Pen's might

The People's Republic of China has pledged to Indonesia medicine and food aid worth US$3 million, along with $200 million in export credit facilities, to help us in our present economic difficulties. So what's wrong with this new development, which is, in essence, an act of friendship and solidarity between two Asian nations?

On Feb. 11, 1998, the International Herald Tribune, that most erudite of world daily newspapers, felt it necessary to play up some Western analyst's view that China "might feel compelled to deploy her navy to Indonesian territorial waters in order to collect refugees and pressure Indonesia's leadership into restraining anti-Chinese violence." The source of that statement? Some highbrow in Chicago, half a world away from the Asian region.

The same publication also suggested strongly in other issues that the government was somehow behind the anti-Chinese riots of past months, supposedly in order to deflect criticism from itself. I thought at the time: Then why not start with the main population centers such as Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung and Medan? Why the minor, isolated towns?

The world's daily newspaper didn't give up, though. On Feb. 14, one over-enthusiastic editor gave a front page story the subheading: Fresh unrest comes closer to the capital. Oh, wow. I could imagine the next day, a gray-suited man in Paris frantically e-mailing his reporter here: "Isn't Jakarta burning yet? We can't hold the presses forever."

The mainland Chinese government knows full well that it does not hold sway over Indonesian-Chinese minds. People of Chinese descent here would know better where Jakarta's Jl. Pecenongan or Semarang's Jl. Pemuda were than say, where Fuxingmenwai Avenue (a major Beijing thoroughfare) is located. The crews of Chinese naval vessels would have a hard time trying to communicate with most Indonesian-Chinese.

Now, the worse seems to be over for our country. A sign of this is that Indonesia has been off the front pages in many overseas newspapers for the past few weeks.

It only goes to show that even when reading internationally acclaimed newspapers, we should not let our minds shift to "idle", but learn to think for ourselves.

I will end this letter by quoting what George Bernard Shaw once wrote, which is very true: "Some journalists don't know the difference between a bicycle accident and the end of the world."

FARID BASKORO

Jakarta