Of Whingers and Bingers

While lamenting the dearth of wine in Jakarta, I have been saving money every month by not being able to visit the duty free bottle shops anymore. I also think Indonesia is better off for not having embraced alcohol. This substance is devastating aboriginal communities in Australia, causing nationwide health problems and contributing to domestic and social violence. I read The Sydney Morning Herald most days and the press that alcohol is getting at the local, state and national level is not good. It seems as if Australia simply can't handle its alcohol. While Indonesia has many problems, widespread alcohol abuse is not one of them.

The key question for Australia is whether the problem is getting worse or whether it's just getting more publicity or more attention from health professionals. There is of course a problem but there always has been, ever since the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. The hard drinking culture of Ireland and England was exported along with all the other Anglo-Celtic baggage. Rum was actually used as currency in the early days of the colony. When I was growing up in Australia, the pub was an exclusively male domain and opening hours were strictly regulated. Pubs didn't open on Sundays. Things have changed a lot since then. Women finally won access to pubs, the opening hours lengthened and the availability of cheap alcohol proliferated.

One things for sure. My body is less resilient than it used to be to the effects of ethanol. Fortunately, living in Indonesia means that the opportunities for drinking are limited and the cultural pressure to drink (outside of the expatriate community) is zero. However, I'm shortly off to Oz for ten days or so and I'm certainly looking forward to an occasional glass or three of some fine wines. Of course, I'll be careful not to binge drink because the Great Helmsman himself has warned against that. I am a whinger but not a binger. In fact Annabel Crabb writes in the SMH that "binge drinking is such a popular issue at the moment that it has generated a brand new noun" as in "I'm just here for a spot of binge" or "Another glass of binge?".

In the News

There's been a lot of local news recently but none of it good. A court here just threw out a civil case filed against Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra by the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) and awarded the son of former president Soeharto Rp 5 billion (US$549,000) in damages in a countersuit he filed for defamation. As one of the judges said the defendant (Tommy) is a businessman with a domestic and international reputation and he should be given fair compensation for non-material damages done to his good name. Well Tommy certainly has a domestic and international reputation as the guy who ordered the murder of a High Court judge and spent a laughably short time in a luxury prison as a punishment for his crime. Many petty thieves spend more time in jail than Tommy did but that's because they can't buy their way out.

Elsewhere the government came again under attack after refusing to scrap sharia-based ordinances, which Islamic scholars said worked against freedom of religion. Several regional administrations have made conduct prohibited under Islamic law a crime. In the West Sumatra city of Solok and the capital Padang, as well as Banten province, women are obliged to wear headscarves in public regardless of their religion. And local administrations in Padang, West Sumatra, in Indramayu, West Java, and in Maros, South Sulawesi, have made Koran literacy among all school children a requirement, regardless of religion. The creeping tide Islamisation of Indonesia continues to rise, thanks to the Government's inaction in defending the country's constitution.

On the environmental front things are looking bleak as well: a green activist blasted the government's and the House of Representatives' plan to allow 15 mining companies to resume their operations in protected-forest areas, saying that several NGOs were ready to file a lawsuit against the government and the House over the plan. Mind you, the mining would probably go ahead even without the Government's approval but it would still be nice if the mining were opposed in principle. In a similar vein, the City Council says it has canceled a plan to create green space through the relocation of 27 gas stations, because the plan would reduce revenue derived from fuel tax and cause unemployment. Many of these gas stations had been built on land that had been set aside as green space but mysteriously got rezoned.

So amidst the judicial corruption, the spread of radical Islam and environmental vandalism, is there any good news for Indonesia? There doesn't seem to be but I'll keep looking.