs with them. It is too-early adulation since Indonesia has already three times come to final but never won. Accordingly they don't deserves any admiration yet.

TV reporters have also contributed impairing the players' concentration. They interview them in any place and any time. Tina Talisa of TVOne aggressively interviewed Christian Gonzales and Irfan Bachdim, even in the plane en route to Malaysia. She might think it was a journalistic achievement. Yikes!

Winning this tournament is very important to us. It will give us nation's pride if we win. But in contrast it can also add insult to our injury, particularly when we meet Malaysia.

There is still second leg of final and it will be an uphill task for the players to win. "At best, the probability of winning is as low as 10%", said Indonesia's coach, Alfred. Even if it must be mission impossible to hold the trophy, our players should be emboldened to try hard. And at last, we do need a miracle!

Indonesia vs. Malaysia

2010-12-22T10:52:00.004+07:00

George Orwell: serious sport … is war minus the shooting.

It has never been like this, we look forward to the soccer final with great expectation. If you see our TV, the Indonesia's team goals footage is aired repeatedly. AFF Cup is nothing more than regional competition which is less prestigious than Asian Cup not to mention World Cup. However if you have no achievement for a long time and once you get it again, then it will be mesmerizing occurrence.

God has destined we meet Malaysia in the AFF Cup's final. We will fight against our "arch-enemy". The hatred instilled in some Indonesians need to be channeled through this game. The anger should be released in dignity.

Yes it is not a game anymore. It becomes war to revive our nation's pride. We always feel Malaysians look us down due to their standard of life are better than us now.

Given the fact in 60s and 70s, then Indonesia was better than Malaysia in every sector. Indonesia sent teachers to Malaysia. Pertamina have provided money for the government while Petronas was still established from scratch.

Now things change. We, as a nation, are seen as a loser instead of a winner in every sector. Our government cannot give us enough jobs so that our countrymen/women must work there in low skilled job. Petronas outdoes Pertamina. We send our students to Malaysia. Sentul circuit of Indonesia, established in 1993 and it gives us almost nothing whereas Sepang circuit of Malaysia constructed in 1999 becomes the source of pride by holding Formula One racing. In short, Malaysia has beaten Indonesia for many times.

In terms of economy, infrastructure, tourism there will be no quick win for Indonesia against Malaysia. It will take years to beat them. And for those sectors it seems there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

* * *

The final schedule is very perfect for us (if we win). If we can secure the game in Bukit Jalil, Malaysia and we ensure the winning in Senayan, Indonesia, then the winning party will be held in our country.

Winning the games against Malaysia will give us catharsis. We will be released at least for a while. We will have the feeling of better-than-Malaysia. Moreover it will be a momentum for Indonesia to be better, not only in sport but other sectors as well.

* * * * *

Indonesia’s Got Talent

2010-12-19T21:57:00.002+07:00

At last all we want is the mission is accomplished, the goal is achieved, and the target is done at all cost and by any means.

Of late our spirit is going high as our national soccer team, until the semifinal, surprisingly wins every match in AFF Cup. This nation expects much for the first time in our soccer history; the team will triumph over Malaysia in the final and be the winner in this tournament.

The analysis why the team is different this time is PSSI have recruited naturalized player, namely Christian Gonzales and Irfan Bachdim. The two players have elevated the zeal of the team. Particularly, Christian Gonzales is the much-needed goal getter who has contributed the only goal in each leg of semifinal.

We must praise PSSI for the belated breakthrough. Recruiting foreigners is not novel way in soccer. Singapore had done this for years and we see how Singapore's team becomes superior in ASEAN. The Philippines has done more drastically by inviting 9 Britons to join their national team, despite some of them are Filipino descendent.

* * *

The idea is definitely simple: if you can't do it by yourself, then ask someone else to do it. The power of immigrant prevails, not only in Indonesia but all over the world.

American government invites the best scientists in the world and talented immigrants on regular basis. American business is immigrants-powered business. China invites the best company in the world to invest in its special economic zones and harness its world's biggest market. Chinese business is also foreign companies-powered business.

Some of us have wild idea. If we let the foreigner join our national soccer team, why we don't let them join our bureaucracy. It will bring us new way to manage our country.

When we think of the best bureaucracy, we should think about Singapore. Thanks to their effective, efficient and clean management, Singapore becomes the first class, rich and corruption-free country in the world. Let us hire them, retired Singaporean bureaucrats. Let them teach us how to develop healthy and well-organized bureaucracy and eventually grow our economy.

Bear in mind Deng Xiaoping that it doesn't matter black cat or white cat as long as it catches mice.

* * * * *

The Rise of Smart Government

2010-11-21T22:41:00.008+07:00

In terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Singapore has outstripped Malaysia. Even though Malaysia is more democratic than Singapore. In terms of various economic performances China is the best in the world and on the way to catch up the world's largest economy, United States (US). And US is the democracy guru with glamour presidential election compared to Chinese single party clout. Surprisingly, we see the non-democratic countries outperform democratic countries. What's wrong with democratic country? Is democracy still the best idea to run the government? Or is there any new alternative replacing democratic system?

It is oft-heard that the success of Western countries is mainly supported by their democratic system. To some extent the underlying idea is true. Democratic system ensure that no one have unlimited power. And the power is given by the people through general election and the duration of power is limited. So the more people judge the candidates the more accurate to have the best leaders and representatives.

The downside of this story is that the more people or institutions share the power the more restriction to get the synergy of action.

The present crisis shows how effective the non-democratic Chinese control it and how difficult for democratic countries such as America to solve the problem. In China the policy is decided by the best economist and implemented without opposition. While in America, the policy is still argued – too much talking than doing bold and smart action – and the president is paralyzed to handle the crisis with his own team due to the policy should be approved by the lawmakers.

* * *

There is no doubt that democratic system has some good things. However democratic system is not final. We have to test it in all conditions and we certainly have seen its failure. So we must find the best ingredient of democracy and what really works for government to achieve people's prosperity. And the good news is that some experts – Kishore Mahbubani of Singapore included – have identified it well.

That best ingredient for all type of successful government is meritocracy. Let the best people work for the rest of us. Let the best economist develop the best economic policy. Let the best policy maker do their jobs. In consequence if we let the best manage the government skillfully, then the government would have the best chance to succeed. This new way of thinking brings us the idea of smart government that is better than merely democratic government.

Whatever the type of government, democracy or dictatorship, if they run the country subject to meritocracy system then the probability of success will be bigger. This idea sheds light on why no-freedom country such as China and Singapore achieve best performance and get through the crisis smoothly and why the democracy guru such as America tottered through the crisis.

So the next big thing of government system is smart government.

* * * * *

Mr. President, Intervene Now!

2010-11-21T20:49:00.002+07:00

One thing I hate much about our president, SBY, is that he doesn't want to intervene the legal process. He said that as if he can do nothing against the bad guys corrupting our legal system. He let the 'system' limit Anggodo's case not to spread out to other corrupt legal officers. Now he will do the same to Gayus' case. After taking the helm for six years, he shows us feeble leadership.

On the other hand, of late we can see if we, particularly the government, let something go wrong, then we must pay the consequence. The case of tortured maid in Saudi Arabia is the best example of that.

Since a long time ago the government should realize that sending maid or low-skilled migrant workers not only dent the country's image, but compromise the life of those workers as well. People tend to look down low-skilled workers let alone coming from other countries. The present case will not be the last. Believe me, it will continue hurting our national pride.

The understanding of this will bring job creation is the much need policy. The government should work all out to encourage business entity to absorb job seekers as much as possible.

In a similar vein, SBY as a president should put the law enactment as one of his top priority. If he let the legal go wildly regardless justice then our country will be lawless and the evil will call the shot. And the understanding of this will bring the simple thing of all legal process: punish the people who do wrong in term of justice.

* * *

The leader should find the leverage action to do good for the country. Domestic job creation will eliminate the abuse of migrant worker. To uphold the law will make the people's life in order and justice. Moreover if the government neglects the importance of fair legal process, it will influence the confidence of investor to invest their money here.

So this is the president's homework concerning with Sumiati's and Gayus' case:

First, find the strategy to boost healthy domestic investment demanding for more jobs. This will be the main condition before we can stop sending migrant workers without value added skills. It is definitely an uphill task. But if one who has campaigned for the top job, then he should have the answers.

Second, carry out simple thing: catch the villains, corruptors, send them to jail and give them appropriate sentence. And show us that all the process is clear and fair.

* * * * *

Indonesia’s Good News

2010-10-17T23:28:00.002+07:00

If I must choose what policy of President SBY considered the best, it will be economic corridor policy. The government is about to develop 6 (six) economic corridors all across Indonesia. Each corridor will focus on specific industry and the investors invited will be given business incentives. Through this belated initiative, we are upbeat on Indonesia's future.

There are no prosperous countries in world gain their affluence by chance. Everything has to be planned and orderly executed. Besides the main idea to elevate people's income is to allocate as much as possible workers to higher value-added jobs. Economic corridors consisting of industrial clusters will serve this very idea. Economic corridors will add value to raw material and give jobs to much more workers. The corridor also links the goods movement and transfer (supply chain) in a very efficient way. Given abundant raw materials, workers and vast area, this strategy does fit Indonesia.

At least 2 (two) Indonesia's corridors are on the way. First, industrial clusters located in Riau province are expected on stream in 2014. These clusters are going to support Crude Palm Oil (CPO) downstream industries. Second, Merauke sugar estate located in Papua province has also been on negotiating and reaching final deal with its main investor. This cluster wants to emulate Brazil's massive agricultural industry.

The agriculture-based industries are not the only path of Indonesia. A lot of choices are provided at hand. For instance, Indonesia's well-known handicrafts must be connected with Indonesia's tourism area. Smelters and metal industry must be located near energy resource mining such as coal or gas. Knowledge-based industry must be incorporated with universities area to absorb talented students.

The downside of this economic corridor policy is that President SBY never speaks about this pivotal policy vehemently. I never hear him speaking that this program is very important. It seems that this idea is not from him, but from his subordinates. Economic corridors are complicated strategy and they need a lot of funds and gumption. In short it needs more than Coordinating Economic Minister leadership.

Compared to Multimedia Super Corridor of Malaysia in which the then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad himself travelled around the world offering the corridor to the business leaders, the President SBY's effort to promote these corridors is not adequate.

I encourage President SBY heeds very much about the corridors development and take serious action to ensure its successfulness. And it will be his best legacy during his two-term presidency. However this is also a risky project. Someone must take responsibility if it fails. Unfortunately, President SBY is not a risk taker.

Reference:

America's Waning Power

2010-10-17T08:45:00.004+07:00

Indonesia's President sent caveat to Malaysia's Prime Minister asking for slowing down their palm oil productivity. In the mean time Indonesia's President also sent the same message to Singapore's Prime Minister to stop innovating due to Indonesia has no such skills.

Certainly the abovementioned is only a ridiculous fairy tale which never happens in the real world. If we find ourselves lagging behind our competitor, that is our problems and not theirs. The situation comes up because other parties are better than us. That is a very simple understanding.

However the top-notch country such as America seems not to grasp the very idea. It keeps blaming others for its own failure.

America blames China for its trade deficit. America accused China manipulating its currency value. This leads the Chinese product overwhelming in America. So the Chinese steal American jobs. This blaming game – finding a scapegoat for its own weakness – has played broadly in America to find a solution in the wake of financial crisis. This move makes America a laughingstock for the rest of the world.

Previously, America played the similar tune to Japan in 1980s. At that time Japan's economy rose in the way China does nowadays. The well-managed Japan is blamed for America's trade deficit. America pushed Japan to appreciate its yen and Japan through Plaza Accord succumbed to this pressure. However, China might be a different story. The nuke-armed China is an independent country with an arsenal matching to America or at least it has a deterrent factor of military power.

The explanation of American decline relatively to China is very simple: Americans don't make money better than Chinese do. Most of Chinese capitals spend on economy, while Americans waste them in wars. Chinese workers are paid much cheaper than America. China focuses on manufacturing on goods, enhancing skills of mass production and selling them across the world, while America fiddling with financial instrument to make profits from nothing. China gets money from sweat, but America gets it from bet.

As matter of fact, America is still the most admired country in term of spawning innovative companies. Apple, Microsoft, Intel Google and Facebook are raised there. There is no doubt that America has got a lot of most talented worker in the world. Unfortunately, knowledge-based companies cannot absorb mass workers.Despite those companies still exist and grow, it turns out to be insufficient to maintain America's supremacy.

For half century America is the world's super power. Psychologically speaking, America turned down the idea to be second best in terms of international affairs and economy. But nothing lasts forever. From times immemorial superpowers always rise and fall.

During its decline, America becomes paranoid. The mighty America has honed skills of creating non tariff trade barrier. America infringes its free trade moralizing. To protect their soya bean products, they launched anti-palm oil by spreading palm-oil-caused-heart-attack rumor. To protect their catfish producers, they called Vietnamese catfish is not catfish. And to save their uncompetitive car manufactures, they blackmailed Toyota for every accident involving Toyota car.

It is a list of mistakes, but it is not the American style that invented computer, internet and iPad. Many American modus vivendi for a better life has inspired us. We hope America comes back to the way that makes them mesmerizing.

God bless America.

Is Indonesia Really New Economic Success Story?

2010-10-10T22:59:00.010+07:00

As Indonesian I want to believe that Indonesia will equal China and India in terms of economic success story. However until now I never find out what is the best reason to believe this.

China’s economic way is decided largely by government. The government through many state-owned companies ratchets up the economic engine. Bearing in mind that it has abundant workers and space, the government opens the economic zones and invites foreign direct investment. China becomes workshop of the world and flooding every single country with cheap products.

So, Chinese government itself seems undertaking the business. Chinese leaders don’t care about democracy, but does care about business. By doing this, China shows us that non democratic country can easily implement economic program. Without uproar of opposition, China becomes the world’s highest growth country, the world’s largest exporters, and the world’s second biggest economy.

In contrast, India takes different path. The government doesn’t function well in business. India succeeds in spurring economic growth after the government relinquishing its grasp. Even after business dynamics has taken place there, democracy still worsens the government policy. Consequently, bad infrastructure and bewildering regulation for business investors is so rampant.

Given so much disadvantages and flaw policy, somehow Indians manage to develop its economy. Since time immemorial, business is ingrained in Indians. So the economic openness leads enterprises sprouted out. Thanks to their immigrants and talented workers, India becomes a leading country of information technology. Banglore becomes Asian Silicon Valley. Its English-speaking workers support call-centers industries.

* * *

China and India have figured out its way that fitting its country’s character. In short, non-democratic China focuses on manufacturing cheap goods and democratic India on information technology services. Those are their economic engines. Infosys, Wipro of India and Huawei, Nexian of China epitomize economic engines.

Truly, Indonesia is different story. We can’t see this ‘economic engine’ in Indonesia!

Yes, the composite index in Jakarta Stock Exchange rises sharply. Yes, Indonesia’s export reached the highest value. But we still see no ground for economic success story.

Composite index hike is very fragile and not connected directly to many people’s prosperity. The fund flows in and out quickly. And it is not the significant indicator for absorbing jobless.

Likewise, Indonesia’s export still largely depends on price fluctuation. If we dissect more, most of export comprises commodity. Crude Palm Oil (CPO) and coal makes up the most contribution of export value.

So, Indonesians should be rational and realistic about the dream of emerging market or economic success story. We may be upbeat seeing economic indicators, but until we see clearly the “economic engine”, we are still not China-to-be or India-to-be.

* * * * *

Reference:

Indonesia’s Tourism and Economic Zones

2010-10-06T20:56:00.007+07:00

If I were the president of Indonesia I would have focused on 2 (two) sectors to grow economy, namely: tourism and economic zones. Tourism should be developed because we have a lot of picturesque views, while economic zones developed because we have a lot of land. To capitalize on this opportunity, the development policy should focus on supporting 2 abovementioned developments. And given the vast area outer Java, this policy can be panacea. As the policy implemented and economic growth finds a new momentum, it can also solve the problem of development disparity between Java and outer Java.

Bali-overexploited Tourism

The government has shrugged off the potency of abundant natural beauty. The longest shoreline advantage has no meaning at all to tourism industry. The world-acknowledged heritages such as Borobudur and Prambanan temple are made useless. The beauty of coral reef in Eastern Indonesia seems in vain. A lot of culture attraction failed to exist as awaited-show.

It's a pity, Indonesia's tourism only exploits Bali island. In 2009 Bali welcomed 5.75 million foreign and domestic tourists. It was nearly 90% of Indonesia's tourists.

In contrast, the famous Borobudur temple is only visited by 85,000 visitors in 2009. Compared to Angkor Watt temple in Cambodia attracted more than 1 million in the same year, Borobudur is nothing. The well-known Tana Toraja only lured 5,000 tourists in 2009. The famous coral reef Bunaken only brought in 10,000 visitors annually whereas Thailand's Pattaya has 4.5 million tourists.

The comparison between countries will let us down. In 2009, the number of tourists came to Indonesia was 6.4 million. The tiny Singapore exceeded us by 10 million. Not to mention Thailand and Malaysia were visited by 15 million and 22 million tourist, respectively.

Java-overburdened Development

Everything looks lopsided. As the tourism relies on Bali, most of Indonesia's development depends on Java.

Java contributes 57.8% of Indonesia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Sumatera gives 23.6%, Kalimantan 9.5%, Sulawesi 4.4%, Bali & Nusa Tenggara 2.8%, Maluku & Papua 1.9%.
Even in Java, the imbalance takes place. DKI Jakarta makes up 16.8 of GDP, followed by East Java 15%, West Java 13.9% and Central Java 8.6%.

In 2009 Java-based manufactures constituted 75% of GDP. Of 2009 GDP amounted Rp. 5.018 trillions, manufactures shared 24,069% or Rp. 1,207.83 trillions.

What is The Strategy?

The grim statistics tell us what happen and imply what to do.

The government never develops tourism outside Bali and neither develops industries outside Java. That's what happens. The government wastes many beautiful places as one of unique source of tourism, as well as lands for economic zones in outer Java. The government has overburdened Java island in terms of environment and life convenience for decades.

However the government seems not to grasp this issue. Let us see what the government does.
PT Jasa Marga, a state-owned company, has invested Rp 250 trillion to build toll roads. 150 km-long toll road out of 250 km will be constructed in Java.

Along time ago, Daendels had constructed roads from Anyer to Panarukan. From time immemorial, the Dutch had also built railway from the West Java and East Java. So it is not understandable, the modern government of Indonesia traced its former colonizer by constructing toll road in the same area. It is so silly. The toll road will diminish agriculture lands and encourage people to come to this already-crammed island.

Had the government acknowledged the imbalance of development, then it should have stopped to develop infrastructure in Java. The more development in Java, the long time needed to correct the imbalance and the more burden for the environment.

In a nutshell, stop building infrastructures in Java, instead embark on building them outside Java for 2 goals: tourism and economic zones. Consequently, Java and Bali will be healed and Indonesia's development and people will spread out across the country, to spur economic growth and have more convenient life.

Reference:

American Unemployment

2010-10-03T20:25:00.002+07:00

In the wake of economic crisis, American unemployment hovers over 10%. Many debates appear about why it happens and how to solve it.

On paper experts do not agree a single explanation about the causes of unemployment. Keynesians point out that it is caused by insufficient demands of goods and services. Other experts of structural unemployment put forward that mismatch between demand and skills of workers. And there are more other explanations as well.

At present American government has launched economic stimulus to handle unemployment. It still doesn't work. Some economist, Paul Krugman included, the stimulus fund disbursed is not sufficient. However we cast doubt on the long-standing Keynes' prescription.

Then our instinct leads us to believe that the jobs go to China, India or other developing countries. But it turns out to be not true. According to American economist, Jeremy Rifkin, only 5% of jobs went away to the third world. And the important fact to know is in China 15% of jobs has disappeared forever. The culprit of disappearing jobs is: automation!

Yes, some jobs, for instance accounting jobs, go to India thanks to cheaper India's accountants and internet connecting develop nations' companies to India's workers. But some jobs disappeared forever e.g. typewriting machines repairmen. And we can predict in 20 years later, the bank tellers will disappear owing to the invention of ATM to deposit or withdraw money. These kinds of jobs will not only be lost in America but in China as well.

To be sure, the job is expendable but not the work itself. Typewriting machine replaces with computer, so computer repairman exists. More ATMs require more mechanics.

Cosequently, developed nations should focus on research and development to create innovative products. However it might be insufficient to create jobs. Software companies will never employ mass workers because the jobs rely much on production of innovative ideas which can't deliver by ordinary workers such as in manufacturing goods.

So the unemployment in America is the unskilled workers that cannot establish innovative company or work in those companies as put forward by supporters of structural unemployment analysis.
Despite its insufficiency to contain unemployment, the government priority should be to churn out start-ups of hi-tech companies. Actually America is very good at this. Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Cisco are the world's leading innovative companies.

The other way will be developed nations should slash their workers' wages so that the manufacture can still flourish to compete with the remained jobs of goods production. The factory wages hike is a trend everywhere. Until there is no one that can be paid cheaply, the wages across the world will be balanced.

And the last bid will be to support employer the last resort policy. The government or the community will give jobs – whatever the jobs are – to the unemployment.
Reference:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/06/opinion/06krugman.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,368155,00.html
http://www.basicincome.com/basic_rifkin.htm
The death of Economics, Paul Ormerod

Economic War

2010-09-28T10:02:00.005+07:00

The world order is under the rule of developed countries. This premise should be understood well by developing countries. China – and not Iran or Venezuela– as the best pathway of developing country gives the best examples what can be done and how to deal with the America-defined world.

The pivotal policy is whatever happens it will be about economy. Do not try against them directly unless it gives economic advantages. As long as you can sell your product across the world, your country can absorb investment, new technology from foreigners, then everything will be all right. These must be ensured before making any policies. And economic-based policy is best implemented by China and reversely, worst grasped by Iran or Venezuela.

We can spell out what China has done against developed country in a place that they can almost do nothing and not hamper China economy.

The long-standing dispute on Senkaku/Diaoyu between China and Japan rose again a few weeks ago after a collision between Chinese fishing boat against Japanese patrol boat. And then the Japanese detained the Chinese captain. Certainly it prompted protest both Chinese government and people.

It doesn't stop here. The Chinese government continues flexing its muscle. It seems China has a list of actions on what to do in certain situation against Japan. In this case China knows that Japan needs a lot of rare earth metals in which China's export accounts for of 90% world's demand. Rare earth metals are pivotal materials for Japanese manufacturers. Ridiculously, China out of the blue announced it would restrict its rare earth materials due to environmental issue. It implies China has imposed economic sanctions to Japan.

Let us see another battlefield between China and United States in Afghanistan.

If we ask who spent a lot of money "to secure" Afghanistan, the answer will be the United States. But the following question will be who benefit the most from the secured Afghanistan, and the answer will be China.

Since 2001 America has spent USD 940 billion to secure Afghanistan, and in December 2007 China was give a contract of USD 2.9 billion to extract copper in world's largest deposit there, without a single bullet from Chinese Army and even the Chinese did not explore the deposit. As usual America is a bad loser, they try to accuse that Chinese company has bribed the Afghan officials to win the contract. Despite the allegation might be true, the Chinese firm – supported by its government – clearly offered the best deal for Afghanistan government.

Moreover, the clash of America against Chinese also takes place in other field. Again, America is a bad loser. This time America blames China for its trade deficit. The United States accused China deliberately maintain its currency lower than its real value, therefore China's products will be cheaper. Some Americans want to retaliate this with trade war by imposing high tariff on Chinese products.

However, this "currency manipulator" allegation spark debates. The currency and trade between countries are not such a simple analysis. Even, the Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz shared the different view. He said "All governments take actions that directly or indirectly affect the exchange rate." The reckless budget deficit or lower interest rate results in a weak currency. Can we also call these "currency manipulators"?

The United States likely want to repeat its economic coercion against Japan ending with 1985 Plaza Accord in which Japan succumbed to American demand. But China is not Japan. China can stand firm because it has more freedom in international politics than Japan. Besides China's economy is growing and more independent than Japan.

This is world we live in. It is all about economic competition. Every country wields their economic weapons at their disposal to press another country. And what we can learn a lot from China – and not from Iran or Venezuela– is building independent economy first. After that a country will have more alternatives to deal with any other countries.

Reference:

Too Much Freedom Will Kill You

2010-09-23T22:11:00.025+07:00

We often presume that democracy is the final form of government. The ideal system is a group of people representing others to govern and making laws. And choosing our representatives and leaders are undertaken regularly by elections in certain time. We praise this as democracy, the ultimate state system.

The democracy value might bring the prosperity to the western countries. Given these facts, it is reasonable that we attribute people's well-being to democracy. However, can we challenge this long-standing value?

Yes, at present we can, because another fact appears!

Sometimes the cruel dictators and the crazy lawmakers in democratic countries differ only in a thin line. All of them make an obstruction to attain well-governed country. Both of them wield their power to reach their self-interest and although it diverts the country from the common goal.

America rife with preaches on freedom and democracy has been experiencing the downward of people's freedom. They lost clarity of problems encountered and they cannot make a deal to solve them.

They acknowledge they have a huge deficit in their budget. Following the common sense, the policy would be austerity or seeking another source of funds. And American government as the representative of the people has chosen to give its economy a stimulus. However, we see something stupid from Republicans as one of two major parties, they struggle to turn down increasing tax for the riches, the main supporters of Republic Party. Even they try to frighten the middle-class American to impose more tax.

To plug the deficit, the rich people should sacrifice themselves for the country. The lawmakers should not represent them to avoid this responsibility.

In a similar vein, lawmakers do too little and too slow in addressing climate change. America is one of a few countries neglecting the seriousness of the climate problem. The policy makers are not only wasting time by all denials, but they are wasting opportunities to create clean-tech jobs as well.

Thomas Friedman expressed his resentment on this issue. He points out that America lags behind China in implementing clean-tech that creating jobs as a result of politics. He said Americans turn climate change to be a four-letter word, J-O-K-E, whereas the Chinese turn it to another four-letter one, J-O-B-S. Even the American innovators create jobs for other countries due to lack of law to support clean technology. "Aren't Americans clever when Americans provide jobs for other countries whereas Americans really need them?" Friedman asked.

Not to mention that China has managed its stimulus package adeptly and successfully to face the global crisis while America is still paralyzed with jobless which might be caused by prolonged political debates on how to manage crisis. Reversely, the Chinese leaders who have no oppositions can do anything to contain the crisis effectively and continue growing faster and faster.

Sometimes politics turn out to be just a game of few people. They play the important issues without putting it in place of people's interest. Somettimes democracy lead us to forget the essence of politics which is to deliver prosperity for most of people. And compelling facts show that non-democratic China is doing better than democratic America.

Is Beijing Consensus better than Washington Consensus to prosper? Will too much freedom kill you?

Reference:

To Govern is To Sell

2010-09-20T09:24:00.003+07:00

The government has the full responsibility for the prosperity of its citizen. The prosperity attributes to people's incomes and government's revenue. Those incomes and revenues come from selling things! The more you can sell, let alone the added value ones, the more prosperous you will be.

Of late we can see how the selling-attitude government happening in the international level.
The California state of America plans to develop high-speed railway system connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles. A huge-amount tender will invite world class manufacturers of the world including well-known Japanese high-speed railway system, Shinkansen.

In order to win the competition, the Japanese government invited Californian Governor, the famous action actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. To serve the Client, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan himself made a sales pitch for the Japanese railway system.

What's interesting is Governor Arnold was not only let the Japanese entice him to buy trains. He himself made his own sales pitch for tourism, Californian agriculture products and wine. "I am a forever salesman" he said holding a basket of Californian nuts in front of reporters.

In a similar vein, many years ago Malaysia's Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohammad pitched for Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC). He wanted the multinational high-tech companies all over the world to establish offices there. This visionary project is very prestigious due to at that time there was no such zones of information technology in developing country. Mahathir traveled around the world to attain commitment to investing in MSC.

In Indonesia we have Pak Harto and Habibie who sold aircrafts. I remember the background thinking of Habibie to develop N250 allowing capacity of 50 passengers. At that time he saw the high demand of the wide-body aircraft of 200 – 600 passengers. He predicted the smaller aircraft's demand would rise too. However until now it never happened as the light of Indonesia's Aircraft Company (IPTN) faded away. Despite the bleak sales, however we can appreciate them for the efforts.

Later we have Fadel Muhammad, then-Governor of Gorontalo who sold corn to South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines. The entrepreneur background helps him to govern like a businessman. He deemed himself as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), while the Province Secretary as Chief Operating Officer (COO).

* * *

We really got angry seeing our lawmakers' trips abroad for comparative study. The result will be nothing, but wasting money and time.

For a better tomorrow, Indonesia should encourage our top officials to go abroad selling something. But first we should develop our industry. The products have to be made first. Shinkansen provides us a good example of product marketing process. Shinkansen is tested in Japan and until now books a record of no accidents during operation. The tested products speak for themselves.

Besides, Indonesia is blessed a big market. Strategic industries as Habibie's inheritance have already been operating for decades. So the focus should be a creation of good products, test them for domestic usage and then sell it worldwide. Certainly our product, for instance trains, cannot compete with Shinkansen to provide railway system in California, but we can sell to other developing country with cheap prices and not-too-high-technology purpose.

Reference:

Indonesia is A Learning Nation

2010-09-16T09:32:00.012+07:00

Despite the low ranking of Human Development Index (HDI), 111 out of 182, Indonesians should be very proud to know that their top officials who manage this country like learning so much.

Of late we see a string of comparative study trips abroad conducted by lawmakers and senators. Some lawmakers want to study scouts in South Africa, Japan and South Korea. A national media said in South Africa it is better to study how to hold world class event such as World Cup. In Japan and South Korea it is better to study how to work hard for the country! And some other lawmakers want to study horticulture in the Netherlands and Norway. And surprisingly, the Senators have also traced their partners through comparative study in England and the Netherlands.

Even President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) himself has eternal passion to learn. He invited Professor David T Ellwood of Harvard Kennedy School, to give him and cabinet members a lecture on poverty eradication. So our leaders want to study poverty eradication from an expert coming from long standing developed country. It is an awkward choice.

Why don't they consider learning poverty eradication from an expert of South Korea or even of Malaysia? Their lessons learned, instead of American's, is very close to our situation. In 1970 50% of Malaysians lived in absolute poverty, and now after 40 year development the poverty rate is 4%. Given the fact Indonesia's poverty rate is still 13%, this is worth studying. However learning from South Korea is the best choice. In 1970 the income per capita of South Korea was even worse than Malaysia, USD 260 versus USD 380. And now after 40 year development, South Korea surpasses Malaysia by USD 21,530 versus USD 6,760.

In my opinion comparative study trips abroad is useless, wasting time, and wasting money. First, you cannot learn something serious such as government policy, bill consideration from other country in one or two weeks. Second, despite you have retrieved the data, policy or regulation from other countries, you have still to customize regarding with your own problems and circumstances. Third, it is the internet age. You should travel less but browse more. Certainly, you can learn more from internet.

By the way, inviting a professor - who only capable on paper - to give a lecture about the problem in which we know much better than he does is also an unnecessary squander. I think the president wants to show us that he is very serious to address the proverty. Frankly speaking, we need no more words anymore, just do it and give us the best result.

What our country direly needs now is the smart action and implementation, and not about searching any theory anymore. Simply put, first you make your own policy. Second analyze the implementation and make some improvements. Third, try out the newly improved policy.

If leaders have no big-measured idea and never take risks to materialize it, then he will be safe in the office until his last day. And we remember nothing of what he has done for this country.

Reference:

Indonesia’s Insufficient Economic Growth

2010-09-15T11:19:00.008+07:00

For Indonesia or any developing country, economic growth is everything because it eventually reflects the prosperity of a country. After reaching the certain amount, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth will not be the main goal. It happened in the developed countries where the growth often less than 3%, but it does not hurt the prosperity.

Japan is the best example of slow-growth-does-not-matter. Since 2000, Japan economy is stagnant indicated with tiny economic growth. But it does not really hurt Japan's economy. Certainly there is no starvation in Japan caused by its sluggish economy. The already-high GDP will result in the high level income per capita, let alone Japan experiences shrinking population.

However Indonesia is a different story. Indonesia's income per capita is one third of Malaysia. If we assume there is no growth of population in both countries and no growth in Malaysia, Indonesia must have 300% of GDP growth to elevate the same level of Malaysia's prosperity. If we assume Indonesia's economic growth 10% and Malaysia 0%, it takes 12 years to outperform Malaysia. And if Malaysia has 3% growth then it takes 17 years.

* * *

During economic crisis 2008-2009, Indonesian government including Sri Mulyani boasted its economic resilience knowing all countries, except China and India, experienced negative growth or shrinking economy. Thanks to government spending, biggest market and its disconnection to world economy, Indonesia can survive from economic crisis. The Indonesia's economic growth is mainly pulled by non-tradable sector. Other countries negative growth happened due to the slowing European and American market demand. They depend highly on export.

Now the world economy has been recovery. The truth of economy fundamentals appear. In 2010, Semester I, Indonesia is slated as the slowest growth economy in the region. Singapore which slapped by 10% negative growth during the crisis, comes up with its real strength by the highest growth of 18.8%. Taiwan's GDP grows 12.5%, China 10.3, Thailand 9.1%, Malaysia 8.9%, India 8.8%, The Philippines 7.3%, South Korea 7.2% and Indonesia 6.2%.

The data shows that Indonesia lags behind other countries in terms of connecting its economy to the rest of the world. In the wake of economic recovery as the world begins to consume electronics products, buy cars, go abroad for pleasure, Indonesia get less benefit. We produce less added value products than other countries.

Indonesia should restructure its economy. Indonesia should focus to develop its more added value industry that can be sold across the world.

* * * * *

Reference:

1. http://www.presidensby.info/index.php/fokus/2009/05/27/4339.html
2. http://cetak.kompas.com/read/2010/09/14/03064982/waspadai.perekonomian

Spurring Innovation in Indonesia

2010-09-14T21:55:00.001+07:00

The prosperity attributes to people’s income. People’s income stems from salary or wage. Salary or wage is determined by the value of products. The more added value products than the more prices they have.

300 kg iron is cheap but 300 kg iron in the form of luxury car will be very expensive. 2 decades ago only small number of manufacturers could produce cell-phones, but now even fledgling manufacturers in China can produce them. The ordinary cell-phones experience decreasing value. To increase the value, Research In Motion (RIM) of Canada created stunning Blackberry which focus on their friendly connection with internet, Apple created incredible I-Phone with amazing design and unique features.

The efforts to increase people’s income are the efforts to add value of products. And innovation is the key to this goal. All the government policy should ensure that the companies operating in its own territory pursuing innovation for their products continuously. The tenet is to innovate or die.

Innovation is the mixed ingredients of education, risk taker innovation, crazy venture capitalist, rules of law and others which cannot be identified. Yes, there is no certain recipe to nurture innovation. Despite the success of Silicon Valley, it cannot be copied to other place like Boston Route 128.

However, the main ingredient of innovation is the innovative products. And then the important thing to make them accepted by market. And there no one or shaman knows about the future innovative products. There is someone who dare to gamble investing in new product without knowing what will happen. That is venture capitalist in United States or even the government such as in Singapore.

* * *

Given this facts, Indonesia has a great challenge to spur innovation in this country. The downside of our nation pertaining innovation is we have no passion to work hard to create new products, instead we prefer the easy way to buy the license.

We can compare the automobile development in Indonesia and Malaysia. Until now we have no national automobile industry. The most popular car in Indonesia, Toyota Kijang, still depends on Toyota technology. It seems it will last forever. In contrast since the beginning Malaysia developed Proton despite it was Mitsubishi. And Proton shows its independence by buying the majority stake of Lotus. So the Malaysian can combine the technology of Mitsubishi and Lotus to develop its own national car.

Another example is electronics manufacturers, National Gobel. Previously, it was national electronics company with national trade mark Tjawang. Unfortunately in order to increase its capacity, Gobel invited Japanese Manufacturer, National. Tjawang disappeared, so did the chance of national electronics trade mark.

I don’t know what kind of Indonesia’s government policy on innovation. Or do they have one?

We have PT. INKA producing trains, but why did the government still import used trains from Japan. It's very silly. The INKA's products might not be as good as Japanese products, but they should be encourage to improve their product by giving them sustainable contracts.

We have also national trade mark such as Polytron. The government should help them by buying their products and giving them incentive to conduct research and development. We have Maetrika who nurtures Indonesia’s innovative starts-ups companies. The government particularly state-owned companies should support these innovative products so that these start-ups have enough cash to conduct research and development and create new products.

The government does has responsibility to support the innovative companies. It is not against free market. Even in United States the innovative company such as Hewlett Packard had been given contracts from the US government.

* * * * *

A Spirited Nation

2010-09-12T17:40:00.005+07:00

There is a lessons learned from America who is grappling its declining superpower. Newsweek magazine places America as 11^th (not 1^st) best country in the world. In the wake of financial crisis and 2 unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it seems America has lost everything. Apart from computer gadget and software, America has faced fierce competition, not only from the established nation like Japan, but now also from new emerging countries such as China and India.

Declining nation likely attributes to its education. The big budget American school reforms result in only meager success. The average students' test scores so this still-underperformed ability whereas the reforms had covered many aspect of education including the great teacher, institution improvement, better principal, better student-teacher ratio . The Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson proposed another cause which is almost unmentionable: students shrinking motivation.

Thomas Friedman spelled out this low-level motivation as the consequence of disappeared threats. In the last century, Americans had a clear and present danger of depression, Nazi and Communism. Now all of them are gone, so Americans has less reason to work hard, develop innovation and sacrifice for the country.

As the threats are gone, so is the spirit.

* * *

From this lessons learned, we come to conclusion that it is imperative for a nation to have a real challenge, a real problem to solve and a single theme to garner resources to achieve one goal. A threat should be renewed in each generation.

In Indonesia we have Bung Karno whom a great leader of our nation coining "Merdeka" (freedom) as the then-aspiration of the nation. It was a great success because different tribes, different languages across Dutch-administration Indonesia marched behind Bung Karno leadership. However Bung Karno failed to elevate to the next step to develop economy and modern institution of government. He cannot relinquish himself from the revolutionary tone even when we don't need it anymore.

To some extent, Pak Harto succeeded to coin "Pembangunan" (development) as a single theme during his long stint. Despite his weakness to control corruption and nepotism, he outperformed any Indonesia's presidents in terms of economy and national pride. Owing to Pak Harto, we inherited stability and cornerstone to develop.

In similar vein, Mahathir Mohammad of Malaysia has one thing describing his entire policy, to enhance Malay's standard of living. Deng Xiaoping struggled for decades to prove the socialism does exist and it is not the same with poverty.

So, a nation should encapsulate its challenges and create a simple theme to address them so that the whole components of nation: teachers, researchers, businessmen, government officers give their best to achieve the clear national goal.

Sources:

The It-Should-Be Indonesia’s Path

2010-09-09T19:48:00.003+07:00

According to CIA Factbook, 42.1% of Indonesian labors work in agriculture sector which makes up only 15.3 % of GDP. It is not good figure and wasting the potential labors. The Prebich-Singer Thesis tells that the manufactured goods value tends to increase against commodity value. If now you export 100 units of commodities then you will get 50 units of manufactured goods, in the future for the same level commodities can only be exchanged for less than 50.

It is because of income elasticity of demand for manufactured goods is greater than for commodities especially – food! The poor eats a plate of rice so does the rich. However the rich needs Blackberry, IPad, Kindle, whereas the poor can't afford them. As the income rise, we still eat a plate of rice, but our demand of manufactured goods will inevitably rise.

Given this fact, the urgent policy of Indonesia is to shift the low-waged labors of agriculture sector to higher-waged labors of industry and service sector.

Too many people work in limited area of agriculture resulting in low productivity. If the farmers-to-be work for industry then the few farmers has more agriculture area. Then the agriculture equipment industries should be grown to support the few farmers to manage their farmland. By doing this, the agriculture productivity will beef up and the farmers' income will rise.

Agriculture has ingrained the Indonesians but building industry is different story. Industry needs more skills and good education to support it. This sector is where the valued added products begin. It is not easy for the country like Indonesia to develop industries on its own efforts. Fortunately the globalization offers the great opportunity for developing country to develop the industry sector. Thanks to their success, the salary in developed countries rises to the level that cuts profits so that they have to relocate their industry for the lower-paid labors. The task for developing country is to lure the foreign direct investment. The best way is to prepare economic zones with superb infrastructure and without red tape. Indonesia should prioritize this.

The industrial workers will make money much more than the unproductive farmers. As the few farmers become more productive too, eventually the national income per capita will ramp up.

In a nutshell this is what Indonesia's government should do.

First, to shift massively most of farmers-to-be to industry sector. The rest of farmers will have more area to grow plants. The modernized farming using mechanical equipment should be introduced. The productivity and income of agriculture sector will increase.

Second, to thrive industry sector. The industry for the agriculture equipment is the first thing to do. And then prepared competitive economic zones to lure multi-national companies.

Third, to prepare the post industrial phase through innovation. It is the most difficult part to develop nation because it need skillful workers, best education and the right circumstances to nurture start-ups with new innovative products.

Leadership in Courage

2010-09-09T03:18:00.005+07:00

Some leaders are remembered that last forever. They are adored by many fans across the border, across the race, across the cultures and across the time. As stated by many experts the difference between business-as-usual leader and inspiring leader is that the latter has courage to change the world. In details is that the true leader – during their time – is to put his extraordinary vision at stake. It means they take the risk of failure. And to do this courage, pertinacious, brave-heart is much needed.

The greatness of leader is attained when his idea has been successfully transformed into action and resulting in the great achievement. Only through this way we acknowledge and adore the leader.

Prophet Mohammad SAW was taking a great risk when he tried to elevate the Arabian from the marginal society to the civilized one. It was not the easy task, since the culture and people's mind had been ingrained for thousands of year. But he had reached his vision in his lifetime and moreover he changed the world by spreading the new value of life. Eventually many people in this world preserve his teaching to date.

Moreover there are many examples of leadership in our era. We will remember Deng Xiaoping, Lee Kuan Yew, Mahathir, Pak Harto and Pak Habibie, not only because they had ever been state leaders, but they had done something risky to serve the country. Certainly some last in grace but some did not make it.

Deng Xiaoping took ideological risk to open and connect China to the rest of the world. He conducted trial and error to develop the first China special economic zone in small fishery village, Shenzen. It was a great success and the followed by other special economic zones and the rest is history. And now none can analyze Chineses success without mentioning Deng.

Lee Kuan Yew did not develop Singapore from scratch. It was the hub cities for regional area for decades. But had he had a great vision to make Singapore always relevant to the world's needs, Singapore would not have been attractive for foreigners to establish bases for regional services.

Mahathir Mohammad has a vision to make his Malay race to be better living. He envisioned to achieve the developed nation status in 2020. And the best lesson from Mahathir is that he developed Multimedia Super Corridor 1996 to address the progress of information technology. It a sharp mind and bold action of Mahathir because it is the high risk investment. But he insisted that the information technology is the strategic sector that Malaysia should embrace it from the very beginning. Thanks to Mahathir, Malaysia is now ready to shift from middle income country to the high income through the worker's skills in value added products.

In my opinion Pak Harto deserved Indonesian leader because of his merit to stabilize Indonesia after the politic turmoil. Upbringing as a farmer, Pak Harto succeeded to bring Indonesia self sufficient in rice production. Even he tried to expand paddy field in Central Kalimantan swamp area, but he failed. And However Pak Harto is a leader with vision and he had struggled to realize it. In similar vein Habibie is also our leader. He tried to develop Indonesia by embracing high technology such as aircraft. Even he failed to make profit from all his strategic industries, at least he had a vision and knew what to do for the country.

Does SBY fail? The Idul Fitri celebration will tell the truth

2010-09-08T20:32:00.004+07:00

Colonel Adjie Suradji, defiant army officer, might be right about SBY, a feeble general who has no courage to make good for this country. Colonel Adjie has also a good point about courage. It is the respectful character that is praised much by one of American great president, John F Kennedy. In his Pulitzer winning book Profiles in Courage, he quoted Ernest Hemingway that courage is grace under pressure, to portray the courage of 8 US Senators in serving their country. Unfortunately SBY has no courage to solve our problem of enacting law. Apparently SBY let the evil power crush Corruption Eradication Commission by saying that he cannot interfere the police and prosecutor's duty. That's absolutely silly.

Despite courages, the downward of SBY leadership is no great vision. I fully understand that we cannot compare SBY with Pak Harto. Pak Harto has a vision because he has a lot of time to materialize his vision, whereas SBY only has 5 years to do it. However that is not an excuse for SBY because we see that he has many opportunities to show his greatness. We remember Bung Karno as a founding father, Pak Harto for Indonesia's development result, Habibie for his passion for technology. We can forgive Gus Dur and Megawati because they have too little time, but until now we will remember nothing of SBY's 10 year stint.

However the Colonel is absolutely wrong about the paragon of leadership. He took Evo Morales, Hugo Chaves, Ahmadinejad as exemplary leader. Certainly they are brave to defy the American superpower, but they have no strategic action to develop their countries which heavily depend on the wealth of natural resources. Instead of them, the Colonel should mention Deng Xiaoping, Lee Kuan Yew and Mahathir Mohammad.

* * *

Back to the title, does SBY fail?

A friend of mine wrote his status on Facebook. He has compelling case to defend that SBY succeeds in developing this country. He said that should you go to the malls or even the traditional markets then you can see people stampede to buy everything for the Idul Fitri celebration. Without having money we cannot imagine how they can buy.

I told about this to my mother and after coming back from the near market she testified to me that my friend is right. Indonesian people, at least in my hometown do have enough money to buy food and clothes. So thanks to SBY administration people do afford Idul Fitri celebration.

Seeing this I am very upbeat of Indonesian future. We do have a lot of problems: rampant corruption, poor infrastructure, cumbersome bureaucracy, bad law enactment, etc. but until now we survive. We still have positive economic growth, and despite sometimes very disturbing, we can say have stability of democratic country.

Happy Idul Fitri 1431 H!

* * * * *

Economic Integration First, Then Infrastructure Development

2010-09-02T13:24:00.007+07:00

Coordinating Minister of Economic Affairs, Hatta Rajasa was disillusioned with the infrastructure progress of Belawan Port. In 2006, the Infrastructure Summit had decided to improve that port, but until now it takes 6 days to load CPO into 20,000 deadweight ton vessel.

This case shows us that the government is not serious to develop this country's economy in terms of actions not words. We have a good plan or will, but have poorly execution. Given the fact that Indonesia is the world's biggest CPO producer and Belawan is the country's largest CPO seaport, the government wastes this competitive advantage.

* * *

Indonesia ranks 75 out of 155 countries in terms of logistics performance index. The logistics cost 25% GDP while other countries such as Thailand 19%, US 10%, respectively. It is clearly an indication that we have high cost of logistics. Reportedly the shipping of 40-foot container from Padang to Jakarta cost USD 600 while form Jakarta to Singapore will cost USD 185. Unsurprisingly, the China's cheap fruit has been ubiquitous in Indonesia and it seems outnumbering the local fruit. The cow breeders in Lampung get a lower price of Californian corn than of Gorontalo.

There is a network problem to connect the component of goods transportation before assembled. It might be because of cumbersome and corrupted bureaucracy, dishonest government officer and poor network idea and plan.

* * *

There 2 key issues concerning with our not-reflected-the-potential development, namely: economic integration and execution. Economic integration means to have economic output produced and delivered efficiently. It results the soaring price of domestic goods and services production. The success of best planning definitely depends on execution.

However before executing infrastructure, the integration issues have to be addressed first. It includes the issue of economic equity mainly the development of outer Java. It is flabbergasting to see many toll roads are being constructed in already-crowded Java Island despite many alternatives of transportation such as railway.

The government should focus on the economic cluster planning from upstream to downstream in continuous and efficient flow to produce cheaper products. After mapping the material or component flow, it should be followed by the best infrastructure.

* * * * *

Calm Down Please

2010-08-27T15:44:00.018+07:00

I don't like to see the recurring hatred of Indonesians towards Malaysians. I fully understand Malaysia is not a good boy. Several times it offends us as the last incident of detaining the Indonesian government officers who caught the Malaysian fishermen breaching Indonesian territory. And their response is always that the conflict is a trivial matter and the anger emerged only represents a few Indonesians.

However, the Indonesian protesters have done too much and disproportionate. Hurling faces to the Malaysian embassy, threatening the Malaysian travelers in Indonesia is primitive and childish actions.

Indonesians should realize that 2 million migrant workers creating incomes from Malaysia. Thanks to their prosperity so that Malaysians are absorbed in more added value jobs, whereas the lower jobs go to Indonesian jobless.

* * *

Indonesia has to stop exacerbating this conflict. It is not only useless but wasting our energy to develop our country as well.

Even the lawmakers have lost their common sense by stating the military option addresing this "sibling rivalry". It is nonsense. We are not ready to wage war both technically and economically reasoning. Can our old and out-of-date plane go to war despite they often crashed without being shot by any enemy's bullet? Do we have budget to the military campaign whereas we need that money to develop our infrastructure, school, and people's heath?

Absolutely unexpected war between Malaysia and Indonesia will make suffer of both countries, particularly of Indonesian people. Without war, Indonesian people have been bombed by mismanaged-3 kg-LPG-canister explosion, now they want us to have other bombs from Malaysian army. What a miserable life will be!

* * *

Frankly speaking, are we, Indonesians, jealous with Malaysians so we hate them so much?

Their income per capita is 3 times more than us (The World Factbook, GDP per capita Indonesia: USD 4.000, Malaysia: 14.900). The tourists come to Malaysia is 3 times more than to Indonesia (Wikipedia, World Tourism Rankings: Malaysia 23.6 million visitors in 2009, Indonesian Ministry of Tourism: 6.4 million visitors in 2009) . Petronas outdoes Pertamina in all business measurements (Forbes: in 2008 Petronas' asset: USD 125 million, Pertamina USD 25 million; Petronas: Twin Tower, Formula One Racing sponsor, Pertamina: ???). Although Indonesia is the world's biggest CPO producers, but Malaysia has more benefit from the CPO downstream products than us. Now Malaysia focuses on escaping middle income trap, while Indonesia still grapples with corruption, bad infrastructure and poverty. Malaysia is ready for bright future with new strategy of New Economic Model (NEM) replacing New Economic Policy (NEP) to achieve status of developed country through innovation, while Indonesia development direction will rely on who take the helm in every presidential election.

Indonesia should prioritize its economic development first. Indonesia should catch up the Malaysia's economic progress. Indonesia should compete Malaysia in terms of economy the way Koreans try to revenge humiliation of Japan in the past.

* * * *

Iran’s Useless Show Off

2010-08-25T12:15:00.009+07:00

Does a country have dignity by developing sophisticated weapons?

In recent days the world is poured by a spate of news on Iran's newly launched military equipment. On Friday (20/8/2010) the Iranian military had successfully test-fired surface-to-surface missile dubbed Qiam. On Saturday (21/8/2010) Iran began with to put fuel rods into the Russian-built nuclear reactor. On Sunday (22/8/2010), Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled a 1000 km-range bomber drone dubbed Karrar. On Monday (23/8/2010), again, Iran opened the production line of high speed assault boats dubbed Seraj (Lamp) and Zolfaghar (Imam Ali's sword). See, in four consecutive days Iran tried to mesmerize the world with its cutting-edge technology.

It is inarguable that Iran has got its deterrent factor. Iran is not as easy as Iraq and Afghanistan to conquer. Its archenemy – US and Israel – will think twice to wage a war against Iran. But whatever Iran show off, do not ever think that US and Israel cannot match or outdone Iran in making lethal weapon.

For the time being Iran will be safe. But what next can they do with the isolation of the US superpower? Do they have to insist not to have dialogue or play down their attitude to win the US' heart or at least US will let them play in the broader role in the world. I think Iranian leaders should think this in better perspective. Iran should learn other country's approach amid the hegemony of American-defined world.

China is the best paragon. The Chinese utterly do not bow to the Americans, but they are not deemed as an enemy by Americans. Thanks to Deng Xiaoping's vision, China embraces the western system of capitalism. China has put itself the world's economy network. The Chinese can export their production to anywhere in the world freely and the most important they can easily invite foreign company to invest, make production, and transfer their latest technology. And now China is the key player in world's economy and if China is attacked by any country then it will affect to the whole world.

The Iranians might ask, by doing this, do the Chinese have dignity facing the Americans?

Certainly the Chinese do have dignity in terms of cutting-edge weapon race. In 2007, China had successfully tested it anti-satellite missile. Previously, in 1996 it tested the first underground nuclear weapon. These are more than enough to tell the world that China is a very strong country. Imagine if the United States attacked and China would answer by shooting the America's satellite so that it can render their jet fighters' maximum capacity, guided missiles or any equipments relied on satellite useless.

Many of us, particularly if you are Moslem, dislike the arrogant Uncle Sam. However, any leaders should prioritize their people's prosperity. And for that purpose, there is no other better way except making friend with Uncle Sam. This is the Chinese recipe to address the arrogant Uncle Sam: embrace what prevails in the world system, do your best to bring the best to your country, not to make angry the temporary winner Uncle Sam, after connecting with the whole world for better and worse, sometimes you can show off you strength without any sanction at all.

SBY’s Third Term

2010-08-20T14:07:00.010+07:00

Does SBY deserve for third term of presidential stint? Absolutely, he does not. Why? He has no breakthrough to develop Indonesia. Is SBY a bad president? Absolutely, he is not. To certain extent he is a good one. I believe he has integrity and passion to do good for the people. And in my opinion SBY does not pursue self interest from his presidency.

I criticize SBY the way Lebanese criticized UNIFIL, United Nation's peacekeeping troops in Lebanon. The critics of Lebanese societies against UNIFIL are that UNIFIL is perfectly function when there is no war. However, as conflicts appeared, UNIFIL is just bystanders. UNIFIL including Indonesian troops reportedly fled from a skirmish between Lebanese and Israeli forces.

Is it fair to compare SBY's inaction with UNIFIL's escape?

Let see the evil's backlash against KPK. Antasari got 18 years imprisonment as the trial had never truly proved him guilty. Surprisingly, the judges shrugged off the evidence that Nasrudin (the victim) and Sigit (allegedly murder's associate) taped Antasari prior to the killing of Nasrudin. I wonder why they needed to tape Antasari, the then KPK chief. Of course the laymen will ask what the record is for. Certainly some people had asked both of them to do this, but who are they? Why did the judges not ask further about this strange evidence? Two men taped the same person would have had strong intention such as conspiracy to topple the good-performance Antasari.

Moreover, the others KPK leaders, Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra Hamzah have also been accused of bribery without any direct evidence. Even both the Police Chief and Attorney General had lied before the lawmakers on evidence. What a messy rule of law!

What do SBY do about this blatant crime? Nothing, just like UNIFIL. He only said it was the legal area that he had no intention and rights to interfere. That is definitely wrong attitude. Do nothing means to let somebody take charge to do anything as he wants. Not intervention means to let corruptors orchestrated the KPK' demise. The true reason is our president does not want to take risk in his second term by not doing anything that may backlash his presidency. He wants to play safe. By doing this, SBY will function perfectly – just like UNIFIL – when Indonesia is a law-established country like western country where the law is enacted in a true manner.

In economy SBY until now has neither legacy that we can remember. He does nothing in terms of economic breakthrough. He does everything like business as usual when we need groundbreaking program. We cannot boast of our product selling all across the world. We hardly boast our juggernauts because they are still too little. We have no showcases of our prosperous economic zones to invite more foreign direct investment. In a nutshell, there is no achievement at all in economy.

These are 2 points Indonesia needs the most, namely: (i) rule of law which everything is predictable, where the good guys prevails, where the law is abided by all citizens (ii) economy to answer what kind of industry we should develop and where should the specific industry thrive. SBY has no extra courage to enact the law and has no strategy or implementation to make achievement in economy.

SBY has a historic chance to do better so we will remember him as national hero who had done much to us. I hope he would realize that legacy which means quality of leadership is more important rather than the second or the third term.

Poverty Eradication

2010-08-17T12:45:00.006+07:00

The government is very serious to eliminate poverty of Indonesia's people. I have been working for that program led by Vice President Secretariat and I conclude the program will not be very effective. The program did not address the real problem of poverty: low income!

People create incomes from working in the factories, selling goods and services such as merchants or doctors, entertaining people in TV show, etc. And the beginning of those things is the work of entrepreneur, private sectors. These entities are the true incomes creators. Low incomes appear from low added value products. And people with low incomes or no fixed incomes are poor people. That is poverty.

What is the government has to do?

Most of our people work as farmers. Do the farmers have more incomes than the worker in the factories? I guess they don't. Indonesia's farmer's productivity is low due to too much farmers for less irrigated farming. So the government should have focused on building more factories. Do we have resources to do this? I guess we don't. We have less spirited people of entrepreneurship. So the government should invite Foreign Direct Investment and develop more special economic zones. This strategy is very effective and very fast to make country prosper. We have many paragons such as China.

Until now I have seen no keen policy to enhance our industry sectors. And the industry contribution to Gross Domestic Product is declining. Indonesia lags behind the next rising star country, Vietnam, in terms of Foreign Direct Investment. The government seems pay no attention to promote special economic zones.
This is the upstream of the poverty problem that the government should have addressed since 30 years ago. And now president SBY's pro poor program is to do face-lift in the downstream.

Mr. President, Special Economic Zones will answer the poverty problem effectively.

Freedom

2010-08-17T10:34:00.003+07:00

I love Indonesia very much. It is my beloved country. But until the nation's 65^th anniversary I never have a positive proud of Indonesia. It seems I love Indonesia just because I was born here and I have less choice to choose the citizenship.

As a nation we still fail to give meaning on freedom. Our leaders seem have ideas how to manage this country by our own after the independence dream came true. Since the beginning of independence, we underwent a kind of civil war and power struggle. The government cannot work because it was disturbed by other politicians who were chasing the helm. Bung Karno could not manage this mess and even Bung Karno himself created his own mess by being the lifetime Indonesian president.

Then Pak Harto came as a nation savior against communists. After taking office he managed to make stability in this country. It is his merit that this country for 30 years concentrated on economic development rather than politics. Yes, we had much progress during Pak Harto's stint. We should praise him for promoting the best Indonesian scholars to plan and execute the development. Thanks to oil natural source and its high price, Pak Harto had abundant funds to finance the development. However, natural resources-based development was susceptible to price change. And at last the moment of truth came. The development was out of steam as the oil price tumbled. It turned out the economic development was baseless and easily swept by speculators. At last Pak Harto himself was ousted by his own people.

In the wake of financial crisis, Indonesia embraced democracy. And the state orientation went back to Bung Karno era, politics before economy. As a result we see more politics drama rather than economic development. Rampant corruptions, messy and powerless government, indifferent leaders, rising sectarian groups are parts of country's picture after 65 year independence.

Whatever happens this is our country and we have no choice, except to fix it at our own disposal.

Malaysia’s Middle Income Trap and Us

2010-08-15T21:56:00.000+07:00

The difference between Indonesia and Malaysia is the main issue arouse nowadays. Indonesia is still grappling with poverty, while Malaysia is talking about middle income trap. Indonesia is still facing the developing country’s basic problem, while Malaysia is aiming to join the elite group of developed countries.

To some extent, certainly Indonesia and Malaysia have similar initial condition to build their country in the wake of their independence from Western imperialism. On the onset both countries rely on the trade of abundant commodities to develop their countries. Both countries also invited foreign direct investment luring the investor with economic zones, tax holiday and low-waged workers. In 1990s the result was less different, both countries were dubbed as Asian miracles. It was 1998 financial crisis, revealed the real strength of both countries. Malaysia could get through the crisis in grace. Led by then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad, Malaysia turned down IMF’s aid and advice. Indonesia plunged into deep crisis, first economic crisis and then followed by political crisis toppling President Soeharto. Since then Malaysia development slowed down but still gaining its stature, unfortunately Indonesia never comes back as Asian miracle country.

At present Malaysia’s income per capita is 3 times more than Indonesia’s. Malaysia is categorized as middle income country and for them it is time to talk about the next step.

Previously Malaysian strategy was to produce low added value goods. It worked and raised Malaysian living standard, and developed Petronas twin tower and Multimedia Super Corridor. But it does not work now. Logically speaking, only high price products can bring the workers high wages. High price products are only created by sustainable innovation. And innovation is a strange thing that cannot exist just because you want it to exist. Even in America the innovation spirit of Sillicon Valley cannot be easily cloned to other parts of America. Innovation is a mixed ingredient such as education, property rights, and crazy investor. It needs also people who has abundant creativity and love to take risks.

Malaysia has identified their situation and what they want to achieve. They realize they are caught in middle income trap and why it happened. They promulgate New Economic Model (NEM) to spur economic growth and reach developed nation in 2020 through innovation.

I am very sad about Indonesia situation. We are wasting time on law enforcement, basic economic policy direction, regional elections calamity, high chilly price, poor infrastructure, etc. In consequence Malaysians appear with the new stage of development and Indonesians still come out with proposal of poverty eradication after 65 year freedom.

Indonesian Rupiah Redenomination

2010-08-08T22:00:00.005+07:00

The former Indonesian president, Megawati asked: "if we implement redenomination of thousand, how much will the value of Rp. 100 be? That was not a smart question from the ex-president. It is easy to explain: Rp. 100 equals 100 x 100 cent = 10.000 cents. Then the redenomination value of Rp. 100 – in case of redenomination by decreasing 3 zeroes – will be 10 cents.

The newly elected Central Bank governor, Darmin Nasution, has announced the long term plan of Central Bank to adjust the currency by deleting the thousand of current value. For instance Rp. 1000 will be Rp. 1. The goal is just to simplify the figures and redenomination will not have any effect to its value. On paper there will be no troubles at all about currency redenomination. In today's transaction we hardly see goods or services pricing at less than Rp. 500, let alone Rp. 100 as stated by Megawati.

Some experts say redenomination will make the transaction simpler and make the ATM machines have less burdensome. Certainly, it is not true. Both transactions and ATM machines' burden will be the same. In the new denomination, there will not be the notes of Rp. 100.000. Imagine, who will bring Rp. 100.000.000 in their pockets? Instead, the ATM machines will serve Rp. 50 replacing Rp. 50.000 and Rp. 100 replacing Rp. 100.000.

It is inflation that creating the weaker value of currency. And years after years, the figures will be bigger. In 1970's, the rich people is dubbed as a millionaire. And now if you have millions rupiah, you are not deemed as a rich people.

Redenomination is not a new policy. For the last 85 years, there are 50 countries implemented the redenomination of its currency. German was the first country to do this in 1923 in the wake of hyperinflation. The German's government deleted 12 zeroes of its value. Turkey adjusted its lira in 2005 by dumping 6 zeroes. Compared to Indonesia's plan cutting 3 zeroes, the central bank will cut less zeroes than Turkey and German.

So, as an idea, Indonesian rupiah redenomination is not wrong at all. And I think we should accept this idea, because too many figures in currency mean nothing. Pak Darmin, please go ahead and forget about Ibu Megawati's comment. Frankly speaking, Ibu Megawati is the one who is very afraid about redenomination, because her name will be Kilowati.

Indonesia’s Debt

2010-08-07T17:31:00.001+07:00

I have seen a lot of debt-based project all across Indonesia. Thanks to abundance natural resources, Indonesia wean on debt of foreign funding agency to develop. The debt itself is neutral. It can add the capital to get more return. But if the debt is mismanaged then it is what I see on Indonesia’s debt: squandering money.

For sure, the debt has likely an impact to the economy. It was just because that money is poured directly into the economy activities. Once the debt was disbursed, the demand of goods and services would increase and more jobs would be created. But unfortunately, the debt-caused economic growth has nothing to do with the goal of the project.

And sometimes the government has no vision on the project goal and the holistic grasp on the connections between projects and its priority. For instance community-based water supply and sanitation project was wrong in terms of priority. Everything starts from prosperity, and others will follow. It is just to make people rich first and naturally they can afford to buy water supply from private company and adequate sanitation equipment. Doing the reverse will result in endless circle, the poverty lead to the worse water supply and sanitation and the government’s aid – not the water supply and sanitation facilities from the debt – will be sustainable. Consider, the debt was earmarked for supporting private sector to build industry and the income of poor people raised, and then invite the private investor to provide water supply.

Peter Drucker said:” developing nations don't need government-to-government aid or grandiose World Bank projects but, instead, partnerships with private enterprises in industrial nations.” I absolutely agree with this Guru of Management Gurus. The right usage of debt is to support business by developing industrial zones, constructing the best roads, bridges, ports and airports, providing the easiest and friendly regulation, and last but not least, training officers to serve the investors all across the world. It is investors creating money for our people. Unless we find oil reserves as much as in Saudi Arabia, then it is the only way to enhance public incomes.

Indonesia’s DOSCapital

2010-08-05T11:36:00.003+07:00

What is happening in today's Indonesian politics is a confirmation to the DOSCapital theory from Thomas Friedman's Lexus and Olive Tree. The theory explains the must-existed tools in a country to succeed in globalization. Those are hardware covering free market system, democratic elections, etc. and software including rules of law, government officer's capacity, etc. Only if a country has both, the age of globalization will benefit its people. When the tools are lopsided then the globalization turns the democracy to be the kleptocracy (analogy: the state-of- the-art computer without software) or the system will collapse (analogy: the old computer with the state-of-the-art software).

Indonesia has all instruments of democratic system. The leaders are regularly elected by the most-advanced system. The balancing institution is working so well so that the executives cannot run the government well. We have all law enforcement powerful bodies such as Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK), Constitutional Court (MK). But it seems useless. Elections do not reflect meritocracy. The singers, entertainers, comedians turned to lawmakers. Law enforcement is still dull. The corruptors' fightback is at alarming rate. The chief of KPK has been put into jail. The others are accused by fake evidence of bribery. In short we have the hardware of democracy but we have no software to implement it.

And after 12 years, we realize that democracy turns out to be just another system. Democracy is only a tool, just a tool that cannot ensure the result unless you fulfill the conditions. Our system and "the man behind the gun" are so weak that the free market system implementation does not favor the result. The corruption is still rampant. The economy is still sluggish. In terms of people's prosperity, Pak Harto was doing better than all his successors.

Back to Thomas Friedman. In developed western countries, the system encourages people to do their best and give them reward by what they produce. The people who win the races are Bill Gates, Andy Groove, Steve Jobs who create wealth and high quality jobs by using their own talents not by special license from government, or bribing the officials. In DOSCapital 6.0 (the highest of system ranking), meritocracy prevails, the advanced high added value goods and services thrives.

In the new comers of democracy, the first thing emerging is politics, while economy activities subject to politics. Instead of supporting economy, politics becomes the vehicle for economic victory. If you want to be rich don't try hard like Bill Gates just become politicians. In contrast with the stabilized democracy make the politics shrinks and economy grows.

So we see that the Indonesia's local government does not encourage business by imposing heavy tax and levies. The lawmakers does not concern with efforts to support and create business. They are occupied by trivial matters such as aspiration funds and now aspiration funds for housing. Both of them do not understand that their main task is to support businesses that create job for the people. The more added value business thrives the more prosperity comes. That has happened in the developed countries and we have to follow that path because there is no other choice.

No Matter Black or White

2010-07-30T17:21:00.005+07:00

Deng Xiao Ping: "It doesn't matter a white cat or black cat, as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat."

The 2009 presidential election had spent as much as Rp. 50 trillion. For the next 5 years (2010 -2014) another Rp. 15 trillion will be "wasted". For the sake of democracy, in terms of budgeting allocation priority, we sacrifice our people from lack of education, malnutrition, indecent housing.

The outstanding different between our fledgling democratic elections and Western's established democratic elections is the party's distinguished character.

In the paragon of democracy, in the western countries, we can see the different party with the different character and idea. For instance, in United States, Republic Party is the party with idea of no or less state intervention, while in contrast Democratic Party more receptive with the big role of government. Republicans deny the abortion, homosexual, while Democrats deem those as the rights to choose.

We have no such different characters of parties like that. Can we distinguish Golkar Party, Democratic Party and Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P)? They are all the same of no character. They always waffle about how to develop Indonesia, but their program are normative and standard such eradicate poverty, create jobs, promote people's health status, etc.

So, if they are the same, why do we need elections? Eko Patrio from National Mandate Party (PAN), Tantowi Yahya from Golkar Party and Rachel Maryam from The Greater Indonesian Movement Party (Gerindra) have no different ideas (if they have one!) and position in making law.

In my opinion we don't need too much election, because the parties are the same in the blur substance and elusive agenda. Please stop wasting money anymore! What we should encourage is meritocracy in the state system, let the best and brightest minds manage the bureaucracy.

Let us take Singapore as an example. With only single party really exists, the election is only to confirm the development achievement. The government run the state on meritocracy basis. The government recruits the best students to join the bureaucracy and give them the best education abroad and let them experience government affairs for at least 15 years and get the brightest ones to be leaders. This system leads Singapore to be one of the cleanest and well-run bureaucracy in the world.

So my fellow countrymen do still believe in or support those nonsense elections for our prosperity?

Indonesia’s Democrazy

2010-07-26T16:07:00.003+07:00

The government will spend as much as Rp 15 trillion during 2010 – 2014 Regional Election all across Indonesia. Is it worth for us to spend such big amount of money for the dream of prosperity?

In Indonesia, democratic instrument such as election, freedom of speech, balance of power turns into political fad and chaos. Election becomes spending spree activities, freedom of speech leads to freedom of violence, balance of power means no one has responsibility of anything.

We didn't invent democracy so that we often lost the essence of democracy. It is freedom with responsible, rule of law, and above all, meritocracy have made democracy is the best choice of state system. However in case of your citizenry is not law-abiding one, just forget the democracy. Your leaders cannot make a system to ensure that the best and brightest mind will lead the way and manage the bureaucracy, and then democracy doesn't fit.

Democracy is only a tool brings people to prosperity. And sometimes you should take the West's democracy recipe with a grain of salt. If you try to be a copy cat of this then you have the different result with the rich Western countries. Instead of public order and high income, you get the rampant corruption, wild demonstration, election disputes and everything that eventually will hamper the development. So why should we embrace democracy?

Moreover, Indonesia is a developing country, so the development should be guided coherent policy from central and local government. On contrary, Indonesia's democracy prompts the overlapping policy and even confusing policy because they have their own agenda.

So what is election, especially regional election, for? First, it will be the disturbance of national policy. Second, in terms of Indonesia's need, local government is the pivotal institution which manages directly the people. So the leader should be the experienced one, fully understand the problem and have a remarkable track record. As mentioned above, meritocracy is the only way for us to have a good government and governance.

My brainchild is we only have one election for the five years' time. It is presidential election along with 33 gubernatorial elections. While the district and city's leaders will be appointed by governor. This system will simplify the elections and ensure the similar direction and synergy of national development.

Indonesia’s Bad Losers

2010-07-23T15:43:00.002+07:00

Indonesia's fledgling democratic countries are rife with election disputes. The pattern is always the same: the vote-rigging occurred, the losers will blame the winner and mobilize the mass to hold demonstration. The losers never concede defeat.

However the losers can be exonerated when it comes to messy election administration and bad dispute solving system. However, the losers sometimes exaggerate the rigging issues. For instance, in 2009 presidential election, SBY team had been accused playing citizen administration all across Indonesia. Certainly, it was impossible, since all the governors and regents are derived from different parties, not only SBY's Democratic Party. So it is hardly to believe that they obeyed the SBY's command to cheat.

Our politicians should grow up to face defeat boldly. America's democracy teaches us how beaten presidential candidate make a speech to accept the result and congratulate the winner. Even when there is something wrong about the process, they put the public interest in the first place and not to sacrifice democracy by prolonged disputes. Richard Nixon neglected the then-US President, Eisenhower to file the case of election fraud against John F Kennedy. Al Gore did the same against George W Bush.

The Indonesia's losers should learn why in sports especially in soccer, the referee's decision is uncompromised. In 2010 World Cup, Lampard's goal is a true goal, but the referee had decided it was not a goal and everyone had to accept this, even at last we know that the decision was wrong. It's a game that cannot be interrupted by prolonged dispute because it will ruin the games mood.

And so does the protracted election disputes. The people will be divided according to candidates. The violence is rampant. The election turns to violent drama instead of legal process to choose the leader. Democracy loses its beauty.

Pak Harto and Oil Price

2010-07-23T10:10:00.005+07:00

Until now Indonesians are still arguing never ending story whether Pak Harto is a hero or corruptive leader. During Pak Harto's terms we see a lot of development result such as infrastructure, industry, economic growth, more educated people, etc. Why can't all this things make him a hero? Some might say that the Indonesia's development benefitting his family's wealth development. Indonesia's economy is governed by his inner circle. However how is about the development presented by high economic growth? Can we appreciate this?

In terms of oil price, now we can explain why Indonesia developed so fast during Pak Harto's stint. Oil price did matters! Pak Harto can develop Indonesia because of good oil price. And later Pak Harto could only be toppled thanks to low oil price.

It was American bestseller author, Pulitzer-winning Thomas Friedman who suggests the relation of oil price and dictatorship or democracy in First Law of Petropolitics. The idea is during the oil price hike, the democracy will be hit and the authoritarian regimes blossom. When oil price is going low, the democracy rise. It occured in Indonesia and oil price definetely determined Pak Harto's faith.

Let see http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm.

During 1974 - 1985 oil price soared above USD 40 per barrel. It was because of oil embargo by Arabs following Yom Kippur war between the Arabs and Israel and Iran-Iraq war. And then it tumbled hovering USD 20 per barrel until the end of financial crisis 1999. And the the price increased again and peaked in 2007 and then went down again during financial crisis 2008 – 2009. But it remains above USD 40 per barrel.

From this data we can see why Indonesia develop so fast during the oil boom years 1974 – 1985. All national program had been succcesfully implemented. Indonesia was laudable for its rice self-sufficient. The population could be controlled by massive family planning program. Even we can designed a plane, CN 235 in 1983. Certainly Pak Harto is also a good administrator, so that the oil money was spent wisely.

And then the situation is turnabout. The oil price plunged and ever reached under USD 20 per barrel during financial crisis 1997-1998. And Pak Harto had to stepped down in 1998.

But Pak Harto had still some credits. Thanks to lower oil price , the government scambled to enhance non oil and gas industry and it worked. Indonesia manage to transform from agriculture-based country to industry-based one. In 1993 the agriculture sector contribute to GDP more than the industry sector, but in 1993 the industry sector had surpassed the agriculture sector. And according to UNIDO criteria, Indonesia included in industrial country since since the industry sector made up more than 20% of GDP.
However this achievement was not enough. The still-fledgling industrial country was not strong enough to tackle the financial crisis. At last the government yielded to high inflation and the government fell. And after Pak Harto fell, Indonesia's democracy rose.

The relation between oil price and the succes and failure of Pak Harto explains as follows. When the oil price high, the government had enough money to implement the development program, while the oil price as low as USD 20 per barrel, the luck went away.

Indonesia's oil has nearly run out. After becoming oil net importer country, Indonesia has withdrawn from OPEC since 2008. Instead of a bad things, it is absolutely good news. Now we have no choice to grow industry, innovation, education etc. for survival.

Led by Critics

2010-07-21T05:19:00.003+07:00

Who is the real leader guiding the Indonesians' faith? It is demonstration, criticism, protest, etc.

Bibit-Chandra would go to jail, unless the massive criticism emerged against the Police Headquarters and AGO.Tempo journalists would be arrested unless the strong criticism appeared from civil society. And recently, the government's real planned tariff hike as much as 39% -101% get lowered to maximum 18% also because of criticism.

Even our previous presidents such as Bung Karno and Pak Harto can only be forced to step down through demonstration. And few days ago I watched on TV that the demonstrator forced the election commission to sign declaration of something as to what they want. We are the third biggest democratic country but we are not civilized in making public decision as if there's no rule of law. The only rule is the power of mass, demontrations and criticism.

Is there any leader in this country has inner power to decide something base on logics and remain persistence to what he/she believe?

It was former Jakarta Governor, Sutiyoso when he insisted to go on the plan of busway despite massive criticism. He could manage any resistance and continue constructing the busway infrastructure. At last some Jakartans realize that busway is a good solution for transportation problem in Jakarta. Now Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo can't maintain the momentum and let the private car and motorcycle fouls the busway system so that it becomes ineffective.

In a similar vein, former vice president Jusuf Kalla (JK) had also shown us the power of will. It was his brilliant brainchild to convert the household energy from kerosene to gas. At that time the problem is scarcity of gas because of the massive shift. JK can handle this quickly and the government could save money of subsidy. Now the government has no leader with the same character of JK. The good idea turns into disaster. The gas canister seems to be bombs sent to every Indonesian's household. It is absolutely only technical problems that can't be addressed well by the government.

Strong leadership as performed by Sutiyoso and JK is what we really need in Indonesia. We need leaders with strong characters to tackle any criticism and demonstration.

Mr. President, We Need Your Bold Action

2010-07-20T06:06:00.005+07:00

President SBY made symbolic action against corruption by visiting assaulted ICW activist Tama. Previously, in the same vein President established Team 8 to investigate the alleged Bibit-Chandra of bribery case. And President also asked for outside court settlement for Bibit-Chandra's case only after the polling showed that people felt the government cannot handle this case.

If I have to give evaluation the way President did to the cabinet ministers, then I will give red mark to President in terms of law enforcement.

The style of SBY's leadership concerning with law enforcement is 'not to interfere'. Can he do that? Of course not. I know the President is very good person and he by no means support the evil. However the President's inaction means indirectly support them. The corruptor camp will hail no bold action against them.

The assault on ICW activist and Tempo magazine headquarters are not coincidence. Ridiculously, the President said it was a third party benefitting the situation and asked the police to arrest them. Certainly it is impossible that the incidents have not any relations with the case of suspicious accounts of several higher ranking police officers. And it is not logic to let the tainted institution to solve the problem embroiled them. And worse, Corruption Eradication Commission has declared that they will not take up the investigation. It seems they have been intimidated by previous traumatic experience against the police.

President SBY is likely a good singer and song writer. His heart tends to be soft. But this time we need his bold action to enforce law. We don't need his symbolic visit to Tama. We need the real action to command the impartial investigation against the suspicious officers' accounts. Otherwise many people will think he has no capability to punish his disgraced subordinate. And once again 'not interfere' means to support the misconduct parties.

World Soccer and Us

2010-07-12T17:10:00.003+07:00

As happened in any other places in the world, we have also World Cup fever here. For a month Indonesia's newspaper, television, facebook, daily talks are dominated by world cup event. Impromptu soccer experts derived from politicians, lawmakers, artists are rampant in every television program. They gave analysis vehemently as if they are Franz Beckenbauer or Carlos Bilardo. And the cafes are full with people watching the game jointly. In short, our citizenry love soccer very much.

Unfortunately until now all we can do is watching the game and giving nonsense comments about the game. The performance of our national team is very bad so the fledging team such as Laos can beat us. Even if we love soccer, we cannot manage every aspect of soccer. Many players seem to be a gifted fighter instead of soccer player. Indonesia's soccer referee is not the most powerful man in the field commanding the game as we see in South Africa. The referee here can be beaten if you are not satisfied with his decision. The police cannot control hooligans fouled the public properties. Worse yet, there is no sign of soccer resurrection. (However resurrection is not the correct word of our national soccer, because until now we have no significant achievement even in Asia tournament). The national soccer association, PSSI, is still in doubt in terms of capacity to bring us any achievement.

Let us find the solution or the cause.

As far as potential players are concerned, there is no reason that we have no such good kids to be great player. We can get the talents all across archipelago. An ounce Singapore's population can select 11 players, let alone the 4th populous country in the world. If we have had the players and then we need a good system to forge the local talents. The question arises whether our national team players reflect the meritocracy of players. Are the kids of natural talent and physical fitness from remote areas in Maluku or Papua have a chance to show their skills and be intensively trained in school of soccer?

Our soccer competition has been held regularly. It is good for every player to hone their skill. We also invite the 2nd or 3 rd level of players from Brazil, Argentina or Africa to join the league. While the 1st level of theirs go to Europe. However, to Indonesia regular league with harsh competition don't have significant correlation with our national soccer team performance. Compared to Singapore, their teams have the same of skills or even better than us. So our busy league has failed to transform the players to be international player.

Now speaking about the coach. Let me tell you something that we have a big problem in the player's basic skill. Imagine that world class-coach Jose Mourinho manages our national team. What will happen? Absolutely, Mourinho might have failed in the beginning of his stint. Why? it's because our players has not passed the basic skill need including dribbling, passing, kicking the ball to the right place and right time. While the coaches in storied nations grapple with the strategy to put the right man in the right place and how to play using the width of field, etc. So you can't have a strategy unless you have many skilful players.

In a nutshell, in order to have dignity in soccer: first find the talented kids, second hone their skills as if they are the friend of the ball and they can do anything with the ball, and the last invite the best strategy coach to create team character and identity like Johan Cruyff create Barcelona as attacking team.