The seven plagues of Indonesia, according to Jaspert Slob

Living in Holland, retired from university, most of my contact with Indonesia is through historical documents. Nowadays it is often for writing for the great CMR project, Christian-Muslim Relations, a Bibliographical History. This is about Coen, Rumphius, Pieter van Dam and other VOC officials. But besides through personal contacts, there is daily news, reading the Jakarta Post and UCAN News in an Indonesian daily bulletin. Magazines like Hidup or the website Mirifica.com are not really important or people abroad. I read also once a month the blog by Lambertus Hurek, a journalist in Surabaya, originally from Lembata. He has much news about Flores, Catholics in Java, his contacts with Muslim society in Surabaya. Like a friend in a distant country! His blog has some 16.000 hits per week. Ten times more than mine! But there is also a weekly service, provided by Jaspert Slob, once a lecturer at a theological seminary in Indonesia (Manado, 1976-1983) and between 2005-2010 (more or less so) animator for Muslim-Christian encounter in Salatiga, together with his wife Josien Folbert.

 

Jaspert sends every week two emails to a circle of friends about what is going on in Indonesia, especially related to religious and socsial development. It is raw material, taken from newspaper and magazines. Much from the internet. It is usually bad news, because most news is about problems that yet have to be solved. Below I give a summary of the sending of last Saturday, week 6 of 2017, early February 2016. I gave it the title of The seven plagues of Indonesia. This week the series counts 27 pages, besides the summary of one page only
1. Papua. Jaspert is very much involved in the fate of this most eastern part of Indonesia. He reports about a 'Day of memory' in the Netherlands, Amersfoort, where some 100 people came together, to discuss human right abuses.
2. Terrorism. Coordinating Minister for safety/law and order wants to extend law 15/2003 against terrorism. He proposes that anything said or done against the unity of Indonesia must be seen as terrorism. Vague definitions are very dangerous and do not really help. A democratic society also needs criticism.
3. Poso. Actual terrorism is still around in Poso. A police officer was shot close to the town of poso, while terrorists still have a base in the forest of this region.
4. PKS is not only a political party, working in the democratic system, but also an activist organization seeking to reach its goal of an Islamic society through any means, mostly through small cells.
5. RUU, there is a proposal for the bill on the protection of religious life (the new formulation for the old Bill on Religious Harmony): rancangan Undang-undang Perlindungan Hidup Beragama. Lukman Hakim has formulated here five problems: a) what about the religious groups outside the big six? allow? ban? b) how to regulate religious propaganda, directed to people outside one's own group? c) building permits for houses of worship; 4. internal definition of doctrines in the big religions; e) FKUB, the formal encounter of religions at the level of provinces, districts and sub-districts.
6. Dissidents like the mayor of Bogor who fights a court decision allowing the building of a church, but supports and attends the opening of a new office of Hizbut Tahrir, an organization that does not recognize the Indonesian State.
7. Corruption. Realistic goals are often forgotten and covered by empty slogans. One of these is about Manokwari as the City of the Gospel, but it is dangerous due to drunkenness. Further political parties: there is much wrong in GOLKAR, the party of the vice-president Yusuf Kalla, but also the president, Jokowi, only pays lip-service to the fight against corruption.