The spin on Pelabuhan Ratu
As a frequent visitor to one of Indonesia's -- and perhaps one of the world's most beautiful areas -- I would like to appeal to the Indonesian Tourist Board to let me assist them in properly promoting Pelabuhan Ratu. My brochure would read something like this:
Pelabuhan Ratu.
Where the hand of God and the hand of man join together to create a truly unique environment.
Where, amid the creator's breathtaking natural beauty, you can walk as far as the eye can see on pristine plastic-garbage covered beaches totally unspoiled by the natural nuisance of sand.
Where you and your children can explore and frolic in tropical rock pools teeming with a spectacular variety of synthetic species of trash.
Where each beautiful wave that rolls up unto the glistening plastic shoreline delivers a bountiful harvest of man-made waste products.
Where you can comb the beaches to your heart's content in search of exotic specimens of plastic bags, bottles and wrappers.
Where you can join the local scavengers in collecting souvenirs of every conceivable type of plastic container known to man.
Pelabuhan Ratu.
Experience it now, before some environmentally conscious liberal do-gooder comes along and has the local authorities criminally prosecuted for simply dumping thousands of tons of garbage into the otherwise empty and unused expanses of Pelabuhan Ratu Bay.
To the readers of this letter, just let me say that what is happening at Pelabuhan Ratu is so overwhelmingly heartbreaking and so unimaginably criminal that sarcasm is the only way I seem to be able to relate this truly profound tragedy.
MARSHALL LESESNE
Jakarta