Sunday, June 10, 2007

I Heart Jusuf Kalla

Kalla, the vice president of Indonesia, is the tops.

He's innovative - how to boost Indonesia's tourism industry? Last year he suggested that Indonesian women prostitute themselves to Arab tourists. Sex sells, so why not use it to sell Indonesia! Genius!!

That's old news.

Last week he was in China, waxing lyrical about his Chinese host's lack of democracy, and complaining about how every Indonesian has rights now.

"In the past seven years, we have been busy with so many problems, large debts, rallies, arson, problems related to democracy, disasters... And we've never thought of development leaps."


(Don't get me started his predecessor's "leaps" into the aircraft and automobile industries)

What are his specific examples of problems with democracy?

Citing the East Canal Flood project, he said most people would not sell their land at fair prices once they knew that infrastructure projects were planned for the area.


Personally I find that encouraging.

Disputes such as Meruya Selatan, Pasuruan etc. have /grown/ from an era where if you did have to get rid of a handful of villagers to enforce your "rights" over their property, you could with little or no problem - I wonder how many such disputes were widely publicised in Sukarno and Suharto's time?

Obviously we don't hear about all the minutiae of bad governance in Indonesia, but in China we have to wait for whole towns to riot, or reams of villagers killed by local police in order to get a blip of acknowledgment in state run media.

Indonesian politicians have never had it worse, little by little they and their cronies are becoming accountable. Finally there is a chink of light for the people in small communities across the archipelago.

Kalla is complaining about hard work - good! Now let's hope he doesn't try to make his job a lot easier if he wins the next presidential election.

And as anyone with a smidgen of economics knowledge knows, secure property rights are perhaps the most important determinant of economic well being. Something which the Chinese themselves are increasingly having to come to terms with.

4 comments:

spew-it-all said...

Frankly, it is very frustrating to read news about Indonesia these days. So many idiots act like smart people and Kalla is one of them.

I need some sanity therefore i avoid to blog about indonesian politics. But i think i can't as i sometimes think that i have the burden to think of it.

The Dodo said...

kalla is not that popular here. because we know that he's backing up a corrupted politician named.. i forgot.

while he's busy selling indonesian women to arab, still the sidoarjo's mud remain unsolved.

and he's a racist. he hates chinese indonesian. which is why he almost lost last election.

Unknown said...
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Anonymous said...

yup, Kalla is one of those political idiots here in Indonesia. he didnt think how to develop the country with a clear brain. he just thinnk of how to get much money from the investor without thinking about how his citizen have to live.

and the simple example had been showed by denica up there. and let me ask you and other blogger a question, is that a good thinking of a statesman for selling his own citizen? i mean, come on! HUMAN IS NOT FOR SALE!!!