While I chose to abstain from the legislatory election, I decided to vote for the presidential election because I agreed with Parvita – if I voted, I could bitch about it.

I didn’t vote for SBY (if you really want to know, which I’m sure you do) but it didn’t matter anyway. He was made sure to win even before the election had started. A lot of people seemed to like him for some reasons, although I personally thought he hadn’t done enough to this country even during his previous five-year reign.

He couldn’t even maintain a safe and fair electoral process in which everyone could vote. Previously, some people had told me not to abstain because being able to vote was one of my rights as the citizen of Indonesia. But how about the other people who couldn’t vote, simply because they were denied from it?

It was all too apparent even since the beginning of the election process. Everything was so messed up, and amazingly enough, people – or should I say, the media – didn’t seem to give a shit about it. The fact that SBY had won the election was celebrated much to early, they forgot about the 35 million people who had been denied their rights to vote during the presidential election, because the electoral roll had messed it all up.

There were still people who were not registered, therefore they couldn’t use their right to vote. This happened during the legislatory election, but hey, apparently it wasn’t that big a deal.

There were people who had double slots to vote.

There were people who couldn’t vote because the voting booth had run out of voting papers. Go figure.

There were people like himself, who, coming from Semarang and living and working in Jakarta but couldn’t use his right to vote because he only had his identity card; and apparently if a person wanted to use his  identity card to vote, the address had to be the same with their current residency. Plus, he must have a family card as well. So himself couldn’t vote because his current address stated that he lived in Semarang, although he worked in Jakarta.

I don’t know about you, but I think that’s really messed up. Do you seriously think a lot of people would go back to their hometown for just one day, right in the middle of the week and everything, just so that they could vote, and then bring their asses back to work the next day? I don’t think so. If someone had Rp. 300,000 to spend for travelling back to their hometown, they’d rather save it for Lebaran so they could spend it for a much better cause.

Even I wouldn’t do it, and I earn a pretty decent salary.

And that’s just talking about the electoral process. Don’t even get me started on other issues.

During SBY’s reigns, religious extremists were – and still are – present and acting up like they own this whole goddamn country. I don’t know why he lets them. Speaking of a peaceful country, I still don’t think it’s happening now.

The Lapindo mud is still eating up Sidoarjo, as we speak. Don’t know when the government is going to solve that shit. They’ll probably just let Sidoarjo disappear and pretend that the people will forget about it. Meanwhile, Bakrie and his money-spending family are still running free from responsibilities.

Malnutrition. Don’t even get me started. This is 2009. We’re a country of great natural resources. It is appalling how a child can be malnutritioned, when our soil can practically grow anything.

Floods in Jakarta. The monsoon season is coming soon. You better get ready, people. Now this could be caused by two things; the government not increasing the public’s awareness enough about the proper way of disposing garbage, and the malls that are eating up the lands in Jakarta, in which the licenses were approved by – tada! – the government!

Um. What else? Ah. Education. They say it’s free. But is it? Are the textbooks free? Or is it just the government’s way of cheating the people by saying that it’s free when it’s not?

And those policies on pornography and IT. What’s next, banning Facebook, or the internet? Why not just go back to the cave era where we are denied of technology?

Last but not least. Corruption. The government must think this is such a fucking joke. How some officials can get away by stealing billions of money from us and only get jailed for four years. Hell, even after they get released, they’ll still have plenty of money left to feed their great-great-grandchildren, and buy a brand new apartment somewhere in Kelapa Gading for their mistresses.

The fact is this; the richer are still getting richer. The poorer are still getting poorer. The politicians are still giving out empty promises, and I see no significant changes whatsoever from the way this country is going. We’re a rich country, but where does all the money go? To the corrupt politician’s pockets of course.

The people are poor not because there’s an economic crisis. I don’t believe in that shit. The people are poor because the government are corrupt. And SBY hasn’t done enough to deal with this at all. Five years is a very long time. And giving only four years jail sentence to someone who’d just made this country poorer than ever, making the people not being able to get proper education, proper jobs and proper lives, that’s the biggest crime of all.

So let’s just see whether SBY could do something different this time. But realistically speaking? I don’t think so. Not if he still thinks watching a soppy movie in the cinema is more important than dealing with the country’s problems. Not if he thinks the biggest threat to this country are premans (aka thugs), instead of corrupt government officials.

I have to hand it to the Majelis Ulama Indonesia aka the Indonesian Ulema Council – these guys really know how to make Indonesians sound even more stupid than we already have. First, they made a fuss about Yoga and decided to ban the sport since it had the “Om” chanting which they said, referred to the religious ritual of the Hindus. And then they changed their mind. And then they were revising the ban and decided to go ahead with it. The irony of this whole thing was that almost none of Yoga practitioners in Indonesia actually ever chanted anything during their Yoga activities. I don’t doubt it, since it would be very hard trying to maintain a Matsyasana position while breathing in and out with rythym and trying to go “Ommm..” with any breath that is left from your lungs.

Not satisfied with to-ban-or-not-to-ban Yoga (and also perhaps running low with bribery income), the MUI decided to produce an edict against smoking. Personally, I don’t care much about this fatwa as I am a non-smoker and I also think that the chance of making the people in this country to stop smoking is probably the same as trying to make Bakrie fix the Sidoarjo mud disaster. Not gonna happen.

But this topic caught my interest when it was being discussed on MetroTV’s Today’s Dialogue titled (quite creatively so) Obral Fatwa MUI, which means – roughly translated – The MUI Fatwa Sale. You can watch the whole show here.

Mr. Amidhan from MUI seemed to be so sure and confident that there were, apparently, a lot of people who demanded that smoking was to be an edict. He said, “Oh, we had plenty of requests from people, personal or from organisations, etc., asking for this edict to be made, sure, of course.”

And yet … he didn’t produce any evidence at all. No letters or petitions signed by people saying so. So how could he say those things when he had no actual proof whatsoever? Not good enough, wrinkly old man. I want proofs. Until  I actually see hard copied evidence of signatures from a bunch of hypocritical non-smokers who are actually looking for some charity fund from the tobacco companies, I won’t believe a single world that you say.

For me this just another classic case of ‘Instead of solving the problem, let’s just forbid people to do something and hope for the best!’, rather than ‘Let’s educate the people that smoking is unhealthy and even if they do smoke, let’s advise them to do it in the proper places.’

But I guess for me, the smoking edict was not as bad of a joke as it was for the edict to forbid people to abstain in this year`s general elections. This, I thought, had got to be a fucking joke.

I’d love to tell this wrinkly old man that it is my right to go abstain when I feel like it, because as far as I know, all the politicians in this country can only offer lies and deceit, and I won’t trust the fate of this country to those low-life scumbags ever.

I seriously think MUI must’ve thought Indonesian people are stupid or something.

As if we don’t know that those political campaigns either on television or billboards are all shite. As if we don’t know that they only bring up the poor and uneducated people at times like these but once they get elected, they’d be too busy exchanging bribes and dirty money to each other to even give a shit about the future of this country. As if we are too gullible to believe the empty promises those corrupt politicians say – how they’re gonna give 20% of the budget for educational purpose.  Golkar has actually done this in their telly ads and it’s kind of stupid because that is really nothing new – 20% has always been the budget and it’s stated in the 1945 Constitutions since, like, forever. So by bringing that up and claiming that they’re the ones who’d made all that possible, is equal to them visiting hookers and catching gonorrhea and go around saying that they’ve cured AIDS.

And the bits where these politicians always act as if they’re gods and appear as if they’re the ones who’re going to save this wretched country from it’s terrible fate – sickening or what? Fuck off, assholes, you’re the ones who make this country impossible to live in. It’s people like you, who made poverty, uneducated people, flood victims, and everything bad about this country, exist.

So is it really my fault for abstaining? Is it really? Because I seriously think by voting or not, it won’t make a damn difference. Not with the kind of law and justice system this country is running. No, not really.

*)Image of Suster Ngesot is courtesy of Golput.wordpress.com

Aren’t they just fabulous? They’re tastefully done and very convincing, aren’t they? I’m sure the Indonesian mass love our future leaders for being so humorous and clever while promoting themselves. I mean, a green Superman – genius or what?And the whole father-using-daughter’s popularity-as-leverage is just pure awesomeness, I wouldn’t have thought about that at all!

Bravo guys, bravo!

PS: Cynthia Lamusu is an Indonesian celebrity famous for her performance on a TV show equivalent to that So You Think You Can Dance show. Rafflyn, is the father. Apparently.

I’m still considering whether the second poster is actually a hoax or not. Somebody can clue me in?  It’s just too good to be true.

PPS: Thanks Richoz for the images!

Watching the local television station has become such a bore for me lately – not that it hasn’t always been that way, except that these days the feeling has been intensified much more due to what’s happening in Gaza.

Yep, Gaza. As in; the war between Palestinians – or to be exact – Hamas, and Israel. Aside from it being the most horrendous tragedy that has been happening since World War II (or so it seems), this war has made the ratings of television stations such as Metro TV and TVOne skyrocket to the roof, mostly because they give 24/7 (repeated clips included) news coverage, and they manage to tie the issue together with the upcoming election by having discussions with the election candidates – in which they’d go at each other formally and try to say the best bullshit excuses they could come up with to top each other up in hoping to – you know it – gain more votes.

Candidates aside, there are also other organisations involved, but the flow of the discussion is more or less similar – it’s kind of like Jerry Springer without the flinging middle fingers and the bashing up against each other’s faces.

Yesterday evening I was watching Today’s Dialogue on MetroTV, where the discussion theme was titled “Jihad Melawan Israel” (Jihad Against Israel) and there present were Luthfi Assyaukanie from JIL which stands for Jaringan Islam Liberal (Liberal Islam Network), Taufiq Faizasyah from the Foreign Department, Ismail Yusanto (one of Hizbut Tahrir’s people), and Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq, a representative from Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (ie. the Prosperous Justice Party) as well as Kania Sutisnawinata which is Metro TV’s moderator for the dialogue.

The dialogue itself, I must say, was quite interesting indeed. It even got to a point where Ismail Yusanto was saying that Israelian people were savages and immoral people for killing innocent civilians in Gaza. Words like butcherers and aggresors were also flung around here and there.

Perhaps most people are now occupied with what’s happening in Gaza that they don’t even remember what had and has been happening in our own country still, but I’m not and I wasn’t then, because the second he said those words, my mind went back to what happened in May 1998.

Were we not savages and immoral ourselves, back then?

Were we no different than animals? Shit, even my dog has better morals than most Indonesian politicans I knew. My dog, for the love of God, wouldn’t pay some thugs to take drugs and go loot stores and houses occupied by Chinese-descent people and then went ahead and rape their wives, mothers and daughters.

Suffice to say, what happened in May 1998 was a tragedy beyond anything else, a moral degradation that should not be forgotten, people even made a petition to make sure it wasn’t.

And then Yusanto went on to say that the United States was a capitalist country and they would always defend the Israelis no matter what -  geez, dude, half, if not more, of the guys who sit in the US parliamentary are Jewish – which is no different than the situation in Indonesia.

I mean, what race and religion do most people in the  House of Representatives and the government belong to? Exactly. So stop being the kettle calling the pot black-bottomed. And what is this about the US being a capitalist country? Who let KFC and McDonalds got the license to open their franchises in Indonesia in the first place, if not the Indonesian government themselves?

Every now and then I saw (and read) demonstration either on TV or newspapers, of university students who demanded KFC and McDonalds franchise to be closed as their expression of disagreement (or hatred?) towards the US, and I can’t bear witnessing the irony. These are students for God’s sake. They’re supposed to be intelligent and know to tell rights to wrongs. If there is anyone to show hatred to, it’s the government – not some innocent Indonesian civilian who happens to own an American-originated franchise who, just like everybody else, is just trying to make a living.

The logic is,  if you don’t want your own country to be capitalised to fuck, then don’t let it in the first place. If it has already happened, then some changes in the amendment must be made.

Anyway, the argument continued that the best way to help the Palestinians was to send some five-hundred volunteers or so to help Hamas fight the war against Israel, as well as the money that had been gathered from charity which was closing in on four hundred million rupiah or so.

Luthfi Assyaukanie from JIL, who was in fact, the one who sounded the most rational than the rest of the participants, got a lot of “boo”-ing from the audience during most of the discussion, because of his (unbiased) opinions regarding Israel’s refusal to negotiate with Hamas since Hamas (or Fatah, in that case) is not the representative of Palestinian people nor the government, as well as saying that this was the war that should not be fought back with another war, but a war that needed ending by having fair and just negotiation between the two country involved. Indonesia shouldn’t be taking sides to any countries, instead they should give help to those who need it the most – in this case, the innocent civilians, of course. But it seemed that the men from HTI and PKS were keen to made this as a holy war, and the cries and yellings from the audience didn’t help either. I could see why from any other South Asian countries we are the ones that are the butt of the jokes – religion seems to cloud the  minds of most people, including those who are supposedly intelligent and worthy to be sat on the parliament chairs.

His suggestion on helping Palestinians was the one I thought made more sense; instead of sending five hundred Indonesians to Palestine (like what Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq from PKS had said) , which would take a lot of money to process their visas, flight tickets etc., why not send the collected fund to Jordanian or Egyptian volunteers, who would know their ways more in getting the best help for Palestinians in Gaza.

In the end I got tired watching the show I went back to work on my laptop (and Plurking as well, every now and then).

But seriously, if you really want to know what I think?

I don’t really give a flying rat’s ass if there is a war in Gaza, or if hundreds or thousands of people are dying there. The fact is, it’s not our war. It’s not the war Indonesians should me meddling into, nor thinking that it is a much bigger deal than the war Indonesian people are having between each other. The war against the opressors of their own kind, which is the government.

A country like Indonesia who is still figuring out how to help itself, should not be interfering nor judging or siding which country they should defend in this war. All those money gathered to help the Palestinians civilians would be better off to be used to help thousands of the flood victims whose house had been damaged in Sulawesi, and the 49 houses in Sumbawa, West Nusa Tenggara that had been washed away by flood,  the sinking ship carrying 250 passengers and 17 crew members in waters off Baturoro in West Sulawesi, in which only 23 survivors had been found so far and last but not least, the recent earthquake in Papua killing a ten year old girl and injuring 37 people.

Of course, those are only the tip of the latest national news that has been happening in Indonesia. There are so many others that have been simply forgotten. The Lapindo victims who are probably wondering what the hell is happening with their reimbursement money that is still not coming through. The malnutritioned children that are the future of this country.

So many problems that the government choose to ignore, including the most important of all, which is education. Because if the people in this country are well educated, they will not let religion be the ‘be all and end all’  of everything, nor will they let religion to justify their acts of violence and injustice to their own people.

If Indonesians are well educated, they will be proud of their country, of its heritage, national treasure, language and history, and they will put their blood, sweat and tears (no, not the 80s band) to do everything they have in their power to preserve the beauty and the natural resources which include the nature and the arts and culture of their country, instead of wasting their time defending religion or God (anyone with an ounce’s worth of brain knows that God doesn’t need defending) or spreading unecessary hatred towards countries that won’t even give a shite if you burn their flags or throw rotten tomatoes at pictures of their presidents.

But I guess Indonesians are not worthy to be given the help from their own people, the money is better off  going somewhere else, preferrably thousands of miles away from the country. I guess Indonesians in general think that helping their own people is not worth the trouble nor effort, because this country is going to sink in a few more years anyway. Which probably explains why they keep missing the rubbish from the rubbish bin – I guess education is not that important to teach people about something as simple as that. When all the same, flood keeps on returning each year on the same season and the same month, and nobody really gives a shite.

PS: Crazy comments from crazy-ass religious extremists-cum-trolls will be deleted, so waste your time somewhere else. I do not tolerate anyone who doesn’t use their brains here. Thank you!

Yes, we can make a change! We can absolutely do it by choosing NOT to vote.

As the people, we have the power to do so. It’s our numbers against their needs. Those politicians think they can fool us with their soppy ads and their empty promises, when all of us know well enough that all they want is the power to govern this country and corrupt it to fuck.

I choose not to vote because I have not seen any candidate that is worthy of my vote. Not even one. Which is why I’m very passionate to not participate in the upcoming election. The more people going abstain, the more chance the government will realise that we’re not stupid and we don’t accept the way they treat us.

Let’s not vote! Well at least I won’t, until I see a candidate who:

• Doesn’t have a corrupted mind.
• Is not full of shit. Enough of all this ‘advising, reminding’ shit, we need to see actions. Most politicians when being interviewed on television and asked about their steps on increasing education, reply by going around in circles and reinstating their objections but they don’t explain about how they will achieve them. Total bullshit.
• Doesn’t try to buy people’s votes by giving away money or some crappy t-shirts. They give away money and empty promises to win your votes, just so that they can get more money later on when they have reached the positions they want, by accepting bribes, corrupting your tax and ignoring the country’s urgent problems.
• Is able to speak English correctly. And by I mean correctly is not speaking English in Tukul’s style; pronouncing “based on” as “bis on” or “face to face” as “vis tu vis”, as most government officials always do. They should freaking go and enroll in an English course or hire a native speaker as a teacher – they have the money, so there is no excuse whatsoever.
• Is educated. Goes hand in hand with being able to speak English. Even better if he or she holds an overseas degree, because the experience overseas means they should most probably have an open mind and learn the thought process of the people of a different nation. Bring home the good things that he or she has learnt overseas and apply them to his or her own country.
• Has the right balance between compassion and firm leadership. Indonesia is still a developing country that needs guidance and firm hands to steer them from the wrong directions, but also compassion and empathy from their leader to bring him or her, back to earth.
• Is aware of global warming, or even a die-hard fan of green living. He or she most probably drive a Toyota Prius or some kind to Istana Merdeka instead of some American-made fancy car that costs a lot and totally useless, to give a good example to the fellow Indonesians.
• Loves his or her national heritage and be aware that other countries have stolen about half of them already. He or she must probably make a rule or a deal for Batik to be a part of people’s everyday life. Like, wearing them everyday, not just on Fridays or Wedding events.

Perhaps my loyal and faithful reader want to add more points? Feel free to do so, peoples!