Movember...

I am all for good causes, and this is one.

Prostate cancer is a killer of men, and it is killing us in ever-increasingly large numbers. Early detection is key. Any man who is 40-years-old really should consider getting checked out. Movember, the month formally known as November, also raises funds for depression.

Movember started in Australia. It has already spread to a number of other countries, including the USA, The Netherlands, Finland, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, UK, Ireland and Spain. Each of these countries has an official Movember. However, there is plenty of informal support in most other countries throughout the world.

So, if you can get involved, then you should. Men's health is important too!

By the looks of things, I am off to Target to buy a T-Shirt.

Maybe I should post photographs of the facial hair...then again, maybe not!

More on the SBY Trip to Holland That Wasn't...

Well, it is hardly surprising that the spin would come. The need to explain and justify why the Indonesian President pulled the plug on a state visit to The Netherlands just minutes before a scheduled departure from Halim Perdanakusuma airport in East Jakarta was paramount in trying to salvage some respect for the president.

It is not surprising either that the old ways have come to the fore again; make this an issue of national pride and paint the other side as unethical and morally corrupt. Paranoia?

It would seem that the president's biggest beef about what transpired is that any decision by a Dutch court to hear any case against him is a breach of the bilateral relationship. Mr. President, are you serious? Maybe, you need to get some new advisors on what constitutes a breach of the bilateral relationship. While you are at it, sir, you should get some new legal advisors (preferably at least one with some significant current international legal experience). Then, you might reconsider who you have on the ground in Holland doing the diplomatic bilateral leg work for these visits.

The cancellation of the State visit does not have anything to do with national pride. It has to do with petty ego and the knee-jerk reactions of a president who is more often than not indecisive on all things of importance and more prone to acts of petulance than decisive leadership. The thing that most dented national pride here was the decision to play scared of the RMS petition and presume that the Dutch courts would entertain the petition.

The funniest part of the spin put on this by SBY is the claim that the Dutch courts were in some way unethical in agreeing to look at the petition on the day of his proposed visit. If one is speaking of unethical courts and a legal system in need of significant reform, then he probably has a point. The president should in fact stay at home and fix the problems in his own backyard. After all, the president now seems to be all about sending the "right" messages. So, Mr. President, start sending those right messages.

But even funnier still is that he has set himself a precedent that all but ensures that any individual or group that feels the need to force the president's hand need only lodge a petition in a court of law. The president, in order to maintain consistency, would be left with no choice but to jump up and down claiming unethical breaches of bilateral relations and cancel his trip.

I wonder if the Free Papua Movement in Australia has considered this option? The next time there is even distant chatter that the president might be planning a trip to Australia the FPM should start planning a petition and lodge it about 48 hours before the State visit is scheduled to start.

Ultimately, Mr. President, human rights violations are serious breaches of international law. Sir, there are ethical considerations, moral considerations, in fact, there are human considerations to be had here. The reality Mr. President is that the Dutch courts function pretty well in comparison to your own. Let's face it, the chances of you being arrested and prosecuted for crimes against humanity, including torture, are pretty remote if you have not committed any crimes. To be sure, this would be true for any crime.

But, let's look a little closer to home - a case with no merit can go all the way to the Supreme Court and be reinstated despite public knowledge that the whole case is a fabrication designed to undermine the anti-corruption agency (KPK).

Hold on a minute, Mr. President, wasn't your election platform centered on anti-corruption and the desire to clean up government? Then how does one in your position sit idly by why corrupt powerful interests seek to dismantle the one institution that is likely to drive your post-presidential legacy? Now, what sort of message are you sending Sir?

Ho hum...

The Petulant President -- SBY and the No Show in Holland...

It is amusing to watch from a distance, although simultaneously sad as both my wife and son are Indonesian, the president of Indonesia behaving like a petulant child. Indonesians must surely expect more from the man they elected president.If nothing else they must expect leadership.

The last couple of days has seen the president abruptly cancel a planned visit to The Netherlands. The cancellation was so abrupt in fact that it did not occur until the president was at the airport and about to board the place for Holland.

It seems that just before the president was to board the plane, he received word that the RMS, which is the South Maluku Republic Independence group had commenced legal action in The Netherlands to have the president arrested for the alleged torture of Malukuan activists earlier this year and a case from 2007.

Now, there are a couple of immediate problems with this decision to cancel. First, the president was officially invited. It is unlikely that the government of The Netherlands would allow SBY to be arrested. Then there is the small issue of head of state immunity to contend with. Secondly, it would appear that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia dropped the ball on this one. The RMS action is in the earliest of early stages and there is very little likelihood that they could sustain a command responsibility action to the president of Indonesia anyway.

The possibility of SBY being arrested on arrival in Holland is so remote that it just is not worth considering.

However, the abrupt cancellation provides SBY and his handlers with a real perception problem. Why was the president so frightened of arrest that he did not even board the plane? Is he in the know on what really happened? Is there substance to the allegations that these activists were tortured while in custody in Maluku?

The president in his own defence suggested that he was upset that anyone would do such a thing against him. He was insulted personally and insulted on behalf of Indonesia. Personally, the president needs to grow a set and have the testicular fortitude that the people expect him to show. He needs to be a leader. This most recent display reminds me of the schoolyard bully who does not get his way in the playground and instead of playing he packs up his things and takes the ball and goes home. It is petulant and it is childish.

Indonesia and Indonesians deserve better. The president has not been insulted or disrespected, rather he has insulted and disrespected the Indonesian people. Simply, he has brought shame on himself and his nation.

Ho hum...

Geert Wilders, Feiz Muhammad, and a Call for a Beheading...

Geert Wilders is a controversial figure to say the least. He is the Leader of the Dutch Freedom Party. His primary policy platform is to wind back immigration in Holland. This is to prevent the Islamisation of Holland. His staunch anti-Islam stance has ensured that he is quite often the focal point of any discussion that relates to Islam and its spread through Europe.

This attention has also seen a number of Muslims calling for him to be killed. The most recent of these calls comes from an Australian cleric, Feiz Muhammad. According to Feiz, Wilders is Satan and as such deserves to be beheaded as he frequently denigrates Islam.

Feiz is a controversial fellow in Australia. He has frequently called for local Muslims to radicalise their children and take up the fight (jihad).

Personally, I do not think Wilders has the answers to the big questions. I do not believe in the same things that he does. The way to beat this fellow is to beat him with sustained logical and rational argument. It is not censorship or restricting what Wilders can or cannot say about Islam.

The last couple of photos are here only to highlight the belief that Wilders holds about Islam seeking out world domination, and the way that he polarises opinion in such a way that there are regular and constant calls for the man to be killed in the name of Islam.

Threats only beget threats in the same way that Gandhi noted that an eye for an eye only serves to make the whole world blind.

Dutch Indonesian Footballers...

I was thinking of posting something of Dutch footballers (soccer players to the rest of us) while I was watching the 2010 World Cup final the other week. The commentators on the broadcast that I was watching mentioned a number of times that there were plenty of Dutch footballers with Indonesian blood pumping through their veins. In the final, the names of Robin van Persie, John Heitinga, and Giovanni van Bronckhorst were mentioned a number of times.

However, this post actually came to life as I was reading an article in The Jakarta Globe earlier tonight.

It was interesting to read that the Indonesian Football Association has a plan in place to recruit Dutch players with an Indonesian ancestry to play for the Indonesian National Team. At face value, sounds like a good plan, and why not? However, politics and bureaucracy means that this is nothing more than pie in the sky dreaming.

Indonesia's citizenship and naturalization laws and regulations are notoriously difficult to navigate. On paper, it can be argued that becoming an Indonesian citizen is easy. Nothing more than filling in the paperwork and going through the motions. Personal experience tells me that this is not the case.

However, this post is not about me, but about football players who may be tempted, or not, to change their stripes from the Oranje of Holland to the Red and White of Indonesia. One of the biggest obstacles to the idea of dual citizenship is that Indonesian politicians do not seem to be able to get their collective heads around the idea that someone can hold two passports yet be a devoted patriot to one. Sometimes, practical considerations, such as family or work, dictate  dual citizenship.

I am sure that there are some fringe players who cannot secure a regular gig in the Dutch national side that might be tempted by the prospect of playing consistent international football. However, the established stars like van Persie are not likely to be suiting up in the red and white of Indonesia.

Nevertheless, Indonesians have had a chance to see what van Persie might look like in the red and white when he suits up in the Premier League for Arsenal. My guess is that is as close as van Persie will get to wearing the red and white of his ancestral homeland.

Yet, if the Indonesians are serious about this then it requires that the government get on board and look at putting some flexibility into the current laws and regulations relating to holding more than one passport. Dual citizenship will go a long way to enticing those fringe players into considering a stint with the Indonesian national team. Otherwise, this is nothing more than a couple of old Indonesian men sitting round a table dreaming of world cup glory in 2110 when Indonesia hosts its first ever football world cup.

A couple of other notable Dutch footballers with Indonesian connections include Roy Maakay, Bobby Petta, Denny Landzaat, Michael Mols and Sergio van Dijk.

That is the Arsenal strip, but I am pretty sure that is not Robin van Persie. The body paint though seems to be the way of the future, something about aerodynamics and energy efficiency. Oh well and happy viewing!

Driving and Licensing in Indonesia

Anyone who has traveled on an Indonesian road has probably wondered how a driver's license is obtained here or just simply thought that it came in a corn flakes box. Nevertheless, the theory is that there is supposed to be a theory test and this is supposed to be followed by a practical test. This is the theory but it is not always the reality.

However, in a pilot project being run in Semarang the National Police are trialing and AVIS system. AVIS is an Audio Visual Integrated System. The system is in use in a number of other countries including Indonesia's former colonial master, The Netherlands. It is The Netherlands that is playing the major funding and support role in trialing this technology in Indonesia.

Apparently, Semarang was chosen because it has the highest number of traffic accidents of any place throughout the archipelago.

The AVIS requires an applicant to answer 30 questions. The answers are simple true or false and require nothing more than the press of a button. To pass the AVIS you must score 60%. By my reckoning that means you can get 12 answers wrong and still pass. Once you pass the AVIS then you can continue onto the practical driving test. If you fail, then you have to wait 14 days before being granted another crack at the test.

In a recent demonstration only 12 of the 30 applicants who took the test were able to pass. This translates into a 40% success rate. Now, if these results were to hold true in the general population and the police required everyone to sit the test at their next license renewal then conceivably there could be 60% less drivers on Indonesian roads than there are presently. This would mean that Jakarta traffic would look like what it will over the next couple of days, every day. The mass exodus from the capital for the Eid celebration is well and truly underway.

The police seem to think that AVIS will not only ensure better drivers because of improving standards but it will also make the whole process of issuing a drivers license a whole lot more transparent. If I was a betting man this would be an interesting bet to make. The idea that AVIS will work as a reducer of the amount of corruption within the police force with respect to the issuing of licenses. A better mechanism might include spinning off the whole driver licensing process from the police and place it in a Directorate General at the Department of Transport.

The traffic accident data from 2006 shows that there were almost 90,000 accidents throughout the archipelago. These accidents resulted in some 15,000 deaths and some 82,000 injuries. This means that at least one person died for every six accidents recorded. The data also highlights that almost every accident that was recorded almost inevitably resulted in an injury.

More alarming though is the 2007 data which shows a significant decrease in the number of accidents recorded but an increase in the number of deaths. In 2007 there were some 48,000 accidents but some 16,500 deaths. This means that there was a fatality recorded for every three accidents.

With accident data like this then anything that ensures higher driving standards is a welcome relief.

Marijuana -- Coffee Shops In Holland

You really have to give it up for the Dutch. The masters of the loophole but not the masters of the European Cup in 2008!

European Union law requires that member states put in place legislation that bans tobacco smoking in bars, pubs, and clubs, as well as restaurants. The Dutch have finally gotten around to this and as of 1 July 2008 they will become one of the last member states to put into effect this ban.

However, here is the loophole and the catch. The ban covers tobacco and not marijuana. Therefore, any coffee shop (aka marijuana-selling place) can continue to do what they have always done without breaking the law.

So, blogging colleagues, anyone wanting to make a trip to the Netherlands to explore this loophole, go for it and happy smoking to ya!