JP/20/MORITZ
Former sportsman still has competitive edge
Mario Koch The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
After 10 successful years, German Moritz Kleine-Brockhoff, 37, turned his back on playing professional basketball to become a journalist in Southeast Asia.
For almost five years now he has exclusively covered the region as foreign correspondent for four German dailies (Frankfurter Rundschau, Der Tagesspiegel, Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung and Stuttgarter Zeitung), which jointly sponsor one reporter.
At his house-cum-office in Menteng, Central Jakarta, he spoke to The Jakarta Post's Mario Koch about his remarkable career change and some aspects of the experience it entails.
"Until I was 20, my life was all about basketball; playing as a professional, driving a new BMW 318 and receiving a monthly pay check exceeding those of my peers, I somehow felt the world belonged to me.
"But then I had my first serious injury, forcing me to spend five months in rehab. Just after I recommenced training, the injury recurred, with the doctors telling me they were not sure if it could ever be completely resolved.
"This made me realize for the first time that playing basketball was not something I could rely on in life, so I started to study physical education and journalism."
From the age of 27 onwards, Kleine-Brockhoff was almost continuously in an injured state. Thus, in 1997 he finally decided to quit playing altogether to focus on his thesis dealing with another sport, golf, and consequently complete his studies.
"Today, my former teammates begrudge my adding another string to my bow in time. In turn I begrudge them for their exploding bank accounts following the Bosman case." [explanation to be inserted here]
Southest Asia passion
Kleine-Brockhoff developed early a strong personal interest in Southeast Asia. "I'd been to Singapore with a friend when I was 18. We did this real backpacker thing -- going all the way to Bangkok by train. Later, I often traveled the region by motorcycle. When I started to work as a journalist, I had already been to all the countries and truly wanted to combine the passion with my professional ambitions."
His wish was granted when he worked with the BBC as part of an 18-month training program with Deutsche Welle and associated media, being assigned to assist in covering the 1999 parliamentary elections in Indonesia.
Thereafter he worked at BBC bureaus in Hong Kong and Bangkok, before being sent to cover the independence referendum and its outcome in Timor Leste.
When militias, backed and instructed by the Indonesian military, started to systematically devastate the capital, Dili, killing or driving out its inhabitants, he held out: first inside, then later on the roof of the city's biggest hotel. He ended up as the last German journalist in Timor Leste and his dramatic account was published in Germany's high-quality weekly Die Zeit, thus bringing the young reporter to the attention of a wider public in his home country.
"In Dili that time I still was very much a novice to the business. Even though the development of events didn't come from nowhere, as there had been widespread violence before the referendum already, it was still one of the most frightening experiences in my career.
"Before that, I had only experienced violence on TV, but then people were killed brutally right before us. When the militias entered our hotel, firing shots into the ceiling, I really feared for my own life as well.
"Today, we know they didn't want to kill us, but wanted to drive us out of there to complete their detestable task without anyone on hand to witness their action."
Even if Kleine-Brockhoff gradually gained prestige as a reporter, it was only after almost two years of financially unstable freelance writing that in 2001 he got the job he still holds today.
He chose Jakarta as his base and rented a house in up-market Menteng. "I knew the landlady and renovated the place myself, so the rent is reasonable. Still, my standard of living is better reflected in the Daihatsu Taruna outside than by this house."
One spacious room, wallpapered with title pages of Newsweek, Time or Far Eastern Economic Review and the floor covered by stockpiled issues of various dailies, serves as his home office. Here he writes his articles (148 in 2004, with the tsunami being the dominant issue), always sending them to all four German dailies, whose total circulation is 1,000,000 copies.
Never a dull moment
Kleine-Brockhoff chooses most of his subjects independently, with only about 10 percent being specific assignments from Germany.
"I cover a wide variety of topics that bear some relation to Germany. From in-depth political analyses, economy and trade to stories on Inul (the dangdut performer) or the obsessions of Indonesian women with white skin.
"At the moment I'm working on a profile of this year's Miss Indonesia. Fortunately, nobody in Germany seems to have realized yet that she was born in Hanover. This should be a great story for Hannoversche Allgemeine."
When talking like that, it is obvious that he enjoys his job. "I particularly like its versatility. One is frequently confronted with completely new issues and thus forced to keep on learning about things.
"Of course there are moments of doubt as well -- especially when one has to worry about one's health or life being in danger. I felt real fear in Timor Leste in 1999, or when I was in Jolo, the Philippines, in 2001.
"I was traveling in Patikul, an Abu Sayyaf stronghold, accompanied by now detained Muslim leader Nur Misuari when our convoy was fired at.
"More often it is not genuinely fear, but a feeling of uneasiness that one senses. When I was visiting Ambon, Maluku, in 2000, together with two reporters from Antara for instance. They sent a Christian for the Christian part and a Muslim for the Muslim area of the city; I covered the whole of it.
"Just recently, I went to Sulianto Saroso Hospital, North Jakarta, where suspected bird flu patients are being treated. I saw a terrifying leaflet that had been published by WHO (the World Health Organization) about all the precautions to be taken. Reading it certainly makes you scared.
"But in the end, you have to take the rough with the smooth. I remember writing about a contest for models, namely the Elite Talent Search World Final in Singapore. All the journalists stayed in a five-star hotel and enjoyed all kinds of luxuries. So, being a foreign correspondent is not so bad after all!"
Kleine-Brockhoff has maintained his distinctly competitive streak.
The day the interview took place, he had just returned from the German research vessel, Sonne, to witness the handover to Indonesia of the first buoy of a tsunami warning system.
Moritz asked to be excused, saying: "I must finish this article first. I discovered that the operational costs of the system and who will pay for them is totally unclear.
"I'm sure I'll be first to get this published in Germany."