Crossing the Bridge. The Sound of Istanbul, Film, Jakarta, 24 January

Indonesia Indah, Jakarta, 1 – 3 February

Imlek Vaganza, 24-27 January, Jakarta

Cruel Jakarta Post, Thus To Raise Then Dash Our Hopes!

Busily watching the Inauguration, today’s visitor long since left, so for the time being I’m stuck with a newly-empty bottle of Jim Beam for company.

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Don’t be alarmed – there were only a few inches in it when I started this arvo, the remains of my Festive Season allocation, just enough to toast the new President in Washington! 

But now that The Donald is safely installed – good, short speech, BTW! – a look at local news here.

In my opinion, the Jakarta Post is rarely a source of hope for many people.

In fact sometimes it’s a real source of despair! 

I have long hoped its editorial clique might grow a set and condemn their parent company, Gramedia, for complicity in Nazi–style book-burning.

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•    Grovelling Gramedia’s Book–Burning Bonanza – Appeasing Fanatics 

• …………………..

• But so far, on that shameful episode, at least, back-bones remain underdeveloped.
• However, today, recovering slowly from the third party attended this week, I flicked through their current output of local news, and my heart skipped a beat at this exciting headline.

Noose tightens around FPI leader

The FPI, as most readers know from its constant appearance on our pages, is a nasty sectarian thug-gang, and the leader referred to is Habib Rizieq.

If you have missed recent stories on these phenomena, here’s a couple of links.

Nightmare – Indonesian IslamoNazis Get Armed Forces Training! 

So Has Indonesia Come To This? Paradise Lost? 

So you can imagine my disappointment when I opened up the ‘Noose’ story and learned that the JP writers were not being literal…

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….but had resorted to metaphor!

Never mind.  I’m a resilient fellow, and never stay downcast for long.

Besides, there’s another party to go to tomorrow – actually, today, for it’s after midnight here!

In fact, of course, the report in the JP is quite fun to read, with the fanatic facing possible prosecution in West Java, of all places, after loads of decent Indonesians were outraged by IslamoNazi antics.

Rizieq now faces public scrutiny as the police investigate five separate cases. These cases relate to Rizieq’s alleged blasphemy toward Christianity, insults to the State ideology Pancasila, comments over supposed communist symbols on Rupiah bank notes and hate speech.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/01/20/noose-tightens-around-fpi-leader.html

Read and savour, the biter belatedly bit.

“I’m A Pick-Pocket!” OK! So Why Not Shame IslamoNazis?

Speaking of criminals – I refer to my previous post, in which I abhorred Obama’s ( admittedly unsurprising) empathy with treasonous freaks…

Breaking – Obama Commutes Traitor Freak’s Sentence 

…I thought overseas readers might be interested in the sort of scene which met my gaze a few days ago when I transitted Harmoni Central Halte Busway, the main bus junction in Jakarta.

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“I am a pick-pocket!’ (no camera on me, so that is a previous example – seems it happens a lot, tho I’d not witnessed it before!)

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I emerged from a Route 8 bus and was walking up to catch another, heading south, when I passed what I at first took to be an effigy.

Not so!

It moved (very slightly) and I slowed down to stare at the individual with his hands bound behind his back and a sign slung round his neck, declaring to all the world that –

‘I AM A PICK-POCKET!’

Seems he had been apprehended, and probably roughly handled – one hopes- for trying to steal from law-abiding users of the bus-way.

A good idea?

Probably, though if all the pick-pockets in Jakarta were caught and similarly subjected to public shaming, it would cause congestion at bus-stops!

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• When I was new to the city, I fell prey to such anti-social swine, and, though now alert to the risks (and thus unscathed for years) I gather it still goes on, a lot.
• But what I’d like to see is the same treatment meted out to other sorts of criminals as well.
• ——-
• The rich corruption convicts, of whom there are way too many, and sectarian hoodlums…

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…don’t get put in places like busways with signs round their necks identifying their outrageous crimes.

Sukorejo’s Sectarian Samurai – IslamoNazi Thugs Get Slap on Wrist

…even when they attack the police!

 Twenty Officers Injured –

There are other undesirables about too, all over Indonesia, not just in Jakarta, like those foul brutes in Cikeusik…

oooooo

Cikeusik, Banten Province, February 6th, 2011. Watch the pigs at their bloody work on this link..   http://www.liveleak.com/view.

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Victim of Islamist Murder Mob Gets Six Months in the Slammer 

… and those cowardly louts in Jogjakarta, whose violence we covered some time ago…

IslamoNazi Thugs Attack Indonesian Artist in Jogja 

If such anti-social creatures were put on display in public places, people would probably not just cast a dismissive glance at the scum and walk by.

Likely, they’d be spat on, kicked, or at least loudly derided.

And THAT would be a VERY good thing.

So why does it never seem to happen?

The Moffats, Jakarta, 19/20 February

Wow! Jakarta Debate – Ira Koesno Ain’t No Rotten Raddatz!

I tuned into the debate last night.

The Jakarta gubernatorial election debate that is, and purely by accident, because it was on Trans TV and I was waiting to see which one of their tiresome repeats they’d present as our weekend treat. In the end it turned out be A Man Apart.

I enjoyed that the first time I saw it, some years ago.

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Now…not so much.

Can’t Trans TV do better?

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But whilst awaiting cinematic delights, it was interesting to watch Ahok taking on his two rivals, and nice to see a cheering crowd of supporters among the studio audience.

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• 
• Ahok
• =

Interesting also to learn that some 1700 police officers had been detailed to make sure all went safely, a wise precaution when so many Islamist fanatics have been heard demanding his death for no rational reason.

So Has Indonesia Come To This? Paradise Lost? 

The debate wasn’t as much fun as any of those Trump-Clinton clashes!

Yet the moderator was a lot less biased than some of those individuals who filled that role in the recent US presidential election debates – one of those got all boo-hoo, when it was clear Trump was winning!

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Hillary Shill Martha Raddatz Starts To Cry Over Trump Victory – YouTube

 Almost needless to say, ABC’s Martha Raddatz denied it!

But you can be the judge!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb0Zc6y3FMo

ooooooooooooooo

As for the Indonesian debate, I won’t say which candidate was most persuasive, as I only saw part of it. 

That lady doing the moderating, however, was downright impressive, telling the turbulent fans, of all sides, to pipe down or the show would not go on!

And who was this paragon of imperious impartiality?

ooooooo

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Ira Koesno!

English readers might like to know that she is apparently a Chelsea supporter!

Incredibly, she is also forty seven years old, which you may or may not believe, but I can assure you that the photo above is an reflection of her appearance.

She’s drop-dead gorgeous!

And living proof of what I have often said, that Indonesian women are among the most lovely in the world..

Jakarta – Decent Muslims Challenge Islamist Witch-Hunt!

Home at last, and just in time, as I can hear the rain beating down outside.

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However, this morning I was delighted to wake to another sunny Jakarta day, and even more delighted to see the headline in The Jakarta Globe this week…

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We are devoted Muslims, not offended by Ahok’s statement…

The report comes from the Pulau Seribu ( Thousand Islands) – just off the northern shore of our ever-interesting capital city – islands where I once spent a most pleasant short break.

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• The islands are a popular weekend destination for less affluent people here, not expensive to reach or to stay over for a night or two.
• But they have been in the headlines a lot here recently…
• —
•  Jakarta’s Governor Ahok
• –

• …because that was where Governor Ahok made his jocular aside for which the worst elements in Indonesia want him put to death.

• “We encourage the government to process the death penalty for Ahok as soon as possible,” said Rizieq.  http://www.suara.com/news/2016/10/14/134313/

• That’s Habib Rizieq, so-called ‘high priest’ of the self-styled “Islam Defenders’ Front” – the notorious white-shirt vigilante gang, the FPI.
• But now the overwhelmingly Muslim population of those islands have made their voice heard, refuting the bigot claim that his joke was ‘blasphemy.’
• The Chairman of the Al Makmuriah Great Mosque board there, Faturrahman, set the record straight – he was actually present when Ahok made his speech that day – by saying that what Ahok said was not insulting and did not defame Islam…We are devoted Muslims, not offended by Ahok’s statement …
• It’s to be hoped that many more decent Muslims will dissociate themselves from the witch-hunt, perhaps in response to the way some of the fanatics openly talk down to them.
• Last week, the FPI, who are notoriously sexist as well as sectarian…

IslamoNazi Gauleiter – “Women Already Have Limitations, Let Alone Non-Muslims!” 

…hit a new low in talking down to Muslims who don’t share their arrogant attitude, by which I mean their claim to be more qualified than others on who is and who isn’t Muslim enough.                       Jakarta Mosque Mayhem – IslamoNazi Louts Silence Moderate! 

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Yet another Habib  -the name’s said to denote descent from their Prophet!  Habibs Galore – White-Shirt Gang Leaders Go On Trial! 

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Their Jakarta Gauleiter, Habib Novel Bakmukmin  – the same geezer who dissed women with that outburst about their ‘limitations’ – seemed to evince an almost archaic snobbery when he  called the residents who laughed upon hearing Ahok’s statement –

• – wait for it –

‘COMMONERS!’ 

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Hell, that sounds as stuck-up as some of the pinko expats who send me insulting snobbish comments about how I so disgracefully live and work and dine out among ordinary Indonesian folks. 

 

Festival Kuliner Imlek, Jakarta, 11 January- 5 February

Till The Next Time, Tree!

Hey-ho.

Christmas tree back in its box again.

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The idle days between outings were filled with reading, and I came across several new authors, new to me at least, like Harlan Coben and Duncan Falconer, whose fiction I recommend to all who like a rattling good yarn!

However, though Twelve Days of Christmas have gone by, the consolation is that, with Jakarta’s remaining resident foreigners all drifting back from their Yuletide overseas jaunts, the party season will resume next week and continue through the year.

As predicted this morning, my day passed agreeably, my visitor on time, more or less, a pleasant hour or so, then, since the sun was still shining down, I hung out the washing and headed for the warteg, where the cheery proprietrix welcomed me and her young assistants served up my usual order.

Then back across the road to a brand-new IndoMaret, much closer than the other mini-marts round here, where I resupplied myself with cigs.

The place only opened days ago, but when I walked in, the young lad behind the counter at once declared ‘Yes, Mister, Bohem Hijau, ya?’

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Astounded at his psychic powers, I nodded, then he revealed that he had formerly worked in another shop and remembered their only foreign customer and his taste in smokes! I thanked him and wandered home, but not to do the ironing – another visitor tomorrow to assist with that!

Tonight, at home, actually cooking myself – mince and potatoes, a favourite from way back.

And tomorrow is another day. Nice to relax, and there’s also a pleasant thought to contemplate.

Only two more weeks till that ratbag gets evicted from the White House!.