Fay's vandalism

Fay's vandalism

Well there we have it, your correspondent, Toni Hardi, (The
Jakarta Post, May 17, 1994), tells us that the reason that
Michael Fay vandalized cars in Singapore is that he was
traumatized by global warming! Personally, I doubt the subject
occupied his mind for micro seconds before he reached for his
aerosol and sprayed paint over the vehicles that those, less rich
than his father, had worked so hard for.

The truth is that Mr. Fay has it a lot easier than many of us
did in our youth. Our fathers were off fighting a war: I never
saw mine till I was five. There was little food, and less money.
But none of us took out our deprivations on our fellow citizens.
Of course, if you cast around enough, you can find problems in
today's world that didn't exist in ours, but those such as drugs,
excess alcohol and AIDS are largely self inflicted. They don't
impinge on my life, or the lives of anybody I know. And I doubt
very much that they do so on that of young Mr. Fay.

Mr. Hardi tells us that he would "love to see some parent/teen
dialogs started here." I can't speak for America, but in Europe
we already have them. We call this mindboggling innovative idea:
"Talking to the kids!" If our children do good things, we praise
them. If they do bad things, we explain the error of their ways.
If they persist, we (dare I say the word) hit them. This doesn't
traumatize the children: They know they are doing wrong. They
give far more respect to a parent, who cares enough to correct
them, than those who so are preoccupied with their work or their
social life that they can't be bothered --until, as in the case
of Michael Fay -- it's too late.

Judging from the fact that our violent crime is but a tiny
fraction of America's, I suspect we are on the right track. I
think it doubtful that Michael Fay will be tempted to return to
crime in the future, and for that he can thank the Singaporean
justice system. I congratulate them on it.

Americans should not believe that there is one law for them
and another for the rest of the world. It is grossly hypocritical
for them to condemn caning, while the majority of the United
States still allows prisoners to be carried kicking and screaming
to the electric chair, or the gas chamber, to be killed like
aging dogs.

They should not believe either that everybody covets their
idea of liberty. Freedom for what? To have drug pushers
everywhere; to have no gun control; to be unable to walk in the
park or go on the subway without fear; to need so many locks on
your front door that it looks like the inside of the national
gold depository. If that is freedom, Asia can well do without it!

JAMES DENNISON

Andorra, France

Poor coverage of
Jackie's funeral

Perhaps it was due to a lack of space, as half a page had
already been devoted to the entire world news in the Monday
morning issue of The Jakarta Post.

But, I think it tends to reflect the prevailing anti-American
sentiment that has been published regularly in the Post. However
at the death of an honored and internationally loved individual
such as Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, one would hope your
paper could show a little more respect as opposed to referring to
her only as "Onassis" twice in the article with no title. Yes,
that was the last name of her last husband, but the last name
alone without a title is how teenagers shout at each other on a
playground.

It was rather cold-hearted as well not to include "Jackie",
the name that the world affectionately knows her by. It would
have been a refreshing change to recall an individual and not let
our personal prejudices against a particular country, religion,
or race get in the way, as seems so prevalent in the world and
the Post recently.

The daily Bisnis Indonesia did a much more respectable tribute
to this classy lady. Their article showed much more heart. It's
too bad that the only English language paper did such a poor job,
so that those whose Bahasa Indonesia is not very good could not
enjoy and reflect on the light that a good soul can bring to us
in this world in which we are surrounded by so much hate and
competition.

Thank you Bisnis Indonesia for sharing the good of "Jackie."

MRS. MARY KRIS

Jakarta

Mandela and
apartheid

Nelson Mandela has made it to the presidency of South Africa
and like many people I can only say that justice has been done.
What he or his fellow South Africans now proceed to make of this
is another matter, highly fraught with risk, but nobody can say
that he hasn't earned the right.

It is strange, however, to see which people are now claiming
credit for the end of apartheid and the beginnings of a multi-
racial system in South Africa. Take the British paper, The Daily
Telegraph, long a supporter of apartheid regimes, which recently
ran an article urging John Major to be seen to claim more kudos
for the ending of white role. Pardon me, is this the same John
Major who served under Margaret Thatcher, that long-time opponent
of the anti-apartheid movement? The same Mrs. Thatcher who in
March 1973, when she was secretary of state for education under
Edward Heath hobnobbed with John Bathazas Vorster, apartheid
prime minister, at the opening of the Sutherland Observatory in
South Africa where she welcomed the "opportunity for co-
operation." And that was in her pre-Thatcherite phase, so to
speak.

The rest we know, of how when she was prime minister she
worked long and hard lobbying against sanctions and promoting
ties with Pretoria's white supremacists, of how she expedited
with obscene haste the passport application of one little white
girl, Zola Budd because she saw Olympic glory for Britain in the
thumping of Zola's feet, of how down the long dark years of
Nelson Mandela's incarceration -- and indeed of people like
Walter Sisulu and many, many others -- she never turned a hair at
their suffering ... need I go on?

It is a fact of life that fair-weather friends emerge from
nowhere when the sun is on your shoulders. That is no reason to
trust them and I hope that President Mandela will remember that
those, such as the British Tories, who now try to snuggle up to
him did nothing for him through the 27 years he spent in the
apartheid Gulag.

DAVID JARDINE

Jakarta

Bogus reporters

From Neraca

We are doing business which deals with entertaining
conferences, meetings held by companies. Recently a client held a
press conference in a reputed hotel. The company invited 10
reporters of different media to the conference with the purpose
that they would spread the latest information about the
activities of the company.

Surprisingly, besides the 10 invited reporters, a number of
people, who said that they were representing certain media, also
came and asked for transportation allowances. They did ask us for
the information material, but we noticed that they just dumped it
into the dustbin.

When asked to prove that they were members of the Indonesian
Journalists Association, they failed to produce the proper
identification. Some of them defended themselves by saying that
not all reporters are members of the organization.

In this context I would like to call for the attention of the
Indonesian Journalists Association to advise us on how to deal
with the so-called reporters. We were told by one hotel staffer
that the same self-styled reporters are found to be lingering
about in reputed hotels just to collect the transportation funds
usually provided to journalists by press conference organizers.

HARRY GA

Jakarta

Thomas Cup
and TVRI

From Suara Karya

The symbols of world badminton supremacy, the Thomas and Uber
cups, were snatched by top Indonesian players in heroic matches
at the Senayan indoor stadium last week.

Pride and rejoicing dawn in the hearts of the public,
including me. But unfortunately most of the Indonesian people,
especially those who live in remote areas, could not see the most
important matches in this country, except for the semifinals and
finals.

The problem was that the private television station ANTeve
bought up the broadcasting rights for all of the matches. But it
has less sophisticated (limited radius) broadcasting equipment
than that of the state television station, TVRI, whose programs
are accessible nationwide.

TVRI should have held the broadcasting rights for such
important events because badminton is one of the most popular
sports in this country.

Was it too expensive for TVRI to buy the broadcasting rights?
What is the use of the television taxes we pay every month, if
TVRI cannot air the programs favored by the people?

So far only TVRI has the widest and best broadcasting quality
in this country. So, next time a truly special event like the
Thomas and Uber championships occur, it should be covered by
TVRI, which can reach ever so many more people.

DIDING SURYADI

Cilegon, West Java