Just watching which emotions gets stirred up by this super-hyped up event is a lesson. Having people enjoy and admire athletes perform is uplifting, I won’t deny it. I have a lot of respect for the all the hard training and skill that goes into it.

But there is a more disturbing side to the competition which has now become completely acceptable, many would say inevitable. And I am not even talking about the hooliganism or the strange, vicarious chauvinism of fans rooting for their favourites, invoking God and whoever else they chose to believe in. If anything they could almost be called the victims.

Sure, it didn’t take too long after the Olympics, for example, were re-established early last century for sports to exploited on an internationally political level. Hitler vs Jesse Owens made sure we wouldn’t miss that. But those days were almost innocent compared to now. FDR didn’t even send Owens a congratulation cable, much less an invite to the White House. Imagine today’s White House passing that one up (“No We Can’t”?).

Every four years the networks and sponsors scramble to outbid each other – the payoffs are enormous. Obviously all the fans are a huge cash cow, nothing wrong with that in a free market capitalist world, and I’m sure some North Koreans watched a few games too. And so when the players get huge pay checks, one could argue that’s their due, and it pays off in the level of sheer athletic brilliance it ensures.

The part I don’t get is: where has the sportsmanship gone? Where is the respect to all the fans aside from some inane bubbling in shlock magazines that are more interested in hair styles than anything else? How many Peles are there today?

Are you telling me that it’s too much to expect from someone who is getting paid millions and millions to be aware that they are a role model to the young the whole world around? I can understand that there is a huge pressure to perform, but how does it come that a player has no sense of shame when, literally under the spotlight and watched by billions of people, he kicks someone in the shins, stomps on their leg, pulls their shirt, and whatever else?

Is just winning and gladiatorship really uplifting? There is more respect due for a side that plays well but loses gracefully than a side that wins by playing a nasty game, then races around crowing.

Still trying to make up my mind whether or not to watch the finals.

The deliberate and professional torching of Bangkok’s business center wiped out whatever little remaining sympathy there was for this people’s movement. The sheer brigandry of it has left a very bad taste in everyone’s mouth, and for now these ‘simple folk’ couldn’t be any further away from getting a better deal – anyone associated with the Red movement has been branded.

For the other side there really isn’t much of a victory either. The current government might be led by intelligent figures (looking back over the last few years, this is easily the most credible bunch yet), but it could not muster enough control over its admittedly divided army to crack down firmly and quickly on the early stages of a disruptive movement in the heart of its own capital. A ragtag mob, fed by the dirty money of a deposed leader, was allowed to stay for weeks after the initial outrage of taking over the retail heart of the city. Early on the government, even after losing face in front of all its ASEAN neighbors in that embarrassing helicopter evacuation in Pattaya last year, seemed unwilling to take any serious action to break the back of a clearly escalating chaos.

The end result? The entire world staring at distressing images of mayhem in downtown Bangkok. Central World blazing. People facedown on the ground, humiliated and cuffed. Bloodied bodies and corpses. Strangely disturbing too, the image of a monk cuffed to a plastic chair, his face twisted in emotion – everyone knows how privileged and revered monks supposedly are in Thailand. After a couple of days the world will tire of the news in Thailand and move on. Nonetheless, their memories of the country will be those images. They will take time to fade.

Abhisit’s government has had an unfortunate track record from its early months: its perceived unwillingness to come down in court on leaders of the Yellow shirt movement, who so blithely flaunted the law and took over the airport a couple of years ago, crippling all international air traffic to Bangkok for a week. Court proceedings seemed to trail off into vapor along with any moral authority that the government might have had. Political will was hardly evident. Worse yet, it opened the doors to escalation. Granted the airport occupation was a fun fair compared to the Reds’ occupation downtown, and that there was no shortage of people duped into the Yellow movement as well; but there  is no question that to the Reds it became: “Hey, if they can get away with it, so can we”.

It is perhaps a little unfair to criticize the current Thai government for just simple indecisiveness. Amongst all the squabbling factions, royalists or not, there are two very real powers in Thailand: money and military. For much of Southeast Asia, that’s nothing new. Perhaps somewhere in the hearts of many there is a craving for a moral leadership, yet even that moral leadership in the end would have to negotiate those two minefields.

And what has become clear in this debacle is that in today’s Thailand both money and military can go any way they damn well please. General Anupong, military commander–in-chief due to retire, most likely had little stomach for a career blemishing finale, and it is well known the military is split. Undoubtedly it will be a few years before we hear what really went on in the backrooms of the military barracks when Abhisit himself was quartered there for protection. On the other hand, a billion baht still buys as much as a billion baht will, even if it comes from the coffers of one of the most viciously vindictive of corrupt politicians. In this case money blind-sided a whole government.

Abhisit’s government did appear to dither in the early stages of this debacle. Coming into power in a controversial way himself, Abhisit has never been really been able to get even his own party behind him, let alone a whole electorate. He allowed the army to send in green recruits for weeks when a one-day sweep with the crack troops would have nipped it in the bud. When they were finally sent in it was clear that bloodshed and mayhem would be inevitable. He has displayed a dismal lack of political savoir-faire in dealing with the Reds, offering practically no graceful way out for their leaders to compromise without being seen as sell-outs.

The world at large may try to depict this as simply a class struggle or a country versus city conflict. But it is far more complicated, a story of manipulation and counter-manipulation, with many duped on both sides. And the speed at which Bangkok’s once vibrant economy spiralled into chaos was alarming.

Now amongst the ashes and the impending knock-on effects on the Thai economy, Abhisit’s government has to be decisive and bold. Whether there will be elections or not, the bitterness that is dividing Thailand is not going away; it will continue to fester. Whether he will continue much longer in office or not, Abhisit needs to display extraordinary leadership and reach out to all sides evenhandedly. And he needs to do this very soon. A witch hunt will make it worse. It is a daunting task, given the vengefulness which has reared its ugly face, but for the future of Thailand there is little choice.

It is a Thai problem, and only Thai leadership can bring the country back together. Now the question is, can Abhisit lead an effective civilian government to bring reconciliation to this torn nation? Or will General Anupong’s successors push for yet another military ‘solution’?

It’s quite clear that most people like me know nothing about leadership, trust building, or long term national development. Only recently have I realized my views on democracy are terribly naive. Until now I always thought that you just choose the best man or woman for the job from the 220 million people that populate this archipelago, then he or she gets on with managing the country. Now I know it’s really about holding on to that office for dear life. And for some befuddled reason I had this idea that democracy had more to do with the ethic of caring for the greater good of the people, whereas it’s really simply just a system for getting into that office.

It’s a bit embarrassing to admit, but as far as politics go, I just listen to what everyone else is talking about and assume that that must be the most important issue of the day. For example, in the last few months we have had hours of TV coverage on what I thought was a major corruption scandal, which is all tangled up with a high profile murder case involving someone who should be above corruption, and a major bailout (involving a minor bank) which for some reason is only being questioned now (and not before it happened).

All of this supposedly goes back to the previous administration; but some of the people from that time have come up to the microphone and told their story and explained how they aren’t responsible. I’m so out of the loop that I didn’t know that once you are out of office you aren’t responsible for what was part of your job back when you were. Boy do I have to brush up. What you do is lynch people who are in office now for what happened then because they are here now. I know it sounds complicated, but apparently philosophically it makes sense.

You see, I found out this is all happening now not because it really did happen then, but because some bad people don’t like the President (then and) now. It turns out that even the Jakarta hotel bombers just wanted to hurt the President personally (he said so himself), and plain mistook the hotel for the palace.

Now that I have understood this reality, my trust in the leadership is fully restored. When the President says nothing, I’ve come to learn it means he is saying something he really means because he is not saying anything at all. And when he does actually say something, not only does he also mean it, but it is the core of the matter, the most relevant of the moment. That’s what leadership is all about. We citizens should know exactly when to take something on, um, face value.

So, when on Tuesday the President vowed publicly (well, on a train full of press people) to restore vitality to Indonesia’s football, I realized how important this was. What a fool I was, focusing on trying to get to the bottom of all these made up corruption stories, when what we really need to do is win the World Cup (or at least the Asian bit of it). That’ll fix everything, and we will finally be a developed nation.

http://thejakartaglobe.com/columns/piece-of-mind-conde-nast-names-ubud-top-asian-city/354035

Everyone loves Conde Nast Traveler when it’s on your side, and players in the tourism industry hold their breath when it comes time for  “Best of” lists to be published. Never mind whether you like them or loathe them, Conde Nast publications rule the fashionista horizon – the Lords of the Bling.

But that doesn’t mean that their pronouncements can’t be erratic. Some whisper “bought”, but by who?

My opinion tends to lean more towards the theory that they simply follow what they think are promising trends and try not to get caught with their designer pants down. The Traveler’s ‘best of’ list is, so it goes, voted on by readers.

Please don’t get me wrong  – Conde Nast has been kind to Bali, supportive of the island’s struggle to get back on its feet after crippling terrorist attacks in this last decade.

But its latest rating has left me a bit bemused. The majority of 25,000 of its readers apparently felt that Ubud is the ‘Best City in Asia’.

As a long term resident of Ubud I’ll have to admit to a certain twinge of pride (gimme a break, its been my home for more than three and a half decades).

But the wet blanket in me went: “What the flip?”

Have I been asleep, snoring away the years like Rip van Winkle, only to wake up and find out that Ubud is not the village I arrived in during the early ’70s, complete with no electricity and dirt roads?

Quite the contrary, for the last decade I have been calling Ubud a town, despite some starry-eyed expats trying to tell me it’s a village.

There are traffic jams, and shops everywhere. But city it is not. As a matter of fact, despite it being the ‘capital’ of this kecamatan, or administrative district, it has yet to even be officially recognized as a town, let alone a city! Ubud is still called a kelurahan , or administrative village.

Yes it has a center – one major crossroad, the epicenter of our very own traffic jams (except between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. on good days).

Outlets we have plenty of, complete with Polo, Calvin Klein – if you can fake it, we got it. Its restaurants rival Seminyak’s. And we have one soccer field, which doubles as an all-purpose public space cum parking lot cum kiddies mud bath.

There’s also a lot of culture going on, you can buy tickets to much of it.

But despite all the Disney-esque features, great nosh and the litter, it’s a far cry from a city.

Having been left slightly taken aback by a short-lived local poster campaign that tried to sell Ubud as the ‘Cultural Capital of the World’ (take that NYC, London, Paris, Prague, Berlin and what have you – I bet you don’t have trance dances every Wednesday), I can only imagine the confusion that lies ahead.

All those years we have been trying to sell the place on its charms as the ‘village of the artists’, now we have to jump to ‘thrilling city’? Oh dear. I’m gonna have a nap again, and perhaps when I wake up Ubud will be a country.

Rio Helmi is a photographer based in Ubud, Bali.

Some of the more freakish sights, like a huge floating electricity generator pontoon which the tsunami propelled five kilometers inland, have become local tourist attractions and somehow have lost the aura of tragedy.

But the prolonged, bitter conflict and the apocalyptic devastation left behind by the tsunami, have gouged deep scars in the Acehnese psyche, and nowhere more so than in the hearts and minds of it’s children. The worst hurt seem the most taciturn. Their voices recounting their stories are matter-of-fact, tempered by suffering. Few adjectives enter their sentences.

Today there are still many children who are separated from their families, many of whom have little choice but to live in a variety of child care hostels ranging from traditional local Islamic boarding schools (‘Dayah’) to state institutions, which in Indonesia go under the generic term of panti asuhan.

The quality of care, education, living conditions and social atmosphere of all these institutions, particularly the newer ones, vary greatly. Often it boils down to the motivation and character of the directors of the institution itself, who in the case of the private institutions tend to be the ‘owners’. In not a few cases the children have become a commodity, the ‘bait’ for funding and grants – the more the children, the more the money. More often the atmosphere of these institutions is less spiritual than repressive.

The children register everything quietly, but remember vividly. Dormitory rooms so full that the only place to sleep is on the floor. Sharing 3 bathroom/toilets with 65 others. Punishments: “I was forced into the got (open sewer like gutter) because I couldn’t memorise the religious texts well” said one 15 yr old girl who eventually went home.

Many endure for lack of choice, parents killed or impoverished by war and tsunami. They know they are a burden for their families. Says one 12 year old orphan “I would like to stay with my aunt, but she is already looking after 5 of her own kids and my little sister, it’s very crowded and my uncle doesn’t work”. Some are determined to weather the worst to improve their lot: “My father is gone. My mother is a seasonal farm laborer. I want to be a doctor” states a petite teenager in a baby blue gauze jilbab.

Others are just happy to have any sanctuary. A 13 year old ward of Dayah Darul Amna in Pidie whose father was killed by GAM rebels and whose mother was lost in the tsunami when she went to Banda Aceh that fateful day, feels secure here: “I like Walid (Rachmat, the director), I can talk with him.”.

Perhaps one of the reasons why is that ‘Walid’ Rachmat really understands: his own father was killed by GAM rebels demanding a cut of money granted to Dayah by the government. That’s not to say the 13 yr old in his charge doesn’t miss his parents: “I wish I had gone to Banda Aceh that day. At least I would be with my mother now.”.The adults in the room fall into a delicate silence.

There are many such stories. Ironically, the tsunami has washed away public attention from the deeper wounds of the armed conflict. Though the Memorandum of Understanding remains in place til now, long term suspicions remain, some barely beneath the surface. Both sides committed atrocities. Both remain suspicious of each other, and of each other’s children. In my local guide’s words: “Acehnese revenge lasts 7 generations”.

What is even sadder is that those who tried to remain neutral in the conflict and simply get on with their lives, were not only caught in the middle but were labeled traitor by both sides. The Acehnese even coined a new word, “Cua’ak”, for these ‘fence sitting traitors’. The same twisted logic applies to the cuâ’aks children, who inherit this dubious title and the double discrimination that goes with it.

In this atmosphere of political and religious tension, these young charges of institutionalized care, these tenacious victims of circumstance, are not really just statistics. These children of Aceh, so sparing with their adjectives, living by their own rules of emotional survival, are the heirs of a fractured community.

Some of them are determined to fight for a better future. Others have neither the will nor the help to overcome their hurt. Meet the time bombs of the future.

As journalist-turned-arbitrator Michael Vatikiotis commented, the UWRF has become something of a writer’s talk show. There is a tendency for the audience/participants to expect the enlightened sound bite from the panel, and there is of course the reciprocal tendency to be absolutely charming and witty in return. But those are more the sideshows.

With a bit of luck one gets to sit in on discussions that truly open one’s mind to other points of view presented eloquently. Not that one has to agree, but it is always of value to have a different perspective or even a challenge to one’s complacently held ideas.

Today’s discussion on Obama and the ‘honeymoon’ from the perspective of novelist Jamal Mahjoub, journalist Antony Loewenstein, and journalist/writer Fatima Bhutto was something of an example. The latter, who lost her father and aunt to political violence, had a very skeptical view of Obama’s achievement of all that was promised during his meteoric campaign. As a Pakistani, her assessment of Obama is perhaps understandable in the light of the increased “droning“ predators of death hanging over so much of her country – and the incessant trips by US envoy Holbrooke telling Pakistan what to do.

She was joined by Loewenstein, whose dissenting Jewish take on the state of Israel’s aggressive sabotage of the peace process has been hardened by much direct observation of what actually goes on in Palestine. Talking about the two states within Palestine concept, he saw no possibility of the US sponsored concept to ever materialize. This largely because he saw how aggresively and flagrantly the Israelis continue to violate the West Bank, . It seems Obama is, for him, a kind of icing on a very bitter cake.

Mahjoub on the other hand was a little more aligned to the Obama friendly crowd. Obama is an important symbol of change, he argued, and Obama’s rhetoric is important. I think everyone agrees it’s a damn sight better than Bush’s.

Personally I feel that expecting Obama to right all of the dysfunctional US foreign policy legacy in 9 months is naive at the very best. But far worse than that is the tendency to overlook the fact that civic movement and dissent should address itself to the rot and insidious players who are the obstacles to Obama’s vision and hopes that he expresses in his rhetoric. Both those for and against this embattled man in Washington are creating impossible benchmarks for him. Give the man a few more months!

Super liberal members of his own party seem to have cornered him into tackling the toughest political stumbling block of all US presidents, the health care debacle, far too early in his term. His detractors are watching with glee, whilst at the same time quietly preparing more obstacles to prevent him exorcising the dark and arcane phantoms of power that haunt the US capital’s political corridors.

His attempt at reaching out across the aisle are reflected in his foreign policy diplomacy. Here too his ambitious efforts at diplomacy is dangerously exposed to defeat as the big hustlers in real politik (not least the US military machine) hunker down for a long battle for influence over US foreign policy. He is being pushed perilously close to fatal commitment in Afghanistan. Israel is playing hardball on the West Bank despite stern reminders. And Iran is a nasty itch that could turn into a dangerously infected tropical ulcer.

So when (ok, if) Obama fails to attain these impossible benchmarks, and his critics gather for the kill, what will have happened? Once again the true villains of the system will have eluded attention. And this is really my main objection to Bhutto’s and Lowenstein’s skepticism – by being cynical about Obama we are missing the point.

Putting aside all vicarious chauvinistic sentiments (after all Obama lived in my childhood district of Jakarta), I feel it is very special that Obama won a free election as a man of colour in a country where less than half a century ago a black man, Martin Luther King, was very publicly assassinated simply because he had a dream of having equal rights as a white man. That in itself is an extraordinary achievement, and of enormous significance. On top of that, as Mahjoub pointed out, he did it without getting himself into debt with Big Business – basically the people financed his victory. He has become a true leader, and at the same time an easy target. In reality, the whole world voted for him.

An eerie sense of the twilight zone came over me when an hour after this public discussion, my mobile vibrated with the messages of Obama’s Nobel prize. I was incredulous at first, and then apprehensive. To have been nominated in February meant that he was only two weeks into office. Quite obviously the Nobel Prize committee has it’s own political agenda. But now, yet again, Obama has been handed a very sharp double edged sword.

While theoretically it might give him more clout, it seems that this is exactly the kind of speculation that an academic committee locked up in an ivory tower would come up with. Outside, the wolves in the realpolitik landscape wait and prowl. Will they focus on the dead, rotten meat in the system? Or are they too fond of living, presidential flesh? Will the people in the US take the “people’s revolution” a step further and actually unite against all the pernicious Washington lobbyists et al? Should the Nobel prize committees have psychological evaluation/their heads examined regularly?

Meanwhile, back in Ubud, it’s party time for the writers.