The Jakarta Post

Since I arrived in Indonesia, my relationship with The Jakarta Post has been a turbulent one. A perennial complaint is that it's never published on a public holiday. On the very days when you don't have to rush off to school and could afford to spend unlimited time perusing the more obscure corners of the paper, it's not on the doorstep. I hate that. Another complaint is the large number of international news articles that are simply pilfered from the news services. My reading of the paper is considerably accelerated because I've read many of these articles one or two days before on the Internet.

I could go on but you may well ask why I continue to buy it. I guess one reason is habit: I've always had a newspaper delivered to the door and I've always read it over breakfast. Another reason is that it keeps me up-to-date with the local and regional news. It gives me a feeling for what is happening in the country. It's not a feeling you get from reading news about the country from outside. In a country as volatile as Indonesia, it makes sense to stay alert and informed about what is happening on the ground, in case matters take a turn for the worst.

The reason that I'm prompted to write about this rag that I love to hate is because a couple of days ago I was asked by the school where I work to pen an IT article for publication in an educational supplement that the paper will publish in a fortnight's time. If the article does appear, it will not be the first time that my name has appeared in the paper. I've previously had two letters to the editor published, one was a rebuke on the paper's spelling standards and the other was an attack on the utter uselessness of the Australian Embassy (another institution that I love to hate).

It was my third letter however, that proved fateful. In it I criticised the killing of animals on the Islamic Day of Sacrifice, I included relevant quotes from the Qu'ran as well as arguments from Moslems who had embraced vegetarianism. I thought it a restrained and very reasonable article and looked forward to its publication. It never appeared and neither did any subsequent letter that I submitted on innocent and non-religious themes. It was apparent that I had been blacklisted.

Clearly, I had crossed some sort of line. In my article, I was careful to use arguments that had been put forward by practising Moslems themselves. It was all to no avail and so I'm wondering if my name is still on that blacklist. It's been many years since I tried to submit anything and so it will be interesting to see if my article sees the light of day. I'll report back.