Friday, February 23, 2024

Home and Country (Heartache) Stories

As usual, I spent Chinese New Year back home. It was a rather different trip this time around because it coincided with the election right at Valentine Day. So here are some of the stories and thoughts. Chinese New Year was okay, the anti-social me was pretty much spent at the end of day one with the different people coming to the house. Not to say I don't like seeing all the families, in fact I do, but I was tired. The next day, mom and me made a trip to Bangka. The last time I was there was 8 years ago for a day trip with mom and my aunt and that was 7 years after I made a day trip with my dad. My mom totally forgot that I once made a day trip with dad and I also had to rack my brain for what we were there for. This blog was helpful because I wrote about parts of that trip here. This time around, it wasn't for a day trip. We were staying for one night and was to return the next day with my cousin's adult kids. As the plane was approaching Bangka, I remembered that the last time I was there, I saw many holes like ponds filled with turquoise water that looked beautiful actually. Those were remnants of tin mines. I guess I had it lucky that time to see beautiful turquoise water. A cousin told me on her trip, it was more like brown murky water. I guess the look might be different depending on the weather of the day. However, this time around I didn't see those ponds anymore. What I saw were rows and rows of palm oil trees. Palm oil plantations are taking off in Bangka. Environmentally, I don't know if it's a good thing, but I suppose if some of those tin mines holes can be re-developed, I guess it's good. We had my aunt, uncle, and their son taking us around all the while we were there. They said now the tin mines are off shore at the sea. Not sure how that works but I guess Bangka is still filled with resources. My uncle happens to have a palm oil plantation himself and mom was curious and asked to be taken there. I had to ride at the back of the pickup truck with my aunt because there wasn't enough seat at the front and though it got windy and rainy later on and I got smacked by palm oil leaves (because the trees weren't tall) and there were bugs, the whole trip was interesting for me. I'm sure their plantation is considered minuscule compared to the palm oil plantantions owned by big companies, but it's still pretty big. I don't know how the quality and price of their palm oil stand in the market. I also don't know how the produces from Bangka stand against the produces from other parts of Indonesia and other palm oil producer countries. My aunt is not sure too, she just knows the Malaysian ones are fetching higher price. Their plantation is doing pretty good I guess, harvest is every 2 weeks now.

We stayed at that aunt and uncle's house to the delight of my aunt. They're all very nice. We also got to go to my dad's village and I met with my cousin. His wife is nice and friendly. I was just surprised she remembered my name considering I think I only met her twice. The air in my dad's village smelled different and breathing it and seeing the sand on the ground, it reminded me of Bangka of my childhood, the feel of it not actual memories because I don't remember the childhood vacations there. We also made it it my grandpa's village and house. Both in my dad and my grandpa's villages, their old homes are used as memorials for the family members that have passed away, so there's an altar where we can do a prayer and a lot of family pictures on the wall. Other than that, we also got to visit a Buddhist pagoda that oversees hills. All agree that it's not right to charge entrance ticket to enter a place that supposedly is a place of worship, it should be voluntary donation instead. It was raining when we got there so that's not ideal to go exploring and we couldn't explore all parts of the compound, but it actually made it quite beautiful with the mist covering the green landscape. One thing that got me quite impressed was how good the Bangka airport is now. It's still not very big, but it's looking better and more professional. Reminded me a bit of Nairobi's airport. One source of disappointment was both flights in and out of Bangka were rescheduled, so that annoyed us, but we got in and out okay, so all and all it's a good trip.

Mom decided to take a break starting from Chinese New Year to election day. The election was really worrying me because all the surveys were showing that Pak Ganjar was in the last place. I remember having many conversations with mom saying I didn't understand why this was so. She said the surveys may not be right. The same thing was said by one of my cousin who came to the house, he's older and a dad with grown kids, but Indonesian surveys on this have never been wrong and they're keeping their streak with this election too. I had a bad feeling when the last surveys were putting Prabowo above 50%, enough for one round of election, and also after the last debate because though the debates clearly showed who sucks so bad it just gave me the feel of the debates during Jakarta gubernatorial election between Ahok and Anies, where it's clear who's the better candidate was and the people chose wrong. Hearing my mom and cousin, I did have hope maybe this time the surveys got it wrong, maybe there's something that wasn't captured by the surveys, but I was the one who's wrong. I wrote it here that there's no way the presidential election gonna be settled with one round, but it's indeed one round only. It was a big heartache for me really. Mom was disappointed but I think not as much as me. I couldn't watch the news after the election. It's what it felt like I suppose when Trump won the election, but at least with Trump the majority of American said no to him. For reasons that I still don't understand, there are actual Indonesians who voted for Prabowo. I know that people have their own different reasons on why they cast their vote, but for me it's the principles and that's perhaps the furthest from many people's mind. Like fairness and all, I guess who cares :( I still couldn't believe why the vote went the way it went. I kinda question people now, like I thought I know people, but I am so wrong. I began to suspect that even my brother voted for Prabowo. Mom asked him and when we found out he voted for Pak Ganjar, we're like oh good he's still sane :D There's a lot of disappointment in me, like even in Singapore I don't get why many Indonesians here also voted for Prabowo. My theory is perhaps the many maids here followed along with their family back home. I care way too much on this :( I tried to comfort myself and say that election has consequences. When the shit hits the fan, I guess me and my mom can have our conscience clear and I could say to all the people who voted for Prabowo, enjoy this mess you actually made.

I myself got to vote at home. I was worried about this, but it actually went okay. When mom found out that polling station opened at 07:00 AM, she was actually keen to go early so I accompanied her there on a rainy morning. I couldn't vote yet because I had to wait until the last one hour. I went by myself at 12:15 pm. When I got there, there's a disagreement between the man in front of me and the staff. Somehow he was told he had missed his time to vote. One of the lady talking to him was actually an officer from the Election Supervisory Agency / Bawaslu. They all sucks this year. Even without knowing the whole story, I know they're wrong because there isn't any time limit on when one can vote, everyone can vote until the closing time which was 1 pm. It's just people like me who's not registered who had to come at the last one hour. The man and his family were allowed to vote after intense discussion. I overheard him saying he's ready to report all of them. I don't know if it was related, during this whole time suddenly a small truck of security staff suddenly appeared, but all was resolved. I gave my ID card and the staff noted that I should get all the voting papers. As I went to collect the 4 voting papers, I asked if there are people who couldn't get all the papers. They explained that people who did not have the local ID card but had the paper indicating that they could vote in that polling station, could only vote for the president. Since my ID card indicates my address in the area, I get to choose who's gonna represent Jakarta. People with an Indonesian ID card but without the address indicating the area they live in and no paper indicating they could vote in their residency, would not be able to vote. It's really complex this process for the staff, they need to remember all the scenarios. My mom is of the opinion that all Indonesians with an Indonesian ID card should be able to vote for president wherever. I said people worry there will repeated votes, she countered isn't the purpose of inking our finger is to detect this. She thinks the process should be simplified to make it easier for all people to participate. Anyway when I inked my finger after I put in all my votes in the different boxes, the staff by the ink chatted with me. I don't know her, but she knew me by name! My mom knows her and was telling me who she was but I really don't know her. She was friendly so I chatted a bit with her and after that I said thank you to all the staff :D I was appreciative of the tasks they did, really. It was very precious for me getting to vote on the spot. The last time and only time I got to do this was when I was 17 back in 1999. An election that was called early because of the bloody reformation year in 1998. I did think of going back to watch the votes being counted. Really wished that dad was around because he would go and I wouldn't be alone. In the end I didn't go because the staff at my polling station was taking a break after closing and I didn't know what time they're going to start counting and then when I looked at the votes coming in on Kawal Pemilu, the direction it was going was devastating enough :( Pak Ganjar lost by 5 votes to the first place Prabowo in my polling station by the way *sigh* :(

The last election thing that I want to talk about is the video that came on YouTube, Dirty Vote. Tuesday morning the last day before election, I saw the news ticker on the TV station my mom was watching was mentioning this documentary a lot and it's causing quite a stir. I googled it and found it. My mom's tablet was running low on power so I thought of watching it after it was charged. Then me and mom went to my cousin's place to chit chat awhile. After we got back mom was lazing around and called me to watch a movie she found on her phone. It was the same documentary and I told her I was already planning on watching it. I didn't intend to watch it on her small phone but we eventually did. It's running for close to 2 hours and I wasn't sure she's going to watch the whole thing, but we were really engrossed in it, even pausing for short break. It was presented by 3 legal experts who pretty much brought the receipts on the irregularity and unfairness that's happening in this election. There isn't any new revelation actually because all that they presented have been covered by the news. It's just with the news in the course of months and years, we forget that things happened and these people connect the dots. As we watched this my mom kept on saying that they're so brave. I said, if it's 1998, they'd be made disappear tonight and sure enough that night a police report was made against them. I thought it's so good that there are such people who watch what's happening in our country and were willing to take the risk to voice out the injustice they see. The criticism against them is that they're trying to sway people's opinion during quiet time where all campaignings must stop, but they're not asking people to vote on a particular candidate, so they're not campaigning. If one candidate appear the worst, well it's not their fault, it's the fault of the people who are actually doing the bad deeds. I think if there's one candidate who appears quite clean, it's candidate number one but it's simply because they have the least support from people of power and positions.

Two things struck me the most in this doc. First was the social welfare assistance / bansos that Pak Jokowi eagerly distributed so close to the election. I put it squarely on him because it's also documented that the social minister wasn't involved during the distribution. The evil me would ask did he also order for the stickers of candidate number 2 to be pasted on these govermnent packages? Just in 2024 and we're talking up to the early February, the amount that has been distributed is close and over what's been distributed in each of the COVID years. Like just up to early February, it's close to the amount for the whole year in 2020 and has exceeded the whole year of 2021, 2022, and 2023! So my question is, if the goverment actually has enough money, then could they have done more during the COVID years? Have the people who worked much like the grave diggers, the healthcare workers been compensated enough? Could more death have been averted? If the government does not have that much money and President Jokowi is being careless with this, then shitty things are going to happen in the future. Prices of things are getting expensive after the election and now going to Ramadhan, but I don't see him distributing social assistance now. Has the money run out when it actually matters? Also if there's a natural disaster this year, will they have enough to help the people? This is one injustice that bothers me. One village leader who spoke out in anonymity talked about how the distribution process was so forced, that the people who receive it did not match the needy people list he had and it caused tension in his village because people could see people who did not need it receive it too. There's definitely something wrong with how the assistance is being distributed because my mom sees people getting things and she always says she never gets anything. I would always say, but it's right that you don't get anything. I also got to think back about the thing President Jokowi's son said during the debate, that it's not always the government who should help the people. The government could get assistance from the private sectors. Replaying that in my head now, it seems to me they're only going to mobilize government resources when it's beneficial for them politically and that's shitty. The second thing in the doc that's been bothering me is the decision by the constitution court that has been been used as the basis to allow President Jokowi's son to run. I don't know how much of this have been discussed in Indonesia. I did hear of this when I watched this in Channel News Asia the day the news broke, but to my mom this was new information. Maybe she was one of those people who get bored with the repeated news on this that she tuned out, but I think this part is critical. The decision was about if a person below 40 years old but has post through election could run for presidency / vice presidency. Four of the judges said no, well maybe hell no. Three of the judges which includes President Jokowi's in-law said yes. Two of the judges said yes BUT the post has to be governor level at the minimum. Since President Jokowi's son is just a mayor, applying the ruling on him would lead to 3 saying yes and 6 saying no. So shouldn't he be disqualified? He doesn't meet the requirement. Isn't this the most straightforward path to say his candidacy is flawed and against the law? Don't get me wrong, I have really mix feeling. I understand the chaos or fear of riot if we start questioning the legitimacy of the election, but this is shitty as hell and once injustice and unfairness take roots, it's not so easy to dethrone. That's the lesson of 1998, how bloody it was to get reformed. I also know that it's perhaps fear that caused many voters to vote for Prabowo, but it's never good to operate from the place of fear right? Instead of moving forward and being better, we're getting worse because now they can always use fear to put us down. I actually feel sorry for President Jokowi. No doubt he has done some good work, but because of this people like me has lost all respect at him. Days before the election there were demonstrations against this injustice, many universities leaders spoke out to critique him, but I guess his attitude is haters gonna hate hate hate, because he doesn't seem to care. He and his family are shameless in this. I remember telling my mom those students doing the demonstration should just stop and put their protests into votes against his son. Then mom was telling me, but the purpose of the protest is to wake people up so people are aware of this unfairness. Same thing that this documentary is trying to do. Maybe it's too little too late? I don't know. Mom was confused because she's wondering where did all the votes from these students and the universities go? I honestly cannot fathom why a young person would be willing to vote for President Jokowi's son. If you struggle to make do in life and get ahead, how can you endorse someone who easily gets to the second highest office in the country simply by being the president's son. If he's just a common citizen, noone would look at him twice. He and us the common people are in a different universe. This has been a long post about the election, but it really irks me to no end. I know God and karma exist, so we'll see.

I'm gonna end with a book I just finished, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I love it a lot. Starting the book, it reminded me a lot of Shuggie Bain. Somewhere in the middle, I happened to read the dedication on the front again, For the survivors, so I thought it's about a kid who survived having addict mother and absent father but Demon Copperhead is much much more than that. He survived foster care and all, but then he himself became an opioid addict. At the end of the book, I was thinking he's most probably just in his early 20s but he has lived a lot. With all his struggles, I didn't think much about his love life but somehow I did wonder if there's an end with all the different girls he met and I'm glad the ending is pretty good. It's most probably the best to be with someone you can have good conversation with. Learned a new thing is this book which I'm actually still not sure about. Demon Copperhead's ethnicity is Melungeon. I googled it but still not sure how they really look like. Anyways, usually I like books that I love to be made into TV series or movies, but I think I'm good with this one. I think any adaption will not do it justice with the way I pictured it in my head, though I really would like to see the characters in person, like how Demon, Maggot, Angus, Tommy, Emmy, Dori, Fast Forward, and all the other characters look like and how they sound. It was really a good read, I love it a lot.

:) eKa @ 8:32:00 PM • 0 comments