Berkaitan dengan artikel Andre Vitchek dengan judul "Indonesia: Bencana Alam atau Pembunuhan Masal" (Indonesia: Natural Disaster or Mass Murdes?) yang dimuat di berbagai media dan terjemahannya kami muat di sini, maka Ika Christina mengirim tulisan tanggapan dan meminta kemi memuatnya.
Berikut tanggapan Ika Christina kepada Andre Vitchek:
To: andre-wcn@usa.net
Subject: disaster in indonesia
Dear mr.andre vitchek
i have just read your writing for japan focus from email with the title: natural disaster or mass murder? thank you very much for your concern towards our country. thank you very very much to remind us that we, indonesians, have so much of problems. i'm sure by now, your writing has been traveling all around the globe through the net and yet by now, perhaps half of this planet citizen have noticed for hundred times that indonesia history until present has left nothing but a bad name.
dear mr.vitchek,
do you notice that indonesia is now moving onward to eliminate corruption, and it is now not anymore as the most corrupt country on earth?
do you know that tsunami, earthquake, and landslides has nothing to do with corruption nor with government corruption? they are natural disasters, and nature created by GOD. (all kids in indonesia know this very well!). quote in green highlight below is just to remind you of your writing:
in the wake of major earthquakes, tsunamis and landslides, citizens are encouraged to pray, instead of analyzing facts, particularly the facts of government failure and corruption.
Indonesia ?s press and mass media report every disaster in excruciating detail. But they fail to provide analysis to show that what is happening is extraordinary and intolerable, that probably no other major country is experiencing such devastating loss of human lives due to disasters that are either man-made, easily preventable, or subject to government action to minimize casualties
you are complaining for failure of analysis, but your writing have failed before reaching the analysis level. you make a very unsensible hypothesis of relationship between catastrophe and government failure. what kind of hypothesis is it?????
i assume you have never read any indonesian newspaper nor mass media. or maybe your understanding for bahasa indonesia is very little. i put pitty on you, since i have read so many articles about analysis and reviews on indonesian newspapers and magazines. let me inform you some of our prestigious mass media where you can find those articles / reviews: kompas, gatra, tempo. have ever heard of those media names? please inform me if you have trouble searching for them. i can send you some of my old magazines and newspapers if you want to.
dear mr.vitchek,
do you know the situation that indonesia is facing now is very common for a developing country? please stay at least for 5 years in philipina, bangladesh, and india, before you start moaning about indonesia. you will find that this "disaster" situation also happen in other countries. please allow me to remind you about american history, before america reached its glory for capturing saddam husein and ruining afganistan , by reading a paragraph below:
In the late 17 th and early 18 th century, a specific concept of corruption, what I called “systematic corruption,” crystallized in Britain and spread to the American colonies and France . Having identified the disease, all three societies spent a century or more designing and implementing constitutional reforms to protect their political system against systematic corruption.
(“The concept of systematic corruption in American History”, John Joseph Wallis, University of Maryland and National bureau of economic research, april 2005 – www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/apworkshop/wallis05.pdf )
have you ever anayzed this before????
so, mr.vitchek, once again i'm thanking you for your great concern towards our country. there are more i would love to discus with you. however, if I can beg you, i cry more for solution from you, to show how much you care for our country that is now famous due to your thoughtful writing.
looking forward to reading more of your writing, mr.vitcheck!
warm regards from indonesia,
ika christine.
(an indonesian)
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1 comment:
I am a native Indonesian.
I absolutely agree with what Mr Vitchek said. I don understand that disaster happens everywhere in the world. What Mr Vitchek highlighted is the disaster management response by the Indonesian Government. There are prevention actions which could've been done to lessen the impact/human loss which Indonesian government failed to execute.
I understand ms Christine's point of view as well of tired hearing negative stories about Indonesia in international media. But ms Christine have to take into accounts as well that if the amount of negative news far outweight the positive ones, the good ones will be obscured. and thats a simple fact of life.
I really do appreciate Mr Vitchek's interest in Indonesia. it's true that he could've wrote/live in Philipine/bangladesh/etc, but it is the baauty of Indonesia that captures him. And in his case, it is a tough love. I would do exactly the same had i been in his postion.
There's also mindset differences. Most of the times, logics are lost in an ocean of insanity of Indonesian psyche. and ms Christine's comments accantuate that.
Regards
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