Will traffic congestion put a brake on Indonesia’s prosperity?
Davey Meelker
If you talk to any Indonesian city dweller, sooner or later, the conversation will reach the subject of traffic. I still have to meet the first urban Indonesian who doesn’t complain about the abundance of cars, scooters and other engine driven objects on wheels that occupy the streets of the big cities. A lot of public and private spaces are used in favour of those means of transport. Changing a building you own to a shed for scooters became a lucrative business, for example. In the near future things need to change, or the cities will become completely jammed.
Doing the governments dirty work – Indonesia’s pioneer in women’s rights
I'm pregnant. I need someone to talk to.
Sanne van Oosten
A quaint house in the middle of a rice field, not really the place where one would expect the headquarters of the Indonesian women’s rights movement to be. But it is. When you walk inside, women’s rights posters from all over the world decorate the house. Samsara is the only organization that counsels women contemplating an abortion in all of Indonesia. If the woman decides to have an abortion, the price is high. If you’re lucky: 2,5 milion rupias, about 250 euros. In a country where the majority of the population only earns 1 euro a day, this price can be an impossible sum to pay. “Some sell everything they have, others just can’t get a safe abortion.”
Why Indonesia needs a new Multatuli – same methods of exploitation, different actors
Sanne van Oosten
As a preparation of my trip to Indonesia I read the Dutch literary classic Max Havelaer by Multatuli. It describes the techniques of exploitation used by the Dutch onto the Indonesian peasants in the middle of the nineteenth century. Now, not much seems to have changed. Workers in the rice fields earn a meager 1 euro a day and need to send their children off to work or marriage from an extremely young age to make ends meet. In the nineteenth century, the Dutch had an extremely efficient way of exploiting the inhabitants of Indonesia. The Dutch government implemented the so-called Cultivation System that forced farmers to grow commercially tradable crops such as coffee, tea and spices. The Dutch themselves didn’t collect the crops from the farmers, they let local leaders to their dirty work
The sexual division of labor on the Indonesian rice fields
Sanne van Oosten
The last few days we have been enjoying the beautiful rice fields of Central Java. The idyllic rice fields give much food for the world and food for thought alike. For instance, the laborers on the rice fields only earn about 1 euro per day, enabling the price of rice to remain low. Therefore, both men and women work to make ends meet. Seeing women and men work side by side was a pleasant surprise to me, but quickly I noticed the character of their work was completely different. Women took care of the sowing of the seeds, replanting of the rice plants and manually weeding the fields. Men, on the other hand, were always seen with equipment; rakes, axes, plows or spray-on fertilizer. Even though men and women work side by side, why are their tasks so different from each other?
Welcome, immigrant
Rosa van de Beemt
im·mi·gra·tion - noun - the movement of non-native people into a country in order to settle there
Why one would choose to leave the home country and settle somewhere else can have many different reasons. Whatever the reason, there is much chance you won’t be received in your new country with flags and bells.
The danger of budget cuts on foreign news coverage
The Dutch government has announced severe budget cuts for public television channels in the Netherlands. “What is a real and serious pity, is that it is always the foreign news reporting to be the one to suffer first” says Step Vaessen, news anchor for Al Jazeera, stationed in Jakarta. Michel Maas, correspondent for both the Dutch national news program and a national newspaper agrees and reasons that “in general, in Holland, people are not interested in what is happening outside their own country.” This makes me wonder, what is the importance of foreign news coverage and what can be done to counter this trend of reduced interest and funds?
Time to take Jakarta seriously
More than six years have past since I set foot in the chaotic city of Jakarta. Now, the city is still bustling as ever, but much has changed. Nowadays, the sky is the limit in Indonesia’s capital. Literally. Countless skyscrapers fill the skyline. In the huge fancy malls Jakarta’s upper and growing middle class shop for Louis Viton, Gucci, Bvlgari or other overpriced fashionable items. Six years ago I was a little ashamed about my fancy camera, electronics and lifestyle. Now I see many Indonesians walking on the street with even more advanced camera’s, phones and computers than we are carrying. The average car on the street here is twice as big, shinny and comfortable than those in Amsterdam. Although around 50% of the Indonesians still live on less than two dollars a day, business is booming in the capital of Indonesia.
My big fat Indonesian wedding
And we’re off! Off to Asia to search for new bloggers. First stop: Jakarta. After only three days of being in Jakarta we were invited to a wedding of relatives of Indonesian friends we met in Amsterdam. The wedding was of a far cousin and we were allowed to come as well. This proved to be an unforgettable experience. Such hospitality would have never taken place in the Netherlands. Apart from that, there were many more differences between this wedding and a typical Dutch wedding. Where to begin? Well, at the beginning seems to be a good idea.
2011 in Yemeni history – an overview
Baraa Shiban
2011 unfolded to be an exceptional year in Yemen’s history, a year that carried the dreams of millions of people throughout the country. Dreams of building a civilized country, free of tyranny. The Yemeni Revolution came as an extension to the Arab Spring which was able to topple three dictators up till now. Yemenis drew a unique picture for their revolution. Their struggle came peaceful, unarmed, and was lead by women and youth. The young revolutionists were able to create innovative methods to address their demands and make their voices reach the whole world.
Contemporary twenty-something elites
2012 started with fascinating article in my favorite newspaper De Volkskrant. The article was about the current New Boys (and Girls!) Network of today’s twenty-somethings. The Old Boys Network is pretty much dead, but new elites in the Netherlands are arising rapidly and these are much more fragmented than the Old Boys of the past. The world we live in is rapidly changing and so are the New Boys Networks of today. There are great differences between this generation of twenty-somethings and the older generations. De Volkskrant went on to describe a number of elite networks in a hilarious and recognizable way.
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