..... according to the headlines on the front page of the Jakarta Post.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani slags off World Bank
Consumers, rich and poor, pick fake goods
Public still hostile to PKI
That's three headlines and a big photo of some farmers protesting rice imports and a smaller one of bosom pals Jacques Chirac and George Bush Jr. shaking hands. George looks really scruffy.
Hang on a sec, what's this tucked away in half a single column on the right?
Thai troops stage coup against Thaksin
Now this regional news is the lead story in the UK papers The Guardian and The Independent and you would expect a similar reaction here. All I have found is a short article in the JP to say that the Indonesian Embassy in Bangkok has issued a Travel Advisory* to Indonesian citizens which basically says carry some ID and hati-hati (be careful).
The Bangkok Post has fuller information, perhaps thus denying reports of press censorship. Current 'breaking news' includes a statement from Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Desra Percaya ~ and you know you can trust her when she says, "The Indonesian Government has closely followed the political developments in Thailand with concern and expresses its hope that through democratic means, the political crisis in Thailand can be resolved peacefully for the interests of the Thai people."
Percaya said the government advised Indonesian citizens in Thailand to maintain close contact with the Indonesian Embassy in Bangkok, adding that the situation there was reportedly under control.
Tanks for the memoriesSo that's all right then. Nothing about the overthrow of a democratically-elected government, but perhaps that's because history is being rewritten here to show that Suharto's ascension to power was perfectly legitimate. It was the fault of those pesky commies (Partai Kommunist Indonesia) that the military was forced to step in and to force Sukarno to step down.
The Education Ministry has rewritten school history books once again, restoring the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) as the sole culprit of the aborted 1965 coup and the bloodletting that followed, in which tens of thousands of people died. (Or a million?)
In the earlier 2004 trial education curriculum, the PKI is mentioned as only one of several perpetrators of the grassroots violence after the coup attempt, in which at least 80,000 people were killed. Thousands more PKI members and alleged sympathizers were imprisoned without trial for many years.
"When we arranged the 2006 history curriculum, we found that making the PKI the main perpetrator was the most acceptable truth for Indonesians," University of Indonesia historian Susanto Zuhdi told The Jakarta Post.
Eh? The most acceptable truths?
Try these for size and ask youself which one(s) are truly believable.
Did you know:
- that the Earth really is flat and any other perception is an optical illusion?
- that Global Warming is a fantasy perpetrated by fools spouting a lot of hot air?
- that the moon landings were faked by NASA?
- that my mother had webbed toes? We called her Ducks.
- that this photo was taken just seconds before the destruction of WTC on 9/11 or, as we Brits like to say, 11/9?
*The (UK) Foreign Office was not advising visitors to leave Thailand or cancel trips. It said: "If you intend to travel to or are currently in Bangkok, you should monitor all available information on the local situation. You should also avoid any demonstrations and large crowds. Movements around government buildings and in public may be restricted until the situation becomes clearer."
Among the thousands of Britons in the country are 800 with Thomas Cook. "There is no effect in the main holiday resorts and no apparent threat to tourists," the firm said last night.
