on White House cleanup, Thai lèse majesté, and terrorism pro-cons
Just read an interesting bit by Simon:
A friend of mine joked that Obama, in keeping with the traditional fate of African-Americans, has been given one of the worst jobs in the world cleaning up this whole mess. You can't really envy the man can you?
Truly true. A white man came and made a mess in the White House, and a black man is asked to clean up the mess.
What a jest.
Simon also wrote about the possibility of having a Papuan president in Indonesia as the equivalent of having an African American president in USA. Singapore is also considering this possibility of having a non-ethnic Chinese (which comprises 75% of its total population) as a leader, though PM Lee says that it doesn't sound very likely for the time being.
But nah, I think Indonesia has preceded Uncle S of A on this one... We had Habibie who was an ethnic Sulawesi, didn't we?
Regarding the lese majeste case in Thailand, I think it should come to us that democracy may not always go along with monarchy... You could either have the absolutism or the vox populi vox dei, but definitely not both.
On the pro-cons of terrorism in Indonesia, I read this bit below on JP:
In a particularly ill-considered instance, a private television arranged a debate Tuesday between one group opposing any kind of terrorism in the name of religion and another group accepting what Amrozi and his gang had done in Bali. Does such a controversial program deserve to be aired?
And I said... WTF?
This is not a discourse to be debated upon, for God's freaking sake!
Showing a slightest support towards those maniacal trio is already per se a delusion... you deserve to join the gang in death penalty if you think that the 200+ lives lost in Bali is a comeuppance.
Thank God they are dead now, may they rot in hell; but let's not savour too much on that.
One thing that we average Indonesians never forget is that the family and the daily lives of those trio (Amrozi-Ali Ghufron-Imam Samudra) have been given enough spotlight by our own media coverage (read: Infotainment) to the extent that they became instant celebrities... Indonesia is such a sick country indeed. If there is one country that could idolise such satanic beings, it would be Indonesia.
Habbie was appointed as a patsy to follow Jakarta's orders. The Generals forgot that the corporations are equal powers in Jakarta and that Conoco Philips had decided in 1996 that it should transfer East Timor to local ownership before the media admitted it was a colony.
Wahid turned out to be a real Muslim, so he had to be removed too. Magawati turned out to be a liar like her father, even telling Bush in 2001 that she supported the war against Islam - ah- I mean terrorism, and so we end up with another General; and the colonies continue under Jakarta administration.
@andrew:
seems so hard for Indonesia to find the perfect president, ay?
Hehe we could just hope Indonesians won't waste their vote on the 2009 election next time round :)