The way Soga kissed Jenkins

The way Soga kissed Jenkins

Kornelius Purba, Jakarta

Many Japanese TV viewers, reportedly, were surprised at the
way Hitomi Soga kissed her husband, Charles Jenkins, when they
met at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on Friday,
last week. For two years since her return to Japan, after her
release in 2002 and 24 years after being abducted by North Korea,
she normally appeared calm and quiet.

Soga, 45, looked a different person as soon as Jenkins, who
allegedly deserted to North Korea as a U.S. army sergeant in
1965, descended from the airplane. In front of dozens of people,
she hugged tightly her husband, whom, along with their two
daughters, she had not seen since her return to her native home
in Sado island, Japan. She kissed him passionately. After the hot
kiss she hugged her two daughters, Mika, 21, and Belinda, 18.

"That was an American kiss, not a Japanese one. However, we
must understand it is an international marriage," said a Japanese
friend.

The emotion expressed by Soga when kissing her 64-year-old
husband, however, indicates the much deeper and more serious
feelings of a woman abducted by North Korean agents in 1978 when
she was only 19 years old. Indonesians who are familiar with the
often brutal treatment by police and military officers of
ordinary citizens, especially during Soeharto's 32-year
presidency, can easily imagine what Soga's suffering must have
been like during her 24 years in North Korea.

She married Jenkins, who taught her English, in 1980. Her
grief and physical suffering while living for years as an
abductee under North Korean communist leaders -- who brutalized
their own citizens, and, clearly, hate Japan for historic reasons
-- is already beyond imagination.

"Japan also abducted thousands of Indonesians during World War
II, and exploited them either as forced labor or sex slaves. That
is why we also sympathize with Soga, regardless of your country's
treatment of us in the past," an Indonesian friend reminded a
Japanese scholar when they chatted about Soga this week.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is under severe public
pressure to reunite the Jenkinses at any cost. Japanese people
feel humiliated because the state is powerless to protect its own
citizens from the criminal acts of a foreign country. Pyongyang
has reportedly kidnapped dozens of Japanese citizens, many of
whose whereabouts are still unknown.

But what is happening to us in Indonesia? Is the state able or
willing to protect its citizens living abroad or in their own
motherland?

For many years it has become routine to hear Indonesian
housemaids working in the Middle East complain they were abused
by their employers; some even became pregnant, allegedly after
being raped there. Workers have been abused by the state from the
moment of their recruitment -- the state issuing passports to
underage women -- with it neglecting to protect uneducated
migrant workers when they encounter trouble abroad.

Hundreds of thousands of our citizens who work illegally in
Malaysia will be deported again. Reports of the treatment they
have received by Malaysian police or immigration officials seem
incapable of touching the consciences of our top leaders.
President Megawati Soekarnoputri seemed to be deaf and blind when
hundreds of thousands of workers were expelled from Malaysia in
2002.

Indonesian ministers are often upset when the government's
stance is compared with that of the Philippines, which strongly
protects its migrant workers. Perhaps they will describe as
stupid the decision this week by President Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo to consider withdrawing the country's 43 soldiers in Iraq
in an attempt to save the life of truck driver Angelo de la Cruz.

What about the domestic situation? Hundreds of thousands of
people, many of whom were innocent, were, in 1965, butchered or
their whereabouts never heard of again after a coup attempt
attributed to the Indonesian Communist Party. How many thousands
of families are there that still do not know the fate of their
beloved ones?

What has the state (not just the government) done to protect
its citizens? The matter has been all but forgotten. How many
alleged Muslim extremists were killed in Tanjung Priok, Jakarta,
in Lampung and in other places during the Soeharto era, even
though there is a belief that many of them wished simply to
reclaim their stolen rights?

Hundreds, if not thousands, of people were killed during the
May 1998 riots that occurred a few days before Soeharto decided
to step down. To public disbelief, the people who were in charge
of security said they did their best to protect citizens. Perhaps
they want to blame God for their failure?

The state has an obligation to protect its citizens, no matter
what background they have. In Poso, Central Sulawesi, and Maluku
what has the state done to prevent Muslims and Christians from
killing each other?

We cannot expect much from our leaders, including the
incumbent president, Megawati. She seems to have no interest in
seeking justice for people who sacrificed their lives for her
after Soeharto ousted her as chairperson of the Indonesian
Democratic Party in 1996.

For decades, the state continued to abuse Acehnese people who
thought it would be better to separate from Indonesia, which,
they felt, was acting more like a colonial power. Many people
have lost their lives there, including Indonesian soldiers who
were obliged by the state to treat their fellow countrymen as
foreign enemies.

Who cares about the suffering of Acehnese people? Many Muslim
groups here seem to think they have a greater obligation to take
to the streets to protest at what they consider to be the brutal
treatment of Iraqis by America.

They ignore the suffering of Acehnese Muslims, who are much
closer to them. It would be more justified to continue defending
the rights of Iraqis and Palestinians if we also showed a
similarly hard stance against what many perceive to be the
government's abusive treatment of devout Muslims in the province.

The way Soga kissed and hugged her husband reflected a much
deeper thing. We would be very proud, as Indonesians, if the
state kissed its citizens like that because that would mean it
was not letting us suffer anymore.

Kornelius Purba (purba@thejakartapost.com) is a staff writer
for The Jakarta Post.