[Kabar-indonesia] Pontianak: Haze and high prices blight the air of freedom

[Joyo at aol.com]

New Straits Times
02 September 2006

Columns

Wavelength: Haze and high prices blight the air of
freedom

John Teo

A MALAYSIAN living in Jakarta over the past decade
said last weekend that the best thing about it was
soaking in Indonesia’s new-found sense of freedom.

I then spent a day and night in Pontianak, West
Kalimantan, choking on thick, toxic haze. Visibility
was barely a hundred metres and fires were burning on
farmland on both sides of the highway to the airport.

People on motorcycles — the king of Pontianak’s roads
— went about their business while children practised a
dragon dance routine outside their school yard as
nonchalantly as if it had been a day of clear blue
skies.

An Indonesian daily carried a big front-page picture
of the Singapore skyline shrouded in haze, as if to
assuage Indonesians’ collective guilt and
embarrassment over it. Indonesians from the president
down make the customary noises about not exporting
their troubles into neighbouring countries, but if
fires are burning undoused in the heart of Pontianak,
we may have to get used to the annual occurrence for
years to come.

The charming if occasionally infuriating
self-effacement of Indonesians at causing trouble to
neighbours may be genuine but the political will
simply does not exist to tackle the problem. If
ordinary Indonesians themselves appear unperturbed by
the haze, what is a little embarrassment caused the
neighbours?

If Malaysians gripe about how bad things are getting
in Malaysia — from mild haze, rising prices, to
services or facilities not up to scratch — they need
only hop across the border to quickly get a dose of
perspective.

If prices in Malaysian supermarkets are high, in
Indonesia they are higher still. A three-star hotel
room in Pontianak charges the equivalent of RM175. One
gets a Kuching Hilton room at that price — without
having to shower in water evidently contaminated with
sea-water seepage as a result of the dry weather.

If you wonder why tens of millions of Indonesians are
unemployed while the country enjoys an abundance of
natural resources and economies of scale close to 10
times ours yet has such a high-cost economy relative
to a more advanced one such as Malaysia’s, you may
want to weep for the country.

But there is a ready explanation for the high costs.
Indonesia’s legendary corruption is as strong as ever
despite the strides in opening up politically. Or
maybe only stronger and because of, not despite, the
opening up.

A debate is brewing over the ill effects of the
decentralisation of power down to district level. The
intention might have been noble but the net practical
result has been an additional layer of stifling
bureaucracy, new taxes and fees and more corruption
for businesses to contend with. The exception of savvy
business-friendly provinces has been few and far in
between: Such oil and gas-rich places as East
Kalimantan and Riau.

But decentralisation has created a powerful new class
of vested interests so any appreciable rollback is
unlikely any time soon.

A bright spot is the flowering of newspapers across
the archipelago. Even Pontianak, which did not have
regular dailies before, sports brightly designed
publications.

While I was in town, Siti Nurhaliza’s wedding,
Indonesians’ happy experiences of a university
education in Kuching and Malaysian palm-oil industry
executives’ meeting with the governor featured
prominently.

Reports of scandals are now a staple of Indonesian
publications. They are certainly not shy about
splashing what traditional democracy advocates would
say is their rightful province. But the sceptic in me
wonders: Where is the outrage among readers or shame
in the targets? Why is corruption so stubbornly
pervasive despite all the daylight shining on it?

Breathing the air of freedom in Indonesia may be
intoxicating but can be painful on the pocket. I’d
sooner be breathing the less haze-laden air in
Kuching. It’s also easier on my pocket. Pity the vast
majority of Indonesians — those without deep pockets.
If only they could live on fresh air alone.

------------------------------------------ 
Joyo Indonesia News Service
------------------------------------------