Titus Jonathan's Stories

(published by The Jakarta Post on 30 Mar 2011. Click here ) The intelligence bill is currently being deliberated by the House of Representatives. The bill, which was drafted in 2003, will grant the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) the authority to arrest, detain, wiretap and monitor media channels including social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter. The human rights activists are the frontline groups who oppose the articles, since it will make BIN a superbody with the authority to abduct people who are critical of government. This may be based on our traumatic history under an authoritarian regime. Are we, the Indonesian people, worried about this too? It is not because I am not pro-democracy, but frankly, considering an escalation of the violations, terrorism, and threats to civil society nowadays, these articles in the draft bill deserve to be considered. We should see any threats toward some figures as equal to threats against the state that was founded as a home ...

(published by The Jakarta Post on 1 Mar 2011. Click here ) President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) should take some advice from Winston Churchill: “In war, you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times.” “ One bullet is enough ,” are the right words for SBY to consider in relation to his party’s losses in the Bank Century bailout case last year. The battle itself, where the lawmakers in the House of Representative voted to determine whether the government’s decision to bail out the bank was right or wrong was truly absurd. How can something deemed as the truth be a matter of a vote? They fought for a belief and spent a lot of time and money doing so, and then the outcome was nothing. Today, everything is clear. After the House banged its gavel and stated that the government was wrong in its handling of the Bank Century bailout, so what? The noisy debate was only a reflection of their arrogance, and it was like they were asserting “who is more powerful than us?”. The winner ...

(published by The Jakarta Post on 18 Feb 2011. Click here ) After the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11, Egyptians need to realize that the path to democracy that they have dreamed about for so long is still a long journey. If they are expecting democracy immediately after successfully toppling their president, who was in power for 30 years, they will very soon be disappointed. Mubarak is gone. The people are joyous and euphoric after their victory, but beware! That was just one day. There are hundreds and even thousands of days in the future. Egyptians should move forward but there is no toll road to a democratic destiny. We know that exchanging authoritarian rule with democratic rule is about dealing with chronic illness, and it is painful and everyone needs to understand this. All the media in the world had headlines about Mubarak’s resignation, underlining the word “freedom”. On Feb. 11, after Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak had decided ...

(published by The Jakarta Post on 26 Jan 2011. Click here ) Referring to Gayus H. Tambunan, people should not simply look at how the “actor” has played his role. He is indeed a real actor who has stolen the show: sometimes smiling, at other times crying, too. He speaks very well and never shows his nervousness when answering the judge. He has been full of confidence. What was his official position? Only that of a low-ranked officer at the tax office! Most people hate Gayus today. If we ask people about him, he will be named as the No. 1 bad guy in Indonesia. We read all the comments posted on Internet by angry members of the public after the seven years’ imprisonment verdict handed-down by Judge Albertina Ho last week. These enraged letters asked police to hand over Gayus to the “people’s court” because the existing court had so far handed down unjust verdicts to money-rich criminals. Gayus, who blatantly paid off the tax office, police corps and the Attorney General’s Office, has bee...

(published by The Jakarta Post on 4 Feb 2011. Click here ) We are in an era of a leadership crisis and Indonesian people have to take the matter seriously. The next election in 2014 is three-and-a-half years away, but it will come very soon. According to the constitution, incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) is not allowed to join the race in 2014 because he has held the position for two terms. These days we are surrounded by news about presidential candidates who will likely participate in the 2014 presidential election, however, none of those figures are convincing enough. The Democratic Party (PD) has no ideal figures, but first lady Kristiani Herawati Yudhoyono has been mentioned many times as a potential candidate. If she’s ready to take the opportunity, she will follow the track of Hillary Rodham Clinton , the former US first lady who failed to secure presidential nomination from the Democratic Party after being defeated by Barack Obama. If Clinton’s political skill...

If you have ever encountered of losing your properties such as bag, wallet, handphone (cellular phone) and other gadgets in public place of Jakarta, I believe you would have defenselessly let it go. You would have not expected the stuffs be returned to you, yet you would have taken it as a lesson learned for you to next time being more careful, that’s it. Losing some properties in public places and not getting it back is common. Just come into the Lost&Found desk in malls, terminals, and other public places, then ask the officer to show the list of “Lost” and the list of “Found” in the log book and you will get the point. That’s why most of us are too reluctant to come to the Lost&Found desk when losing of properties. I am too. But you can try my approach, probably it can work. One day I went to a bookstore with my wife, daughter as well as my daughter’s babysitter. After hours in the bookstore, my daughter asked to go to toilet and the nanny accompanied her. Minutes later, th...

Waktu Natal tiba, hal yang selalu kita lakukan adalah saling berkirim salam kepada keluarga, kerabat, teman dan sahabat kita. Namun, apa arti salam Natal itu bagi kita? Katika saya masih umur belasan tahun, dan masih duduk di bangku SMP atau SMA atau ketika masih di Perguruan Tinggi, berkirim salam Natal selalu dilakukan lewat kartu Natal ( Christmas Card ). Menjelang Natal, setiap orang ramai mendatangi toko-toko yang menjual kartu Natal, kemudian memilih kartu yang paling bagus. Kadang-kadang kita bisa menghabiskan waktu berjam-jam untuk memilih puluhan kartu dengan design yang berbeda-beda dengan kalimat terindah yang tertulis di dalamnya. Sambil memilih-milih kartu itu, kita membacanya pelahan, menghayati kata demi kata yang tertulis di kartu itu dengan harapan nanti si penerima kartu Natal merasa senang, dan membacanya pelahan, menghayati kata demi kata yang tertulis di situ persis seperti yang kita lakukan. Dari belasan bahkan puluhan kartu itu, akan ada 1 kartu yang istimewa , y...

(a testimony) It is true when a wise man told that for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: A time to be born and a time to die, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. One thing that has to be kept in mind is how we can make a peace with the time, because no one can change the time, but time changes everything. Yes for everything there is a season, but many times we are being so obstinate to get something before the time. We often pretend to know that something should be the best for us, then claim that the time has come. Do we know something after, whether the better or the worse thing will come? Time always teaches us of patience, but many people failed to pass it. Time always teaches us of perseverance, but many people too fast to surrender. Oh, if we know that time has determined everything in couples: day and night, rain and dry, born and die, weep and laugh, mourn and dance. Please look, time is walking through ...

(published by The Jakarta Post on 1 Nov 2010. Click here ) Ahead of National Heroes Day on Nov. 10, our people are discussing and debating the proposal of the presidential council in charge of designating nominees for honorary titles of heroes. Among the 10 short-listed candidates it has proposed, one much-debated name is that of former president Soeharto. Does he deserve to be an Indonesian national hero? Some people believe he was indeed a hero, while others say he was a despot. Some people praise him for the development of Indonesia during his 32 years in power, while others point to him as the culprit of our country’s current troubles because of his corruptive mentality and its influence on the nation. “We were in a better state during Soeharto’s rule than today,” some say. “So we must be grateful to him by honoring him with a national hero’s title”. But others disagree, saying instead that he should have been dragged into the international tribunal and charged for human rights vio...

(published by The Jakarta Post on 18 Oct 2010. Click here ) Someone has to fight evil, though evil will never die. These words may be kept in mind by the National Police’s Detachment 88 antiterrorism squad when combating terrorist networks in Indonesia these days. Some people said the acts of Detachment 88 will only trigger retaliation from Muslims, and the killing of the suspected terrorists will raise other mujahedeens to launch new attacks. The theory, though from some perspectives it is understandable, should not stop our state’s security apparatus from fighting evil. In other words, no matter how large a price to be paid, retaliation by evil should not discourage efforts to uphold the truth and to guard the state. Now the police are collecting evidence to charge Abu Bakar Ba’asyir for his involvement with the CIMB Niaga bank heist in Medan and the attack on the Hamparan Perak Police station in Deli Serdang, North Sumatra, recently. Dragging Ba’asyir to court — as long as it suppo...

If housewives are gathering in these post- Idul Fitri holydays, what is the exciting topic being talked among them? The hottest topic, apparently, is house maids (please forgive me, madams). Please don’t ever belittle this topic, because the housewives will always take its matter seriously. Some maids didn’t return to their employers after Idul Fitri holidays, instead they seek other families who offer a better payment. Some others – like my daughter’s babysitter - even didn’t go for mudik (going home to homeland) but asked two weeks leave to substitute another babysitter in a family whom their babysitter took leave. The family had no objection to pay 150 – 200 thousands rupiahs per day during holidays. This is a common practice among maids or babysitters, so just forget about the faithfulness of maids or babysitters in Jakarta. The maids - especially in the big cities - have been playing a key role in managing our daily household duties. They are more important than anybody else in...

(published by The Jakarta Post on 24 Aug 2010. Click here ) These days, the world is talking vociferously about a plan to build a mosque and Islamic center near Ground Zero, a place where the WTC twin towers in New York were destroyed by the al-Qaeda terrorist organization on Sept. 11, 2001. The sudden attack claimed about 3,000 innocents. The project plan was initiated by The Cordoba Initiative , which is an organization whose name makes reference to what was, 1,000 years ago, one of the world’s most advanced cities, Cordoba, Al-Andalus (Spain). This was a city that was politically and religiously dominated by Islam, and a city that was conquered by jihad (holy war).The institution has purchased the land near Ground Zero for US$4.85 million in cash, and recently is raising an additional $100 million for the construction. It might be intending to restore some of Islam’s lost glory by making Ground Zero the site of the rebirth of Islam’s holy war in the West. Unfortunately, the project ...