Jews live in the shadows in Muslim-majority Indonesia

Yahoo – AFP, Peter Brieger in Jakarta and Ronny Buol in Tondano, 5 March 2019

Most members of the tiny Jewish community in Muslim-majority Indonesia
keep their identity under wraps

Yaakov Baruch is the rabbi at Indonesia's only synagogue but he keeps his religious identity under wraps, like most of the tiny Jewish community living in the world's biggest Muslim-majority nation.

A group of men threatened Baruch with death and called him a "crazy Jew" as he walked in a mall with his pregnant wife several years ago, prompting him to limit when he wears his kippah -- a Jewish skullcap.

"It's never happened again because I chose to hide my identity as a Jew in public," he said.

There is a similar ripple of concern among many of the estimated 200 Jews living in the Southeast Asian country of 260 million people, with most centred in a remote corner of the sprawling archipelago.

Manado on Sulawesi island is one of the few places that Indonesia's remaining Jews -- mostly descendants of traders from Europe and Iraq who were once thought to number around several thousand before World War II -- feel comfortable showing their faith.

A 62-foot-tall menorah, possibly the world's largest, stands near the town of Tondano -- around 20 kilometres (13 miles) south of Manado -- where Baruch holds regular services at a modest, red-roofed synagogue.

Indonesia's remaining Jews are mostly descendents of traders from Europe and

Iraq who were once thought to number around several thousand before World War II

'The enemy'

The Shaar Hasyamayim synagogue is Indonesia's lone house of worship for Jews after the only other one in the city of Surabaya was demolished in 2013.

It had been the site of anti-Israel protests for years, and was sealed off by religious hardliners in 2009 and left to decay.

Indonesia has long been praised for its moderate brand of Islam, but more conservative forms of the religion have taken centre stage in recent years, driven by increasingly vocal hardline groups.

Tensions in the Middle East, particularly between Israel and the Palestinians, spill over here and deepen religious divides.

Thousands of hardliners demonstrated in Jakarta when US President Donald Trump announced last year that the American embassy in Israel would be moved to the contested city of Jerusalem.

"There is still a lot of anti-semitic sentiment in Indonesia," Baruch said.

"Generally speaking, Indonesians don't differentiate between being Jewish and Israel. They think Jews and Israel are the enemy of their religion and state," he added.

"There is no denying that tolerance is fading in our country."

The size of the Jewish community makes it almost invisible so Jews have not 

been the target of Islamist militants like some of Indonesia's larger religious minorities

The size of the Jewish community makes it almost invisible so Jews have not been the target of Islamist militants like some of Indonesia's larger religious minorities.

A wave of deadly suicide bombings at churches in Surabaya last year highlighted the threat to minority groups, while Shiites and Ahmadis -- regarded as heretics by some majority Sunni Muslims -- have also been the target of violence.

Kosher food shortage

Still, Indonesia's Jews are on the radar of some groups.

Monique Rijkers' efforts to bridge the divide with a TV programme about Judaism drew the ire of the Indonesian Muslim Students Association, which she claims reported her to government and broadcast regulators.

"They demanded that I be fired and that the programme be cancelled," said Rijkers, founder of Hadassah of Indonesia, a non-profit organisation that offers cultural education programmes centred on Israel, Jews and the Holocaust.

Indonesia's Jews face some practical challenges, too, such as finding kosher food in a country where it's not widely available.

Another hurdle is that Indonesia has long allowed for only six different religious categories on all-important ID cards -- Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism.

Indonesia's Jews face some practical challenges, too, such as finding kosher 

food in a country where it's not widely available

The cards are crucial for accessing government services, and for doing things such as registering marriages and births, meaning most Jews lie and put "Christianity" on the documents.

Even some Muslim Indonesians learn that taking an interest in anything Jewish can raise eyebrows.

Sapri Sale, who started teaching a Hebrew class in Jakarta a year ago, has been studying the language since the 1990s and compiled what he says is the world's first Hebrew-Indonesian dictionary.

But his interests got little positive feedback at home.

"I was called Sapri the Jew," he said.

Indonesian museum removes Nazi-themed exhibit after outrage

Yahoo – AFP, November 11, 2017

An Indonesian woman take a selfie with a life-size wax sculpture of Adolf Hitler
at a museum in Yogyakarta (AFP Photo/Henryanto)

An Indonesian museum that allowed visitors to take selfies with a life-size wax sculpture of Hitler against a backdrop of Auschwitz concentration camp has removed the exhibit following international outrage, the manager said Saturday.

De ARCA Statue Art Museum in the Javanese city of Jogjakarta drew swift condemnation from rights groups after details of the controversial display were published in foreign media.

The exhibit features a sure-footed Hitler standing in front of a huge photo of the gates of Auschwitz -- the largest Nazi concentration camp where more than 1.1 million people were killed.

The museum’s operations manager, Jamie Misbah, said the the wax sculpture had been removed after the building was alerted to criticism from prominent Jewish human rights organisation the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

"We don’t want to attract outrage," Misbah told AFP.

"Our purpose to display the Hitler figure in the museum is to educate."

The Hitler sculpture is one of about 80 figures, including world leaders and celebrities, at the wax and visual effects centre.

The Nazi-themed exhibit was a popular attraction for visitors to take selfies, and photos circulating on social media show customers -- including children -- posing with Hitler and in some cases using the Nazi salute.

Misbah said he thought it was "normal' for visitors to take photos in front of displays, but said the museum respected the exhibit had upset people from around the world.

Historians have blamed poor schooling for the lack of awareness and sensitivity about the Holocaust in Indonesia, which is home to the world's biggest Muslim population and a small number of Jews.

In January, a controversial Nazi-themed cafe in the western Javanese city of Bandung closed.

The venue, which featured swastika-bearing walls and photos of Hitler, sparked global uproar when reports about the unusual venue surfaced several years ago.

Children of Indonesian men executed by Dutch demand damages

DutchNews, March 31, 2017

More than 500 children of men executed in Indonesia during the independence war of 1946 to 1949 are preparing damages claims against the Dutch state, the AD said on Friday. 

Lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld has sent a list of 520 names to the defence and foreign affairs ministries, urging the state to settle their claims out of court, the paper said. 

She wants the government to agree to give the children damages the same rights as the widows of the men killed. They are able to make an uncontested claim for damages, outside the courts. 

The state, however, has said it wants to wait until the outcome of a test case brought by the children of men executed in southern Sulawesi. A lower court ruled in 2015 that they are entitled to compensation like their mothers. 

The Dutch military interventions in Indonesia, or Dutch Indies as it was known then, followed the proclamation of the independent Republic of Indonesia in 1945 and lasted until the country formally gained independence in 1949 after a bloody struggle. 

At the end of 2011, the Netherlands finally formally apologised for the massacre of hundreds of men and boys in the Javanese village of Rawagede in 1947. 

Last year, the Dutch government agreed to set up a major inquiry into the structural use of violence in Indonesia.

Related Article:

Dutch cabinet agrees to fund research into violence in Indonesia

Indonesia says not to blame for missing WWII shipwrecks

Yahoo – AFP, Dessy Sagita, November 17, 2016

The Dutch and Indonesian naval commanders laid a wreath during a 2014 ceremony
 to commemorate the 1150 sailors who died in the Battle of the Java Sea in
1942 (AFP Photo)

Jakarta (AFP) - Indonesia refused to take the blame Thursday for the disappearance of at least six British and Dutch World War II shipwrecks -- considered war graves -- that investigators believe could have been salvaged for scrap.

Former colonial ruler The Netherlands has launched a probe into how three Dutch navy ships seemingly vanished from the bed of the Java Sea, while Britain has urged Indonesia to investigate what has happened to three of its vessels.

It is believed the military wrecks -- lost in 1942 during the Battle of the Java Sea -- were removed by illegal scavengers looking for scrap metal, an effort that could have taken years.

More than 900 Dutch and 250 Indo-Dutch sailors died during the battle in which the Allied navies suffered a disastrous defeat by the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Indonesian authorities have sought to distance themselves from the mystery, saying they could not be expected to protect the sites without assistance.

"The Dutch government cannot blame the Indonesian government because they never asked us to protect those ships," said Bambang Budi Utomo, head of the National Archeological Centre under the Ministry of Education and Culture.

"As there was no agreement or announcement, when the ships go missing, it is not our responsibility."

Amateur divers in 2002 discovered the long-lost wrecks of three Dutch ships, 60 years after they sank while in action against Japanese forces.

But an international expedition that sailed to the wreck site ahead of next year's 75th anniversary of the battle was shocked to discover the wrecks had vanished.

Britain expressed its distress at the disappearance of its own warships and asked Indonesia to "take appropriate action" to protect the sites from further disturbance.

But Utomo said Indonesia did not have the resources to maintain a constant patrol over its vast archipelago, a hotspot for other criminal enterprises like illegal fishing and people smuggling.

Row over naval war graves (AFP Photo)

'Looters are fearless'

Treasure hunters and scrap collectors are lured to Indonesia's relic-rich seas, experts say, where countless vessels have gone to a watery grave over centuries of trade, colonial conquest and war.

"Looting is really huge, not only on these World War II shipwrecks, but also on ancient shipwrecks," said Veronique Degroot, a Jakarta-based archaeologist.

The prize find for scavengers targeting the warships would be the huge bronze propellers used to power these juggernauts -- a far more lucrative find than iron or other scrap, according to Utomo.

"The looting must have been going on for years for such a huge ship to disappear," he said.

"Looters are fearless," he added, saying that divers risked death and injury sucking air through tubes to retrieve valuable scrap and antiquities, taking the wreck apart piece by piece.

While some larger, commercial operations use cranes and platforms to wrench heavy loads from the seabed, smaller ventures keep a low profile as they ship metal to scrapyards along Indonesia's thousands of kilometres of coastline.

Australia has been working closely with Indonesia to protect HMAS Perth -- which sunk off Java in World War II, claiming hundreds of lives -- after discovering in 2013 that the warship was being plundered for brass.

A spokesman for the Indonesian navy said the missing ships should not have been disturbed as they were war graves.

"However, the Indonesian navy cannot monitor all areas all the time," spokesman Gig Jonias Mozes Sipasulta told AFP.

"If they ask why the ships are missing, I'm going to ask them back, why didn't they guard the ships? They should have been more proactive."

Naval warships and war graves are protected under international law that makes the desecration of such shipwrecks illegal.

The HNLMS Kortenaer in the 1930s

Related Articles:

British start investigation into vanished Java Sea ships

British second world war shipwrecks in Java Sea destroyed by illegal scavenging

China's Ai Weiwei shuts show to protest Danish migrant law

Yahoo – AFP, January 27, 2016

Chinese activist Ai Weiwei plans to create a memorial to the plight of refugees
on the Greek island of Lesbos (AFP Photo/Angelos Tzortzinis)

Copenhagen (AFP) - Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei on Wednesday closed down his exhibition in the Danish capital after lawmakers passed a controversial bill allowing authorities to seize valuables from asylum seekers.

"Ai Weiwei has decided to close his exhibition 'Ruptures' at Faurschou Foundation Copenhagen, Denmark. This decision follows the Danish parliament's approval of the law proposal that allows seizing valuables and delaying family reunions for asylum seekers," a post on his official Instagram and Facebook accounts read.

The exhibition opened in March 2015 and had been due to close in mid-April 2016.

"I support Ai Weiwei's decision, which is all about freedom and human rights. I think it's so very sad," Jens Faurschou, owner of the Faurschou Foundation in Copenhagen, told AFP.

Denmark's parliament on Tuesday adopted reforms aimed at dissuading migrants from seeking asylum by delaying family reunifications and allowing authorities to confiscate migrants' valuables.

The law has provoked international outrage, with many rights activists blasting the delay for family reunifications as a breach of international conventions.

"Denmark has decided that it wants to be in the forefront of the symbolic and inhuman politics of today's biggest humanitarian crisis in Europe and the Middle East. We both wish that Denmark had decided instead to be in the forefront of a respectful European solution to solve the acute humanitarian crisis," Faurschou said.

China's most prominent contemporary artist, Ai helped design the Bird's Nest stadium for the Beijing Olympics and has been exhibited around the globe, but his works have often run afoul of China's authorities.

He was detained in 2011 for 81 days over his advocacy of democracy and human rights as well as other criticisms of the government in Beijing. Following the detention, he was placed under house arrest and his passport was taken away. The document was only returned last July, enabling him to travel overseas.

Ai's show in Copenhagen included some of his most important work including Sunflower Seeds, made from 100 million handmade porcelain sunflower seeds.

The show also featured several of the artist's sculptures made of wood from Buddhist temples torn down during China's Cultural Revolution.

Earlier this month, the 58-year-old announced plans to create a memorial to the plight of refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos, after meeting some of the many migrants there who risked their lives to reach Europe.

Ai Weiwei shuts Danish show in protest at asylum seeker law https://t.co/EpwvalH28D pic.twitter.com/mUBcRBGbos

— AFP news agency (@AFP) January 27, 2016

Related Article:

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Holocaust survivor Ruth Klueger delivers a speech on Holocaust Remembrance Day,

January 27, 2016 at the German parliament in Berlin (AFP Photo/John MacDougall)

Court says Dutch state must compensate woman for rape 67 years ago Crime

DutchNews, January 27, 2016

Photo: Depositphotos.com

The Dutch state has been ordered to pay compensation to an Indonesian woman who was raped by several Dutch soldiers in 1949, when Indonesia was still under Dutch rule.

The woman, who was 18 at the time, will receive €7,500 in what is thought to be the first successful compensation claim for a war crime other than execution.

The court in The Hague said there was sufficient proof that the woman had been raped by several soldiers at gunpoint in the run up to independence. 

In addition, the court said the state cannot appeal against the ruling on the basis that it is too old, even though the rapes took place almost 70 years ago. 

Other rulings

Last year, judges in The Hague said the Netherlands must pay compensation to the children and widows of men executed in South Sulawesi without trial by Dutch soldiers in 1946 and 1947. The claims are still being looked into. 

The Dutch military interventions in Indonesia, or Dutch Indies as it was known then, followed the proclamation of the independent Republic of Indonesia in 1945 and lasted until the country formally gained independence in 1949 after a bloody struggle. 

Thousands of Indonesian independence fighters were executed by the Dutch. At the end of 2011, the Netherlands finally formally apologised for the massacre of hundreds of men and boys in the Javanese village of Rawagede in 1947. Those widows, too, have been given compensation.

Pope hails ties with Jews on landmark synagogue visit

Yahoo – AFP, Jean-Louis de la Vaissiere, January 17, 2016

Pope Francis arrives with chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni (C) to Rome's
main Synagogue on January 17, 2016 (AFP Photo/Vincenzo Pinto)

Rome (AFP) - Pope Francis on Sunday made his first visit to a synagogue as pontiff, citing an "unbreakable" bond between Jews and Christians as hundreds of armed security personnel were deployed for the Rome visit.

Francis is the third pope to visit the Great Synagogue in Italy's capital after John-Paul II in 1986 and Benedict XVI in 2010.

Located just across the River Tiber from the Vatican, it stands in an area still known as the Ghetto where under the orders of some of Francis's predecessors, Jews were confined for more than three centuries until their emancipation at the end of the 19th Century.

Evoking "the unbreakable bond between Jews and Christians", the pope delivered a message of peace.

"Violence against men is in contradiction with any religion worthy of the name, and in particular the big monotheist religions," he said, in his first visit to a synagogue since being elected pope in 2013.

He urged rejection of "all forms of anti-Semitism", saying: "we must condemn any abuse, any discrimination and persecution stemming from it."

The pope was greeted with applause as he arrived and was met on the synagogue steps by Rome's chief rabbi Riccardo Di Segni.

Pope Francis listens to chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni (R) in Rome's main 

Synagogue on January 17, 2016 (AFP Photo/Vincenzo Pinto)

Francis in turn greeted some 1,500 invited guests who filled the religious site to witness the pontiff's visit.

After the deadly attacks in Paris in November, claimed by the Islamic State group, security for the visit was particularly tight, with basements in the area around the synagogue searched, dustbins sealed and parking banned.

Fears of a Paris-style assault in Rome have seen visitor numbers fall, while soldiers with automatic rifles have become a common sight around the city's historic centre.

On Sunday Francis also welcomed 5,000 migrant worshippers at a special mass at St Peter's to mark the world day of migrants and refugees, urging them to treasure their "culture and precious values".

Centuries of anti-Semitism

Ties between the Christianity and Judaism, which improved under both John-Paul II and Benedict XVI, have become warmer still under Francis, who has a long-standing friendship with Argentinian rabbi Abraham Skorka, with whom he jointly published a book of conversations about issues of ethics, morality and faith.

As part of his visit, the pope was to view two commemorative plaques in the synagogue's gardens, one marking an incident in 1943 when more than 1,000 Jews were rounded up and deported to the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz and the other a 1983 attack on the building that left 37 injured and one dead.

Pope Francis shows a gift at the end of his visit at Rome's main

synagogue on January 17, 2016 (AFP Photo/Vincenzo Pinto)

"Six million people, simply because they belonged to the Hebrew people, were victims of the most inhuman barbarity, perpetrated in the name of an ideology that wanted to put man in God's place," Francis said.

On the final days of his Middle East tour in May 2015, the pontiff said prayers at the Western Wall in Jerusalem -- the holiest site at which Jews are allowed to pray.

A key question that has long blighted relations between the two faiths was addressed in December when senior Catholic theologians said Jews can secure eternal salvation without converting to Christianity.

"Although Jews cannot believe in Jesus Christ as the universal redeemer, they have a part in salvation, because the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable," the report concludes, according to a summary released to the media.

The belief that the only way to salvation is through belief in Christ is a fundamental tenet of every strand of Christianity.

But it has also been blamed for creating an evangelical tendency responsible for some of the darkest periods in the history of religion, notably the anti-Muslim crusades of the Middle Ages and centuries of Christian anti-Semitism.

Pope Francis and other religious leaders at the Vatican. Photograph: AP

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"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“.   New Tolerance

Look for a softening of finger pointing and an awakening of new tolerance. There will remain many systems for different cultures, as traditions and history are important to sustaining the integrity of culture. So there are many in the Middle East who would follow the prophet and they will continue, but with an increase of awareness. It will be the increase of awareness of what the prophet really wanted all along - unity and tolerance. The angel in the cave instructed him to "unify the tribes and give them the God of Israel." You're going to start seeing a softening of intolerance and the beginning of a new way of being.

Eventually, this will create an acknowledgement that says, "You may not believe the way we believe, but we honor you and your God. We honor our prophet and we will love you according to his teachings. We don't have to agree in order to love." How would you like that? The earth is not going to turn into one belief system. It never will, for Humans don't do that. There must be variety, and there must be the beauty of cultural differences. But the systems will slowly update themselves with increased awareness of the truth of a new kind of balance. So that's the first thing. Watch for these changes, dear ones. ...."

"The Humanization of God"–  Jul 16, 2011 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“… The Humanization of God

I'm going to title this channelling so that my partner will not. I don't always title them, for labeling items is something done for 3D reasons. In your reality, you want a label for the message you're about to hear. So I'll give it to you, just as a dichotomous exercise. Its title will be, "The Humanization of God."

My partner sits in a chair. It has taken him 22 years to bring my conceptual thoughts to you. Even though these conceptual thoughts from the other side of the veil are also within each Human, within your Higher-Self, they are not easy to access. This is because they exist in a multidimensional state and not one that a Human relates to. Therefore, it has taken 22 years for my partner to learn to linearize the concepts into a string of words, presented in a language that you will understand.

Not all of you here and reading this will understand what I'm teaching today. I am aware of that, for Spirit does not speak to Human Beings with words in this fashion. Instead, the language of Spirit speaks in that what you call intuitive flashes, outside of linear time, and all at once. That is how you get your best information. Yet many of you feel you have God all figured out.

Examples of the Linear

As I sit here, perhaps an individual who may be here for the very first time asks the question, "Who are you, Kryon, and where are you from?" Now those two questions may absolutely be logical and normal to every single Human Being who hears and reads this message, but I will tell you that the questions themselves betray biased linear thinking. For Kryon is not a who and is from nowhere. How can that be? The only way I can explain this is to give you metaphors. I know that metaphors don't hold up under full examination, since no analogy is perfect. So consider it only a close example to get you to begin the understanding process.

Let's say you feel incredible love in your life for another Human, or for an animal, for instance, or for your child. Let us say that it is overwhelming and perhaps even has you weep with joy, so strong it is! Now, when you feel this way, do you look around and say, "Who are you, really? Who is there?" Would you address that love emotion as though it had a body and ask, "Where are you from?" You would not! Instead, you'd simply accept it and say, "I know it's coming from me, but it really doesn't feel part of me."

There's something about love. It comes from everywhere. It permeates the soul of the Human Being. You feel it so strongly. You are not aware of it being sent to you, or pulled to you; it just is. But it's unusual and profound, almost like it's part of something else, something bigger. Perhaps it's the God part of you, expanding? You'd be right about that. Love is not singular. You don't segment it into parts, or put a body on it and give it a name either. It's a concept that affects every cell of your body and all your body functions. It sometimes even takes over! This is the beauty of love.

I'm not a who. You hear me within this voice, coming from a singular body of a Human Being. So you understandably want to know who's talking. But the only thing singular here is the Human who I come through. I am best identified as that which is the collection of the confluence of the creative energy source in the Universe. I am uncountable and am not isolated and singular. You can't notate me (define me with attributes in 3D). Twenty-two years ago, I identified myself and said, "I am, that I am." And then I said, "And so are you!" I told you that at the center of the atom is where I am. I told you that the space between the electron haze and the nucleus is filled with love. I told you that the benevolent, creative source energy that is part of you is part of me. It is all things together. You'll find it in a tree, in the dirt and in the grass. You'll find it in the air and you can't ask who because we are not singular. You can't count the flavor in the soup, or identify "where is the salt?" It just "is" the soup.

God does not have the mind of a Human Being with the consciousness of a Human Being. God is not a collection of many separate consciousness parts either, and this is difficult for you to understand. God can talk to every single Human - all 6, 7 billion of them - at the same time. God can carry on a loving, healing conversation, being personal all at once with every single one of you. Think of that! That's not a who. That's the creator of the Universe. That's a divine, intelligent, loving energy. Don't humanize this source! It's not like you.

The Linear Thinker

Humans want to make everything separate and individual. You want to separate, identify, and quantify. This is Human nature, for every living thing you come into contact with is separate and singular - a Human, an animal, a bug, a tree. They all have this in common. Each one is a closed life system and is ONE thing. So placing God in this box makes you feel better. Because only then can you grasp how you're supposed to act and react to Spirit. Linearizing God helps you to feel what you're supposed to do and when you're supposed to do it. All of the survival attributes that you've learned all your life go into this, and we call it the Human linear bias. God is better understood if it's a man with a beard and a low voice - the authority figure. But Spirit is not like that.

God is not an authority figure, either! Yet many of you will not accept that. "You mean the creator of the Universe is not in charge?" I didn't say that. I said that God is not an authority figure. God is family. If there is any authority energy, then you share it with God, for God is in you. Therefore, YOU are the authority figure.

There is no protocol, either! Did you hear me? There is no generic protocol! Thousands of years of religion have created thousands of "rules" of how to "get God's favor." What if none of that is so? Let me ask you something: If you wanted to talk to your own body's cellular structure, what's the protocol? If it's you with you, how do you start? Should you dress up a bit, kneel, prepare yourself? Do you invent something, some framework of motions, so it will work better? Or do you simply go inside with your mind, talk to that which you own, and work the puzzle out? Do you see what I mean? Humans never consider God in them. Instead, they wish to separate God. They wish to elevate God and put Spirit on the altar where they can face it and perhaps even create a statue so they can visualize who to talk to. That is humanizing God.  …”

The Spirit Of Bandung Helped Japan To Gain International’s Acceptance

Jakarta Globe, aacc2015.id, Apr 23, 2015

AACC2015, Jakarta – The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stated that the Bandung Spirit had helped his country to gain international community’s acceptance after the World War II.

“Live and let live. That’s the President Sukarno’s quotation which is better known as the Spirit of Bandung. The spirit allows us to re-enter the international community after the World War II,” said Prime Minister Abe at the Asian-African Summit in the Commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of Asian-African Conference in Jakarta Convention Centre (JCC), Wednesday (4/22).

According to him, the value of the Spirit of Bandung, which prohibited colonialism, helped his country to recover from the World War’s impact. “To those friends of ours who had formulated the Bandung Spirit, let me take this opportunity to extend our heartfelt gratitude,” he stated.

The Spirit of Bandung, he added, is enhancing the relation between the two continents. “It is time for us to show strong unity, which was built between the two continents, to the rest of the world. Let’s show them,” he concluded. (Photo: Host)

Dutch Apology for Indonesian Atrocities Opens Old Wounds

Jakarta Globe – AFP, May 01, 2014

A photo taken in Makassar on Dec. 11, 2013 shows an Indonesian veteran
 attending a ceremony to commemorate victims of a Dutch army captain Raymond
 Westerling, who masterminded the campaign on Sulawesi during the 1940s
War of Independence. (AFP Photo)

Bulukumba. Abdul Khalik remembers vividly the moment almost seven decades ago he saw his father being driven away from their remote Indonesian village by Dutch soldiers to be executed.

“He said to me, ‘Go home, son’ but I refused,” recalled the 75-year-old, his eyes focused somewhere in the distant past, during an interview in Bulukumba district on the central island of Sulawesi.

His father was shot dead the next day, one of thousands killed by the Dutch army during the 1940s war of independence as Indonesia fought to shake off colonial rule.

This was during a 1946-47 operation by the Dutch to reassert control in Sulawesi after they were almost driven out, one of the darkest episodes of the independence war, which saw thousands of suspected rebel fighters killed.

After some widows won compensation last year, the Netherlands apologised for all summary executions carried out during the independence struggle and said it would pay out to other surviving partners of those killed.

But far from turning the page on a dark chapter, the renewed attention on Dutch atrocities committed at the end of a more-than three century occupation of the archipelago has only fuelled calls for more to be done.

Khalik and others are now demanding that the victims’ children — not just the widows — receive compensation and have taken their case to court in the Netherlands. A hearing on their case is to take place in The Hague in August.

“It is not fair. The arrests are the same, the imprisonment the same, the shooting the same, the events the same, so why do the children get different treatment?” said Khalik, adding he would share any money with his 32 grandchildren and one great grandchild.

Shafiah Paturusi, an 82-year-old who lost her father and brother on Sulawesi, added: “I want justice from the Dutch, because the pain of losing a father is equal to — if not worse than — losing a husband.”

Raw memories

A notorious Dutch forces captain, Raymond Westerling, masterminded the campaign on Sulawesi, a large island made up of four peninsulas with a rugged, mountainous interior.

Dutch forces would surround villages and then weed out suspected enemy fighters before killing them without trial.

There is strong disagreement over the number that died during the months-long campaign, with some in Indonesia claiming that up to 40,000 were killed although historical studies have put the figure at 3,000 to 4,000.

The operation proved hugely controversial and Westerling was relieved of his duties in 1948, although he never faced trial for war crimes.

For the older generation on Sulawesi, memories are still raw.

Khalik recalled his father and others were “piled up in a truck like animals” before being driven away — although the older man still managed to wave goodbye to his son as the vehicle drove off.

“The next day my father was taken from prison, chained up with eight others and they were all executed,” he said.

Time running out

Liesbeth Zegveld, a Dutch human rights lawyer who has won compensation for Indonesian widows, is also representing some of the children.

She is hopeful of success but warned it might not be easy because time was running out, as many seeking redress were already elderly.

“The state tries to pay out as little as possible by taking time with all these claims, asking questions and questions, time and time again,” she told AFP.

Jeffry Pondaag, from a Dutch-based foundation run by Indonesians helping those seeking compensation, said that in addition to money they wanted the Dutch be more open about the darker side of colonial rule.

“We will fight for the Dutch government to explain to their people that what they did to Indonesia was wrong,” said Pondaag, who works in a cement plant northwest of Amsterdam.

However a Dutch government statement insisted that Jakarta and The Hague had “drawn a line under this part of their shared history.”

“The Dutch government has repeatedly expressed its deep regret for the painful way in which the Netherlands and Indonesia separated,” the statement said.

Diplomatic relations between Jakarta and The Hague are generally good and the Dutch colonial period belongs to bygone era as far as most younger Indonesians are concerned.

But some in the older generation still harbour resentment about a period that began when traders from the Netherlands arrived at the end of the 16th century.

They seized much of the archipelago, before the Dutch state took over in the early 19th century. It was only after Japanese occupation in World War II that Indonesia declared independence, on August 17, 1945.

The Dutch sought to regain control, sparking the bloody war of independence that lasted until 1949, when the Netherlands recognised Indonesia as a sovereign state.

Some widows have already been compensated. Ten who brought legal action in the Netherlands over the Sulawesi campaign received money ahead of last year’s apology.

Others whose husbands died in a 1947 massacre in Rawagede, on the main island of Java, have also received compensation.

The Dutch government in August last year said other widows with similar claims had two years to apply for compensation.

But money does not always bring closure.

“We have forgiven the Dutch but when I received the money, I had mixed feelings,” said Andi Aisyah, a wheelchair–bound woman in her 90s, whose husband was killed on Sulawesi.

“The pain that was long buried returned.”

Agence France-Presse

The West vs The Rest

History, for Indonesians, is a subject best ignored, Antony Sutton writes on the controversy surrounding the Nazi-themed cafe in Bandung

Jakarta Globe, Antony Sutton, July 22, 2013

Soldatenkaffe owner Henry Mulyana in front of his establishment. Henry
emphasized on Saturday that the cafe was not instructive of his political views.
(AFP Photo/Adek Berry)

It’s hard not to feel a little sympathy for Henry Mulyana, the embattled owner of Soldatenkaffe, the Nazi-themed café in Bandung dripping with memorabilia Adolf Hitler himself would have approved of.

Here we have a businessman being forced to close down his enterprise in the face of a hysterical online onslaught once news of his café’s decorations had gone viral.

Henry gets painted as some kind of ogre. He’s portrayed as a Nazi revisionist when in fact, he is just an unwitting victim of two forces far greater than him: Western cultural morals and an Indonesian education system that has for long not been fit for purpose.

There was recently a massive outcry when students at Chulalongkorn University, one of Thailand’s most prestigious higher education institutions, had painted a mural featuring a number of superheroes including Hitler.

It may have been tongue in cheek but it was not thought to be so in the west, where Hitler and the era he spawned are not viewed with any kind of humor. It was Europe, both east and west, that bore the brunt of Hitler’s excesses and the post-war generations are determined not to repeat, let alone glorify, them.

We in the west are brought up with the war and its horrors through movies depicting cheeky British soldiers up against the robotic Third Reich, and we have the white tombstones that tell the awful truth of one man’s twisted ambitions. We can visit Auschwitz and see the realities of Hitler’s agendas, with the camp’s mocking ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ (‘Labor Makes [You] Free’) sign greeting visitors.

Henry Mulyana, foreground, operates the Soldatenkaffee

 in Bandung, which is decorated with Nazi paraphanelia

and has staff dressed in costumes reminiscent of the SS.

(JG Photo/Yuli Krisna)

Indonesians, on the other hand, and the Thais for that matter, aren’t. History for them is a subject best ignored — a never ending monotony of names to be remembered and dates to be regurgitated on demand. There is no context and no perspective, just a state-centric message to be memorized for tests and forgotten straight after.

Hitler, if he appears at all, will simply be a periphery figure.

Henry insists his idea was just a theme for a restaurant, nothing more sinister than that. Perhaps the issue here is not the Nazi memorabilia so much as the Western-led reaction, which is ironic considering that the west themselves can also be accused of insensitivity toward the Holocaust.

A famous English comedy, ‘Fawlty Towers,’ had a skit where the manic hotel manager, Basil Fawlty, played by John Cleese, welcomes some German guests before slipping into a faux German accent to tell his guests not to “mention the war” before goose-stepping round the hotel reception.

A few years later, an English football club held a player’s Christmas party at a local Indian restaurant. The players came in fancy dress, with one coming as Adolf Hitler. He was later photographed next to the waiters giving the Nazi salute.

Recently, a photograph of a restaurant in Thailand went viral. It showed the familiar Colonel Sanders livery but instead of the bearded, southern US gentleman there was a stern image of Adolf Hitler.

Unlike the incidents that happened in Europe, the media went into a frenzy over Thailand’s tribute to the Third Reich. Here was a Bangkok restaurant called Hitler Fried Chicken, look how the Thais don’t understand the latest gaffe they have made. The ironic thing is, the comments made by western media parroted a subtle, patronizing, even racist undertone. The real KFC said they were consulting with lawyers.

In 2005, Prince Harry, brother of William, the Duke of Cambridge and heir to the British throne, went to a costume party dressed in a German military uniform complete with a swastika armband. The last time I checked Harry is still a prince, but Henry the businessman no longer has a business.

Yet surely the Prince had no excuse for his choice of costume, as he was brought up to understand the war ethos in the finest schools and within a culture that condemns the glorification of Hitler and his Nazis.

And while the screamers are still screaming their rage at poor Henry, perhaps they should redirect their attention to the 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division.

The division is a war re-enacting group. This one in particular has their members dress up as Nazis and pretend to kill the allied powers during their re-enacted battles. They are based in the northeast of the United States and are just one of many.

Despite the group’s blatant disrespect for the events of the era, however, no one seems to be a in a rush to condemn them or shut them down.

When there was outcry in the Islamic world when cartoons of the prophet Muhammad were printed in newspapers, the west hid behind the ideas of freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

Unfortunately, no such claims are being made for Henry this time — there is no one rushing to defend a small businessman simply looking to find a niche for his business.

Related Article:

Nazi-Themed Cafe in Indonesia to Reopen Sans Swastikas