Bureaucracy, Presidential Dinners & The Bule Effect
Yesterday I got my first exposure to the downside of working under the U.S. government. Up to this point, it’s all been pretty peachy – deluxe hotel, VIP access around the city, top-notch lecturers and conversations. I was actually beginning to wonder when the machinations of the much maligned American bureaucratic animal would kick it, and sure enough, it did.
When I was still in the States, I arranged with Real Medicine, a Los Angeles-based NGO, that I would be their representative on the ground here in Indonesia, and that I would visit Yogyakarta, home of the massive earthquake that killed several hundred people a few weeks ago. I had arranged meetings with doctors and aid workers on the ground, and I was going to stay there with David Wolfowitz, a Fulbrighter and son of Paul Wolfowitz, current president of the World Bank and former ambassador to Indonesia. I had purchased plane tickets yesterday morning for the paltry sum of sixty dollars roundtrip.
Unfortunately, the week-old executive director at Fulbright, Mike McCoy, notified us after our first morning session on Friday that new policy forbids travel outside of Jakarta during our month of training here. I had to cancel my meetings, let the director of Real Medicine know that I won’t be able to work on the ground for another month, back out on Wolfowitz, and eat half the cost for my tickets.
All was not lost though. Wolfowitz is sending me photos from Yogyakarta that Real Medicine can use at a benefit dinner next week. And since I was able to stick around Jakarta for another Friday night, John and I had a pretty unique experience of our own right here.
One of the best parts about being a bule (white foreigner) here in Indonesia is the undeserved access one gets to people. By dint of skin tone and feigned maturity, I have met and hung out with people here who wouldn’t look twice my way Stateside. I call this phenomenon the bule effect.
Mid-week, John was invited to an event to commemorate the Alliance of Independent Journalist’s (AJI) twelfth anniversary. John passed along an invitation to me, but since I was supposed to be in Jogya this weekend, I turned down the appealing offer. However, since my plans “fell through,” I was able to tag along last night for what proved to be yet another very cool and inspiring event. The night started sitting next to the former President of Indonesia, and ended singing live karaoke with the Jakartan intelligentsia.
Somehow John and I managed to arrive an hour late to the event, which was held in the ballroom of a swank hotel in central Jakarta. Some three hundred people were milling about, talking and networking while eating nasi goreng (fried rice) and pineapple. By nature of the bule effect, as soon as John and I entered the ballroom, we were ushered to the front of the hall, directly in front of the speaker’s podium, and next to the table where the night’s press freedom award winners were seated. One of this year’s winners was Abdurrachman Wahid, Indonesia’s fourth President, who served from 1999 to 2001, the tumultuous years following the deposition of Suharto. He was ten feet to my left, sitting with a group of lively and happy Indonesian men and women, none of whom were wearing the jilbab (headscarf). Wahid was not the greatest President, but he has since made a legacy for himself by promoting free speech and advocating the liberalization of Islamic politics.
All of the night’s speeches were in Indonesian, and I could only get a general feel for what was being discussed, but most speakers seemed to focus on the concept of free speech and how far it has come in only seven years. When AJI was founded in 1994, because of the repressive then twenty year-old Suharto regime, all free speech and controversial publishing was done underground from people’s homes, at great risk to their safety.
It is absolutely incredible to see how far things have come since then. To think that only seven years ago this country was on the brink of exploding. As I spent the evening talking with some of Indonesia’s most respected radio, print, and photojournalists, I repeatedly asked the question, “Do you see Indonesia moving towards stronger democratic processes or towards more fundamental Islam, or are the two not mutually exclusive?” Everyone that I asked responded with “We’ll just have to see.” Coming from what could arguably be called the source of democratic change and progress, I didn’t find that to be too inspiring.
After the event ended, John and I left with a twenty-seven year old Australian radio producer named Rebecca. She has been working as a regional BBC correspondent here for the past few years, and proved to be very well connected. We wound up sharing pitchers of beer and singing karaoke to a live cover band with some of the country’s most important thinkers and writers. The editor in chief of the Jakarta Post and I shared a Sting duet while “Anchorman” played on the TV overhead. It was magical.
When I was still in the States, I arranged with Real Medicine, a Los Angeles-based NGO, that I would be their representative on the ground here in Indonesia, and that I would visit Yogyakarta, home of the massive earthquake that killed several hundred people a few weeks ago. I had arranged meetings with doctors and aid workers on the ground, and I was going to stay there with David Wolfowitz, a Fulbrighter and son of Paul Wolfowitz, current president of the World Bank and former ambassador to Indonesia. I had purchased plane tickets yesterday morning for the paltry sum of sixty dollars roundtrip.
Unfortunately, the week-old executive director at Fulbright, Mike McCoy, notified us after our first morning session on Friday that new policy forbids travel outside of Jakarta during our month of training here. I had to cancel my meetings, let the director of Real Medicine know that I won’t be able to work on the ground for another month, back out on Wolfowitz, and eat half the cost for my tickets.
All was not lost though. Wolfowitz is sending me photos from Yogyakarta that Real Medicine can use at a benefit dinner next week. And since I was able to stick around Jakarta for another Friday night, John and I had a pretty unique experience of our own right here.
One of the best parts about being a bule (white foreigner) here in Indonesia is the undeserved access one gets to people. By dint of skin tone and feigned maturity, I have met and hung out with people here who wouldn’t look twice my way Stateside. I call this phenomenon the bule effect.
Mid-week, John was invited to an event to commemorate the Alliance of Independent Journalist’s (AJI) twelfth anniversary. John passed along an invitation to me, but since I was supposed to be in Jogya this weekend, I turned down the appealing offer. However, since my plans “fell through,” I was able to tag along last night for what proved to be yet another very cool and inspiring event. The night started sitting next to the former President of Indonesia, and ended singing live karaoke with the Jakartan intelligentsia.
Somehow John and I managed to arrive an hour late to the event, which was held in the ballroom of a swank hotel in central Jakarta. Some three hundred people were milling about, talking and networking while eating nasi goreng (fried rice) and pineapple. By nature of the bule effect, as soon as John and I entered the ballroom, we were ushered to the front of the hall, directly in front of the speaker’s podium, and next to the table where the night’s press freedom award winners were seated. One of this year’s winners was Abdurrachman Wahid, Indonesia’s fourth President, who served from 1999 to 2001, the tumultuous years following the deposition of Suharto. He was ten feet to my left, sitting with a group of lively and happy Indonesian men and women, none of whom were wearing the jilbab (headscarf). Wahid was not the greatest President, but he has since made a legacy for himself by promoting free speech and advocating the liberalization of Islamic politics.
All of the night’s speeches were in Indonesian, and I could only get a general feel for what was being discussed, but most speakers seemed to focus on the concept of free speech and how far it has come in only seven years. When AJI was founded in 1994, because of the repressive then twenty year-old Suharto regime, all free speech and controversial publishing was done underground from people’s homes, at great risk to their safety.
It is absolutely incredible to see how far things have come since then. To think that only seven years ago this country was on the brink of exploding. As I spent the evening talking with some of Indonesia’s most respected radio, print, and photojournalists, I repeatedly asked the question, “Do you see Indonesia moving towards stronger democratic processes or towards more fundamental Islam, or are the two not mutually exclusive?” Everyone that I asked responded with “We’ll just have to see.” Coming from what could arguably be called the source of democratic change and progress, I didn’t find that to be too inspiring.
After the event ended, John and I left with a twenty-seven year old Australian radio producer named Rebecca. She has been working as a regional BBC correspondent here for the past few years, and proved to be very well connected. We wound up sharing pitchers of beer and singing karaoke to a live cover band with some of the country’s most important thinkers and writers. The editor in chief of the Jakarta Post and I shared a Sting duet while “Anchorman” played on the TV overhead. It was magical.
posted by Nick Taranto | 2:26 AM
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