Jakarta (pirates are we… in the post-civil society)

Photo via Pat Dollard

On subject of ‘pirates’…

From MIT Press:

The Enemy of All: Piracy and the Law of Nations

by Daniel Heller-Roazen

“The pirate is the original enemy of humankind. As Cicero famously remarked, there are certain enemies with whom one may negotiate and with whom, circumstances permitting, one may establish a truce. But there is also an enemy with whom treaties are in vain and war remains incessant. This is the pirate, considered by ancient jurists to be “the enemy of all.”

In this book, Daniel Heller-Roazen reconstructs the shifting place of the pirate in legal and political thought from the ancient to the medieval, modern, and contemporary periods, presenting the philosophical genealogy of a remarkable antagonist. Today, Heller-Roazen argues, the pirate furnishes the key to the contemporary paradigm of the universal foe. This is a legal and political person of exception, neither criminal nor enemy, who inhabits an extra-territorial region. Against such a foe, states may wage extraordinary battles, policing politics and justifying military measures in the name of welfare and security.

Heller-Roazen defines piracy by the conjunction of four conditions: a region beyond territorial jurisdiction; agents who may not be identified with an established state; the collapse of the distinction between criminal and political categories; and the transformation of the concept of war. The paradigm of piracy remains in force today. Whenever we hear of regions outside the rule of law in which acts of “indiscriminate aggression” have been committed “against humanity,” we must begin to recognize that these are acts of piracy. Often considered part of the distant past, the enemy of all is closer to us today than we may think. Indeed, he may never have been closer.”

from treehugger

Global Warming Could Create a Legion of ‘Climate Terrorists’
by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York on 10.28.09
Business & Politics

Scientists predict that climate change will exacerbate many of the world’s continuing troubles–food shortages, poverty, lack of water, spread of infectious diseases, and so on. And many have already suggested that strained resources and migration caused by global warming could eventually lead to wars; maybe even a world war. But few have considered this national security concern: climate change could usher in a brand new generation of terrorists.

One man who has made such a consideration is Dr. Greg Austin. The provocative piece he wrote for New Europe called Climate Terrorists: They Will Come is especially foreboding. Austin notes that 40% of the world lives in tropical areas, where even incremental rises in temperatures can have disastrous effects.

Blueprint for Climate Terror

Developing nations comprise the vast majority of these tropical states, many of which have exploding populations, a growing youth bulge, and increasing problems with hunger and health. And while there was once optimism for these nations to develop rapidly, hopes are beginning to fade. From New Europe:

There has been however a hitherto unshakable faith among many in the idea of “progress’, especially the belief that economic growth and technological advance would ultimately reduce poverty and provide jobs for most of the expected population growth.

Climate change is a threat to this basic hope for progress.

The Rise of Climate Terrorism

Austin notes that there are already parts of the world where people live with temperatures as high as 48 Degrees Celsius (118 Fahrenheit!), such as the Sudan. If climate change causes the temperature to rise even a fraction of a degree, it could make such regions uninhabitable–forcing large groups of people to abandon their homes. This displacement, along with a lack of legal means to relocate, and a need to survive, could help foster piracy and terrorism. Austin explains:

About 40 per cent of the world’s population lives in tropical zones. The eruption of piracy and terrorism in tropical zones, places like Somalia and Indonesia, cannot be separated from emerging climate stress. The warming of concern for these zones is not the distant future but the recent past and immediate future. With more global warming, human communities in marginal areas like these will be forced to migrate, first in small numbers and then en masse.

Then, the strain on such communities, and resulting widespread desperation could spur a rise of ‘climate terrorism’.

It’s certainly a provocative speculation, and not too far-fetched. And it’s further reason that slowing climate change is in the best interest of national security policy–the concept of the ‘climate terrorist’ may be ill-defined, but it highlights the social turmoil that is certain to occur in areas where climate change causes resource scarcity and mass migration.”

Jakarta (meet the new boss… same as the old boss)

photo: AFP

By way of introduction… a short book review.

from Amazon.com

“From the tragedy of 9/11 to the farce of the financial meltdown—but underlying both is the irrationality of global capitalism. In this bravura analysis of the current global crisis—following on from his bestselling Welcome to the Desert of the Real—Slavoj Zizek argues that the liberal idea of the “end of history,” declared by Francis Fukuyama during the 1990s, has had to die twice. After the collapse of the liberal-democratic political utopia, on the morning of 9/11, came the collapse of the economic utopia of global market capitalism at the end of 2008. Marx argued that history repeats itself—occuring first as tragedy, the second time as farce—and Zizek, following Herbert Marcuse, notes here that the repetition as farce can be even more terrifying than the original tragedy.

The financial meltdown signals that the fantasy of globalization is over and as millions are put out of work it has become impossible to ignore the irrationality of global capitalism. Just a few months before the crash, the world’s priorities seemed to be global warming, AIDS, and access to medicine, food and water—tasks labelled as urgent, but with any real action repeatedly postponed. Now, after the financial implosion, the urgent need to act seems to have become unconditional—with the result that undreamt of quantities of cash were immediately found and then poured into the financial sector without any regard for the old priorities. Do we need further proof, Zizek asks, that Capital is the Real of our lives: the Real whose demands are more absolute than even the most pressing problems of our natural and social world? .”

OK? So get out there and spend, spend, spend!

If you don’t need it buy it anyway.

from Bloomberg.com

Indonesian Stocks May Fall on Cabinet, Citigroup Says

By Berni Moestafa

Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) — Indonesian stocks may enter a “correction” on selling by investors to secure gains from Asia’s third-best rally this year because of concern Cabinet appointees lack economic experience, a Citigroup Inc. unit said.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono named two allies to key economics and energy ministry posts this week. The appointments may be seen as political pandering, compromising the government’s ability to drive growth, said Sunny Yoon, president director of PT Citigroup Securities Indonesia.

The Jakarta Composite index has risen 81 percent this year. Yudhoyono’s re-election in July raised optimism he will maintain policies that have helped the economy expand at the fastest pace since the 1997 Asian financial crisis. He won the polls with 60.8 percent of the 121.5 million valid votes.

“There appears to be a disconnection, why would you produce a compromised Cabinet when you have a clear mandate?” Yoon said in a telephone interview in Jakarta yesterday. “The risk here for the market is that a lot of expectation has been built in for a more professional, technocratic type of Cabinet and it hasn’t happened.”

Global interest rates are set to rebound as inflation accelerates, adding a trigger for investors to “realize gains” in Indonesian stocks, Yoon said. Banking and cement shares are most likely to fall, he said.

Consolidate

The benchmark index may “consolidate” at around 2,300 to 2,400 by year-end, Yoon said. The measure climbed 1.1 percent to 2,459.44 at 3:05 p.m. local time, paring the drop this week to 2.3 percent, the most since Sept. 4.

State Secretary Hatta Rajasa, a member of the National Mandate Party allied to Yudhoyono, was named coordinating minister for economic affairs. Rajasa has “limited economic experience but it’s hoped he’ll be able to provide a political shield for economic ministers under him in the parliament,” said Fauzi Ichsan, chief economist at Standard Chartered Bank Plc in Jakarta.

Darwin Saleh, an economics lecturer and member of Yudhoyono’s Democrat Party, will become energy minister running Southeast Asia’s biggest oil and natural gas industry. He has “insufficient experience in that field,” said Umar Juoro, an economist at the Jakarta-based Center for Information and Development Studies.

No Knowledge

“If you don’t have the knowledge you can’t make decisions, consequently policies won’t work,” said Fadlul Imansyah, a fund manager at Jakarta-based PT PNM Investment Management, which overseas about $148 million in assets. That may hamper Yudhoyono’s efforts to accelerate infrastructure projects needed to boost economic growth, Imansyah said.

Other appointments by Yudhoyono are more likely to reassure investors. He retained Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and Trade Minister Mari Pangestu. Sri Mulyani and Pangestu, along with Vice President Boediono, the former head of the central bank, are “most favored by the markets,” said Winang Budoyo, an economist at PT Bank CIMB Niaga.

The Democrat Party, which held 10 percent of parliament during Yudhoyono’s first term, almost tripled its share to 148 seats in April 9 legislative elections, making it the biggest party in the 560-strong body. Yudhoyono’s coalition controls 75 percent of parliament.

Assertive Presidency

“Those that had predicted a more assertive presidency in the second term could start toning down their expectations,” Bank Danamon’s Arman and Anton Gunawan wrote in a note yesterday. “We think the announcement of the Cabinet line-up would at most have a neutral impact for the markets.”

Next year, the Jakarta Composite may advance and exceed its January 2008 record of 2,830.26 points, Citigroup’s Yoon said. He recommends PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia, the nation’s biggest company by market value, as it’s trading at a discount to the market and will benefit from improving consumer demand in 2010.

Consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of the economy. The government expects growth to accelerate to 5.5 percent next year from an estimated 4.3 percent this year. Bank Indonesia has cut its benchmark interest rate nine times to a record low of 6.5 percent this year, helping Southeast Asia’s biggest economy to avoid recession.

Speculation that the central bank will increase interest rates has intensified with gains in inflation. Consumer prices rose 2.83 percent in September from a year earlier after gaining 2.75 percent in August. That was more than the 2.6 percent increase expected by economists in a Bloomberg News survey.

Bank Indonesia, which kept rates unchanged for a second month on Oct. 5, is scheduled to hold its next policy meeting on Nov. 4.”

from AFP 10.22.09

Indonesia’s new govt targets 7% growth

By Stephen Coates (AFP) – 11 hours ago

JAKARTA — Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Friday his new economic team is targeting seven percent growth by 2014, setting Southeast Asia’s biggest economy back on its pre-crisis trajectory.

On the first full day at the helm of his new cabinet, which was sworn in Thursday after July presidential polls, Yudhoyono also promised the resource-rich country’s wealth would be more evenly distributed.

“In the next five years we’ll be getting back on track. Our target is seven percent or more to improve the livelihoods of the people,” he said in an address to the inaugural session of the new cabinet.

Yudhoyono said his government had yet to work out the details of its plans but promised “development that is inclusive and just” to reduce poverty in the mainly Muslim archipelago of 234 million people.

The government has predicted growth of 4.0-4.5 percent this year, third only to China and India in the G20 club of rich and major developing countries. The economy grew 6.1 percent in 2008.

The local stock market has soared almost 80 percent in 2009, but about half the population continues to live on less than two dollars a day, according to the Asian Development Bank.

Yudhoyono said seven percent growth could have been reached this year but for the global downturn.

“Because of the economic storm, we’ve been set back,” the 60-year-old former general said.

Yudhoyono’s new coordinating minister for the economy, Hatta Rajasa, earlier said that while the government was aiming for seven percent growth by 2014, a longer-term eight percent target was “achievable”.

His comments reflect the view among many investors that Indonesia is poised to join the so-called BRIC nations — Brazil, Russia, India and China — as one of the rapidly growing countries that could dominate the world economy by mid-century.

Yudhoyono was inaugurated Tuesday having won a landslide election victory in July, on promises to fight corruption and boost economic growth.

He has compiled a rainbow coalition of six parties controlling 423 out of 560 seats in parliament, but has come under fire for handing most seats to party-political figures rather than competent experts more likely to improve governance and fight corruption in the world’s third biggest democracy.

The choice of former transport minister Rajasa as economy minister raised some eyebrows, but the all-important posts of finance and trade stayed with incumbents seen as reliable technocrats.

Former International Monetary Fund senior executive Sri Mulyani Indrawati kept the finance portfolio, while Mari Pangestu stayed in charge of the trade ministry, where she has been a steady advocate of open markets.

Indonesia’s financial markets mostly welcomed Yudhoyono’s comments, with the rupiah ending the session higher at 9,435 to the dollar compared with its Thursday close of 9,540. Local stocks closed 1.43 percent in the black.

Standard and Poor’s ratings agency changed its outlook for Indonesia to positive from stable, raising hopes of a credit rating upgrade in 2010.

It said the brighter outlook was supported by an improving public-debt ratio and rising foreign reserves, which hit a record of 62.3 billion dollars on September 30, easing potential external liquidity concerns.

“Notably, these positive trends have not been derailed by the effects of the global financial market and economic turmoil of the past year,” agency credit analyst Agost Benard was quoted as saying by Dow Jones Newswires.”

Jakarta (Map of the Invisible World)

Map of the Invisable World is the new novel by the Malaysian writer Tash Aw.  Tash Aw was born in Taipei to Malaysian-Chinese parents and grew up in Kuala Lumpar.  His previous novel The Harmony Silk Factorywon the 2005 Whitbread First Novel Award and a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Novel, and was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize.

Map of the Invisible World has been recently reviewed by Ziauddin Sardar in The Independent (Friday, 8 May 2009) and writes,

“…Gently, and ever so slowly, we are led into 1960s Indonesia and Malaysia, the two countries struggling with independence, fighting the communists and each other.

In the forefront, we have Adam’s quest to find Karl: a Dutch Indonesian artist who has stayed after independence to help rebuild the new country. He adopts the orphan Adam who is distinguished by his “neutral Indo-Malay features”. They live on the Indonesian island of Perdo, shrouded in legends and myths. Karl’s distaste for colonialism is so strong that he bans Dutch in his house: “it’s the language of oppression”. One should not grow up absorbing the culture of a country that has colonised one’s own. “We are independent now; we need our own culture.”

On one level, Map of the Invisible World is about how postcolonial culture is shaped, how histories and memories collide to produce a new synthesis. The emerging construction is not free from xenophobia or anti-colonial sentiments; both become important components of the new national culture. Karl is seized largely for his pink skin as Dutch colonial administrators are repatriated. Even Indonesia’s aggressive stance towards Malaysia, the policy of Konfrontasi, is projected as an attempt to shape a distinctive cultural identity.

But Malaysia and Indonesia, with the same language and so much of their history and customs in common, are like two siblings. Aw shows us how the two countries took different routes…”

There is the character of Din.

“…Din longs for the authentic Indonesian culture free from colonial gaze; and plans to write a “secret history” of the “lost world” of Bali. Aw handles both political upheaval and the personal trauma it generates with considerable skill and verve. However, his real talent is for description. His prose is vividly lyrical; and one can almost feel the heat and smell the sweat of Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur. But sometime the descriptions become burdensome: Jakarta is not just grey but its greyness acts as a cataract to cloud the city. Eventually, they get the better of a narrative which peters out towards the end. Adam’s quest, to our disappointment, turns out as rather insignificant.

Map of the Invisible World consciously echoes the novels of the late, great Pradoedya Ananta Toer, who chronicled Indonesia’s struggle against the Dutch and the turmoil of the emerging nation. Clearly, Aw has bags of talent. But he has some way to go before he can match the genius of the Master.”

Of course Toer is the Master but Tash Aw offers us here something new in the continuing dialog. Tash Aw is certainly finding his voice.

What was interesting to me is that Jakarta itself plays a role in the novel as stage and backdrop to Sukarno’s revolutionary Indonesia. Here there is a sense of turmoil, of working things through, a sense of the history everyone was caught up in.

Here are a few excerpts from Chapter 14.

‘No! That is the point- Malaysia does not exist!’ Din shouted suddenly, his head jerking. ‘Malaysia’ – he pronounced it as if speaking a foreign language, his voice squeaky, like a child’s… ‘Ma-lay-sia is a British construct! It is a work of pure fiction, created by the old Imperialist countries to destablise Indonesia and all the newly independent countries of the world. It was created so Britain and America and their cronies can continue to have a presence in the region, but I tell you, their time is finished, finished! We will invade them and crush them, all those Malaysian puppets. They look like us and even speak our language- but they do not know they are being used. This is why we beat them in the Thomas Cup: They are not masters of their own destiny. We are.’

Here is Jakarta (in part).

“There were a dozen people in the wood-and-tin shack that stood at the far end of the collection of flimsy structures that formed a courtyard. They were on the edge of a sprawling shantytown bordering Kebon Jeruk, where the houses seemed solid and at least semi-permanent, built more from timber than pieces of rusty corrugated iron: they would at least weather this rainy season, and maybe also the next one. Deeper in this labyrinth, away from the tarmac roads and running water, the houses were a patchwork of salvaged scrap: flatted oil drums, biscuit tins, fragments of tarpaulin, splintered lengths of wood, torn mosquito nets- anything that would bring momentary respite from the rain and the sun. But even here, on the fringes of the kampung, Adam had seen a tiny house with walls made from bits of advertising boards. In front of this house a young woman was fanning a wood-fire that refused to light properly. Next to her was a small child, a girl, no more than three or four years old, naked except for a dirty ribbon in her hair; she looked up at Adam as he walked past and retreated shyly into the shade of the house. There was no front door, just a gap in the walls that read

…KES YOU TEN TIMES STRON …MOUS ALL OVER THE WORLD, NOW AVAI…

‘Of course these houses will not last very long’, Din shrugged, ‘but they can be quickly rebuilt. We are a strong, practical people, remember’, he said.”

Sukarno Speaks… The Revolutionary Z

“…There was a moment of near-complete silence; they could not hear even the faintest crackle of static from the radio. In the distance there was a baby’s cry, a thin wail that started and then stopped; there was no other noise from the slums around them… …No one moved. And then the voice began speaking in a tone that at once was urgent and measured. He had never heard a voice like this before: rich with calm strength and intonations that seemed both foreign and familiar. He felt a hot surge running through his body, filling his head with a sudden, giddy excitement he could not explain…

‘…fellow country men and revolutionaries, the twentieth century has been a time of terrific dynamism, but also great fear. Yes, we are living in a world of fear. The life of man is corroded and made bitter by fear- fear of the future, of the hydrogen bomb, of ideologies, of everything, but especially of the loss of man’s safety and morality. Perhaps this fear is a greater danger than the danger itself, because it is fear which drives men to act foolishly, to act thoughtlessly…’

‘…nowadays to hear people say, “Colonialism is dead.” Let us not be soothed or deceived by this. I say to you, friends and fellow revolutionaries, that colonialism is NOT dead. How can it be, so long as vast areas of Asiaand Africa are not yet free? I beg you no to think of colonialism only in the classic form which we in Indonesia have known- it is a skillful and determined enemy that warps, virus-like, into its modern form of economic and intellectual control…’

‘…the Indonesian Revolution has become a rocky mountain shooting fire amidst the ocean of mankind’s struggle to build a new world free of explotation of man by man, free of exploitation of nation by nation. My fellow revolutionaries, there is a phrase in Italian, Vivere Pericoloso. This mean, To Live Dangerously. Yes, my brothers! You have understood me. For Indonesia and every other country that strives to be free, this is the Year of Living Dangerously. It is our duty a revolutionaries to do so.’

…I will not allow the enemy’s foot to step upon the proud rampaging Indonesian Bull. It is no longer time to be conciliatory. Our revolution has foes everywhere. We have a duty to attack, to destroy every power, whether foreign no not, native or not, that endangers the security and the continuation of the revolution.’

Z shifted in her seat. ‘I don’t like the tone of this’, she said. Her brow was only troubled by a frown, but it was enough of a signal for the other to start a debate:

‘The country is starving – let’s fight expensive wars with the Americans!’

‘What a convenient excuse to suppress anyone who dares to oppose him!’

‘Revolution? What Revolution? He has no ideology. Listen, listen…’

‘…I know a science that is efficacious, namely Marxism. As you know, I am a friend of communists because communists are revolutionary people, and I am a friend of all revolutionary people, whatever their cause, be it religion or ideology…’

Z spoke again, more firmly this time. ‘This man is unbelievable. He has no idea what Marxism is. It’s just a word he’s heard. He wants to keep everyone happy but he can’t do so any longer. He shouldn’t be allowed.’

‘As I wrote in my satirical epic poem in last month’s Z’, said the long haired poet. ‘our dear President has supplanted the State in controlling the means of production in a classless society.’

‘It makes me so angry’ someone else added, ‘because the economics and demographics of Indonesia would make it an ideal communist state. That’s what my thesis is all about.’

So, Tash Aw has in Map of the Invisible World, written a novel well worth exploring. In part it asks:  Indonesia, where is your history? 

I think Indonesia needs a novelist like Tash Aw to answer that question.

Indonesia, where is your history? In Suharto’s mass graves of East Java, Bali, and Sumatra?  In this darkness is your history shut out from your own eyes?

Jakarta (The Menteng Kids)

Somewhere in Jakarta 1932

Still not fixed after all these years. My, those crazy Menteng Kids.

The Jakarta Post reports  on January 14, 2009 (yes it is that time of the year again):

FLOODS: Torrential rain and high tide swamp city’s northwest
Heavy downpour coupled with high tide Monday caused deluge in several areas across North and West Jakarta.

The City Coordination Board for Disaster Mitigation (Satkorlak) reported that two community units (RW) in Muara Baru and Penjaringan in North Jakarta were submerged in 20 to 35 centimeters of floodwater.

The morning rain raised the water level at Pasar Ikan floodgate in North Jakarta, to 205 cm, higher than its normal level of 170 cm.

The board upped the floodgate’s alert status to second level, or one level below the top alert, to warn the residents of possible flooding.

A top alert status will be issued if the water level at the gate goes above 230 cm.

Head of the board, Bobby Aryono, said the deluge was caused by rainwater buffeted by high tide at Jakarta Bay.in Muara Baru is only 20 cm deep.a normal incident,” Bobby told reporters at City Hall.

“It should recede within three hours.”

City Governor Fauzi Bowo said the flooding at Muara Baru was caused by a broken sea embankment at Nizam Zaman Port, which is operated by state-owned port operator company PT Pelindo.

“I hope Pelindo repair the broken embankment immediately,” he said.

Jakarta Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) said the seawater level reached 220 cm Monday.

Earlier last week, BMG said several areas in North Jakarta would be hit by flooding as the rain was expected to peak at the end of this month.

Rainwater Monday also caused a river in Jelambar Jaya kampung, Petamburan, in West Jakarta to overflow. three days, the streets here have been deluged by river water,” said Surati, a Jelambar Jaya resident, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

“The 50-centimeter-deep flood should recede within three hours once the rain stops,” she added.

Toby, another resident, said residents in the area experienced regular flooding twice a month.

Knee-deep rainwater inundated the entrance gate, Carnival Beach and Festival Market of Ancol Dreamland in North Jakarta.

The 50-centimeter-deep water outside the recreation center on caused traffic congestion for several hours in the morning.

According to data released by Satkorlak on Monday, water levels at Karet floodgate in Central Jakarta as well as other 12 main floodgates in Jakarta and the uphill area of Bogor were below normal.

Jakarta was hard hit by flooding in 2002 when two-thirds of the city was submerged in water. Floods claimed 34 lives and forced more than 384,000 residents to evacuate their homes and live in shelters. — JP/Agnes Winarti

Those Menteng Kids

“The permanent and ever extending intervention of the state apparatus in the area of the processes and units of consumption makes it the real source of order in everydaylife. This intervention of the state apparatus, which we call urban planning in the broad sense, invloves an almost immediate politicization of the whole urban problematic, since the adminstrator and the interlocultor of the social claims and demand tend to be, in the final analysis, the political appartus of the dominant classes.”

  -Manuel Castells (The Urban Question)

 

Batavia Official Tourist Bureau 1920 – 1930

In this post I will continue my discussion of  Planning the Megcity, Jakarta in the Twentieth Century, Routledge, 2008. NY, by  Christopher Silver from the previous post. All quotes are from his text with the page number cited unless otherwise noted. I want to examine some of the sections in Chapter One ‘Understanding Urbanization and the Megacity in Southeast Asia and Chapter Two  ‘Fashioning the Colonial Capital City, 1900 -1940′.

Silver notes at the beginning that, “The city’s [Batavia] development before 1900 was driven by events during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when planning intervention was largely limited to efforts to embellish the colonial city to suite the wishes of a minority of its citizens, namely the Europeans, and Asians who dominated the city’s economic activity.” /1

“Further, the direction and location of the eleven rivers that run from the mountains to the low-lying areas where the Dutch had established their colonial administration centre in the seventeenth century created natural barriers which determined both the direction and boundaries of the city’s growth. Even as population growth in colonial Batavia accelerated after 1900, there was relatively little divergence in the basic pattern of urban growth. The city remained compact, squeezed onto the highest ground between the frequently flooding rivers”. /1

Reflecting on his own experience of Jakarta Silver says that, “The Jakarta I first encountered was many respects the outcome of carefully calculated planning interventions; a city where planning was an integral part of the apparatus of government management”. /2

In his introduction Silver writes of Menteng,  ”Built in the early twentieth century for the European community at what was then the outer most edge of Batavia, Menteng helped to launch the modern planning movement in the city, and involved prominent Dutch planners and architects practicing in the Netherland Indies. The bequeathed to the city what was one of its most elegant and sought after addresses”. /10

And emphasizes that, “The foundation of modern Jakarta has roots deep within the Dutch colonial era”. /14

In Chapter One Silver begins, “The most enduring impact of colonialism on Southeast Asia cities was to link them more fully within a global economic network.” /25

And cites McGee: “…the most prominent function of these cities was economic; the colonial city was the ‘nerve center’ of colonial exploitation. Concentrated here were the institutions through which capitalism extended its control over the colonial economy – the banks, the agency houses, trading companies, the shipping companies and the insurance companies.” /27

And Dean Forbes: “…the colonial period disrupted the economic and social geography of Southeast Asia. It brought significant changes to the distribution of economic activities, reinforcing the rise of the colonial port city, which in turn provided the foundation for the post-World War II surge in urbanization. These cities were dominated by the colonizers, whose needs generally came first, with the indigenous economy at the margins of the city.”

Silver adds that, “An increasing concentration of wealth and political power within the urban elite accompanied the substantial increase in urban population, most of whom existed on the margins of society”. /29

Kramat, Salemba, Kebun Sirih, Prapaten, Pegangsaann, Jatinagara, New Gondangdia, and the prized Menteng all were Dutch designed extensions of Batavia.  And “everything in Batavia is spacious and airy” /43

Silver cites Furnivall “in 1900 the European community was detached from native life but had no complete independent life; by 1930 it lived within its own world, with its own cultural interests and with its trade unions and labour politics, alongside, but wholly separate from the native world” /44

And (amazingly) that, “In 1930 there were 35 daily newspapers, 54 weeklies, 91 monthly magazines and no fewer than 100 cultural, economic and political societies to support Batavia’s expanded European world.” /45

Accordingly “racial classification was the cornerstone of the colonial administration” and there was “no unitary political system”.  /45-46

 

And those Menteng kids… let me introduce you to some of those who planned and built Batavia.

Frans Johan Louwens Ghijsels, 28, architect, born in Tulung Agung, East Java, graduate of the Technical University Delft.  If you drive by or use Jakartakota Stasion you see his handiwork everyday. He was involved with  the Home municipality of Batavia, 1918, the Menteng Property Company (1920-21), Bukit Duri Manggara (1918), Indo-Eurasion Association (1923), and wrote plans wrote plans for Bandung and Batavia (1917-1918).

There was Henri Maclaine Pont and Thomas Karsten who wrote the 1916 Master Plan for Semarang (first modern urban plan). Karsten would note of  Menteng that ”satisfactory provision for the housing needs of the well-to-do seems assured” /56-57

Wikipedia has it about Karsten: “Herman Thomas Karsten (1885-1945) was a Dutch engineer who gave major contributions to architecture and town planning in Indonesia during Dutch colonial rule. Most significantly he integrated the practice of colonial urban environment with native elements; a radical approach to spatial planning for Indonesia at the time. He introduced a neighborhood plan for all ethnic groups in Semarang, built public markets in Yogyakarta and Surakarta, and a city square in the capital Batavia (now ‘Jakarta’). Between 1915 and 1941 he was given responsibility for planning 12 out of 19 municipalities in Java, 3 out of 9 towns in Sumatra and a town in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). He received official recognition from both the government through his appointment to the colony’s major Town Planning Committee and by the academic community with his appointment to the position of Lecturer for Town Planning at the School of Engineering at Bandung. He died in an internment camp near Bandung in 1945 during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia”. 

There was, Silver continues, F.J. Kubatz, Director of the Municipal Department of Land and Housing in Batavia involved with New Gondangdia, Burgermeester Bisschopplein (Taman Suropati). /51-52  And the Menteng plan itself  by P.A.J. Mooijen based on garden city model of Ebeneezer Howard. F.J. Kubatz would later modify Mooijen’s Menteng plan. There was J.F.L. Blankenburg designer of homes at Menteng. Silver provides an interesting list  of consulting firms operating in Batavia, Semarang, Bandung:

“Menteng provided a continuous stream of commissions for the growing cadre of design and planning firms that had set up shop in they city. There were several large consulting firms in Batavia and other key cities that appeared after 1909 and functioned in carrying out both design and construction. These included M.J. Hulswit, A.A. Fremont and Eduard Cuypers, Biezeveld and Mooijen, Bakker and Meyboom, and Ghijsels’ ‘trendsetting’ AIA, all operating in Batavia; Karsten, Lutjens, Toussaint, and Henri Maclaine Pont with offices in Semarang, and C.P. Schoemaker and Associates the leading firm in Bandung.” /60

Perhaps what is most telling is that Silver notes “The Public Works Department was influenced, and at several junctures, led in the early twentieth century by the Dutch Social Democratic Party, virtually all trained at the Technical University of Delft. According to Van Door, the development agenda of these engineers was progressive and… the indigenous population did interest as a matter of care, but in a round-about way (emphasis is mine) … Like all technocrats, these civil engineers were wholly concerned with the application of science in practice, with technical innovation and rationalization… They had pronounced admiration for productivity and for rationalization and planning springing froma dislike of traditional ways and capitalistic waste. The colonial system where engineers and planners were free to follow their own fancies offered these technocratic tendencies considerable scope”. /48-49

In a “round-about way” this would allow them, after all, to create spacious and modern enclaves where “European residents received four times the amount of water than delivered to native residents”. /52

And it would allow them, not withstanding their political principals, to accept a “local public policy” which was ” to avoid any interference, or investment, in the indigenous areas” and to sell their “technical innovation and rationalization” to the Dutch elites.  /52

Prior to the roaring 20s in Batavia in “1901, there were 304 private estates, 101 owned by Europeans and the rest largely owned by Chinese with 800,000 peasant holdings”. It is not detailed what exactly is meant by a “peasant holding” but it might be assumed that more than one individual lived on the holding owned by a Dutchman or a Chinese. And I assume “peasant” means a Javanese farmer.

It is hard to do justice to Silver’s book in these short posts so I do not want to appear as if this is a gloss. But it is clear that Batavia was built for the Dutch by the Dutch. That race, colonialism, power, and the right (or claim) to the city were urban topographies just as high and strong as the walls of Fort Batavia of 1619 which protected the Dutch from the “locals”. In  part this goes to explain something of why Jakarta is a city but NOT an Indonesian city. More of that later after we examine the kampung in Batavia.

The discussion will continue.

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Jakarta (multipoliCity metrochaotic)

A Saturday night dinner dance in Bandung’s fasionable Homann Hotel, ca. 1920. From: Java: Indonesia, Periplus Adventure Guides, Edited by Eric Oey, 1997.  Photo: Antiquariaat Acanthus   (scanned image)

Can you see them? They are there on the left and right, way in the back, lined up near the walls. Nearly invisible. Servants and shadows to the folks having such a grand time at the Homann Hotel.  Or it could very well be at the fashionable Harmonie Club, “the main cultural institution of high European society” of Batavia close on to the Konigsplein, a public square nearly a square kilometer in extent. “A European enclave, a spacious civic center ringed by two churches, the city’s two leading hotels (Des Indies and Der Nederlander), and the the town theater (Schouwberg).”  Where I am also sure many servants and shadows also tread. Though the Harmonie is no longer the Konigsplein remains a central feature of Jakarta. It is, of course, Merdeka Sqaure.

During my soon to end vacation I have conducted a sort of discourse with myself and Jakarta. I just finished reading Planning the Megcity, Jakarta in the Twentieth Century, Routledge, 2008. NY, by Dr. Christopher Silver, Dean of the College of Design, Construction and Planning and professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at (of all places) the University of Florida, Gainesville. This seems to me a long way from Jakarta but Dr. Silver does have reliable and personal experience with the city and he tells a good story – there is historical background but his main focus is on the “planning” of Jakarta. His book takes a “planner’s eye view”, if you will.

So, to answer the question I posed to myself and my fellow traveller bloggers: Is Jakarta a city?” I say yes. In its current configuration of metrochaos it is a multipoliCity.

I will return to Dr. Silver’s book in a moment to pause to consider some definitions of just what a city is.  I will begin to seconding Marissa Duma’s astute note regarding  density of population as defining characteristic. It is a good place to start. (see the post: Jakarta (apa?) )

Phil Hubbard in his book City cites R. Davis who describes cities as ‘concentrations of many people located close together for residential and productive purposes’ and Saunders who points out that ‘cities are places where large numbers of people live and work’. Simply enough. But as Hubbard notes ‘the city is many things: a spatial location, a political entity, as administrative unit, a place of work and play, a collection of dreams and nightmares, a mesh of social relations, an agglomeration of economic activity…”  A city is everyday life.  But as Andy Merrfield asks in Metromarxism in the chaper on Henri Lefebvre: “Is the city a “technical object” or an “aesthetic object”?” And like Lefebvre I ask how is the “space” of urban Jakarta “produced”? To what ends? I will have more to say regarding this  but for now lets take a look at a few  more definitions and some numbers from  demographia via wikipedia: List of Urban Areas by Population. (note: there is also a link to additonal demographia information in the right sidebar under ‘Urban Issues’.

“Demographia defines an urban area (urbanized area agglomeration or urban centre) as a continuously built up landmass of urban development containing a high population density, without regard for administrative boundaries (i.e. municipality, city or commune) or a labor market (i.e. metropolitan area).”

 Here are the current top three urban areas (the numbers are 2008 estimates so they are as good as ‘hot off the press’):

Tokyo – Yokohama, Japan:    34,400,000

Jakarta, Indonesia:   21,800,000

New York City, United States:  20,090,000

There is not even a hint of the qualitative differences between Tokyo, New York, and Jakarta of which there are many. There are only the numbers and numbers and density of population Jakarta does have. It’s number two in urban population extent  (for now).

City, megacity, conurbation, megalopolis, multipoliCity. This is the urban age. Now is the urban century. Definitions merge and mingle. And as far a numbers go Jakarta meets the test.

Back to Dr. Silver and the “planner’s eye view”:  Here is Batavia of 1905.

“The spatial distribution of population within Batavia underscored the traditionally deep social divisions based on race, class, and ethnicity. In turn this reflected the uneven division of power in the colonial capital. In 1905, the European community represented just 9 per cent of the total population but occupied 50 per cent of the residential land, while the native, which made up 71 per cent of the population of Batavia’s residents, crowded onto just 20 per cent of the city’s land. That left the Chinese (and Arabs and Indians), who constituted 20 per cent of the population and occupied a more generous 30 per cent of the land.” /38

Yes, Jakarta is a city but I am going to argue that it is NOT an Indonesian city. Jakarta has had too long a history as Batavia. Its historical and material development are at heart colonial and the implications of this are significant.  This is the thesis I will explore  in further posts.

 

Note: Both Dr. Silver’s book and Dr. Hubbard’s book were posted as “Book of the Week” a new and transitive feature of this blog.  Another reason to visit.

 

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Jakarta (cast of characters)

Jakarta, May 27, 2008  Photo: AFP

The Indonesian Declaration of Independence was officially proclaimed at 10.00 a.m. sharp on Friday, August 17, 1945.

As the 63rd anniversary of free Indonesia approaches perhaps it might be appropriate to review some recent history.

The curtain rises in the year of 1996.

The stage: Jakarta.

As in a Greek tragedy there is an odd but compelling cast of characters.

There are kings and princes, sycophants, embezzlers, corrupt ministers, murderers, bigots, cronies, mutes, the blind, back stabbers, oracles, and a few (very few) heroes.

There is a youthful angry chourus.

And the curtain rises with the words, “Raid PDI Headquarters”.

So begins Reformasi: The Struggle for Power in Post-Soeharto Indonesia  by Kevin O’Rourke. Allen & Unwin. 2002. 512 pages.

“Kevin O’Rourke graduated from Havard University before moving to Jakarta, where he has worked for eight years as an investment banker, consultant and political risk analyst. Throughout the height of the political transition, he scrutinised events first-hand by authoring the Van Zorge Report, an indepedent bi-weekly journal on politics and economics”… so says the overly polite blurb on the back cover of his book. 

Of course that was written in 2002, the year in which his book was published and where the narrative of Reformasi ends.

A check of the Van Zorge Report’s own cast of characters does not turn up his name but that still does not prevent me from wishing I had the $750.00 US for a year subscription or an offer to work in their Jakarta office.

” ‘Raid PDI Headquarters.’ That simple command, issued by President Soeharto to his security forces in July 1996, triggered the extraordinary political power struggle that would consume Indonesian for years to come.”

The fourth paragraph reads, “After several years, and after the loss of thousands of lives, the forces of change would triumph and Indonesia would become the world’s third largest democracy – or at least so it would appear. In fact, appearances can be misleading in Indonesia, and triumphs can prove ephemeral.”

And that, in short, is what the book is about. You could leave it at that except  for the next 416 pages a riveting and detailed narrative of events of epic proportions which occured over an six year period of Indonesian history unfolds.  It is a narrative that is written so well about a subject so compelling that it is hard to put the book down.

The characters are striking and the events terrible and bizarre. No fiction writer could ever imagine the scenario.

Beginning with Cedana Inc. and the KKN (corruption, cronyism, and nepotism) economy of Indonesia under Soeharto, O’Rourke works through the events of the economic crisis of 1997, the  corrupt banking practices which allowed Cedana Inc. and friends to loot the Indonesian treasury for years; the Indonesian university students who demanded democratic reforms, reformasi, many of which were wounded or killed in demonstrations at Trisakti and Semanggi; the Jakarta riots, a twisted and manipulated spree of looting, arson, and rape; the fall of Soeharto; at every turn violence on a scale which had not been seen in Indonesia since the 1965 coup and communist purges which brought Soeharto to power. 

From the streets of Jakarta to Aceh to East Timor to the Dyaks of Kalimatan to Maluku to the mysterious killings of dukun in East Java, Indonesian was stricken with a stunning series of horrific events.  

All the while the machinations (and there were multitudes of them!) of Habibie, Megawati (whose PDI offices were raided), Abdurrahman Wahid, and Amien Rais are played out for the public like a shadow puppet play.

Soeharto drifts in and out, on and off stage. He casts a long shadow even in the pitch black of night. His power is like magic. His money is like magic. This is the game. It threatens to swallow the nation.

Reformasi is divided into four parts: Part I, Hubris of the Elite; Part II, Tyranny of the Elite; and Part III, Melee of the Elite; and Epilouge.  There is a preface, a map of Indonesia, a map of Jakarta, extensive notes, bibliography, glossary (you need it for sure), notes on the text, photos, and index. There are also Appendices: Appendix I, Rupiah Exchange Rate (1996-2001), which tells its own story, and Appedix II, Short Biographies, which also tells a few stories.

There are 109 short biographies. It’s not a Who’s Who of Indonesia and I don’t think it accounts for everyone mentioned in the book but it does give a good outline of the main players. 

Let’s take a look at four, in order of appearance. Biographies are referenced to 2002.

“MAKARIM, Zacky  career Special Forces intelligence officer who helped perpetrate the PDI Headquarters raid in 1996 as head of Directorate A of the intelligence agency, Bais; subsequently promoted to major-general and given command of Bais, which he commanded during the the riots of May 1998; entrusted by Wiranto in 1999 with paramount authority over military operations in East Timor. as commander of the Taskforce on the East Timor Consultation (P3TT); named by both the Human Rights Commission and the attorney general’s office as a suspected perpetrator of crimes against humanity.

SOEHARTO, Tommy  also known as Hutomo Mandala Putra. Shoeharto’s third son; owner of the Humpass Group with holdings in shipping, manufacturing and energy. Embroiled in controversy over rent seeking facilities such as the clove monopoly and the Timor national car program. Accused by President Wahid of fomenting violence in retaliation for efforts to prosecute his father. Sentenced to jail in October 2000 but escaped custody and became a fugitive; finally captured in 2001.  (He was implicated in and directly involved with assassination and bombings).

SUBIANTO, Prabowo  aristocrat and son-in-law of Soeharto; Special Forces commander responsible for abducting pro-democracy activists in 1998; promoted to lieutenant-general and Kostrad commander in March 1998; blamed Wiranto for masterminding the May 1998 riots; discharged in August 1998. (Not only was he responsible for abducting pro-democracy activists there is testimony of torture and “disapperances” under his command. His claim about Wiranto is on the mark. )

WIRANTO  Central Java native who pursued a lacklustre army career before being noticed by senior generals in the 1980s; brought tp Jakarta and became presidential adjutant from 1989 to 1993; revolved through most pf the army’s most strategic posts, in rapid succession, from 1994 to 1998; appointed armed forces commander in February 1998. Touted as Soeharto’s anointed successor, but acquiesced to the president’s overthrow in May 1998; vowed to protect Soeharto and his family. While he served as armed forces commander in 1998-99 various elements of the military perpetrated the Trisakti shootings, the Semanggi I killings, the Bantiqiyah maasacre, clashes with police in Maluku , the East Timor scorched-earth campaign, the Semanggi II killing and other assorted abuses. Promoted to co-ordinating minister for politics and security in October 1999; after a tense standoff with President Wahid, sacked in January 2000. Named by both the Human Rights Commission and the attorney general’s office as a suspected perpetrator of crimes against humanity.”

And where are these people today?

16 months ago: Former Indonesian Chief of National Intelegent Agency (BIN) Zacky Anwar Makarim attends a hearing held by Indonesian-East Timor Truth and Friendship Commission in Jakarta, 28 March 2007. The Indonesia-East Timor Truth and Friendship Commission is due to hear from military officials and expects to collect testimony from 70 people overall.

 E Timor CASE CLOSED after CTF submits final report

Nusa Dua, Bali ANTARA News 6/15/2008 – The human rights violation case prior to and after East Timor`s independence referendum in 1999 was officially closed after the Commission for Truth and Friendship (CTF) submitted its report to the both governments.

“With CTF`s final report, the human rights violation case before and after the 1999 referendum is closed and would not be brought to legal process,” Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Hassan Wirajuda said here Tuesday. …> go to article

 

Soeharto`s son counter-sues in Indonesia graft case

Jakarta ANTARA News 8/13/2008 – The youngest son of former president Soeharto formally denied corruption allegations Tuesday and filed a counter-suit against the Indonesian government seeking millions of dollars in damages, lawyers said.

The counter-suit was filed in the central Jakarta district court at the same time as Hutomo “Tommy” Mandala Putra responded in writing to the finance ministry accusations of corruption.

The ministry alleges Tommy” illegally sold off assets from troubled car importer PT Timor to five of his companies at a discount to avoid paying off state loans made to Timor during the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

In a document received by AFP, defence lawyer Otto Cornelius Kaligis said the accusations were “legally baseless” as Tommy’s PT Timor had no connection with the companies listed as defendants.

He said the finance ministry had brought the allegations to court to justify maintaining a freeze of his assets in Guernsey, a British crown dependency off the French coast.

“It’s obvious that they want to use this as evidence for the Guernsey court to continue extending a freeze on a BNP Paribas account belonging to my client,” he said.

“We see the accusations as defamation against my client, so we have decided to countersue,” he said, adding they were seeking some 21.8 million dollars in compensation from the finance ministry.

They also demanded a public apology to be issued in the local media.

An Indonesian court in February rejected a separate corruption case against Tommy, awarding him 550,000 dollars in a countersuit. …> go to article

 As for Probowo and Wiranto?

  

Wiranto                                            Probowo Subianto

They are candidates for President of Indonesian in 2009.

I sometimes ask my wife about those times and it seems, even now, she cannot believe what she saw and lived through. It was crazy and very scary. To try to make sense of it even harder, especially if you are just trying to survive it all.

I think that O’Rourke does a very good job at making sense of it.  The tone of his narrative is confident. Where he speculates about events and motives his opinions are rooted in long observation and careful investigation.

He tells a good story.

One worth reading and one worth remembering.

 

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Jakarta (Journalism)

Pasar Baru, Jakarta, 2008

There was a cartoon in the New Yorker. It depicted a grandfather, father, and young daughter out for a walk. The grandfather was was saying, as the caption read:

“Everything was better back when everything was worse“.

Is that possible?  It may be so.

 

Foreign Devil: Thirty Years of Reporting in the Far East
by Richard Hughes, 1500 Books

Dossier: Richard Hughes. Born in Australia, 1906; died in Hong Kong, 1984. Profession: Journalist, for The Sunday Times and the Economist covering Southeast Asia for thirty years. CBE. Spy? Double-agent?

“From early during his stay in the Far East he was likely a spy for the British government, working with MI6, British Foreign Intelligence. From 1950 on he was a possibly a “spy” for the Soviets as well, providing misinformation fed to him by the British.

Hughes was the inspiration for Dikko Henderson in Ian Fleming’s You Only Live Twice (Hughes was a friend of Fleming and personal guide through post war Tokya) and Bill Craw in John LeCarré’s The Honorable Schoolboy”.  So says the blurb at 1500 Books.

 Well, that is a lot of talk, yes? 

One thing for sure Richard Hughes was a good writer and perhaps one of the great journalists of his day. His book Foreign Devils: Thirty Years of Reporting in the Far East has been republished by 1500 Books.

A copy sits on my desk. I am drawn to it like old memories. It is full of anecdotes with strong punch lines. The writing is compelling and fresh even though the events are so long passed.

Peter Gordon writing in the Asian Review of Books noted that Hughes book is  ”required reading, perhaps, for anyone who considers journalism a calling.” 

 In The Untold Story of Richard Sorge Hughes tells the story of an espionage ring in 1940s Tokyo led by Richard Sorge. Sorge worked for the Nazi embassy in Tokyo as a journalist but as events transpired it turned out he was a double-agent working for the Soviet Union. His activities were exposed and he was captured by the Japanese Secret Police.  He was hung out to dry by his Soviet controllers and then literally hung by the Japanese authorities.   One of his fellow conspirators, a Japanese national named Ozaki, penned a list of ‘precepts’, a kind of guide for espionage agents…

As Hughes writes,

“For reasons completely unconnected with espionage, I cannot resist quoting the nine precepts which Ozaki – a far better journalist than Sorge was, or thought he was – laid down as a guide for intelligence agents:

1. Never give the impression that you are eager to obtain news: men who are engaged in important affairs will refuse to talk to you if they suspect that your motive is to collect information.
2. If you give the impression that you have more information that your prospective informant, he will give with a smile.
3. Informal dinner parties are an excellent setting for the gathering of news.
4. It is convenient to be a specialist of some kind. For my part, I am a specialist on Chinese questions, and have always received inquiries from all quarters. I was able to gather much data from men who came to ask me questions.
5. My position as a writer for newspapers and magazines stood me in good stead.
6. Because I was often asked to lecture in all parts of Japan, I had an excellent chance to learn general trends of local opinion.
7. Connections with important organizations engaged in the collection of news are vital. I was affiliated with the Asahi Shimbun and later with the South Manchurian Railway.
8. Above all, you must cultivate trust and confidence in you on the part of those who you are using as informants in order to be able to pump them without seeming unnatural.
9. In these days of unrest, you cannot be a good intelligence man unless you yourself are a good source of information.

The reason I list the Ozaki precepts, with respectful salute to one communist at least who was an idealist as well as a realist, is because they constitute a perfect guide to all young foreign correspondents. Every successful foreign newsman I ever knew followed and follows, consciously or instinctively, those same rules – especially Precepts 1, 2, and 9.”

Journalism is who, what, when, where, and why.  It is all about information.

In the chapter Down and Out in Shimbun Alley Hughes recounts his election to the post of manager of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in post war Tokyo at the pay rate of $80.00 a week (“plus free board and half-price drinks”). Not a bad deal considering…

“We had a mixed membership of war-weary correspondents, the world’s best reporters and combat photographers, liberal, conservative, and radical commentators, and some of the world’s most plausible rougues and magisterial scoundrels. There were American and British and French and Russian and Chinese and Australian and New Zealand newspapermen, cameramen and radio broadcasters.”

The last chapter in Hughes book is titled Old Hands’ ‘Last Supper’. This is Hughes tribute to the many reporters he was associated with through his career. Journalists who wrote for Reuters, The Chicago Daily News, AFP, AP, UPI, or who freelanced their way from one Asian trouble spot to another from World War II  through the Vietnam War, a long chonicle of bloody struggle and the remaking of the world: Noel Monks, John Gunther, A.B. Jamieson, Robert Shaplen, Sydney Brookes, Frank Robertson, Carl Mydans, George Thomas Folster, Robert C. Miller, Jacques Marcuse, Dennis Bloodworth, Denis Warner, James Cameron, Alex Josey, and Stanley Karnow.

Dennis Bloodworth and James Wilde were present in Jakarta on Novemeber 30, 1957, the day that Darul Islam attempted to assassinate Soekarno outside of the Cikini School in Jakarta but ended up killing only innocent women and children.  

Bloodworth writes a great story of panic, driving through dark, rainy, blockaded streets of Jakarta with large “bricks” of rupiah to file a wire story. 

It begins… ” ‘Here lies the fool that tried to hurry the East’, they say of our copy, but in fact we manage to tell a remarkable amount of truth, considering that we are painfully torn between two qualities of time – the pricelss stuff jealously hoarded by our editors in the impatient West, and the cheap, throwaway variety of the bureaucrats in the enternal East.” 

Has much changed?

From Alex Josey a short “prized memory of Soekarno: “…We had a breakfast appointment. I wandered alone down a corridor. Sukarno suddenly appeared from one of the bedrooms. He approached me, hand outstretched. We were shaking hands when his bedroom door opened again, and into the corridor stepped a beautiful, young, shaply European woman. I stared, astonished. Sukarno looked at me, turned and saw the girl. He was visibly annoyed. Then he smiled at me and said: ‘I know what you are thinking. That she’s my girlfriend. Aha! All you journalists are the same. She is not.’ I shook my head and said brightly: ‘Mr. President, at this hour of the morning I am incapable of thought.’ Sukarno, never lost for an explanation, said: ‘She is a furniture designer. I want a new bedroom suite.’ By then members of his Court had appeared. Sukarno pointed to one official. ‘She’s his wife’, he said briefly. The man looked astonished. We moved on to the verandah for breakfast. Sukarno had solved another problem…”

How terrible were Hughes day. And oddly, how kind.

 

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Jakarta (urban language, cultural gado-gado)

Detail from Borobudur

Indonesian is part of that great language family group known as Austronesian  which is the most widely spread language group on the planet. Stretching as far west as Madagascar and a far east at Easter Island, or Rapa Nui as it is known by it original Polynesian settlers.

The Hawaiian language, for example still shares words with modern Indonesian: Hawaiian, ahi = Indonesian, api (fire, though I was told that in Seram the tool used to make the fire is called ‘ahi’), Hawaiian, maka = Indonesian, mata (eye), Hawaiian, maki = Indonesian, mati (dead). The name ‘Hawai`i may be a cognate of ‘Java’, the name of Indonesia’s most populous island; you can see it in the ‘awa’ and the ‘ava’. On Seram there is the village of Wahai, perhaps yet another cognate. Also on Seram the prefix ‘wai’ is used to mean river and in Hawai`i it means ‘water’.

Back in the deep time when people pushed their sailing canoes off the beaches somewhere in the Indonesian archipelago they carried with them the roots of the Austronesian family group. They also carried the real roots of taro, banana, kukui, sugar cane, ti, and the other Polynesian “canoe” plants which are known to have their biological and evolutionary origins in Indonesia.

Thus the world is linked and it is always bigger and more connected than we might assume as first glance. The word moa has a long reach; it means ‘bird’ or ‘chicken’ and is still in use today in Madagascar, Aeotearoa, and Hawai`i.

The other lesson here is that language is, in and of itself, not static. Language is pliable and transforms over time. I like to think of it as a mental plastic; resilient, and absorbing. Perhaps there is no language which gives such a good example as this as Indonesian.

Modern Indonesian is rooted to Old Malay originating in southern Sumatra and spreading during the 7th through the 9th century under the Hindu Sriwijaya kingdom. Modern Malay came in to its own in the 13th and 14th centuries as a lingua franca (or trading language) when it was spread through the archipelago coincident with the spread of Islam.

That is how I think of Bahasa Indonesia; a commercial trading language at the core, having incorporated words from Sanskrit, Chinese, Arabic, and later Portuguese, Dutch, and English, with good portions of Javanese, Sundanese, Maduraese, Minankabauese and other far flung indigenous languages thrown in the mix for good measure.

Traveling the far reaches of the archipelago I always get the humbling impression that people speak two, three, or even four different languages. Modern Indonesian really is “unity in diversity“.

Jakarta, of course, is particularly interesting because it has always been, since the days of Batavia, a place where all these influences rubbed up against each other and mixed together, both metaphorically and physically.

The Betawi of Jakarta is a cultural result.

The Dutch actually got around to building a city in the eighteenth century when the walls surrounding Fort Batavia were finally pulled down and hauled up to Gambir. From this time onward, and especially in the early nineteenth century, Indonesian ethnic groups increasingly found their place in the life of Batavia, however marginal that may have been.

The Dutch,  for administrative purposes and security reasons divided Batavia into small ethnic enclaves, or kampungs. But, as Abeyasekere states, “By the 1820s… …intermixing had gone so far that observers could no longer divide the Indonesian community into distinct ethnic groups. In the nineteenth century Indonesians born in Batavia generally came be called Orang Betawi, a recognition that the Indonesians of the city formed a distinct ethnic group”.

The cultural force which held the Orang Betawi together was their common faith of Islam; in fact they had a reputation of being fanatically Islamic. In the Dutch colonial world of Batavia which set the economic and social rules of the day this was at least something the Betawi had under their control and could claim as their own. They sent their children to Muslim schools. They avoided employment which would bring them into contact with Europeans.

They spoke their own language, a distinct dialect of Malay. From this, other distinct cultural practices evolved; wedding ceremonies, architecture, dress, music, dance, oral traditions, ondel-ondel, and Silat.

By the 1930s the growth of Batavia was so rapid that the Betawi were viewed as an ethnic minority in the very city which created them. Their culture persists in Jakarta today in their language, art, theatre and they came still be found, on a Saturday morning, practicing Silat.

Silat, Kampung Betawi, Jakarta, 2008

The urban scene has always been a hothouse of cultural evolution. In the case of Jakarta the crowding together of large numbers of people from widely diverse areas throughout the archipelago results in a blend of  varied ethnic traditions mixing under the influence of the social stress of urban living and enhanced by the pressure of external cultural influences.

Abeyasekere notes how quickly new immigrants to the city become Jakartans.

It’s a cultural gado-gado.

“…language is the colour of our skin, in a way- it will never wash off. It isn’t necessarily about the language, it’s about the message, the perseverence of culture implied somewhere in the context.”

-Marisa Duma

PROKEM: An Analysis of A Jakarta Slang. Thomas H. Slone. Masalai Press, Oakland, California, 2003. 95 pages.

What is a “ludling” you might ask?

The literal meaning of the term is “play-language”. Linguists use the term to describe languages created from ordinary languages “as the result of a transformation or series of transformations acting regularly on an ordinary language text, with the intent of altering form but not the content of the original message, for the purposes of concealment or comic effect”. Slone states in his Introduction to PROKEM that, “As such, ludlings exist as a subset of play languages, namely those that are formed by regular transformation of a standard, base language. Ludlings as well as most other slang languages retain the grammar of the base language”.

Oing-gay o-tay karta-jay o-tay uy-bay ome-say ice-ray.

What is this?

In the US, and perhaps in England, every school age child comes across this sooner or later. This is a ludling known as “Pig Latin” where the words are formed by taking a standard English word, transposing the initial part of the word to the end, and adding “ay”.

So the above is: Going to Jakarta to buy some rice.

Or something like that. I am a bit rusty on my Pig Latin as I probably have not spoken it since the fifth grade.

Slone defines Prokem as “a slang language that is spoken in Jakarta, primarily by youth who speak the Jakartan dialect of Indonesian. It most likely originated as a secret criminal language, but is today spoken by both high school and university students and by members of street gangs, preman, from which the name Prokem comes”.

Jakartan is a dialect of Indonesian and Prokem is a slang Jakartan.

Slang has its roots in puns, jokes, crime, sex, violence, politics, arcronyms, generational changes, fashion, “the scene”. It is the same for the beatniks, hippys, or surfers. To speak slang is an entrance ticket to a  community which is often opposed to and out of the norm.

As Abayesekere notes:

“Some of the more well-to-do clearly felt that Western influence had most to teach about shaping a modern urban society. They watched Western films frequently and tried to keep in touch with trends abroad. This troubled many nationalists, who feared that Jakartans were absorbing all the worst aspects of Western culture. In 1952, Vice-President Hatta noted that Indonesia’s large cities were much influenced by Westerners: “In these places, most of our people just become imitators. As usual, the easiest thing to imitate is the shallow, the superficial…” He pus this down to the fact that, “most of our cities did not arise from our own society but rather as appendages of a foreign economy. These cities are not the centers of the creative activity of our own people but primarily distribution centers of foreign goods”.

In the Jakarta of the 1950s, Hatta’s remarks seemed to be supported by the appearance of the so-called ‘cross-boys’. These were gangs of youths who modeled themselves on the juvenile delinquents portrayed in Western films and who were usually associated with jeans and motor bikes. Some view them suspiciously as a sign of imported social decadence, but they also had much in common with the pemuda of the Revolution days. When martial law was introduced in 1957, the military authorities in Jakarta banned ‘cross-boy organization’, of which there seemed to be a large number: thirty-six were listed by name, including Cross-Boys Club, Deddy [sic] Boys Club, and James Dean Club. And for good measure, the wearing of jeans in public by anyone over the age of ten was forbidden. This was no hollow threat: arrests were subsequently made at cinemas.”

Slang emerges to meet the social surroundings.

Here are some examples as given by Slone.

“What does MBA [ Master of Business Administration ] mean?” (pun, riddle)  Prokem = “Master by Accident and “Masih belum apa-apa.” (“Still nothing”).

APIK (acronym) : Indonesian = Akademi Pendidikan Il mu Keguruan [ "Training Academy of Science Teachers" ]   Prokem = agak pikun ["rather senile"]

ANGGUN (acronymic redefinition of regular word meaning “well dressed”) in Prokem = angota ragunan, [ "ugly person, literally "member of the Ragunan Zoo" ].

SIMPATIK (another acronymic redefinition whose standard meaning is “congenial” or “sympathetic) in Prokem = simpanse pakai batik [ "chimpanzee dressed in batik" ].

 CHICAGO Indonesian = Cikini, Kali Pasir, Gondangdia Lama; Prokem = Chicago, Illinois; three street names in Jakarta that form a triangular area and may have been a gang territory.

OPEC Indonesian = Organisasi Pedagang Ekonomi Cukupan; Prokem = Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Organization of Economic Tranders [providing] Just Enough).

These are just a small sample of Prokem which Slone cites in his book. There may be well over 4,000 words in the Prokem vocabulary; some words dropping away and new ones added. The book itself is a slim volume but rich in the technical understanding of where Prokem comes from, how it functions, and where it is going. It’s detail is thorough, educational, and entertaining. It shows the reach of Bahasa Indonesia; “the perseverence of culture implied somewhere in the context”.

Other Sites of Interest:

Indonesian Language Resources

Kelas Bahasa: Huh? This is Indonesian?

IndonesiaLogue: Betawi

TeakDoor: Leanring Indonesian Urban Slang (some good examples here).

trims

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Jakarta (10,000 thanks and a few mentions)

Pantai Liang, Ambon

Sometimes it is good to get out of the city.

I think the Weather Pixie finally died and I have lost track of my Globetrackr widget. If they mysteriously return as they mysteriously disappeared I will reactivate them. I kind of miss them but one must blog onward.

As if The Jakarta Urban Blog does not keep me busy I have launched a new WordPress blog. It will be a magnitude easier to take care of as it consists entirely of photographs and can be found at:

 Jakarta – Indonesia – Urban Foto

I have registered Jakarta – Indonesia – Urban Foto at Indonesia Matters so it should show up there in a few days.

If you have been to Jakarta Urban Blog before then you know I always use photographs at the beginning my posts. I love photos and good photographers which is one reason why I visit java jive and Footnotes in Black and White on a regular basis.

I do not know who said, “a picture is worth a thousand words” but they had that pretty much right.

While I would never claim that I am even close to being a professional photographer I did take some five hundred photos during my last visit to Jakarta.  And there are many more from previous trips I have made to Indonesia.  Some are ok.  The new site is a good venue for them.

 Jakarta Urban Foto is yet another way to “know Jakarta”.  The site is just starting up but I should have about one hundred photos posted in the next few days given the rate at which I can down load them onto the site. I will keep posting as time allows which should result in an interesting visual archive of Jakarta and Indonesia as I also plan to add photos from beyond the city.

It’s good to get out of the city every now and then. Every true Jakartan knows that.

The 10,000 thanks!

Apropos of nothing at all Jakarta Urban Blog passed the 10,000 visitor mark. Since WordPress does not count my own visits to my site I am pretty well sure that those 10,000 clicks are not mine and probably only 2,000 of those clicks might be classified as sex fiends.

As things go 10,000 visits is not that big of a deal but there is in that some incentive to keep on writing. I will be getting back to posting again soon about things I have no idea about. It’s a learning curve for sure. I have one post lined up about Jakarta and language and one about Jakarta and music.

Speaking of which…

 Journal by the Lightbeamers MD posted July 5:

Shuffling Songs (You May Never Heard Before) from Indonesia

I have been listening frequently to this playlist (great for a Saturday afternoon or a late evening) as I am quite fond of Indonesian music.  I have been able to add a few new Indonesian musicians into my repertoire. Go visit Lightbeamers now, you will like what you hear. So thanks for that.

While I am at it I might as well mention a book I think everyone should own. It is absolutely indispensable. Given a 5 star rating with an  Amazon.com Sales Rank of #451,898 in Books. Culture Shock! Jakarta: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette  by Derek Bacon and Terry Collins. One reviewer has written, “I am not quite sure why I bought this book!”   But joking aside, BUY THIS BOOK!

 

And now that you mention it…

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Jakarta (oil, coal, blackouts, the urban future)

Power grid, Jakarta, Tanjung Priok, 2008

The Hawaiian Islands are one of the most geographically isolated island groups in the world. Though Hawaii is rich is sun, beaches, and tourists there are very few natural resources in the islands. There is no coal and no oil. In Hawaii to drive your car, to turn on the lights, to cool your home, to refrigerate your food means to be dependent on petroleum imports.  From shirts to shoes, from pans to pantyhose, there is nothing here which is not touched by fossil fuels. 

When I wake up and turn on my coffee maker or my computer I am immediately connected to Indonesia. How is that? And it is not because my wife is Indonesian.

According to Hawaiian Electric Company 29.8% of  petroleum imported to Hawaii is used to make electricity. Out of the total petroleum imported to Hawaii, 30.7% comes from Indonesia.

To give you an idea of the energy costs here I pay about $128.00 US a month for electricity.  Under the current exchange rate at the time I am writing that translates to about 1,179,775 IDR(rupiah) per month.  Gas, bensin, is sold here by the gallon. Current prices at the pump in Hilo, Hawaii, are running about $4.50 a gallon or 41,475 IRD per gallon.  There are 3.7 liters to the gallon so the price translates to about  11,209 IDR per liter. Not subsidized.

The current price of a twenty pound (9 kilos) bag of jasmine rice imported from Thailand is $47.00 US or just under 500,000 IRD.

Oil in Indonesia

From Indonesia Energy Data

During 2006, Indonesian oil production averaged 1.1 million barrels per day (bbl/d), of which 81 percent, or 894,000 bbl/d, was crude oil. Indonesia’s total oil production has dropped by 32 percent since 1996, as many of the country’s largest oil fields continue to decline in output. Indonesia’s current OPEC crude oil output quota is set at 1.45 million bbl/d, well above the country’s production capacity. During 2006, Indonesia’s oil consumption reached 1.2 million bbl/d, making it a slight net importer of oil for the year.

Indonesia’s two largest oil fields are Minas and Duri, which are operated by Chevron and located along the eastern coast in Sumatra. However, the Minas and Duri fields are mature and production at these locations has been on the decline. Various oil exploration projects are underway in Indonesia. However, to date, these projects have not brought sufficient new oil resources onstream to offset the declining production levels at older fields.

One of Indonesia’s last undeveloped oil fields is the Cepu block, located in East and Central Java. ExxonMobil’s local subsidiary discovered 250 million barrels of proven oil reserves in the Cepu Contract Area in 2001, and today the company estimates the area could hold up to 600 million barrels of recoverable oil reserves. ExxonMobil hesitated to develop the promising oil resource, however, because the company’s contract for the area was set to expire in 2010. After several years of negotiations, in March 2006 ExxonMobil and PT Pertamina signed a joint operation agreement (JOA) for the Cepufield. Each company will have a 45 percent stake in the project, with the remaining 10 percent held by provincial governments in East and Central Java. The project is scheduled to begin production in 2008, with peak production expected to reach 180,000 bbl/d.

Coal

From  World Coal Institute

Coal reserves
Indonesia has 4968Mt (metric tonnes) of proven coal reserves.

Indonesia has the 4th largest coal reserves in the Asia-Pacific behind Australia, India and China.

Coal Production and Consumption
In 2005 Indonesia produced 152.2Mt of hard coal, making it the 7th largest producer in the world.

Coal Production & Consumption (Mt)

                        ‘96    ‘97    ’98    ‘99    ‘00    ‘01    ‘02      ‘03      ’04      ‘05
Production       48.8  53.9  60.6  72.2  75.6  91.5 102.5  114.3  132.4  152.2
Consumption  10.9  13.2  15.4   19.0  22.1  27.3  29.2   30.7    37.1    41.3

According to these statistics (2005) Indonesia exports over twice the amount of coal it consumes.

From Financial Times of London

Energy demand boosts Indonesian coal mines
By John Aglionby in Jakarta

Published: July 3 2008 03:00 | Last updated: July 3 2008 03:00

Bayan Resources yesterday highlighted the interest investors are taking in Indonesia, the world’s largest thermal coal exporter, when it announced plans to raise up to $695m by floating 25 per cent of its shares on the country’s stock exchange next month.

With countries including China looking for alternatives to oil, global demand for Indonesia’s largely low-grade thermal coal, used mostly in power stations, is surging, helped by the fact that suppliers, including Australia and South Africa, can no longer meet demand.

The price of thermal coal has climbed more than 160 per cent in the last 12 months. Power station coal prices at Australia’s Newcastle port, a benchmark for Asia, jumped to a record $172.10 a metric tonne in the week ended June 27.

“Momentum is still very much in favour of coal, ahead of other commodities,” says James Bryson of HB Capital Partners in Jakarta.

On the back of the rise in prices and demand Bumi Resources, Indonesia’s largest coal miner, has seen its share price climb 922 per cent in the last 18 months. …> go to article

SE Asian Stocks-Indonesia leads losses as coal firms tumble
Thu Jul 3, 2008 3:38pm By Yvonne Cheong SINGAPORE, July 3 (Reuters) -

Indonesian stocks slumped nearly 4 percent on Thursday, their biggest one-day fall in fourth months, after a drop in world coal prices hit miners PT Bumi Resources BUMI.JK and PT Indo Tambangraya Tbk Megah ITMG.JK. Markets in much of the rest of Southeast Asia also fell on fears that slowing global economic growth and rising oil and raw material prices would erode company profits and consumer confidence. …> go to article

Such is the volatility of global energy markets. But if you follow the money the big players for Indonesian energy resources are India, China, and Australian investors.  Indonesia itself is in a bit a quandary with market rumors that Indonesia will set export quotas on coal to protect its own domestic use.

There is also the looming and real possibiltyof global economic recession with high inflation rates starting to appear in Asian economies and the US economy choking on debt, a weak dollar, and high energy costs.

Jakarta goes black (again)

From Asia News Network

Editorial Desk
The Jakarta Post
Publication Date : 04-07-2008

The Indonesian government seems increasingly unable to cope with the acute power shortage that has gotten worse over the past three years. Power blackouts have hit more areas and happen more often. There is almost no improvement in the supply-capacity ratio, in sharp contrast to high growth in power consumption, generated by comparatively strong economic growth (5.5 to 6.3 per cent).

The reserve margin of supply capacity of the state electricity company (PLN) is now so low, at just half of the recommended minimum 30 per cent required to ensure supply stability (above the demand during peak-load period), that a stoppage at just one major power station could cause a massive blackout.

Another major blackout hit Jakarta and parts of Java last week because the 600-megawatt Cilacap power station on the southern coast of Central Java stopped operations due to shortage of coal.

In February, PLN was forced to impose rolling blackouts in Java because four power plants could not operate at full capacity, causing a deficit of 1,000 megawatts in the Java-Bali electricity grid. …> go to article

Jakarta to Have Blackouts as BP Cuts Java Gas Supply

From Bloomberg.com: Energy

By Bambang Dwi Djanuarto and Leony Aurora

July 4 (Bloomberg) — Jakarta will experience intermittent blackouts for two weeks as BP Plc, Europe’s second-biggest oil company, suspends gas supplies to two power plants in Java.

State utility PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara will operate its Tanjung Priok and Muara Karang power plants that feed electricity to the capital below full capacity during the gas- supply cut, Widodo Budi Nugroho, the utility’s Jakarta distribution manager, said today.

Power outages are becoming more frequent on Java island as growthin generation capacity fails to keep pace with demand while the state utility lacks funds to upgrade its aging network. Listrik Negara plans to add 10,000 megawatts of coal-fired capacity, most of which will come into operation in 2010.

BP is halting operations in offshore gas fields near Java between July 11 and July 25 to conduct scheduled maintenance on a pipeline, said Ida Yusmiati, finance and commercial manager at BP’s unit in West Java.

The company will suspend supplies of 135 million cubic feet of gas a day to Listrik Negara and 65 million cubic feet a day to PT Perusahaan Gas Negara, the country’s biggest distributor of the fuel, Ida said.

Listrik Negara will buy an additional 150,000 kiloliters of diesel and 100,000 kiloliters of fuel oil to keep the two power plants running, Nugroho said.

Jakarta will face a 150-megawatt deficit while the gas pipeline is being repaired, he said. …> go to article

What strikes me about all this is that Indonesia does not lack the resources to power its cititesand economy. However, it does appear that there is weakness in the infrastructure which delivers that energy. That could be remedied with a coherent energy plan and strategic investment in energy infrastructure.

I say, Indonesia for the Indonesians,  and I would advocate a move toward  developmental economy, and strategic nationalization of the energy sector.

The other side of the coin is that Indonesia pays a high price socially and politically if people must burden the current market price of energy.  In the mean time global energy speculators drive the market prices ever higher.

The third side of the coin is the poltical and business corruption which is rife in these markets as they pertain to Indonesia.

From Reuters

Japan firms may quit Indonesia over power crisis 
Sat Jul 5, 2008 12:06pm 
By Telly Nathalia

JAKARTA, July 5 (Reuters) – Several Japanese firms have threatened to pull out of Indonesia unless the government fixes electricity supplies, as power cuts have caused production and financial losses, a business association said on Saturday.

Indonesia urgently needs to invest billions of dollars in improving its infrastructure in areas such as power and transportation.

PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN), the monopoly power supplier, has 24,000 MW of generating capacity but daily output is well below capacity due to old and inefficient plants, and parts of Java, Bali and Sumatra islands suffer frequent outages.

Japan’s ambassador to Jakarta sent a letter of complaint to the Indonesian government on behalf of about 400 Japanese firms operating in Indonesia, Mohammad Hidayat, chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN), told Reuters. …> go to article

 

The urban future

Taking oil to market in the Cepu fields (see photo essay at At US$130 a barrel there must be a cheaper way to get fuel. )

In the meantime…

Oil markets are such that the slightest upset in the status quo, say an attack on Iran by the United States or Israel, or a terrorist attack on Saudi oil facilities, would almost certainly more than double the current price of a barrel of oil.

In contrast, with some political will, Indonesia could make itself relatively immune from the larger economic impacts geopolitcal events have on the price of oil. But finally, this is a Faustian bargain at best largely because of of the looming global climate change crisis.

From AFP

Only seven years left for global warming target: UN panel chief
1 day ago

PARIS (AFP) – The head of the UN’s Nobel-winning panel of climate scientists on Friday said only seven years remained for stabilising emissions of global-warming gases at a level widely considered safe. …> go to article

Seven years.

Building Energy Efficiency: Why Green Buildings are Key to Asia’s Futureby Wen Hong / Madelaine Steller Chiang / Ruth A. Shapiro / Mark L. Clifford / Margarethe P. Laurenzi (editor)

From Asian Review of Books, Doug Ogden

“BUILDING ENERGY EFFICIENCY: WHY GREEN BUILDINGS ARE KEY TO ASIA’S FUTURE, an Asia Business Council book, is an excellent, comprehensive primer on Asia’s green building trend. More than half the world’s new construction is underway in Asia, and the boom is accelerating: China plans to shift from 30 percent urban today to 70 percent urban by 2050, and will build some 400 new cities to house 600 million rural-to-urban migrants over that period. That is, China alone plans to construct new buildings equivalent to two Americas by 2050.Up to 50 percent of all energy is consumed by buildings, including the lifecycle of developing the materials, constructing, and operating them. If the world is to have any hope of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, maximizing building energy efficiency and shifting toward zero-energy and ultimately plus-energy buildings is imperative.” …> go to review

 We are clearly at the crossroads.

 

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