Sanne van Oosten

How to save the rapidly receding rain forest of Sumatra? We asked this to a passionate nature preserver at Bukit Lawang. An owner of 80 hectares of rain forest we spoke to, Aca, has some pretty interesting ideas about this. “Make the rain forest profitable instead of dependent on aid.” He works on eco-tourism, showing people the beauties of the rain forest, but he also suggests to bring back the paper factories enabling the rain forest to be used to produce paper. Wait a minute, is this really coming from a passionate nature preserver? Yes it is, and this is the underlying rationale: In order to produce paper,  forest have to be planted first. This can lead to the expansion of the rain forest, albeit for the production of paper. That is a much better alternative than what is happening now. Millions of hectares of rain forest are being destroyed to build palm oil plantations, an important ingredients for products such as shampoo, cooking oil, chips, margarine and soap. Meaning that palm oil is a much bigger threat to the rain forest than paper is. Whereas most people feel guilty about printing unnecessary amounts of paper, it makes more sense to feel guilty for squirting out too much shampoo.

The next day we were off to see the beauties of the rain forest. The group consisted of 4 people. Davey, myself, a Balinese tattoo artist and the guide. The guide was supposed to be our leader turned out to be somewhat inexperienced. What should have been a jungletrek of 4 hours, turned out to become a hell of 3 days. We didn’t have any food, no clean water, nothing. In retrospect we figured out he must have been lost after 2 hours already (he kept proudly saying “virgin trek” when we were walking through thorny bushes off the trail, but now we know he was just trying to hide he was lost). He sent us down an extremely steep mountain with the only grip being trees, of which many were rotting away. The guide fell down the cliff for about 10 meters (busting his toe quite badly) before he caught on the a tree and decided not to go that way anyway. At that point we realized something was wrong. It was taking so much longer than expected and all our water was gone. We were so thirsty we needed water. We could hear a waterfall in the distance so we followed the sound. When we were at the water we decided that we could follow the water, water always goes somewhere, right? Our guide claimed that this particular river didn’t go anywhere, it just stopped at some point. We tried to explain that water always goes to the sea. But he didn’t listen and/or understand. Davey had a compass in his bag. And of course our guide couldn’t read a compass. Anyway, he claimed we had to go west. Meanwhile we were being attacked by leeches and it was starting to get dark.

It was dark and raining so we decided to find the highest point of the mountain so we could build a fire so the rescue team could find us. We climbed up a steep hill in the complete dark, with the help of a flashlight. Meanwhile a thunderstorm started. We built a hut and lay in it and waited until the rain was over. When the rain was over the tattoo guy and guide started building a fire, but this didn’t last long. After we had burned almost everything we had, we went to “sleep” in our hut made from leaves. Soaking wet, while bugs were eating us, this was probably the longest night of my life.

The next morning I was pretty positive. We would just walk back the way we came. We ate a quarter passion fruit for breakfast and all would be good. But it turned out the guide had any idea where we came from. The plan was to walk east, for some reason unknown to anyone probably. Anyway, the sun had just come up, so that was a pretty good indicator as to what might be the east. But the guide kept on asking Davey to check his compass. The tattoo guy kept on explaining to him that the sun rises in the east, but he just didn’t understand. Nobody had any idea where we had come from or where to go. And we were so hungry. So, we just kept walking, walking walking. Rock climbing without any idea where we were going, walking down crumbling ridges with ravines down below and holding on the roots that were often rotten. Half way through the day we decided that walking along the river was our best option. Rivers always end up somewhere, a concept that was new to our guide. We kept this up for the rest of the day, swimming as much as possible and climbing steep rocks when waterfalls emerged. At the end of the day we set up camp along the river.

We woke up hungry and discouraged. We had no idea where we were and where the river was going to lead to. Maybe it would take days to reach anything and by that times our bodies might have given up on us. To keep going, we ate some leaves the guide claimed were edible. We had to trust the man who didn’t know anything that our breakfast wasn’t poisonous. We were so hungry we just had to. The third day we walked along the river. Every time a waterfall came up we climbed up steep slippery rocks with swirling water beneath us and went back down where the water was calmer. Davey and I swam as many parts as possible whereas the Indonesians preferred climbing.

By this time we had accepted our fate. We were just walking and walking. Taking it easy, as we were quite weak. We ate berries and fruit the monkeys didn’t get to. We heard gibons and saw a makak. But most animals were gone since we were yelling tolong (help) all the time. Nevertheless, the scenery was absolutely stunning. Stark blue river, with waterfalls here and there, mountains looming above the water with trees that seemed to grow endlessly to the sky. Maybe we could just become jungle people. Who cares about city life? Just let it all go and learn to live with the rough nature instead of making nature live with us rough human beings.

Then things started looking up. We saw chalk signs on stones along the water. They were fresh! One day old. We found a camp for the workers of plantations. I broke into the kitchen using a rock and found a bag of salt. Then we found a palm oil plantation. Walked along the path for hours without seeing anybody. We ate some coconut and wondered if there would come an end to this palmoil plantation. Or was it just as seemingly endless as the rain forest itself? Then we saw a motor cyclist who ended up bringing us to the palm oil village. They had a stand with mie and krupuk, and we finally ate some food we were fantasizing about for so long. Once food filled our stomach our bodies allowed ourselves to feel the pain we were in. Even though hunger and weakness had dominated our mental state when we were lost, our bodies now allowed us to feel the other more trivial pains we had. My body finally allowed me to feel my bloody feet, detached toenail, scratches, bruises, mosquito bites and most importantly, muscle pain as it knew we were safe. Our guide explained that this is thanks to the spirits of the jungle who keep you safe, we smiled and were glad to be safe again.

It was ironic that palm oil, the biggest threat to the rain forest, saved us from our biggest threat, the rain forest. Next time you squirt out a handful of shampoo, realize you are using a product that is responsible for the demolition of the rain forest, but you can also realize that this same product saved our lives.

Cathy Lin

The Taiwanese elections took place on January 14th. These elections were not just a once-every-four-years carnival of democracy; it was a battle between the ongoing discussions on social equality and the relationship between Taiwan and China.

With 11 political parties registered and 3 presidential candidates from 3 parties, the pre-election period campaign started long before the election took place on January 14^th; the party leader of DPP (Democratic Progressive Party), Ms. Tsai, blew the whistle on the increasing social inequality resulting from the friendly relationship between Taiwan and China that current President Mr. Ma set up.

For many, this was an election that would make a difference for the coming decade while others see it as an opportunity to decrease the political cooperation between Taiwan and China.

KMT, the Nationalist Party which was founded in 1894 and over-thrown the last dynasty in China in 1911, ruled China during the two wars. They eventually lost the civil war with the communist party led by Chairman Mau, retreated to Taiwan in 1949 and brought democracy to Taiwan. Ever since then there has been a huge class struggles between Taiwanese and Chinese who came with Chiang Kai Shek, the President of the Nationalist Party also was the president of Taiwan for 27 years.

After the Sino-Japanese war, in 1885 Taiwan was ceded to Japan until the end of World War II in 1945. It had been said that Taiwan has been occupied by foreign powers for centuries; first by Dutch in the 17^th century, then by the Chinese until 1885, then by the Japanese for 50 years, and then again by the Chinese until year of 2000 the national wide presidential election, the first born-and-raised Taiwanese President was elected. For eight years the DPP was in the house, until the KMT finally took back the power with the majority of elected law-makers in 2008. The next four years, treaties were signed between Taiwan and China on the economic front, which was supposed to benefit all industries in Taiwan but has not become the reality, yet. President Ma promised that during his second tern, economy in Taiwan will have a huge leap forward. Debates and commons from national and international political observers see the increasing friendly relationship with China as a threat while some think treaties and continuous open communication is the way for Taiwan to take advantages in the international market.

The significances about this 2012 election were be learned by students in their history class in the future. This was the first time with female Presidential candidate; first time that the less-fortunes’ voice was wildly heard; and the voters turn out was the lowest compare to pervious three elections.

History is in the making; political battles will go on.

T.B.C.

Efi Januar

People say the number of skyscrapers in a city’s skyline is a sign of development. The more skyscrapers a region has, the more developed it is. Is it true? I spent almost all of my life in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. I lived in the outskirts of Jakarta. The highest building I see the most is the tip of the mosque in neighborhood, if we put the tower of base transceiver stations aside. Being in my neighborhood is bliss for me. Why? Because we “stay” on the ground, me and my neighbors are equal, we stand on the same ground.

But, it will dramatically change when I drive my lovely motorbike to central of the capital. I get trapped in the concrete jungle. High rise buildings are everywhere, hotels, offices, malls, apartments and all. It freaks me out. I feel so tiny; the tall buildings are intimidating me. It is like it speaks to me, “Hey! You down there! Yes, you! You are powerless; the one with power should be inside of me, here in my 47^th floor!”

Why? The more power (read: money) you have the higher the building you will be placed in. And, from the top of a building you can “control” the people who are down under. Jakarta itself has about 700 high-rise buildings. This year, two significant buildings are about to be built, the Menara Jakarta (558 meters high) and the Signature Tower (638 meters high). The latter is about to be the tallest building in the world.

But, with the investment grade status given to Indonesia, I am sure the number of tall building will increase. Investors happily put their money in Indonesia. If merely investing is not enough they will have their branch here in Indonesia, most likely in Jakarta. And they need offices. If the current supply isn’t enough to house all the companies moving to Jakarta, it is a green light for property developers to build yet another building.

A president director of an Indonesian property company told the public that they expect to raise money from the stock exchange. They said it was an easy way to get cheap money instead of getting a bank loan. Why? Indonesia’s economy is in robust condition, so it is gets money from the market. Most of the analysts also state that the property sector is still growing and it is time to invest in that sector. The demand of business districts that include office towers, apartments, and malls is still high.

If they build yet another building, it is definitely going to dislodge the neighborhood surrounding it. If the expansion continues to grow and grow, where on earth will people like me, the “powerless” people, stay at night? For sure I can’t rent their luxurious apartment.

So what is the point of being known as a developed city? The buildings reflect development but these very same buildings are jeopardizing the neighborhoods of Jakarta. And as these neighborhoods conceal the true identity of the city this is a great shame.

My friend once commented when we were looking through the window of 42th floor, “I thought Jakarta is a jungle of concrete, but we still have open space that has no building on it.”  I nodded, “it is just about time, the ground will be extincted soon.”

Moira Wiermans

Approximately half a year ago, I moved from Amsterdam to Brussels. My expectations were that it would involve limited bureaucratic procedures as a result of EU internal market freedoms, and that living in Brussels, living in Belgium would be similar to living in the Netherlands, only with different architecture and French as the main language. How wrong I was! EU mobility is still limited by differences in tax, pension, social security, and insurance systems. But more importantly, every day life is organized differently. Shortly after I arrived I felt like I moved to Cairo, not Brussels. As Belgium is one of the most developed countries in the world my expectations – including those of an efficient public transport system – were high.

One problem is that although there are timetables, nobody seems to care about it. When I go to work, I can either walk 15-20 minutes up hill or take the bus, which takes 10 minutes. However, I have to take into account that most likely one or two busses won’t show up. A few weeks ago, five busses in a row did not. When the sixth bus finally arrived, the driver did not at all feel urged to depart. The man took his eight minute break all drivers get at the end of the line, as usual. This ‘mañana attitude’ is widespread, which is not surprising if you consider that a Brussels life includes a lot of waiting: everywhere! I am beginning to suffer from it myself. No bus, late for work? No stress. There is nothing you can do about it anyway.

Surprisingly enough, this ‘go-with-the-flow’ way of life is collectively put aside whenever the unions organize a strike. Comming from the Netherlands I am not used to many strikes. If it occurs that unions go on strike, they organize it in such a way that the public will be harmed as little as possible. This being my reference, I was struck by both the scope and scale of Belgian strikes. The first strike I got to witness took place a few days before Christmas, during those days everyone needs planes and trains to go home and the one time a year the postal service can prove it’s worth. It was a general strike: no public transport, airports closed, no postal service, no garbage collections, and only a limited presence of police, firemen, and hospital staff. In case something really bad would happen, the army was still there to assist. Last Monday, this was repeated, followed by a non-general, spontaneous strike on Wednesday.

Already confused by such a massive willingness to strike, I couldn’t belive my eyes when I read in the newspaper that the willingness to strike in Belgium is declining, at least according to the government. The unions believe this is just some form of propaganda. They don’t believe a small majority (53%) of the people don’t support their strikes. In case the government is right, and the willingness to strike is indeed declining I am glad I didn’t move to Brussels years ago. Nevertheless, a strong strike-culture still exists. The first word I leard in my French language course was grève (strike). Who would have guessed. Clearly, going on strike is a Belgian norm.

Funny enough, I wrote this blog at the Eurostar train from Brussels to London, which was – as now should come as no surprise – a full hour delayed. C’est la vie en Bruxelles!

Sanne van Oosten and Davey Meelker

When visiting other countries one should always be careful in judging practices of this foreign nation. If habits and norms of a certain culture differs from your own, this does not automatically mean that they are wrong. So far we agree with the culture relativists. Still, this does not mean that that judging is forbidden. We should not judge by comparing cultures, but measuring it to the greater morality. What is this greater morality? This is hard explain in one blog, but certain things are universally wrong. The best explanation is through the following example.

She was the village’s prima donna, the most beautiful girl of all. Every young man wanted to marry her. But, she had to choose one. At the customary age of 16 she choose her husband, to great sorrow of all the others. Jealousy turned some of them bitter and this motivated some to find their revenge in black magic. This is what our host explained to us. Black magic is the use of traditional Javanese religion in order to do someone harm. It is used in many other cultures as well.

Two months after she had gotten married the black magic had its impact. She went crazy. The nature of her symptoms were not made clear to us. But the result was devastatingly clear; her husband divorced her and her family had put her in quarantine. That was 25 years ago. She is still locked up to this day. Just around the corner of our hosts house was her house. We had walked by it numerous times already, and never noticed anything peculiar about it. Not until it was pointed out to us did we notice the large lock on the outside. A house only to be opened from the outside. Her brother and sister brought her one meal a day and that was most of her contact with the outside world.

Our host brought us to the house and we stood talking in front of it. While I was looking at the large lock on the outside she suddenly appeared in front of the window. The prima donna, after 25 years of solitude. She stared at us with a blank expression on her face, and we felt embarrassed to be standing in front of her house and disgusted by the injustice of the situation. Our host spoke a few words to her. She nodded and he pushed two cigarettes under the crack of the door. She looked thankful, although the blank expression on her face was still the most overpowering expression. When we started arguing why locking up a person with mental troubles is inhumane and what gave the people of the village the right to lock her up, our host retorted our arguments through explaining how she had broken loose once. “She was running through the streets naked, screaming the whole time. That’s why we need to keep her locked up” We couldn’t blame her, we might have done the same. Who knows how one would act after so years in nearly complete solitary.

“It’s just their culture and we should respect that” a culture relativist could say. But is this really the right way to value this situation? What gives the citizens of one village the right to lock a fellow human being up? There has been no legal process, and there has even been no crime. This way she is not only deprived from professional help, but also her freedom. When you think about it, it is immoral twice. Therefore it should be of universal value to condescend practices like this and not reduce it to an element of a culture.

Sanne van Oosten

When travelling, I want to experience the “real” Indonesia, thus explaining why I think Couchsurfing is the best way to travel. However, when meeting some Couchsurfers for a bite to eat, two of them (independently from each other) suggested to meet at McDonalds. It felt wrong eat at McDonalds, so instead of fries we ordered rice and we decided to choose the burger unique to Indonesia: the so-called Prosperity Burger. Even though the price level in Indonesia is much lower than what we are used to in Europe, a McDonalds meal in Indonesia costs only slightly less than it would in the West. Good thing the burger is called a prosperity burger.

During our trip we’ve been approached by many tour guides. A popular marketing technique is for guides to carry a book around in which their tourists can write a review about the tour. It reminds of trip advisor in a pre-internet era. We’ve already flipped through numerous books like this and we couldn’t help noticing the many thankful remarks from tourists in having experienced “the real Indonesia” through the help of their tour guide. But what is “the real Indonesia?” Of course, we can never answer this question, but in the eyes of the reviewers it usually meant something along the line of seeing the poor side of Indonesia; a visit to the kampong, seeing how people work in the rice fields, and going to villages where horse drawn carriages outnumber combustion motors.

Why do tour guides continue to show us Indonesia’s poverty while Couchsurfers underline Indonesia’s prosperity? Tour guides know what they are doing and have thought it through long and hard, Couchsurfers are much less scheming. However, the selection of people who participate in Couchsurfing are by far a representative sample of society as a heavy selection bias determines who participates in Couchsurfing and who does not. Not only are Couchsurfers usually part of the most prosperous and educated inhabitants of a country, they usually have already travelled or are planning to travel to the Western part of the globe.

But that still doesn’t answer why tour guides know so well that their Western tourists want to see the impoverished side of Indonesia. Is it because the West prefers to reduce Asia to a backward region which will never encompass the civilization and modernity of the West? Even though this is an appealing explanation for a sociology graduate, I don’t think this is the explanation that is the most relevant here. Tourists want to experience turning their world upside down and want to amaze themselves by their ability to escape from that what is familiar to them. In sum, tourists want the weirdest possible experience that they can get. Strolling around a popular tourist destination amongst masses of other tourists just doesn’t give that special vibe and neither does a visit to the McDonalds.

Working as a tour guide in Amsterdam I use the same method. When giving tours to foreign tourists I underline the progressive side of Amsterdam: coffee shops, legal prostitution and the site of the first gay marriage. However, I usually give tours to domestic tourists. These tourists cannot be entertained with stories about legal prostitution, decriminalized marihuana and gay marriage. These laws apply to all of the Netherlands, and it would be weird to explain people from the Netherlands what their own laws are. Therefore, a whole other approach needs to be taken when entertaining domestic tourists on a tour. An approach that gives my domestic tourists the feeling that they’ve really had “the Amsterdam experience” is to go back in time about five decades.

In the fifties and sixties the ambiance of Amsterdam was completely different than it is today. People were relatively poor and a specific local culture, unique to Amsterdam, was experiencing its heyday. Current inhabitants of Amsterdam will know exactly what I mean. It was the time of folk music, brown café’s and legendary local figures. Now, the inhabitants of Amsterdam are much more mixed. People from all over have moved to Amsterdam for work or study and Amsterdam is becoming a cosmopolitan mix of prosperous people. But what’s ever exciting about that? My domestic tourists would be somewhat disappointed if I underline the current culture of Amsterdam and therefore much more prefer that I talk about Johnny Jordaan (a folk singer), Magere Josje (a legendary prostitute) and Zwarte Joop (the former king of crime). And, since my main goal is to give them “the real Amsterdam experience” that is what I do.

Not only Western tourists in Indonesia want to experience poverty, Dutch tourists in Amsterdam want to experience that as well. This gives them the experience of having an insight in what local culture really looks like, thus creating an air of “reality.” Indonesia has a great divide between rich and poor. Maybe the combination of Couchsurfing and tour guides gives a view of what these two sides of Indonesia are like. Eating at McDonalds or Kentucky friend chicken and drinking coffee at Startbucks shows you the real Indonesia as walking through beautiful rice fields.

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.

The people of the Indonesian cities complain with a reason. The traffic here is not just chaotic, as is normal in the South-East Asian mega cities, but it has gotten worse in the last decade. Policies such as a monthly car-free day have been instated in Jakarta, but lack effective enforcement. Will Indonesia’s rising potential be smothered in its pollution and traffic jams?

Walking next to a road in Indonesia’s cities is not to be recommended. Not only because pavement seems to be forgotten when building the streets, but also after a short walks it feels like smoking a pack of cigarettes. Furthermore, the distances are often long and crossing the streets is synonymous to a near death experience. Thus, walking is not considered as a real option.

The rising wealth allowed more and more people to afford a car, motorbike or scooter. Furthermore, fuel is not heavily taxed as in Europe, in contrary, it is greatly subsidised. On first sight there are no incentives to leave your car at home. Or maybe there is one: the many hours that it takes, in slow traffic, to reach your work. Sometimes it can take hours to cover a dozen kilometres. A few days ago it took us, for example, more than 45 minutes to cover a distance of five kilometres by taxi in Yogyakarta. When it rains, and it can rain cats and dogs here, the traffic jams only increase.

Progressive initiatives, in for example Jakarta, as one car free day a month (even in Amsterdam, a yearly car-free day has proven to be unfeasible) and a minimum of three people a car in rush hour in designated areas are only a drop in the ocean. This last regulation led to the existence of professional car poolers; people at the side of the road at the border of those designated areas. For a few cents they are willing to fill your car and will get out in the areas were the minimum-three-persons-a-car-rule does not apply anymore. Substantial policies are needed to keep up with the rising demand to travel in the fourth populated country of the world.

There are plans to reduce the subsidy on fuel, but this plan is delayed every time. It is uncertain if it will be realized. Most importantly, there aren’t many reliable alternatives to go from A to B. Walking is not a real option in the near future. All the roads need to be adjusted and there are still too many motorised vehicles. Most importantly of all, there is too little public transportation. The strong hand of the government is needed to create a reliable public transport system.

Eight years ago the Transjakarta bus line was instated in the capital. This fast bus on designated bus lanes crosses all of Jakarta and since the busses are very crowded this can be regarded as a popular mode of transportation. Yogyakarta followed four years later. The problem is that the ‘bus lane’ in Jakarta is not only used for busses, if there is a traffic jam, many cars choose the bus lane creating an extra traffic jam. It is unlikely the police will do anything about this. Taking an ankot, small private micro busses, is not a convenient alternative. Even the locals have no idea which route the many angkots take and are not seen as reliable and quick. In crowded cities a subway is most ideal for quick public transport

The problem is that that many Indonesian big cities are built on former swamps. As a person born and raised in Amsterdam, also built on a swamp, I know the difficulties to build a subway in this ground. In Amsterdam, the new subway line became at least three times as expensive as planned, many years delayed and buildings subsiding in the process. As the Indonesian government you would think twice to build a subway line. Other options as monorails, trolley busses, trams or whatever will be invented must be embraced. But, if not, the future of Indonesian big cities are covered in clouds of exhaust gasses.

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.”

The founder and leader of Samsara, Inna Hudaya, welcomed us into her house in the middle of a rice field. She lives in a small remote village to be able to be as anonymous as possible. The village doesn’t know about her work, and she’d like to keep it that way. They think she works in educating women on sexuality. For her own safety, that’s all they should know. Her household is run by the only male maid we had seen on our trip in Indonesia so far. “At first he did the housework with all the doors and windows closed because he was so embarrassed. Now he doesn’t care anymore.” He seems happy to work for her, she lets him hang out in the house with his friends “I choose him because he’s the coolest kid in town. I hired him to do the housework but also to get some protection. With him in the house I always know what the villagers are gossiping about me.”

Samsara has three activities. Counseling, education and they arrange safe abortions if necessary. Women can call Hudaya or one of her employees through the Safe Abortion Hotline. The latter is their most important activity, the counseling and educational programs are mostly used as a cover up and a promotional strategy. “We have open and closed strategies. We are closed about the hotline, but about the rest we are open. Our workshops and educational programs are even for free, at the end of the workshop we always inform the participants about the hotline.” If the police ever finds Hudaya, she can say that they work on workshops and counseling. If the question of abortion comes up, they can tell the police that they counsel women who are contemplating an abortion to not have an abortion. Even her own mother thinks that this is what she does.

Safe abortion is very important; the alternative is quite gruesome. Often, women revert to clothes hangers or sticks. A practice that is not carried out professionally, often leading to unnecessary death or disease. “If they are married there are many clinics they can go to, if they aren’t married there are only two clinics. One in Jakarta, one in Sulawesi. Not all women can afford this. Sometimes they can get a dispensation, if they have a card that proves that they are poor. But then still, they have to fly all the way to Jakarta or Sulawesi, that costs a lot of money.”

What inspired Hudaya to do go to such great risks for the safe abortion of other women? “I had an illegal abortion in 2004. It was an unsafe abortion, the details you can find on the internet. Because of this I went through a depression for about three years. I went to a psychologist and to a psychiatrist to find out what was wrong with me. I felt like no one understood what happened to me. Consistently, I denied that all my symptoms had anything to do with my abortion. One day, I read an article which stated that there are about 2 milion abortion cases in Indonesia every year. And I was thinking, if 50% of these women went through depression like me, no wonder this society has become so crazy! Mostly women think that they are crazy when they go through this because no one explains it to you. So I started my blog. I wrote my testimony about my abortion, my recovery and my depression. And I also found that there is hardly any information about abortion in Indonesian. So I started translating everything there is to find about about abortion from English to Indonesian. After a few months I had received so many e-mails from women saying that they experienced the same as me. Why did we all have to go through a depression after our abortion? Nobody went through counseling before and after the abortion. We have no idea how it feels, we have no idea about abortion. That’s why we all experienced so much stress.”

Hudaya is very careful with contact and interviews with local media, but seeks as much international attention as possible. International agents can protect her if necessary, locals are more likely to threaten her if they find out her whereabouts. Filming her was not allowed, she is too worried someone in her neighborhood will find out about what she does. “If locals go to the police a process will be started and we can revert to our international network. What we worry about the most are the extremist Muslim groups. With these groups there is no such process. They can just come to your house and beat you. I would not have been available for an interview if you were from the local media because of this.” Even though abortion is illegal in Indonesia, she is not less scared of the law than of extremist Muslim groups. “Even though it’s illegal, I don’t feel like I’m doing anything illegal”. Indonesia agreed in the International Conference on Population Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994 to protect women’s reproductive rights. It is the obligation of the government to apply this, but because of the culture and the society, the government does not have the bravery to apply this law. So actually we’re doing the governments dirty work.”

She faces the threat of imprisonment for the work she is doing. Aren’t you scared to go to jail? We asked her. “It could happen, but I always think; I could do such a great job in jail. There is so much sexual abuse going on there, I could start a counseling program for victims to deal with sexual abuse.” Inna Hudaya’s fearless strength to make the world a better place is a true inspiration.

Listen to the full interview here: Interview Inna

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

In modern day Indonesia, things do not seem to have changed a great deal. Same method, different actors. While staying in one of Indonesia’s many Kampungs (villages) we slept at the house of the rice field manager. The landowner and the manager split the proceeds of the rice fields fifty-fifty. However, the manager still has to cover all of the expenses with the 50% of the proceeds. He still has to pay for the seeds, the fertilizer, the equipment, the upkeep of the fields, and most importantly, the workers. It is, therefore, in the best interest of the manager to pay them as little as possible. And without an education or a set minimum wage, the only thing the rice workers can do is accept their fate and get to working. This shows how the rice field manager collaborates with the landowner in exploiting the people in the fields. The landowner doesn’t have to do any of the dirty work, it is done by one of inhabitants of the Kampung.

In Max Havelaer, Multatuli illustrates the harshness that is taking place by one single story. He explains that this is the best way to show the reader how grave the situation of the farmers is. I will now do the same. While staying in the Kampung we met a middle aged couple. The husband had gone blind due to the effects of cataracts. The wife had to work extra long hours in the rice field, endangering her own health. In the meantime their 15 year old son worked, literally 24/7 as a servant in the nearby city to send part of his earnings back home. The parents rarely saw their child, but that is what had to be done to compensate for the fathers blindness. The family was torn apart, and there was no hope that the father would be able to get surgery. Nevertheless, healing cataracts is a relatively simple procedure, and would cost about 1000 Euros. However, in a village where nobody earns more than 1 euro per day, collecting this money is near to impossible.

The stakes are high and a vicious circle seems to prevail. If the wages of the workers go up, the landowners and/or managers will raise the price of rice. If the price of rice rises, the poor rice field workers, who spend most of their income on rice, will starve again. Landowners and managers need to feel obliged to lower their profit margins from the goodness of their heart. Or the government needs to find the democratic backing to instate and enforce a minimum wage and distribute Indonesians wealth more equally. Only a widespread shift of mentality will be able to bring this about and break this vicious circle. Indonesia needs a Multatuli of the 21^st century.

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?

As soon as I had the chance I asked this question to our guide and host in the village we were staying. Our guide, Benny, explained that “When women touch the rice, they touch it with their feelings, which makes the rice taste better.” This explanation praises women with their powerful rice enhancing feelings, compared to loser-insensitive men, who don’t possess any of these mystic powers. However, this seeming compliment is actually a mere justification for the significant division of labor, thus placing them in a position in which they cannot develop themselves beyond their alleged innate powers. Meanwhile, men develop skills that go beyond the picking of rice, they learn how to deal with all kinds of equipment. After seeing my puzzled look, Benny quickly hastened to say, “That is just a myth, but the people in this village are very… well… [Benny hesitates and makes air-quotes] uneducated, so they believe that this myth is true.”

“What a bunch of backward idiots,” one could say. In that light, one could add that, “clearly, they have a lot of developing to do until they’ll ever reach the state that us Westerners are in. Yes, please, educate these people, so they won’t base their sexual division of labor on backward sexual myths. At least “we” i.e. the West, base our free choices on facts!” However, is this really the case? Here a few examples of “facts” the West bases their so-called free choices on.

In the nineties John Grey published a book that was soon to become an international best-seller; Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. This book explains problems encountered in many contemporary marriages as genetic remnants of the time of the hunters and gatherers. John Grey’s book was immensely popular and was read by educated men and women all over the world. Many other books with the same line of thought followed. Allan and Barbara Pease wrote Why men don’t listen and women can’t read maps. And Deborah Tannen’s book You just don’t understand. All of these books were widely read by men, but mostly by women. This genre of books give women a very positive feeling by explaining the struggles they experience with their husbands. Moreover, these books are generally more positive about women than men. Men are insensitive, numb and tactless beings, whereas women are sensitive, insightful, socially agreeable creatures. What kind of women doesn’t want to embrace such compliments?

These books all postulate that the differences between men and women developed during the time of the hunters and gatherers. An explanation that is present in many of these books is that women developed wider peripheral vision than men. This was of great use when needing to keep an eye on the children and gathering berries and nuts at the same time. That’s why women are much better at multitasking, for instance by combining household tasks and other work. It’s all programmed in our DNA. Simultaneously, men were busy hunting, which helped them develop perfect tunnel vision, allowing them to focus on their prey. That is why men cannot multitask. They shouldn’t be bothered with household tasks when trying to build up a career, they just aren’t as good at it. This justifies the male being the family breadwinner.

These explanations are deeply embedded in discourse on the differences between men and women. However, archeological research has not yet proven the omnipresent existence of hunters and gatherers. Some equipment such as bones, spears and axes have been found, alongside some burial artifacts. This definitely does not prove what the relationships between men and women were and who did what. Moreover, other archeologists have proven that most societies did not hunt at all. Neither men nor women did any hunting, they were all just gatherers. They ate berries, leaves and meat that was already killed by predators. These theories are much less acknowledged. Why? Probably because they don’t explain the current relations between men and women as well as the hunter and gatherer hypothesis does.

This makes me wonder… Don’t “we”, the West, also attach importance to some sexual myths of our own? This brings me back to the explanation of our guide and host, Benny, “The people in this village are very… well… uneducated, so they believe that this myth is true.” If an educated Indonesian can easily recognize how myths justify their sexual division of labor, why don’t educated Westerners do the same?