Surabaya, Indonesia: Day 4

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Some Conversations on Politics and Government

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi

H-, the project manager at W-, is from Davao City, Philippines, and also lived and worked in Manila before relocating to Surabaya about five years ago. He is married with three children, but his family remained in Manila when he relocated for work, and he sees them about every three months or so. I’m not sure the reason that his family didn’t move with him to Indonesia, and I will let him bring that up if he chooses, but I don’t feel right asking about it. If I had to guess, I would assume that it’s either that his family is culturally Christian and didn’t want to move to a Muslim country, or else that Manila (not having been there myself) is a much more cosmopolitan city than Surabaya, and it would be a step down quality of life-wise.

H- is an excellent project manager, extremely detail-oriented, organized, intelligent, and proactive. He is wonderful for me to work with in this situation, where I’m arriving not knowing anything about the work culture, and also lacking confidence in this particular process equipment. However, hyper-competent project management on a site level requires a bit of an autocratic streak, which H- also possesses. Please keep that in mind regarding his political opinions.

At lunch on Saturday, H- mentioned that Indonesia should be a very wealthy country, with all of their riches in oil, natural gas, and other natural resources, but that their government is corrupt. He didn’t go into specifics on this opinion, but that provided him a segue into his praise for Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines and former mayor of Davao City. At least in the U.S. lefty media that I favor, Duterte is quite unpopular, regarded as something of a murderous despot because of the extrajudicial killings of drug addicts that he has directed and/or championed. I’ve often been curious about why Duterte’s approval ratings in his country are so high (consistently more than 70%, I’ve read) if he’s so awful.

Well, H- was very clear about his reasons for his strong support of Duterte:

•         He’s provided much-increased financial assistance to the public and military hospitals in Manila, where care is now free of charge
•         He’s streamlined the permitting process for businesses and reduced corruption by promising a decision on permits in something like 10 days
•         He’s reduced corruption drastically in government and police; supposedly you can’t bribe Manila police anymore to get out of tickets
•         He personally (and brutally) responds to business owner’s complaints; H- told a (possibly apocryphal – hey, this is all possibly apocryphal) story about a restauranteur in Manila who had an Australian patron who was smoking and wouldn’t put out his cigarette, even though public smoking in Manila is outlawed. The restauranteur called the government, and Duterte personally drove over to the restaurant and put a gun to the Australian’s head, and said he would either eat the cigarette or get his brains blown out. So, the story goes, the man ate the cigarette.
•         And finally, he’s made Manila and other cities safe by either forcing drug addicts to surrender to be placed in rehab, or else they are killed. H- said that drug users get three warnings to surrender before they are killed.
•         Generally, H- described Duterte as a man of impeccable integrity, doing what needed to be done to clean up corrupted institutions and reduce crime.

There’s definitely some stuff to like there, even if I disagree with some of the methods. I’m a softie, but maybe just arrest the addicts on the fourth try and send them to rehab forcibly rather than having them killed. Duterte has advertised himself as a man who Gets Things Done and Doesn’t Truck With Any Bullshit, and he delivers on those promises. I can see where that would be very appealing to a significant portion of the electorate.

After Trump was elected, I was hoping that maybe the silver lining would be that he could actually deliver on some useful things (less fucking around with overseas military interventions, for instance, or not kowtowing to the Israeli lobby) because of his lack of interest in decorum, but he has shown himself to be a dismal doer of things as well as an abominable person. He’s just a worthless shithead blowhard who wants to be praised for accomplishing things without actually doing them. At least Duterte is an effective doer of things, and I can see where a fellow doer of things like H- would see a kindred spirit.

My driver for part of the journey to Bromo, Leonard, is a Christian who grew up east of Bromo and has lived in Surabaya for the last twenty-plus years. He had very positive things to say about Joko Widodo (known as Jokowi), who is the current president of Indonesia. Jokowi was mayor of the city of Surakarta and governor of the state of Jakarta before being elected president in 2014. Leonard praised Jokowi’s ability to get things done, as well, citing a new highway running the length of Java that was nearly complete as evidence. Also, he pointed out that Jokowi had lowered the barriers for immigrants to enter Indonesia, which Leonard considers to be positive. Leonard expected Jokowi to be re-elected easily in 2019.

I asked whether Leonard’s church was near those that were bombed last month in Surabaya, and he said yes, that he was close enough that he heard the explosions when they happened. He was clearly saddened by the bombings, but he pointed out that Surabaya is a misguided place for ISIS to try to sow discord (the bombings were carried out by five members of a single family from Syria, is how it was explained to me). Surabaya as he described it, is a place where different religions respect each other and generally get along well. He said that it’s a place where anyone, even children, can walk the streets safely, and said that Jakarta was not like that. I can testify to the fact that I’ve felt very safe walking in Surabaya.

Leonard said that Surabaya mourned for two days after the bombings, and that the police presence has been more noticeable since then, but that after those two days everything got back to normal and people still treat each other the same way that they did before. I was glad to hear that because almost 17 years after 9/11, the U.S. is nowhere near that point. So, it’s not like terrorism has to lead to permanent mistrust and suspicion among different ethnic and religious groups. It’s almost as if the U.S. is worse at this than other places.

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