DC Guy piece today was going to be a trashing of foreign journalists. Instead, upon thinking, DC Guy thought to ask a relevant question about hiring trends of expats across Asia.
Should foreign correspondents – and ex pats in general – speak the local language?
I’m asking because my original piece was going to be called, “Why Foreign Correspondents Suck and What they’re Not Telling You about Indonesia”.
In my wide-eyed thirties sometime last decade I rocked up to a cocktail-gathering of foreign correspondents in Indonesia, somewhere behind the Mandarin Hotel at the Hotel Indonesia Roundabout. I was all excited, imagining a smoky room full of spies and Year of Living Dangerously reporters. I mingled. I exchanged business cards. I chit-chatted about politics.
At first it seemed cool. One Bule reporter guy in his 60s ranted about Bangkok in the ’80s and how pathetic and lazy young journalists were. Cool. Another 40-something guy had just been laid off and was drinking away his severance package in bars in Asia. Cool. Some angry BBC chick was broadcasting her opinions (not so cool, but interesting). But then it struck me.
Most of them are tourists. Almost none of them spoke Indonesian.
“I’ve got a translator to do that”
said an Australian newspaperman.
“We’ve got fixers [slaves who set up appointments, get coffee, interns] for that”
said another Australian TV reporter. (A lot of Australians for some reason.) One English wire service reporter was even more blunt: they hire us [ex pats] for our skills – the locals do the language work. (In fairness, he was of Indian origin, not a bule.)
As the evening went on, I realized how little any of these supposed Guy Hamilton (Year of Living Dangerously) types actually cared about their stories. I paid attention and over the next few cocktail nights I realized that the Big Name correspondents rely on the Jakarta Post, Jakarta Globe and wire services to get their views. Maybe a few phone calls here and there to a diplomat, but in general they know much less than you, if you live in Indonesia, or me.
Let’s get this straight. They can’t understand the TV. They can’t understand the radio. They can’t read local blogs, websites, or newspapers. All they have is the English language sources. Granted, there’s a lot in English. Some email listserve called ‘Joyo’ apparently collates all the English language reporting and sends it out. One drunk American freelancer told me all he reads is Joyo and that’s enough.
Would you trust a White House reporter who didn’t speak English?
And why should I listen to a tourist? Why should the rest of the world? I don’t think they should. I think the foreign correspondents are generally a week or two behind the local press. I think they miss most of the most important stories. And I think the snootiness and arrogance hides an uncomfortable truth: they don’t know what they’re talking about.
That’s why the Aussie press writes about cheap drug dealers like Schapelle Corby getting busted. It’s why the Western wires were obsessed with Bird Flu whilst ignoring current epidemics such as Malaria or Dengue Fever. (Who cares, they’re just local brown people?) It’s why they sucked up to Indonesia’s lame duck President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono when everyone in Jakarta knew he was an armchair general. It’s also why they’re obsessed with terrorism when traffic jams and bad hospitals are more of a threat to most of the population.
The fixers’ version was even more telling. Some of them were kinda hot and came to the cocktail nights. They didn’t have much respect at all for their bosses. Sure, they kissed their asses, as we all do. But when it came down to it, it turns out the fixers do the work. They read the local newspapers, watch TV, make the phone calls, set up the appointments. And then bossman or woman walks off with all the credit. Why not just give the job to the local?
In fact companies across Asia are waking up to it. In an NYT piece For Westerners in Asia, the Job Market Grows Tougher, the writer talks about a tightening job market for ex pats; strangely, employers in Hong Kong wanted people who could speak Chinese.
I want more than anything to get back out there – preferably Jakarta so I can get up to my old tricks. But I know I’ve gotta pick up my game. I can’t just turn up like I did a decade ago, hang out a shingle and say
“unemployed white guy – hire me”
DC Guy’s message: the Western media is failing you. Ignore them. Read the Jakarta Post, the Jakarta Globe, get an RSS feed to blogs you’re interested in.
So Mr. Arie,
In your youth, you were, quite literally, a colonialist. You worked for a colonial government, (in the interest of the darkies, who couldn’t govern themselves no doubt).
What would have a 25-year old Mr. Arie said about the morality of his job?
Do you even have the moral right to talk about human rights abuses in Papua when you were aprt of a 350-year project to strip Indonesia of its natural resources and even condone slave labor? Shouldn’t your efforts be better turned to bringing the Dutch government – and people – to account for what they’ve done?
You could say the same about me as an American, but I just say, do business, get paid and get laid. Everybody wins.
It’s just liberal hypocrisy that makes me wanna puke. What would the Dutch police in Papua have done to dissenters back then? Fact is Soeharto borrowed most of his playbook from the Dutch.
well, you can find loads and loads of good e-books here: http://bookos.org
i checked but no e. du perron and szekely-lulofs only in dutch (and 1 in spanish)
Mr. Arie,
You’re apologizing for colonization, pure and simple. Simple question:
What the hell were the Dutch doing in the Indies? Wasn’t building windmills, that’s for sure. What were they ever doing here? Did Royal Dutch Shell ever pay back the profits it ripped out? And you were poking around in Papua out of the goodness of your hearts.
What about the Dutch ‘police action’ of 1945-1950…? Nice scruples. That was only a few years before you landed. Westerling – benign and scrupulous, c’mon mate, we screwed up in Iraq and Afghanistan, but you’re really tying yourself in knots. Then you go on and say the Indonesians (Potentates) were worse than the Dutch. Spin me another one.
Mr. Arie,
I’ll think on these points, read up and get back to you. For now, though, I will say, whatever the Indonesians have done to themselves, they’re not exactly calling out for the Dutch to come back. I’ll also leave you with a questionL: what would the young Mr. Arie have said about the Dutch government in Java and the rest of Indonesia? Of Westerling, of the police action?
Yessir! Have to respect work where it’s been put in.
Ok, Mr. Arie, others, have done some homework, this is where I’m at now:
* All the historiography and evidence points to the ‘Act of Free’ choice being a sham and a scam. What’s the rebuttal from Indonesian nationalist historians and commentators?
* I still say the quality of Mr. Arie’s mercy is strained. He’s obviously committed to the Papuan cause, after having worked on it in his youth. And sure, the sins of the father should not be visited upon the son and all that. But he’s being selective about the human rights issues he chooses to care about.
* As a former colonial official, why not put efforts into chronicling and documenting all of the wealth stripped out (or not) of Indonesia by Holland and lobbying for a commitment to:
Pay it the fuck back.
As an econometric exercise, calculate the net present value of all of the mineral, oil, gas, and plantations deals signed with Bupatis and Rajas and shit. Tally up the contribution of those revenues to Dutch economic growth and current GDP. Then pay it all back. Granted, I need to do more homework here and may be talking out of my burger-fed American ass.
(No dude, we’re not talking foreign aid. I’ve worked in that industry and it’s all about keeping the world safe for capitalism – propping up post war Bretton Woods economic order.)
Workout a ‘reparations for colonialism’ tax, levvy it on all Dutch citizens, transfer it over to Indonesia if you’re so concerned about human rights.
* An independent Papua would quickly turn into PNG. Just look across the border for a snapshot of the future. If they get it, a ruthless Papuan elite, probably driven by ethnic rivalries, will start quarrelling over the natural resource revenue. Within 10 years, crime, poverty, and violence to women will equalize with levels across the border. But hey – not your problem, right? And not Jen Robinson’s either.
Mr. Arie,
* I’m challenging the moral foundation of your intellectual position and interest in Indonesia and this area — I’m not telling you what to do or think. I’m just saying you’re selective in the human rights issues you choose to care about. I’m saying what we leave out is as important as what we put in.
* I’m recommending to Dutch people they focus on how their society has benefited from its relationship with Indonesia, what went wrong, what went right and importantly, what actually happened. Let’s do that econometric exercise and work out was stripped out and how much it contributed to Holland’s ‘first world’ status. Let’s look at the balance sheet.
Once we’ve got the balance sheet, we’ll know, how in hell a war-shocked European country in the 1950s could even afford a ‘government’ in West Papua on – the other side of the planet.
How much did Holland benefit from colonizing Indonesia? Was it a net gain or a net loss?
* I’m not telling the Papuans what to choose. We’d have to look at why they’re moving and who is moving and what they’re being told. I bet it adds up to preferring to be oppressed by a black frizzy-haired person than a Javanese. So be it. But a free West Papua would turn into PNG but worse because of the copper and gold this side of the border.
Thank you Mr. Arie, once again, will think uponst it and get back to you, sometime soon, but the weekend’s just starting, so it might be next week. Trust you understand. Best to all readers as well.
Thanks for the gutenberg link pak Arie!
And also thanks for your writings here, I love reading them!
Mr. Arie,
Dear Readers,
I’m going to have to bow out of this discussion and refer readers to the excellent Dutch War Crimes thread. Congratulations to those who contributed, especially Mr. Arie.
My intellectual position now is that he’s apologizing for Holland’s past by using the murkiness of history to blur the case against colonialism. That said, it’s easy for us younger folk to judge events we didn’t live through because, well, we didn’t live through them. Facing the uncertainty of the future in real time is very different to looking back at fixed events.
So I’ll have to defer this debate. Mr. Arie thanks for indulging me. I’d have to do more reading and homework I just don’t have time to do. For now, I’ll just sit back, read that War Crimes thread, and think.
Mr. Arie,
Ok, did some reading. Here’s where I’m at:
* The boundaries of Indonesia were supposed to be the old Dutch East Indies – “from Sabang to Merauke.” I don’t think the Dutch government back then was ethical and human *at all*. The peace deal, according to histories, left the burden of paying for the war – including the Dutch police action – on the new Republic. The Indonesians were desperate to sign a peace deal, so they agreed to all sorts of outrageous demands by the embittered Dutch – including stewardship of Papua. Why not an act of Free Choice in Aceh? Why not the Malukus? Why not Java and Bali? Truth is, ethics and the welfare of the Papuans had nothing to do with it. The Dutch wanted to punish the new Republic. You got spun, my friend.
* Independence and a ‘Free Papua’, would make Papuans worse off. Firstly, at least half the population is not ethnically Papuan any more – they’re Malay, Bugis, Ambonese, and Javanese, living in the cities. The ethnic Papuans have known tribal wars for thousands of years. If somehow West Papua (Papua, actually) was magically given independence, the territory would be torn apart by ethnic violence. And what would happen to the non ethnic Papuans? We can assume they’d want to stay in Indonesia.
Gotta sign out after this post to get back to my next piece on ‘Down and out in D.C.: Memories of Indonesia II’.
Aren’t most of the abuses directed towards the ethnic Papuans?
jep, that’s what i’m saying
Mr. Arie,
That’s not what Indonesia’s historians say.
What do you mean by this sentence?:
“Indonesia entered upon the estate of Netherlands India”
I can’t believe you think the deal was a fair one. What about the wealth drained from Indonesia in the VOC years and 19th and first half of the 20th century?
Personally, I think the Dutch companies operating in Indonesia had it coming to them.
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Oigal in addition to what Madrotter wreote already this:some of the books we referred to can be found in English. The University of Massachussets Press published a translation of Du Perron’s “Land van Herkomst” under the title “Country of Origin” (1989).
The same press published a translation of one of the books by P.A. (Paatje) Daum who was editor of the Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad in the late 19thC. Its title is: “Ups and Downs of Life in the Indies”. Daum wrote quite a few books (many of which appeared originally as “feuilletons” in his newspaper) but I don’t know of any other translation.
Szekely-Lulofs has been widely translated. The books we referred to were “Rubber” and “Coolie”. I don’t think there is an English translation of “De Hongertocht” (the Hunger Patrol) which is based on the patrol reports of a Dutch lieutenant who, during the Dutch Aceh War, lost, together with his group of mainly Indonesian soldiers, the way in the Acehnese jungle. They had provisions for one week and a half but it took almost six weeks before they were found – by then quite a few of his men had died.
CCSpyguy – you asked what I did in Papua. I arrived there in late 1954 and was trained in Hollandia (Jayapura) for the Inland Civil Service (BB). I worked, after an academic interlude in Holland, in the same position during the UNTEA government and departed early 1963. I must correct here a statement I made in my previous post. The documents I “salvaged” were picked up during the early not the late UNTEA period when the Resident’s Office was deserted and his replacements (in quick succession two Britishers, a Jamaican and an Indonesian) had not yet arrived.
Madrotter, this is bad news indeed and clearly a result of Holland’s bad financial situation at present. The government is supposed to hold on to all pre-1950 books in accordance with its archival duties. But that seems to be only about 10 % of this library of almost one million books. The rest has to be given to other institutions (probably mainly the KITLV in Leiden) or “recycled” (read: dumped). If it were sold it would probably fetch a tidy sum but that would require quite a number of staff and the government is dismissing 32 of the 33 persons strong library personnel.
Thanks for the link.