Back in Jakarta

I'm very surprised to be able to post to my blog given the disastrous disruption to the Internet caused by the broken fibre-optic cables near Taiwan. The paper today predicted that Indonesia would have only 40% of its usual Internet capacity by January 8th! The past couple of days have been distressing with no access to Google, Yahoo and most of my other commonly visited sites. 

Today, I've even managed to upload a photo to my blog. The photo is taken in Bali and shows Desy doing what she loves best: shopping. In Brisbane, she did a lot of shopping as well and I got tired just following her around. In Bali however, I not only got very tired but very hot as well. It was very humid. Desy is curiously oblivious to fatigue when she is indulging in her favourite pastime. 

Now that I'm back in Jakarta, I'm recuperating in my air-conditioned study which is a permanent no-shopping zone. Tomorrow is the dreaded Idul Adha or Islamic Day of Sacrifice (or as a friend of mine put it: Dead Goat Day, because that is the most animal most commonly slaughtered). While it is difficult to extract humour from such an imminent and senseless carnage, I'm reminded of a recent incident that I read about in Turkey, involving the sacrifice of a camel on an airport tarmac. On December 13th, The Guardian reported:

Bosses at Turkey's largest airline took a dim view today of maintenance workers sacrificing a camel at Istanbul airport to celebrate the delivery of a batch of planes. The country's national carrier, Turkish Airlines, suspended its chief of maintenance after the unusual celebration. Maintenance staff had banded together to buy the animal and then killed it to mark the delivery of 100 aircraft. Turkish newspapers carried pictures of the camel, two rugs thrown over its hump, before Tuesday's sacrifice. They also showed pictures of the animal chopped into pieces.

Strange but true. Is it any wonder that Turkey is finding it hard gaining entry to the European Common Market? Naturally, I'll be staying indoors tomorrow and lighting some candles and incense as part of a little ceremony celebrating Ahimsa (the philosophy of revering of all life and refraining from harm to any living thing).

Sadly, too many Muslims nowadays focus only on unthinking ritual, the extrinsic as opposed to the intrinsic aspects of their religion.

As it is proclaimed in the Holy Qur'an:

"It is not their meat nor their blood, that reaches Allah; it is your piety that reaches Him."

(22.37)

Some Muslims realise this of course and have set up Internet sites interpreting the words of the Qur'an in a deeper and more symbolic way. Some sites actively encourage Muslims to embrace vegetarianism because they regard modern factory farming methods as not being halal (acceptable under Islam).

At http://www.veda.harekrsna.cz/bhaktiyoga/islamveg.htm, the following remarks are relevant to this issue:

Thus Allah does not require the flesh and blood of animals, much less of human beings. No one should suppose that meat or blood is acceptable to God. It was a Pagan fancy that Allah could be pleased by blood sacrifice. But Allah does accept the offering of our hearts.

Actually qurban, the animal slaughtering process ordained for Muslims, have an esoteric and exoteric meaning. While qurban externally refers only to Muslim dietary laws, inwardly qurban requires that we sacrifice our life to the devotion and service of God, and that we sacrifice our beastly qualities instead of the life of an animal.

"Qurban is not slaughtering chickens and cows and goats," explains Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. "There are four hundred trillion, ten thousand beasts here in the heart which must be slaughtered. They must be slaughtered in the qalb [the inner heart]. After these things have been slaughtered, what is eaten can then be distinguished as either halal [permissible] or haram [forbidden]."

Ultimately, the great ustad [preceptor] concludes, "everything that is seen in the world is haram. What is seen in Allah [God] alone is halal. Please eat that." (M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Asma'ul-Husna: The 99 Beautiful Names of Allah, 1979, p. 181)

Yes indeed, please do eat that and not poor, hapless animals. Of course, such is the sensitivity and defensiveness of Islam nowadays that any comment on the interpretation of the Qur'an by a kafir (someone who is not a Muslim) could easily provoke unreasoning hostility from self-proclaimed defenders of the faith. I'm safe however, here in my air-conditioned study, I think.

The Dimming of the Lights

The last time that I stayed in this fine establishment (almost exactly one year ago), I injudiciously covered the lamp, that you can see at the side of the bed, with a towel. I then went to sleep but I awoke to the screaming of a smoke alarm that had been set off by the smoke generated from the slow incineration of my towel. 

The only visible reminders of my near-death-experience were the very warped lamp and a towel with a hole in it. I disposed of the dead towel in my brother's garbage bin but the warped lamp remained. Even though I admitted to the accident and I wasn't chastised or fined at the time, it would seem that I am only now being penalised. 

If you look at the photo on this post, you will see that this time around we have been given only one lamp. One for Desy, none for me. Worse still, it is on the wrong side of the bed. That is Desy's side and if I want to read in bed, the normal order of things has to be overturned. Even worse, I managed to knock the lamp over last night. It seemed as if no harm had been done at the time but this evening, the bulb gave out and so there is no lamplight tonight.

Tomorrow, I'll buy a new bulb to replace the dead one. I don't have the courage to face the manager, Elizabeth, and ask for a new bulb. I know what she'll be thinking: what is it about you and lamps? I just seem to be accident-prone in the current accommodation. Remarkably, I've managed to create a web album of photos taken since arriving. The address is www.picasaweb.google.com/reeves.sean. Have a look.

Terra Australis Incognita

This is a photograph of the guest house where we are staying in New Farm. You enter via these heavy wooden doors (visible to the left of the tree). So far our stay has been very pleasant. I guess one of the most visible differences between Indonesia and Australia is the height of the people. In Indonesia, I don't feel "height-challenged" but in Australia I definitely do. It's not just men that tower over me but many of the women as well. Desy describes it well when she says that she can always spot me in a mall in Jakarta by scanning heads, but not here in Oz. 

It has become for me terra Australis Incognita, "the unknown land of the south", full of people who are growing younger, taller and more purposeful with each successive annual visit. Sitting at pavement cafes, I wonder why Tony isn't smoking his rollies and then remember that the practice is now prohibited. He tells me smoking is also banned in pubs and clubs now. There are a great many rules and regulations in Oz and they all seem to be enforced. 

It wasn't long after I applied for a driver's licence last year, using Tony's address, that mail arrived asking why I hadn't registered as a voter for the recent State elections. Before long probably, the police will arrive at Tony's door with a summons for me to appear in court to explain why I didn't vote. The government's efficiency in extracting fines from it citizenry for all manner of offences is certainly impressive.

Return to Oz

After a seemingly interminable plane journey from Denpasar to Sydney and onwards to Brisbane, Desy and I finally arrived at our destination. There is a broadband Internet connection in the place where we are staying and thus I am able to post this blog entry. The speed is blindingly fast compared to what I'm familiar with in Jakarta. 

Last night, my Norton Antivirus wanted to download over 6Mb of updates and I hesitantly agreed (not wanting to tie up the connection for other people). I needn't have worried, the download took no more than a few seconds. In Jakarta, the same download would have taken several minutes. 

I noticed later, when I was shutting down, that Windows also had 31 updates to install. These updates had been downloaded, unbeknown to me, while I was accessing the Internet. I know realise that there is broadband and that there is BROADband. The reason for all these updates of course is that I now have a brand new laptop: a Toshiba Satellite to replace my poor old ECS laptop that died a few days earlier. More postings from Down Under shortly.

Polygamy

The big news in Indonesia this past week revolved around the very popular Muslim preacher A.A.Gym whose photo appears above. It came to light that he had taken a second wife about three months ago. His first wife broke the news after supposedly agreeing to the marriage. He already had seven children from his first marriage and his second wife has three children. So now he has two wives and ten children. What was interesting was the reaction of the public. 

Attendance at his weekend meeting fell from the usual 3000 to 800, he was bombarded with SMSs denouncing his new marriage and the government proposed extending an existing ban on polygamy in the military to include civil servants. Women's groups and liberal Islamic groups denounced him and all in all it wasn't a good week for him. He had been seen a model of progressive, moderate Islam but not anymore. Desy was an ardent admirer of A.A.Gym but when I broke the news to her on Sunday morning, the first word to escape her lips was "bastard". Needless to say she won't be listening to any more of his talks and nor will a lot of other women around Indonesia. 

Only a week of school remaining and then it's off to Oz with Desy to visit brother Tony in Brisbane. We'll stay until Christmas Day and then fly to Bali for a couple of days before heading back to Jakarta. The last time I spoke Tara had agreed to visit in January so let's hope she does. It's been eighteen months since we last met and that was when she and Ali dropped in to visit us on their way to England. 

I'm planning to buy a new laptop in the new future because my poor old ECS notebook that I bought in the middle of 2004 is showing its age. The optical drive no longer works, nor does the LAN connection, but because I have an external optical drive and Wi-Fi connectivity, I can get by more or less but lately it's been rather temperamental in terms of starting up. I can always coax it back to life but it is time to move on. I'll get it repaired however, and install Linux on it and that will be an opportunity to gain confidence in using that operating system. The notebook I'm inclining toward at the moment is the HP dv6000t. It's been getting pretty positive reviews.