Short Bio: Hope this is short enough. I went to Law faculty of UI 1993-1999. Wanted to become a successful corporate lawyer J until I found my soul in the 1997-1998 movement. That’s why I took economic law specialty, taught capital market law (you wouldn’t have guessed, huh? J) and did internships in 2 law firms as capital market lawyer and 1 bank as corporate secretary staff to the holding company on my forth year of law school. After May 1998 I changed my mind totally and founded PSHK in July 1998 with my seniors at the law school. Been working there since then; and expanded here and there in the area of NGOs (board PSHK, anggota perkumpulan ICW, Board TIFA, Board ICG Indonesia, etc). Studied for LLM in Warwick, UK, in 2001-2002. And now doing my doctorate at UW Law School, Seattle, US; am on my second year.

You’re back at school again in Seattle, what’s there?

What’s here? Time for reflection on what I have done and have NOT done so far since 1998. And the reflection can be done in a more structured manner; in a logic thoughts with supporting evidence and theories in a dissertation that is.

Back then during the “reformasi” song and dance, you were part of the student movement, how did you get involved?
I involved in some students’ activities at FHUI at that time. Just for fun; I like knowing people and new different things. Some close friends at FHUI knew friends who at that time started to discuss the national situation and students movement. A bit “left” but wanted to have something more inclusive and not particularly related to the then leftist students movement such as SMID and so forth. They took me to the meetings and I enjoyed the discussions and decided to get involved.

Who came up with the phrase “Reformasi”?
Don’t know “who” exactly. I mean, we talked about who had talked about it, but terms like that, in my opinion, can never be traced back to a one single person and even a single discussion forum. Discussions, obrolan warung kopi etc shaped the keywords/ terms/ discourse.

You were in FHUI, what was the general idea of ‘reform’ then?
In 1998? Of course “turunkan Suharto” . For law people, we also identified draconian laws such as UU Subversif (now revoked), Political law package, and the need for constitutional reform. But at the university level (KBUI) when organizing protests, we did not really talk about something “structural” and “institutional” much. We concentrated more on the “situasi nasional”, pengamanan aksi, gathering the mass, communicating with other students’ organizations, etc. When we talked about “macro” situation, we talk about the movement as a part of larger social movement, how to link up with other movements in other sectors such as labors, white collar workers, etc.

You understand the laws well. Looking at Indonesia now, how far is it from your thoughts then?
I must say it’s a much better situation than 1998. Many people compare the economic stability, political stability with those of Suharto era, but they forget about things that were not revealed, the high corruption cases, the human rights abuses.

You asked specifically about law, I would say it’s getting better. The judiciary is undergoing reform; it is very slow and requires a lot of attention from the public (I often highly criticize this, too), but the fact that the window for reform is open is already something significant (read Bas Pompe’s book and Dan Lev’s books on this).

Law-making can certainly be highly criticized but who would have imagined at that time that an NGO can actually proposed laws to the legislature? We still have a mountain of homework for reformasi, indeed, but the situation is very different now.

In terms of law, just as a reminder, the fact that we have freer press, freedom of expression, human rights in the constitution, judicial review mechanism, KPK, relatively open judiciary etc are huge steps for Indonesia. Of course in all things said we still should play watch dog: pengadilan harus selalu diawasi, kebebasan media harus dicek, masih ada human rights abuses, masih ada serangan terhadap KPK. But it’s also true in any other countries, even the “super democracy” like the US and Europe.

Kalau kata Chairil Anwar (Kerawang-Bekasi): “kerja belum selesai, belum apa-apa” J

I’m concerned with the lack of public trust in Indonesia. I don’t think democracy could work without sufficient public trust to form a bond between leaders and the citizens. Isn’t this what laws are for?
In short, yes. The long answer could be another dissertation, that’s one of the things I am learning here: about the rule of law and democracy.

How come 10 years after Soeharto and Indonesia still struggles even to commit on fighting corruption? Or am I too much an alarmist?
Of course we are still struggling. Corruption in Indonesia is deeply rooted. For more than half a century already and started actually since the colonial period. It can’t be fixed over night. I once thought about it, years ago, I thought about 2 or 3 generations. Now it’s not even 1 generation. Not that I accept this, pasrah, and think it’s ok J, what I am trying to say is: 10 years is actually such a short time after decades of authoritarian regimes (people usually only think about Suharto time, but corruption started in Demokrasi Terpimpin time, read Lev, Liddle, etc). In indonesian saying: tidak semudah membalikkan telapak tangan. Look at other countries undergoing similar transition. We should not give up and must keep on working.

How do you see today’s university life in Indonesia?
Not good.

You’re the first girl I interviewed so I can’t ask you the tie question. It’s obvious you don’t wear tie to work. Do you ski?
No.

When do you plan to come back to Indonesia?
Don’t know exactly. Too early to think about. Now I think about my future child more and realized that the quality of life in Indonesia is not good for the child (pollution, education, lack of parks and greens, don’t want to take the child to malls all the time, so I really don’t know at this point. I might be based somewhere else close to Indonesia and visit Indonesia often. Or I will go home directly. I don’t know. I do plannings but it’s hard to plan for 3 or 4 years from now, right?

What would you do then?
Teach and doing some NGO works (consultancies and public opinion, just like I have been doing). There are a lot to do still in Indonesia.

“Kerja belum selesai”

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still

This one time upon the earth,
Let’s not speak any language,
Let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotovies,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.

The fishermen in the cold sea
Would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at his torn hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, war of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean lothing
and would walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing.

What I want shouldn’t be confused
with final inactivity:
life alone is what matters,
i want nothing to do with death.

If we weren’t unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in motion,
if we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teach us
when everything seems to be dead
and then everything is alive.

Now I will count to twelve
and you keep quiet and i’ll go.

***

I wrote an open letter to the newly inaugurated representatives of Indonesia. In Indonesian here.
For the rest of you, enjoy the lines.

I met two of my favourite Jedis today – separately. Was fun. The Jedis are better than most others because they usually understand what I’m talking about or at the very least, they’re pretty good at pretending to know what I’m talking about. One gave me a Chuck Palahniuk and the other gave me Ayn Rand.

Anyone read Anathem yet?

I have to find a good weekend to lock myself in and do that. Weighs a fucking ton each but I read all the other ones so might as well. Z says he likes the electronic version because then he could use the dictionary. With the dictionary, it weighs two tons but I still prefer the book version. Now I will need a bigger bag.

Laticia swore off Neal Stephenson forever (Dear Neal, it’s my fault).

Master Jedi also told me to go over to his place and pick several books. You people know that I don’t actually buy books, right? I get people to buy me books and look smart doing it.

Speaking of being cheap, I went to Jalan Jaksa some while ago and picked up a copy of a book called, “The ACLU VS America: exposing the agenda to redefine moral values.”

It’s by Alan Sears (President, CEO and General Counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund, an organization to defend and protect the right to hear the Truth) and Craig osten (Vice President of Presidential Communications and Research for the ADF). I don’t quite get the organizational structure there but the jacket also has a Bill O’Reilly quote so I bought it at 30,000.

I’ve had it for about two months and I always reread it when I’m upset.

Doesn’t have any good bits tho. At all.

Did I say I get a Bruce Sterling signed copy this morning in the post?
Care of Sam Warnaars in Netherlands. He was here in Indonesia a while ago and his blog usually have all the weird food and funky places in Jakarta. Now he speaks Dutch a lot so I can’t read it as much.

I actually talked to a third Jedi today. He said he’d find out what happened with domestic stuff and would take over for a bit. I really don’t want to talk about it but it was a majorly relieving call. I was seriously creaking up by last night. So much that it requires this happy post. I now feel slightly better.
I’m still going to do the Happy Post tho.

Plus I spoke to one other person which really probably should be discussed in a separate post. With the naming convention in disorder, better keep the noise to minimum. But yes, kinda make me feel better. She has that kinda of voice.

There’s an article from New York Times on the economy – by looking at non-conventional indicators – like gardening and beer sales and stuff. Alan Greenspan apparently started looking at underwear sales as an economic indicator in the 70s. You never know with economist, do you?

From the UK, they now have a Supreme Court to replace the Law Lords – moving the highest court away from the Parliament. As the BBC says, “The change brings the UK into line with many other countries around the world.“

Last, from South Africa – this is my fave headline this month – Winston the Pigeon raced (and won) against an ADSL provider to carry a 4GB worth of data for 60 miles. It took Winston two hours to do it, while the South African Telkom managed only 4% of the data. Here’s from the BBC and this is Winston’s Facebook page.

Mbuh is a Javanese word that means exactly like it sounds – lower lips forward – like meh, but better.

Veline is an Italian term from the 80s that came to mean young girls with no talent except the desire to be on television (this I read in an article about Berlusconi).

Anyhoo, is now officially in the dictionary – included as of Sept 15 in the Oxford English Dictionary.

OUP also publishes Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, the largest thesaurus in the world, and the first historical Thesaurus in any language – this coming October.
I wonder how big the thing is.

Additionally, he also worked as consultant to the World Bank as well as writing for regular media. His main focus are issues on poverty and employment. Ape is a big football fan (Liverpool FC – !?!) as well as serving as the Executive Director in Centre for Celebrity Studies. He is living with two women – a lovely wife and a beautiful 3-year old daughter. You can find his notes on Facebook or on cafe salemba.

You have two masters degree, both in economics? What’s the difference?
As a matter of fact, my second master’s is in Public Administration. So it’s not economics, although substantially it was very heavy in economics, and I took mostly economic courses.
The difference, as the title speaks, the emphasis was more on the policy analysis, versus the more theoretical emphasis of the economics degree.

Back then during the “reformasi” song and dance, you were part of the student movement, how did you get involved?
I was a college student of the final/thesis year at that time, so I practically had not much to do except – supposedly – preparing for my skripsi. Around December ’97 and January ’98, the economy got worse, and political tension started to rise. Some fellow students outside Jakarta have already started doing protest on the street. The Jakartans were still calm, partly afraid, and partly ignorant.

Some fellow students in Jakarta area have been politically active in underground activisms. However, unlike them, I didn’t have a background in political activism. True, I was interested in politics, and I was somehow active in student organization. But it was not that kind of activism. But back in January ’98, I knew something big would happen to this country, and I would feel sorry if I didn’t get involved.

So I looked around to make contact with fellow students at UI. The university was in semester break, so not many students around, especially those from outside Jakarta. But I still met some friends from FISIP, Sastra and Teknik who have started some meetings. The meetings led to the then ‘Keluarga Besar UI’ or KBUI.
In February ‘98, after most of the students returned to campus, the group became more established, though we tried not to make KBUI a formal organization. I became the ‘Koordinator Fakultas (Korfak) Ekonomi’. Don’t worry about the title, but it sounds cool. My role was to coordinate and lead the mass from the Economics faculty.

That was how it started, and the rest was history.

Who came up with the phrase “Reformasi”?
I am not sure, but since the beginning, after the crisis started, the word ‘reformasi ekonomi’ has been widely used. I think because at that time, we could’t use the words ‘revolusi’ (revolution) and ‘suksesi’ (leadership change). The government would have the justification to crush the movement. So we hid them behind a softer word ‘reformasi.’ But what we had in mind was, clearly, to bring down Suharto and his cronies.
You were in FEUI, what was the general idea of ‘reform’ then?

At the beginning, there was a divergence of what was in people’s mind. Before the end of 1997, Suharto was still very powerful, and few people would bet he was going to step down (voluntarily or not). So, ‘reform’ at that time was about how to escape from the crisis and introducing a little bit of democracy.

But gradually, the idea converged. And even so since January 1998. There won’t be change or reform as long as Suharto stays. So ‘suksesi’ was the necessary condition for ‘reformasi.’ All the details can wait, but the first task is to get rid of Suharto.

You understand economy well. Looking at Indonesia now, how far is it from your thoughts then?
I’m always passionate about this country. Many friends of mine are pessimistic about Indonesia; that things are not improving much since Suharto fell down. This is not true. We now have democracy, free press, stronger institutions. In short, we have much of the prerequisites to further develop the economy.
But I agree, the room for improvement is still big. Poverty continues to go down, but it could have been faster. Labor relations can and should be improved, so are social indicators like health and education. Decentralization solved some of the problems, but at the same time created new ones. I am against re-centralization, but many issues related with decentralization need to be straightened up if we want to see improvements in those indicators.

I am not a good macroeconomist, so I can’t really comment on the macroeconomic indicators. But it’s difficult to get a good credit if we are neighbours with India and China, while in reality we are doing well.

I’m concerned with the lack of any serious debate on Indonesian economic policies these days. Outside politics, there’s almost no such thing as real public debates on important policies (banking policies, market deregulation, etc.) I think it’s because everybody who knows enough are too busy being desktop economist. What do you think?
I share this concern. I studied in the US, in a public policy school. There, when we discussed a policy, we also discussed how we can go to there, what are the constraints, what are the trade-offs, are there cheaper options that will generate the same impact, and so forth.

A good example is the current debate on health care reform. Obama wants to ensure everyone gets the access to health insurance. But what would happen to the insurance market? How to bring the cost down? These are the devils in details, but people do get in to the specifics.

Not that policy debates don’t happen in Indonesia, but when we go into the specifics, people tend to lose interests. People like to engage more in ideological debates: market economy alias neoliberalism alias Western-driven capitalism versus ‘ekonomi kerakyatan’, economic nationalism or whatever.

It is not true that people are too busy being desktop economists. The thing is many people don’t like to hear (mainstream) economists’ arguments, for whatever reason. Perhaps because we don’t sound heroic or sexy?
But I think we are going there. The quality of policy debates is improving, as I can see it. The economic issue during election campaign issue is a good indicator. In 1999, nobody knows what to say if it comes to economic policies, slightly better in 2004. This year, though still superficial, people are discussing what is neoliberalism, what’s wrong with ‘ekonomi kerakyatan.’ I think the level of debate will improve in the next election.

How do you see today’s university life in Indonesia?
I am only a part-time faculty member so my view may be different from my colleagues who are there full-time. But, as a simple summary, most of us want to be excellent, professional academics. We want to write as many academic papers, publish in the top journals. But we also want to earn our living. Most of the income are from consultancy works or projects and teaching, not ‘serious’ research.
Some colleagues may have established the reputation so they can afford to do serious research and earning a lot. But many other still don’t.

I don’t know much about the student life. I can see the era of street activism has passed. Some students still have a dream to replicate 1998, but things are different now. You can say bad things about the government in campus without fear of being kidnapped. And we have political parties to channel our political libido. So I’d say to my students, your challenge as a student is not to overthrow a government but how to be competitive. And that’s the reality.

Where are you now? What are you doing? When do you plan to come back to Indonesia?
Back to school – doing Ph.D. in Economics at The University of Melbourne, Australia. Still in my first year, doing courseworks. I still have some works in Indonesia, and should be doing some field works in Indonesia next year. As for a permanent return, that depends on, first, whether I survive my study. Second, if I do survive, how long I can finish my study. Third, what happens after that.

What would you do then?
Football commentator has always been my biggest dream. If it doesn’t work, being an economist doesn’t sound bad, does it?

Do you wear tie to work?
No – thank god I don’t have to.

Why is café salemba no longer funny?
Good question. Maybe because of our loyal customers, that Treespotter guy, doesn’t come as frequent as he used to. Perhaps we should consider hiring him…

I’ve always thought the Japanese totally made things up.

Anyhoo, so that made almost the entire conversation on my table uninteresting. Both Jedis, one with his back to the other table could hardly turn around but the other had a clear line of sight and both of them frantically tried to get my attention back to their mindful conversation. Really I remember very little of them.

As Loewy is on such fancy hours – that quiet lull between 2-4 in a work day – there’s always some interesting characters around. There was that Pretty Boy from the 80s when Blok M was cool, can’t remember his name but I recognized it cuz he dated Sis in high school, like in Jurassic days when I wasn’t even born yet. There’s that other dude who owns hotels and clubs and stuff. I think he was also an MP for a few terms, I think. We knew him cuz one of us was at school with his son and them two bitches fought for some fucking ridiculous years. I never knew him but I dated his ex for a while, after the Jurassic days but definitely a Pre-Modern Man days. I’ve always been very fond of her and just took her dislike for the man naturally so we bitched a bit about it for a while.

At this point in the day, I had very nearly puked twice and was feeling rather unwell since I just took my pills – which take the pain away but accumulate itself in decreased articulation skills. Master Jedi said he could get me a legit prescription so I could send someone to pick some up tomorrow. The girl on the opposite table was a worthy distraction but I was risking myself totally drooling after oogling her for thirty minutes or so. I could barely keep up with the conversation but the two guys were persistent. I think they were worried because there was a guy sitting on the other table, with his back to me. Someone wanted to grease a monky or something. I’m not even sure that’s how you spell monky but I feel like making up words today.

Some of you would remember that a few years ago I developed a strange fetish for girls with very short hair?

Indonesian have a lovely word for it: bondol. Like cropped out as short as you can get before it’s an army cut. I can’t quite describe it but there’s a certain fascination to that cut – very daring and well, literally in your face. Without the hair to frame it, it leaves only your face. The girl had exaggeratedly large eyes with long, thin and fake eyelashes. There’s certain aggressiveness to it. I’ve the word edgy but what I have in mind is more just a little over the edge.

Thing is, I like long hair. I like girls with hair as long as possible most of the time. I have never told anyone to cut their hair before so at the time – this was eons ago – I had to find a girl with a short hair that I like. I really wish I could tell you what happened, but I can’t.

Back to the day at Loewy, there’s a certain drama to it as the hour dramatically closed and we asked for the bill. Jedi One suggested I make it really quick and go over there and ask for her twit. Like I was supposed to twit strangers in Loewy at lunch time. This same guy suggested stealing phones and stuff too but I never listen to his advice. Ever.

When the waiter arrived I asked if he knew who the girl was – you can never be too careful – he told us that she was a Yuni Shara (a singer?). I’ve heard her names but never paid attention – I don’t think she had that hair when back in my pubescent fetish, or if she did then it just never registered.

I ran a google image search and on the first two pages of result, none of the pictures came out like she was today so there’s no point in posting any pictures.

Great, now she must’ve thought that I’m a freaky crazy stalker whereas I’ve only heard of her today. I mean I just learned that she’s a widower. Not available tho, apparently. The third Jedi consulted over the phone later expressed serious concerns at my apparent relapse. I told him that there’s an Italian word for it – girls that are only on television to look good. Thing is, I didn’t see her in television and trying to convince a Jedi that the girl literally stood on pins was rather hard. One guy who overheard the conversation thought I was totally out of her league but the Council just duly expressed their concerns.

People on twitter don’t seem to like her a lot. There’s some BOO and BAA when I asked around so I didn’t push. I was wondering if she’s on twitter. Anyone who could stand around on those heels and twit at the same time for any number of hours deserve serious medal, IMHO.

Someone on twitter said I should’ve said hello cuz apparently the girl’s very nice. I was thinking somewhere along the line of “Hello, someone on twitter said I should say hello. Can we twit?”

I’m on a happy post run. This is where I only post the happy stuff for the next indeterminate number of days until I feel sufficiently shitty to get back at ranting. The world is almost completely shit these days, so long as we don’t have a nuclear war, I generally consider it in good shape.

Good shape with a shitty texture.

I learn of happy stuff today on twitter. Like ducktape and coconut oil and stuff. @chibialay added bubble bath.

I also learn that it’s actually easier not to talk anyone in big parties. In small parties you’ve to talk to them even when they’re really boring.

My new favourite word is now Mbuh. It’s like meh but better.

This is Happy Post #1

The maids are back so some semblance of order has returned to the house and the dog is now well secured and pampered. There’s a Golden Retriever from across the road that he seems to like but she doesn’t like him much it seems. He needs to work on his game.

Remember that Hurricane of Fish? I see it again. A hurricane of fish. This time they’re hungry and restless. Very. Even the water got very mucky.

I wrote to a few random people and chatted with a few friends. Samantha said I don’t make sense much. She thinks the rumors of my ignorance were greatly exaggerated. Sam sent me a signed copy of Bruce Sterling new book. Z talked of Neal Stephenson new tome but I’ve not come around to it yet. Sophia Latjuba and her husband agreed to do the questions. Chubby just called and asked me to help with his wedding. Olive called and I was happy enough to hear her voice. I’ll be happy to make it pass this week and keep my lil brother alive. Vi is back from her outback trip so can ramble to her instead and keep you people happy.

We’re going to happy post week

(this is where I post only happy stuff for an indeterminate period of time until the depression seeps back in).

The two deactivated Commissioners held a press conference yesterday to respond to the Police allegations from the previous day. Mr. Bibit Samat Riyadi explained that he was in Peru the day the Police said he took the money (Detik, 27/09/09).

If anyone also noticed, from the press conference of the Police Chief on the day before – despite an elaborate scenario of bribes and suspicious transfers of fund – Mr. Bambang Hendarso Danuri neglected to mention that none of the things he said are actually charged. In fact, Mr. Antasari Azhar – who is the most critical witness and now said he is being coerced into his testimony – is not even yet charged with his own confessions. The whole thing is taking an airport novel proportion in their big made up mess. It reads worse than fiction.

Mr. Todung Mulya Lubis from Tim Perppu Plt took the center stage today and urged the police to drop the criminalization of anti corruption efforts.

Vice President Kalla, probably responding to my twit search the other day spoke to reporters in Jakarta. He spoke to reporters after meeting with the Chief of Police and said probably the most sensible thing anyone said – basically that they should have the week to figure things out because everything is just getting messier and messier. Vice President Kalla also said that if the Police have no further evidence, they should drop all the charges and let the two Anti Corruption Commissioners back to work.
Reporters said the Police Chief arrived and left quietly with no aides in private car.

Other people in the Police HQ probably missed the memo cause later today, the Police issued new summons for the remaining two active KPK Commissioners and more officials. If things were silly yesterday tomorrow will be when things notched up a note.

Additionally, KPK also filed complaints to the National Police Committee (Kompolnas) against officials involved in the charges.

Professor Mahfud from Constitutional Court also spoke to reporters again and basically told them it is in his capacity as the chief of the country’s highest court, if it was up to him then he would have the Chief of Police fired (Tempo 29/09/09).

Kompas reports the President is having problems finding suitable Commissioners due this inexplicable behavior from the Police.

Komisi XI from DPR came out in the morning saying that they have received the BPK report on Century and DPR will have a public statement on tomorrow (Tuesday, 29/09/09).

Then they came out a few hours later saying that they wouldn’t be doing that because the audit results are covered by banking secrecy regulations etc.

Dradjad Wibowo (PAN) mentioned a 2 trillion IDR in SUN (gov’t bond) that probably shouldn’t be there. The rest is still unclear though Bank Indonesia insisted they’re being cooperative and provided the audit with all the necessary information. We’ll wait.