Sorry to keep you waiting readers, but a busy writing schedule kept this from being edited on time.  Today I thought to move from stories/ideas of the islands to what Indonesia actually is and how it came to be.  That’s a pretty broad topic and I really didn’t know where to begin but I thought to keep on the main issue as a westerner’s view I’d explore the issue for myself and clarify it for anyone who takes the time to read.

As I began with last time, Indonesia is a series of islands in the Pacific – some big, some small.  It stretches from the bottom of the Asian mainland to above Australia, between both the Pacific and the Indian oceans.  If one can picture, or look at the supplied map previously, the Vietnam/Thailand/Malaysian peninsula jutting off Asia just below China and circle the islands below this point to just above Australia, this comprises almost the entirety of Indonesia.  It is a bit unusual, in that it has territory on certain islands that it shares; this multi-island nation does have land borders.  The island of New Guinea is shared with Papa New Guinea; Timor is shared with East Timor, or the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste as it calls itself; Borneo it shares with both the independent nation of Brunei and Malaysia.  Borneo is known by Indonesians as Kalimantan and the Indonesian area only actually borders Malaysia and not Brunei.  In total Indonesia has between 13,667 and 17,058 islands, only about half of these inhabited.  It is the largest and the most inhabited archipelagic country in the world with 9.8 million square kilometres, another 7.9 under water, and with over 230 million inhabitants.  In comparison that’s four times the amount in the UK and three quarters of the population of America.  It has a massive mix of cultures, languages and religions, with Islam predominant.  It has the largest population of Muslims in the world.

The islands that are part of Indonesia began as one single land mass still connected to  the Asian mainland during the Pleistocene period four million years ago.  From around 2 millions years ago with the continual melting of ice most of this land was submerged and so Indonesia began as a series of islands.  Most people should be aware of tectonics – the idea that the great land masses are joined in seven large blocks, for the most part.  Indonesia is not just situated between too oceans but a few of these plates; the Filipino plate, the Pacific plate, the Australian plate and the Eurasian plate.  The manner of interaction between these plates has led to the island formations, submarine trenches and volcanic islands as well as mountainous stretches.

When the Australian plate moved Northwards it slipped below the Eurasian plate – the place in which it drops below exists as a vast underwater trench from the Lesser Islands up to Sumatra.  This clash of plates has also led to the formation of volcanoes all along this ridge.  Most earthquakes come from this region as one plate grinds against the other.  To the east the Pacific plate slips below the Eurasian plate thus creating another volcanic area.  Above is a quick guide to the plates in the region.  Indonesia is part of the Ring of Fire – a larger horseshoe area where 90% of the world’s earthquake and volcanic action takes place, the second largest area is the Alpide Belt which also runs into Indonesia.  The Alpide belt is the origin of the Himalayas growth and will continue to push land upwards in the region – bringing more submerged land in Indonesian to the surface, forming more islands.  Sumatra and Java lie on this belt while New Guinea is situated on the Ring of Fire.

Perhaps the single most famous place from Indonesia follows on from this topic – Krakatau.  In the 1800’s it and Tambora erupted famously.  Not surprisingly in this region a volcano of immense scale erupted, Toba.  What was to happen those 70,000 years ago left its mark across the globe.  Within Sumatra there lies the greatest volcanic lake in the world, comprising of four calderas, the most recent of which being the largest in the world.  This was the site of the super-eruption.  Around 3,000 cubic kilometres of material was blasted from the caldera in the eruption.  A caldera is where the land above a volcano’s magma chamber collapses, following the chamber emptying itself – usually after a large eruption.  In Tambora it has an explosive type of caldera due to high silica content.  This and other flammable minerals leads to an explosion during the shifting and collapse of the roof of the magma chamber.  Toba is thought to have been the biggest explosion in the last twenty five million years classified as Mega-Colossal, bigger even then Yellowstone.  It coated the entire Indian subcontinent in 15cm of ash with Malaysia covered in 9m of ash.  The fallout afterwards lowered the temperature by around 3 degrees C and much acid rain.  As an archaeologist it interests me because of the impact it seems to have made upon human development with theories suggesting that it wiped out most of the human race, dropping our number to ten of thousands.

On a final geographical note Indonesia is equatorial and its seasons are twofold – wet and dry.  It has a monsoonal climate with temperature remaining consistent, Jakarta being between 26 – 30 degrees in the most part.

As ever Wikipedia has helped this article with reference checking and figures but for those of you who know your geology please contribute to the new WikiBook on Indonesian Geology that still needs a lot of work.

And there goes my second post on Indonesia, now that we know our way around Indonesia I plan to introduce the peoples and cultures.  The next post should be about the how they got there in the first place.  If you liked this please leave a comment or drop me a line at clanravencub@live.co.uk.  I’d be particularly interested in seeing what ideas other westerners have of Indonesia and what Indonesians think of our views of their land.

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So to begin what did I originally know of Indonesia – out of most of Polynesia I had thought quite a lot.  Java-Man, its location, its rich animal life and rain-forest like conditions.  I had even presumed that the native polytheist religions were quite strong.  And then a pause as I realised that was the length and breadth of my knowledge.  Some thoughts of Thailand fluttered into my head, mistaken identities, another culture I now also realise I know very little of.  And so this promised post had to start pretty much from fresh.

What to begin with?  Indonesia is one large island a set of islands in the Pacific.  Many people will know the names of individual islands, probably not associating them with Indonesia itself – New Guinea, Borneo, Java, Sumatra and Timor.  In this post I will talk to you somewhat about these islands and why they will, should or have stuck out in our mind.

The island of New Guinea is the largest of the Pacific islands, entirely covered in rainforest with the greatest diversity of wildlife, according to the recent documentary season Pacific by the BBC.  Its not Indonesia’s alone but is shared with Papua New Guinea.  As a bit of a wildlife fan, it is one place I find absolutely fascinating.  Wildlife isn’t the only diversity–with the density of languages being the highest on earth with well over a thousand languages, owing in no small place to the massive number of different tribal groups.

Borneo, a name from the movies.  Although names like Timbuktu and Borneo used to be by-words for the exotic, the old classic films are fading and these concepts are no longer part of the pop culture of the youth.  For others of us, Borneo still conjures a mixing of worlds – east meets west.  I think perhaps the image of Borneo signifies the truly inaccurate image the West have of the region.  It is somehow believed that the Pacific is a half-way house between the far Eastern cultures of India, China or Japan for example.  Not thinking that perhaps it is just yet again a highly different set of cultures that share similarities due to proximity with its neighbours.  Borneo is a truly stunning island famous for its caves–back to my wildlife–and its bat population.  Borneo is predominantly animist with a large portion of its Malayan population being Muslim.

Sumatra famous for its coffee, here in the West.  It is an image that conjures up ancient eastern empires as it should.  The early kingdoms of Kantoli (’Kandali’ in local spelling) and Samudra spread Malay culture across the nearby islands acting as a provincial centre.  The majority of Sumatra is Muslim.

Yet again a centre of coffee Java is famous for sharing its name with coffee also.  While the entire region is infamous for its geology, being on the lines of continental plates has caused much disasters – such as earthquakes and the recent tsunami – Java was created by volcanoes, that still form an east-west line across the island today.  The majority of Java is Muslim and Java hosts the capital city Jakarta.  Java has had a varied past from being a Dutch colony–during the colonial days the Spice Islands of the east attracted most of the western empires–to holding high Hindu Kingdoms, Buddhist kingdoms and Muslim Sultanates.  As an archaeologist, one other significant comment on Java is Java-Man.  A form of Homo-Erectus that rocked the world and complicated the original Out of Africa story that had at the time been proposed as the origin of man.

Timor famous recently for its province, the unsurprisingly named, East Timor.  While the word east refers to the east of the island, the word Timor comes from Malay also meaning east, as Timor is on the far east of the archipelago of islands.  So it means east east.  East Timor had been a Portuguese Colony since the 1500’s but following Portugal’s withdrawal, Indonesia claimed the entirety of the island, even though the nation had declared its Independence in 1975.  Recently East Timor has been recognised as a sovereign state making it the first new country of the 21st century.  Not commonly known, but the entire island is predominantly Catholic making the country of East Timor one of a few centres of Catholicism in the Pacific.  This was presumably spread by the Portuguese.

So that’s the first of my posts on Indonesia, I’m hoping to start exploring from here on a bit of what makes Indonesia tick.  Or rather how it developed that tick.  Next post will be another geographical post filling in the blanks of other Islands.  If you liked leave a comment or drop me a line at clanravencub@live.co.uk.  I’d be particularly interested in seeing what ideas other westerners have of Indonesia and what Indonesians think of our views of their land.

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Cigarette tax in Indonesia is among the lowest in the world, making it easy for the poor and the young to smoke

And taxing it up to the roof will force smokers to quit and make them as well as everybody else healthier, this line of reasoning goes. And yet,…

Cigarette smoking is addictive because nicotine is an addictive substance

But if smoking is so addictive, how does increasing cigarette price make smokers quit rather than turn them into thieves? After all, I don’t think I have heard of a drug addict quitting for financial reasons. Perhaps nicotine is simply not as addicting as it is cranked up to be, since smokers appear to be reasonably responsive to economic (dis-)incentives like consumers of most other products.

Here are some of the usual points that anti-smoking activists have frequently brought up in relation to smoking and cigarette tax:

• Smoking is an addiction that somebody takes up, basically, without their consent
• Government should increase cigarette tax to the max to get smokers to quit

The two just don’t add up to me. And another crucial point they continue to bring up, as this article points out is…

• Most smokers are poor

So if I am getting this right, they actually want the poor to pay disproportionately higher tax? Isn’t that what regressive taxation is all about?

Honestly though, it is not true that cigarette is too cheap in Indonesia, at least not to most Indonesians. Anti-smokers will say the tax rates here, at 37.5-55% of the price of a pack of cigarettes are too cheap in comparison to those in other countries. However, the rates don’t actually say much about how affordable actual cigarettes are to the locals.

There might be several ways to identify the affordability of cigarette, but obviously not by simply measuring how much of its price goes to the state coffers. One would be by measuring how much labor is required to buy it, which this paper tries to do (see page 5). Here’s a reproduction of data for selected countries, including Indonesia, from the paper:

From this perspective, cigarette is actually about one and a half times as expensive to the average Indonesians than it is to the average Briton, two times relative to the average Thai and three times as compared to the average Australian.

Another way would be to identify the cost of cigarettes relative to per capita income, which is described in this paper. Again, from this perspective, the price of cigarette in Indonesia is not among the lowest in the world, as it takes up a greater share of most people’s income here than in higher income countries.

Anyway, to answer the question posed by this post’s title, I guess it depends on how effective it is to actually reduce smoking by increasing cigarette price. But as far as taxation goes, I’m finding it hard to agree with imposing any tax that puts a disproportionate burden on the poor.

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The news about East Java Islamic scholars mulling over a religious edict on Facebook use is apparently not true. Administrator of Lirboyo Islamic boarding school (”pesantren”) Idris Marzuki denied the accuracy of the news.

In fact, Marzuki said he did not know the person who claimed to be Lirboyo school’s spokesperson, Nabil Haroen, who announced previously that a fatwa on Facebook was forthcoming. “There’s no such thing. I don’t even know this Nabil,” said Marzuki when contacted by okezone at East Java, Friday (May 22).

Marzuki admitted that there was a meeting of scholars in East Java to talk about contemporary issues faced by the Muslims, but it wasn’t meant to talk about Facebook. “We finished the meeting last night, but there was no talk about that issue,” he said.

Previously, The Associated Press reported that a meeting among Indonesian Islamic scholars was to issue a fatwa concerning the use of social networking on the Internet, reasoning that using such service could lead to illicit sex, which is forbidden by Islamic teaching.

The AP piece claimed that the source of the report was a spokesperson for the Lirboyo Islamic boarding school named Nabil Haroen, but school administrator Idris Marzuki said that he did not know Haroen.

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No, it doesn’t have anything to do with the flu. Instead, the knowledgeable scholars heated up the op-ed section of local newspapers by fussing about meningitis, particularly the Mencevax ACWY meningococcal meningitis vaccine produced by GlaxoSmithKline that was recently reported to contain a type of porcine enzyme called trypsin.

As it were, foreigners entering Saudi Arabia are required to be vaccinated against meningitis, because the country has seen a number of outbreaks of the contagious disease in the past. However, it is said that no meningitis vaccine is free from materials derived from swine.

Alas, the ever alert Food, Drugs and Cosmetics Assessment Board of the MUI (”LPPOM MUI”) found out that, well, the vaccine contained the swine-derived trypsin, and promptly blasted out the Pig-Signal to warn the faithful who are currently making their preparations for this year’s hajj season.

But surely, somebody else would have already known about this, right? Right.

The MUI had questioned the vaccine producer about the treatment in 2007, at which time the Health Ministry’s consultative assembly on health and Shariah law found material from pigs in the vaccine.

And they did something about it, right? Right.

GlaxoSmithKline responded to the inquiry by producing a vaccine free of pig-derived material.

In fact, …

In February 2009, the Belgian company declared that “no trypsin [or other materials of porcine origin] is used in the production of the new Mencevax vaccine.”

And in a statement signed on Monday, the company’s local unit also declared that as of 2009, no animal-derived materials were being used in the production of the vaccine, which is sold in 59 countries, including Muslim nations like Malaysia, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

In addition, even though trypsin was in fact used in producing the vaccine, Head of Food and Drugs Monitoring Agency (”BPOM”) Husniah Rubiana Thamrin Akib said during a hearing with the parliament that the enzyme would only be used in the early production process, and the final product would no longer have it.

So what’s the fuss all about? Mr. Nadratuzzaman who heads LPPOM MUI said:

The one saying that the vaccine is good is the manufacturer. They have to be audited. We should come to their manufacturing facility so we can see all the manufacturing processes from start to finish. We can’t just accept what they say.

Of course, he would also want the government to foot the bill, because GSK’s manufacturing facilities are in Belgium. While you’re at it, why not add in some allowance too to make the trip more enjoyable.

Let me just share a story I heard from a very old friend about an Islamic sage who had to lead a group of religious students on their trip to a conference in Europe. Once the conference was over, the group went to a dinner in a fancy local restaurant, courtesy of the host. None of them understood what was on the menu because they didn’t understand the local language. So the sage just pointed at a fulfilling-looking meal someone was having at a table next to them.

A serial nitpicker among the sage’s students couldn’t help but raised an issue with what the sage did. So he went and whispered to another student next to him that the meal might contain pork, and if the sage ate it, he would be committing a sin. The other student started to feel uneasy and talked to another student about it, and it went on as the meal arrived on their table.

One of the students finally asked the host if the meal did indeed contain pork, and the host confirmed it. When the student who asked the host told the sage about it, the sage had almost finished his meal, and said, “Well you’ve ruined the fun. Now we sin, because we know the meal contains pork.”

The moral of the story is: Don’t be a nitpicker, just shut up and take things in good faith.

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Isn’t democracy wonderful?  At least it should be to most of us who are too busy trying to make ends meet–or to pay off the loan on that glittering new SUV now perched peacefully in the garage–to be properly informed about our foremost civic duty.  If it hadn’t been for democracy, nothing would have forced our ignorant souls to pay any inkling of attention to whatever the legislators-to-be have to say about how a sprawling archipelago nation of 245 million is to be governed.  Nay, there is nowhere to escape the constant onslaught of political newspeak delivered right to our face; not the television as all the big networks are contemptuously coveting the title of “the election channel,” not any of the scandal sheets where all the most insidious perversions of our nation’s crème de la crème have been laid bare for all to see, and certainly not the internet where online political ads have turned up even on the most seemingly unassuming sites.

If you think this is a prelude to a sarcastic rant about the failings of democracy in a  perennially developing nation such as our beloved Indonesia, you would be wrong.  I celebrate the fact that it took me 2 extra hours to get to a meeting with the most challenging client in the middle of an unforgiving tropical storm.  I’m grateful about seeing political talking heads rattling off the most unbelievably thoughtless analyses about the candidates’ chances of winning enough votes to secure a seat in the parliament, or their takes on what VP Jusuf Kalla’s run as a presidential candidate means to his cohabitation with President SBY.  And yes, I enjoy seeing haphazardly prepared candidates unbecomingly turning a TV debate show into an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway, even though they were not supposed to be funny.

I believe in the oft-repeated wisdom of the general election as the time to celebrate our newly found democracy.  Indeed, campaign seasons were almost certainly a big quinquennial bash with music shows–and political sermons–served to political constituents eagerly blessing any candidate who was willing to pony up the highest amount of rupiah.  If political rallies seem to have become more subdued nowadays, that doesn’t mean no celebration is taking place.  Don’t take my word for it; just look at the polychromatic exhibition of candidates’ banners persistently adorning our streets.

Yes, democracy is brute, noisy, traffic jam-inducing, and most certainly ugly as Plato would readily attest to.  But it is also the only way to let the politicos know that they don’t mean a penny without us.  At least once in every five years, the honorable parliamentarians whose utterances are law and incomes are far beyond what us mortals can dream of will be focusing hard, devising illegitimate trickeries, hiring the most attractive campaigners they could find, manipulatively scheming solely to get our valuable votes.

You may be lamenting that when campaigning, the candidates should be offering the most sophisticated sounding economic arcana to get us through the global credit crisis or peddling the most convincing ideological platform with which voters can identify, but these are all beside the point.  In fact, the whole point of democracy is neither to ensure that our nation becomes a land flowing with milk and honey and streets lined with gold, nor to cater for our ideological inclinations.  Rather, democracy means that nobody can have exclusive claim over the fate of our land, and specifically for us Indonesians, it is quite possibly the only thing in which we can say we are far ahead of our neighboring nations.  Sure, other nations in our neighborhood can boast better living standards, higher incomes and faster internet connection.  Yet as democracy continues to take roots in our land but falter in theirs, none of them can claim to be a nation of free and desperately optimistic people.

So shut your eyes, close your ears while the politicos bombard you with their nonsense, their operatives stubbornly surround you with their likenesses for the next month or so.  On April 9, go to the voting booth or don’t, and be glad that whatever you do you have the freedom to choose.

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Central Kalimantan Governor, Agustin Teras Narang, said that the planned development of the railway track in the province will commence in May this year.  The track, which is to be the first railway track in Kalimantan, will facilitate coal transportation from the northern part of the province directly to the seaport.

According to the Governor, Japanese company Itochu Corp. will be investing Rp7.6 trillion (about US$710 million) to finance the project.  The company will be granted the right to operate the track for a period of 30 years after the project is completed.

The first phase of the project consists of a 185 km track originating from Murung Raya Regency to the South Barito Regency.  And the second phase, which is expected to be completed in 2012, will pass the provincial capital Palangkaraya and connect the track to the seaport, spanning a length of about 700 km.  Upon completion, the entire track is expected to support an annual transport capacity of about 20 million metric tons of coal.

Previously, South Korean companies Posco Co. Ltd. and Canatect Co. Ltd., which had planned to invest on the same project to connect the track on the East Kalimantan side, stated that they were postponing the investment, citing the global financial crisis and declining coal prices as the reason for the postponement.  The original plan was for the East Kalimantan project to begin in November last year before the construction for the Central Kalimantan track kicks off this year.

Governor Narang also said that the construction of the Trans Kalimantan road project that connects West, Central, South and East Kalimantan is set to be completed by September this year.  The 2,900 km road project costs Rp4 trillion (about US$360 million), which is financed jointly by the governments of the four provinces.

Central Kalimantan is one of the major coal producing regions in Indonesia with proven reserves of about 4 billion tons of mostly metallurgical coal.

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First of all, though, a little disclaimer: I feel neither preference nor rejection toward the MUI.  The fact that it was established originally as a way for Suharto’s New Order regime to ward off muslim dissent and add some kind of legitimacy to its autocratic rule means that part of its natural tendency is to view disagreement as a threat.  But by the same token, it also means that the council has to a degree discouraged political Islam, which is a good thing, at least as long as there is a committed secular government above it.

But we are now by and large a free electoral democracy, which means there will almost definitely be strong resistance if somebody in the government happens to come up with the good idea of subjugating the MUI.  And I don’t think anyone in the foreseeable future will be brave enough to do this.

Now for a little backgrounder, the MUI comprises representatives from Islamic organizations across the country, but how it recruits its members is a mystery in itself.  That’s right, the council actually receives public money through the Ministry of Religious Affairs, but is being run virtually without any accountability to the public.  How do they get away with it?  Well basically by just simply saying that they’re accountable only to God.  Now who’s going to argue with that?

Of course in the past how the councilors were recruited always involved heavy screening by the government who also discouraged any open and transparent process in the way the organization is being managed.  Sadly, the disbandment of the Suharto regime did not lead the council to reform its elitist organizational approach.  This is something that they need to think deeply about if they still wish to be heard by the people it’s supposed to represent.

And that brings me back to the media spotlight on the MUI’s latest annual meeting, which resulted in fatawa on smoking, voting, yoga, abortion, underage marriage and vasectomy.  My first impression on this is most media reports and commentators are overestimating the influence of the council.  For example, this report from The Guardian says:

“The council’s ruling is not legally binding but most of Indonesia’s Muslims, who make up 90% of the country’s 234-million population, are likely to follow the decree.”

Or the BBC, which even calls the MUI “the top Islamic body in Indonesia,” and goes on to say that “most Muslims consider it a sin to ignore [the MUI's edicts].”  Time magazine is painting a pretty scary picture by calling its article on the subject “Indonesia’s Fatwa against Yoga,” bringing to mind images of bearded men rallying in the streets while angrily chanting death to yogis.

Around the blogosphere, commentators are aptly critical about the fatawa, saying that the MUI is excessively encroaching on non-religious matters, but also overestimate their impact.  For example, Chris Taylor at Everything Indonesia is pointing out that there are many more important things that the MUI should be concerned about than forbidding yoga.  There is also Harry Nizam who is worried that the fatawa will influence people in the rural areas, because the MUI, in his words, is “the highest Moslem religious authority.”  Some other commentators are aghast that the MUI dares to forbid muslims from staying home during the election day, such as Parvita.

First, from a purely religious perspective, a fatwa, whether by the MUI, the Malaysian Majlis Fatwa Kebangsaan (National Fatwa Council), Bin Laden or even any of your instant internet mufti is just that; a fatwa.  It is a religious opinion of a mufti (fatwa giver) who is asked about a particular matter that would only be considered binding on all muslims if the overwhelming majority of Islamic scholars with valid credentials agree with it.  In other words, a fatwa is about the same as an expert witness’ answer about a question relevant to his expertise that is posed to him during the course of a trial.

In the rare case that a fatwa is agreed upon by the majority of Islamic scholars with verified credentials, it is codified in the Sharia, and this is what sunni muslims refer to as ijma, the third source of the Sharia law under sunni Islam.  But again, in response to a fatwa, any muslim is free to choose whether to follow it or not.  K.H Mustofa Bisri, or cordially known as Gus Mus writes a good brief discussion on this at the NU-affiliated Ansor website here (in Indonesian).

Now saying that the MUI is the “top” Islamic body in Indonesia is also misleading.  It is not, and there isn’t any.  To Western journos, it might be a bit difficult to comprehend the nature of religious authority in Islam and differentiate between sunni and shiite Islam.  Yes, shiite Islam has a concept of religious authority similar to papacy in Roman Catholicism, where the Ayatollah holds supreme authority over all religious matters of the believers.  But the sunnis actually don’t have the same hierarchical rigidity, and religious authority for them is actually much more decentralized.

It’s also not true that most Indonesian muslims adhere to everything the MUI says, except probably for their annual decisions about when to celebrate the Eids and their halal certification, and this is especially true for rural Indonesian muslims.  Traditional communities have always had their own local religious authority, such as pesantren leaders, the kiyais and community elders, and they are the authorities that most people will listen to.  It’s instructive to learn that the two biggest Islamic organizations in the country, the traditionalist Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and even the more scripturalist Muhammadiyah have been critical against the MUI fatawa.  Both organizations have real scholars whose opinions are actually heard by Indonesian muslims.

There is the case of the country next door, Malaysia, which had issued its own fatwa forbidding yoga last year.  But unlike in Malaysia, there is no separate Sharia law in the Indonesian system where fatawa issued by the country’s Fatwa Council can be legally enforced.  In the country, no fatwa by the MUI will have more meaning than the bearded clerics’ ramblings unless the government legislates it–and thank god for that.

On another recent issue involving the MUI, namely the inclusion of the council in Transparency International’s (TI) survey of corruption perception and bribery index, the council’s spokespeople frankly have succeeded in making themselves look even more stupid in the way they respond to the issue.

The way the recent release of TI’s latest survey is covered by a section of the media is that the MUI is identified to be one of the most corrupt public service institutions by the TI survey’s respondents.  For example, Time magazine writes thus:

“The credibility of the council was called into question earlier in January, when Transparency International Indonesia accused the institution of being one of the most frequent takers of bribes in the country, particularly in the issuance of halal stickers for food and beverage products.”

Or Detik.com, which titles its news item on the survey release “Survei TII: MUI Sering Disuap” (TII Survey: MUI often Bribed).  The impression you might get from these reports is that the MUI is pretty high up in the list of most bribery-prone public service agencies in the country.  To the religiously faithful who are flaunting “Islam is the solution to all problems” mantra to the masses, the thought of pious scholars receiving bribe money for stamping halal certificates on their client’s products would be outrageous, which is most likely why some journos chose to focus on MUI’s inclusion in the survey.

But if you take a look at the real report, the story is actually a bit more nuanced.  The survey documentation says this about the objective of the so-called Bribery Index:

“To measure prevalence level of bribery in 15 public institutions based on businesspersons experience.”

…which does not explain the rationale for specifically including the 15 institutions in the survey.  In fact, if you look further down, you still won’t find any explanation of how TI selects these 15 institutions to be in the survey.

But in fact, there are other public service agencies which have been known to be prone to bribery that TI did not include in the survey.  For example, officers at the civil registry office have been known to ask for “grease money” to speed up providing legal documents from birth certificates, marriage to the hideous SBKRI citizenship certificate, which used to be required of Chinese Indonesians.  Also absent from the survey questionnaire is the Religious Affairs Office (the KUA), whose priests charge much higher–anywhere from Rp500 thousand to Rp2 million depending on how wealthy the couple looks–for marrying people than the official price–which ranges from Rp30 to Rp150 thousand, depending on who you ask.

My point is the 15 institutions included in the survey were selected arbitrarily by TI.  They might have intended these institutions to be some sort of sample of all public service agencies in Indonesia, in which case the MUI should actually be proud for being the ‘least’ bribe prone institution in the country, because it is ranked precisely at the bottom.

And yet, most likely without bothering to have a look at what the survey is all about, the MUI chairman Amidhan fumed in response to the news about the survey, calling it “slanderous and misleading.”  He says:

“There’s no bribery.  What do they mean by bribery?  This is slanderous and misleading.  The MUI is a religious institution and this is false.  They should expose the facts instead of making hasty statements.  They can’t do this.”

Being defensive is never a good way to deal with criticism.  It implies a corrupt, judgmental mentality, and this is the kind of image that the MUI chief is projecting about the council.  It would be wise for them to use some of the money they get for dispensing halal certificates, whether legitimately or not, on media and communications training, or better still, personality training.

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The spacious resort sits on top of the Cipanas valley overlooking the scenic Mount Gede.  It is about 10 km down from the peak of the Puncak on the left side of the road.

The first thing you’ll see once you get off your car to get to the reception, after passing by a wooden horse right next to the entrance, is a classic-looking lounge that also serves as  the hotel’s dining area, the Puncak Cafe.  If you arrive hungry, I recommend getting one of the outdoor tables to enjoy the fresh cool air.  The food might not be a top culinary treat, but its pretty decent and reasonably priced.  But if you really insist on treating your taste buds better, a 5-minute drive will take you to Pondok Daun restaurant at Cibodas.

My wife and I settled on a grand superior room without the private plunge pool, thinking that it might be too dangerous for our 1-year-old who’s just started to walk on her own.  But in hindsight, there wasn’t actually much reason to be worried as the pool is placed outside the room on the terrace and we were keeping an eye on her all the time.  So if you want to enjoy dipping in a private pool on your own private yard but don’t want to spend too much for a suite, go ahead and book the grand superior with pool.  Oh, and do ask for room 821; this is the only one that has a heated pool, aside from the suites that is.

Overall, the room is quite nice, that is if you don’t have a particular sensitivity with bathrooms.  The bathroom is very plain and I think is actually a little shoddy for a four-star facility like this.  The room comes with either a king-size or a twin bed, CD player and all the usual standard amenities.

One thing you’ll quickly appreciate about the resort if you have a busy bee for a toddler like us is the generous open space that’s available all around the facility.  This resort obviously aims at the MICE market, and that means all the motivated seminar attendants need a lot of space to play their so-called team building exercises.  They have a pretty tall aerial ropeslide or the ‘flying fox’ facility, which you can book through the reception if you’re interested.  And one of the things they offer that my little one was particularly fond of was a nice little garden infested with furry rabbits.

I heard the Novus spa comes recommended and I think I know why.  The treatment was great, the place had a tasteful atmosphere and the price was right.  I only wish spas like this were closer to home.  I recommend the Mountain Natural Essence package if you’re looking for a really nice, relaxing experience.

The really special thing about the Novus resort is its natural ambience.  The grand superior rooms are floored with tasteful wooden parquet and slate stones, giving you a nice sense of the surrounding environment.  Just beside the swimming pool is a heated whirlpool where you can enjoy a nice hot bath after a swim while looking at the lush green landscape around the hotel.  And don’t forget the wonderful spa.  It’s priceless.

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Batam island, part of the Riau Islands Province, was designated as a bonded zone by a Presidential Decree of 1992, but its legal status as a full-fledged free trade zone was only recently formalized in 2007, and later government regulations that validated its implementation.

The area’s economically strategic location at the gateway through the Malay Straits had been acknowledged since the early 1970s, but poorly coordinated development efforts and power struggles with within the government over the control of the area hampered its true potential as the nation’s growth center.

With an average of 30% in annual growth of new investments, Batam today serves as a major logistics and manufacturing base for prominent global industrialists including McDermott International, AT&T, Bechtel, PerkinElmer, Seagate Technology, Babcock & Wilcox, Matsushita, Hitachi, Sanyo, Nippon Steel, Hyundai, Sony and Philips.  Hosting about 1.5 million visitors each year, it is also the second most popular international tourist destination in Indonesia after Bali.

Batam shipyard at Batam City.

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