Meanderings of a Lost Soul

Betcha By Golly Wow

Lawmakers & Lawbreakers
or
Betcha By Golly Wow
By N. Mark Castro



                                                                               

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- I always make out in talks, whenever a question about corruption is raised, that there’s a fundamental difference between our corruption and that of other Asian countries. It’s not that ours is bigger. Other Asian countries, or closer to home, Southeast Asian ones, have more astronomical levels of corruption.

Transparency International lists Ferdinand Marcos only second among the all-time crooks of Asia. The dubious honor of being first belongs to Indonesia’s Suharto. Marcos stole “only” $15 billion, Suharto stole $35 billion.

Suharto « Previous | Back to Gallery | Next »

But you look at Indonesia and the Philippines today, and you are going to weep only for the Philippines. Indonesia hasn’t quite reached such levels of desperation that it has to export its people wholesale to survive. That’s not simply explained by the fact that Indonesia is bigger and richer and can tolerate higher levels of pillage.

Quite simply, though Suharto stole more, he never took the money out of Indonesia. He plunked his loot in all sorts of businesses there, big and small, multimillion and penny-ante. Marcos stashed his loot abroad, in Swiss and other banks. At the end of the day, Suharto remained in Indonesia, ready to face, or buy off, his detractors. At the end of the day, Marcos fled to Hawaii to enjoy the bitter fruit of his murderous labor, such as he could with lupus and Imelda, whichever made living more unbearable.

That is the difference between corruption here and other Asian countries, which explains the abject state we’re in. Other Asian countries at least have patriotic crooks; we have treacherous ones. The blood money of other Asian tyrants go on to employ the citizens of their country; the blood money of local ones go on to employ only a few Filipino maids and chauffeurs in America.

That was the first thing I thought of when I read about this business of Mike Arroyo signing a waiver allowing the HypoVereinsbank in Munich to divulge his accounts, if any, to the ethics committee of the House of Representatives. He did this to counter Alan Peter Cayetano’s allegations that he held accounts there and apparently to comply with the lawmaker’s demand for him to sign a waiver to ascertain it. Cayetano is unimpressed by the gesture and says that is not exactly, or entirely, what he is asking for. What he is asking for is a waiver that will free not just this particular bank in Munich but all foreign banks to reveal the First Gentleman’s deposits upon request by Philippine authorities. What he was trying to determine, Cayetano said, was whether there existed “a pattern of corruption and money-laundering by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and members of the First Family.”

I leave others to debate the question of who has scored the more points in this latest round of the ongoing bout between Arroyo and Cayetano. My point is simply this: Why should signing a waiver allowing foreign banks to disclose the deposits of Filipino public officials—and their families—upon request of Philippine authorities be voluntary or optional? Why should it be done out of the goodness of one’s heart? Why shouldn’t it be compulsory or a requisite of public office? Why shouldn’t that be something candidates explicitly or implicitly agree to when they run for any position in this country, from barangay councilor to president?

Frankly, I don’t know why no representative or senator has yet filed that as an urgent bill. Henceforth, every Filipino official, elected or appointed, agrees to have his assets abroad scrutinized without legal impediment from him. Or more to the point, henceforth every Filipino official, elected or appointed, agrees to waive his right to secrecy in bank deposits abroad. That should be written in the oath of office public officials must swear to before they occupy their positions. Which, of course, should apply to the members of their immediate families as well. For obvious reasons: A public official’s loot may not be laundered by his or her spouse or children.

The logic is simple: At the very least, even if those deposits are well-gotten (although the notion that Filipino officials could possibly harbor legitimate wealth in Swiss and other banks is about as believable as the notion of military intelligence or Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s capacity for honesty), what is a Filipino public official doing not using that money to improve the lot of those he professes to serve? At the very most, if those deposits are ill-gotten -- which they almost axiomatically are, notably where they carry the name “Jose Pidal” or variations thereof -- then their depositors should be shot by firing squad in, well, not in Bagumbayan, that would be sacrilege. Those deposits do not just represent corruption, they represent treason. Those deposits do not just represent a betrayal of public trust, they represent a betrayal of the nation.

We have a proposed anti-terror bill that proposes to terrorize the citizens by freezing the bank deposits of suspected terrorists. Why can’t we have a saner anti-corruption and anti-treason bill that simply obliges public officials to disclose their deposits in foreign banks by waiving their right to secrecy there? What can be more a matter of national security than preventing the remaining wealth of this already much ransacked country from being smuggled outside and frittered away by crooked traitors or treacherous crooks? What can be higher treason than plucking food from the mouth of the hungry to bet on Manny Pacquiao’s fights? What can be a worse act of terrorism than planting a bomb at the heart of this country’s survival?

Will Mike Arroyo sign a waiver allowing all foreign banks to disclose any deposits he might have made with them?

That shouldn’t be a matter of choice, that should be a matter of course. By God, by law and by golly.

The Nuclear Mess

Coca Cola Cold War
BY N. Mark Castro
Lebaran 2006
Jakarta, Indonesia




Back in 1984, when the Russians were evil and I was in junior high in Manila, Philippines, the school authorities regularly conducted emergency drills wherein we students practiced protecting ourselves from nuclear attack by crouching under our desks. We'd hunker down there until Ms. Suarez gave us the word that the nuclear war was over, then we'd crawl back out and resume reading about the fascinating adventures of Dick and Jane. (''Ha!'' said Dick. ''Ha ha!'' said Jane. ''Ha ha ha!'' said Dick. ''Ha ha ha ha'' ... etc.)





Why would Russia attack, of all useless countries in the geographical map, the Philippines?



Simple.




Ferdinand Marcos was a big time puppy of the American empire. And so in order to support his camaraderie for the Americans and to show that we, too, were concerned, we had to go through the nuclear emergency drill.





You might think that I am rather exaggerating when I use the word "empire" the describe the United States of America, but trust me, read the history of mankind and you will know that it's not far from what the word truly implies.





At any rate, I understand this nuclear-emergency drill was conducted in many schools in the '80s. Apparently the desks used in classrooms back then were made of an exceptionally missile-resistant variety of wood.





During the Cold War years, when the has-been actor Ronald Reagan ruled the other half of the known world, I often wondered why it never occurred to American defense planners to protect the entire American nation from nuclear attack by simply covering it, from sea to shining sea, with a huge Strategic Classroom Desk.





I now realize that the defense planners did not have time to be fooling around with ridiculous schemes like that. They were too busy spraying deodorant on cows.




Yes, you got that right. According to an Associated Press story that you can google, the Army recently admitted that in 1963 and 1964, Army scientists went to stockyards in six American cities and ''sneaked up on cows and sprayed them with deodorant.''





I am not making this up. (Truth is oftentimes funnier than fiction).





The idea was to find out whether enemy agents could spray American cows with hoof-and-mouth disease germs, thereby spoiling America's beef supply, not to mention wreaking havoc in the ketchup industry.





Needless to say, the cow-spraying operation, like just about everything else the federal government did during the Cold War, was a secret. I'm guessing that it had a classified name, perhaps "Operation Cow Pow."






After spraying deodorant on cows, the Army scientists probably went to a bar to celebrate their successful mission by having a few drinks and -- in the tradition of suave covert operatives such as James Bond -- picking up women.



ARMY SCIENTIST (suavely): Hi. I'm a covert operative. Don't tell anybody.

WOMAN: What's that on your shoes?





Yes, it was a risky job. But somebody had to do it. Because there was a Cold War on, and for all we knew, somewhere over in Russia, communist scientists, bent on world domination, were spraying deodorant on THEIR cows.





Of course, those days are gone. The once-mighty Soviet Union has degenerated into a bunch of obscure nations with names like ''Kazoobistan,'' populated by would-be capitalists trying to borrow money from the Americans so they can buy frozen-yogurt franchises.






Gone, too, is the very real threat that at any moment, a nuclear war could wipe out human civilization.





I frankly miss it.





I mean, during the Cold War, you could always say to yourself, "Hey, any minute now I could be blown to atoms, so why should I (pick one):

a. ... clean the toilet?''

b. ... give up marijuana?''

c. ... not eat these last two Big Macs?''







Yes, you could have guilt-free fun during the Cold War, as opposed to now, when the prospect of reaching old age has turned us into a bunch of health-obsessed wussies, squinting at product labels in the supermarket, trying to locate the low-fat bean dip. Also, with the Soviet Menace gone, the American government hardly ever does fun stuff anymore. I'm sure I speak for millions of Americans when I say that they'd rather see their tax money used for covertly spraying deodorant on cows than for printing up yet another 652-pound health-care plan.







Fortunately, there is one government outfit that still has some of that old Cold War paranoid spunk. I refer to the Central Intelligence Agency, which recently admitted that it had been hiding four large buildings in suburban Virginia from the rest of the federal government. You probably read about this. Under questioning from a Senate committee, the CIA admitted it was building a $310-million office complex that nobody, including the President, knew anything about. And if you're wondering how a project that large could be kept secret, then you clearly have never seen the federal budget, which is larger than your garage. The CIA could easily have slipped $310 million in there under a heading such as "Snacks."






This story gave me a warm feeling. It reminded me of the good old days, when life was exciting and communists were trying to destroy America's moral fiber, which almost always spilled over the Philippines, via such tactics as 'rock `n' roll'' music and the FBI was keeping an eye on everybody in the United States except actual criminals, and Richard M. Nixon was finding enemy microfilm in pumpkins and nobody had ever heard of ''dietary fiber.''





And now, with the advent of North Korea's nuclear armament, and Iran's impending inclusion to such an idiotic group, there seems to be a very clear and present indication that mankind is headed for a Nuclear Cold War yet again. Imagine this, once these two so-called rogue nations beef up their nuclear armada, the United States would then be forced to arm Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea the necessary nuclear warheads. Pakistan already has its own silo, while India can turn its neighbor into a Chicken Tika. Imagine if you will, an exciting 2007 that's about to heat up!





It wouldn't be long then when Saudi Arabia and the rest of the UAE would join forces to build their own warheads ... and pretty soon the extremists wouldn't be blowing themselves up with your regular, run-of-the-mill, homemade bombs; pretty soon they'd be tying themselves up in some nuclear-tipped warheads ... and by then it would all be a great big playground with dangerous toys.





Don't you just love the world's leaders?




Oh, the idiocy of humanity ... I love it!





Just for old times' sake, I'm going to crouch under a desk.

From West Wing To Right Wing

Arguing with Ambir and Mandi is a futile attempt to turn these "Suthen Gals" into having a liberal view about life.

Oh sure I love 'em.

Oh sure I respect 'em.

But damn, do I hate those Republican bitches or what?

But why work hard to counter-argue with them when I can just put up a couple links that'll blow 'em like crazy. Heck, at least I don't even have to scrounge up some ideas as to how I could best hit 'em back.

Up first, Will Murphy's What Right-Wingers See When They Read the New York Times. (You do know how this works, right?)

Next, the guys who wrote Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O'Reilly review O'Reilly's distinguished print oeuvre in The Nation.

Enjoy, you right-wing nuts gals!

61th

Independence Day
By N. Mark Castro

Erratically tucked in Southeast Asia, somewhere in the southern part of China and northern part of Australia, Indonesia is made up of about 18,000 islands, 7,000 of which are inhabited.

And THIS is where I am ...


I have yet to explore the other parts of this country but with the upcoming 61st year celebration of Indonesia's independence, I have decided to share with you some of the beautiful places here on Earth today.

 

Bali

 

Bali surf camp

Java Island from space. The island is made up almost entirely of volcanoes.

Temple in Bali.

Krakatau, located between Java and Sumatra.

 

Borobudur Temple.

Colorful market.

          

Happy lady in Bali.

Sulawesi architecture.

And the reason why I came over ... the Komodo Dragons. There are only three places on earth where you can find them, Galapagos Islands, the United States, and Indonesia ...

Across The Universe

Article 28e

By N. Mark V. Castro



I have read much of the heart-rending testimony of authorities and lawmakers who are working so hard to press the Commission on Pornography to pass a clear guideline that would arrest the growing moral decay of Indonesia. As of yesterday's posting of the Jakarta Post, which was prominently displayed at the front page, Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin said the "country needed a pornography law to "reverse the situation" of an increasingly liberal society.

"We are concerned by the moral liberalization that will lead the nation to the brink of collapse, unless it is stopped as soon as possible," he said."

It is clear to me that the Indonesian Government must be given the power to suppress the words and images which are the causes of sexually motivated insanity and crimes.

I myself make my living with words, and I am now ashamed. There is the word "motherfucker" one time in my published article OUT, as in, "Get out of the road, you dumb motherfucker." (Ever since that word was published, way back in 1989, children have been attempting to have intercourse with their mothers. When it will stop no one knows.). So in view of the terrible damage freely circulated ideas can do to a society, and particularly to innocent children, I beg Indonesian government to delete from my works all thoughts which might be dangerous. I want to help the elected leaders in bringing my thoughts into harmony with their own and thus into harmony with the thoughts of those who elected them.

That is democracy.

Attempting to make amends at this late date, I call to the attention of the lawmakers the fundamental piece of obscenity from which all others spring, the source of all evil, the taproot of the deadly poisonous tree. Kill the taproot and the tree dies, and with it its deadly fruits, which are rape, sodomy, wife-beating, child abuse, divorce, abortion, adultery, gonorrhea, herpes, and AIDS.

I will read this most vile of all pieces of so-called literature aloud, so that those who dare can feel the full force of it.

I recommend that all persons under 14, and all persons under 30 not accompanied by an adult, should leave the room. Those remaining who have heart trouble or respiratory difficulties, or who are prone to commit rape at the slightest provocation, may want to stick their fingers in their ears. And what I ask you to endure so briefly now is what the selfless members of the pornography commission do day after day for the good of the children. I am simply going to dip you in filth, and pull you out of it and wash you off immediately. At terrible risk of infection, they have to wallow in pornography. They are so fearless. We might think of them as sort of sewer astronauts.

All right. Everybody ready? Tighten your G-strings. Here we go:

Article 28E

(1) Every person shall be free to choose and to practice the religion of his/her choice, to choose one's education, to choose one's employment, to choose one's citizenship, and to choose one's place of residence within the state territory, to leave it and to subsequently return to it.

(2) Every person shall have the right to the freedom to believe his/her faith (kepercayaan), and to express his/her views and thoughts, in accordance with his/her conscience.

(3) Every person shall have the right to the freedom to associate, to assemble and to express opinions.


source: The Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia



That Godless loop of disgusting sexuality, friends and neighbors, happens to be a basic law of this country. How could this have happened? Some communistic, pederastic, wife-beating congressman must have attached that when Indonesia was declaring her independence. It should be expunged with all possible haste, in order that innocent children can be safe again.

Adolf Hitler blamed the Jews for inspiring every sort of sexual ugliness in Germany, so he tried to kill them all. Say what you like about him, incidentally, it can't be denied that he led an exceedingly clean life sexually. In the end, he made an honest woman of his only sexual partner, Eva Braun. And lest we forget, the recently dead Slobodan Milosevic likewise expunged Moslems from his country under the guise of moral renewal and nationalism.

Oh dear - have I slipped into pornography yet again? It is so easy to do.
Hitler was wrong about the Jews. It is unclean images which are responsible for unclean sexuality.

In order to protect innocent German children, all he had to do was get rid of the First Amendment. In no way can this be interpreted as an anti-Semitic act.

Apparently, it is not enough in Indoensia that sex crimes of every sort are already against the law, and are punished with admirable severity. It is up to the leaders, and particularly to the large Moslem organizations, to persuade a large part of the citizenry that even the most innocent fashion which was once was perfectly legal, and even celebrated in some godless quarters, because of the permissiveness of the Constitution must be prohibited, and arouse the thoroughly misinformed citizenry to rise up in righteous wrath to smash the aforementioned article.

 

As such, ancient or even old art forms, so long as it involves a naked woman, would no longer be allowed to be viewed in the counry. For instance, how can anyone now appreciate ancient Greece's interpretation of "Leda and the Swan"?

After all, even Michaelangelo's 1530 rendition of such tale is a testament to Zoophilia (from the Greek Zôon, "animal", and Philia, "friendship" or "love"), which is a paraphilia, defined as an affinity or sexual attraction by a human to a (non-human) animal. Such individuals who engage in such acts are called zoophiles. The more recent terms zoosexual and zoosexuality also describe the full spectrum of human/animal attraction. A separate term, bestiality (more common in mainstream usage), refers to human/animal sexual activity. To avoid confusion about the meaning of zoophilia — which may refer to the affinity/attraction, paraphilia, or sexual activity — this article uses zoophilia for the former, and zoosexuality for the sexual act. The two terms are independent: not all sexual acts with animals are performed by zoophiles, neither are all zoophiles interested in being sexual with animals.

 

And if you may indulge my point, I shall yet again post here another blatant pornography that must immediately be deleted!


Article 19.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

source: Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which the Republic of Indonesia has been a long-standing signatory since 1948.

Full support to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights must be immediately withdrawn, as continued participation would subject Indonesians to what Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin referred to as the growing liberalization of the country.

Apparently, the collapse of a nation does not rest on the gross ineptitude of leaders, the infringement of human rights, the blatant corruption of leaders, the loss of faith in morality, and the death of economy. Oh no, you incompetent political scientists, the collapse of a nation depends on one piece of ugly literature called pornography. Continued reading of such materials might somehow cause a person to wind up in a furnace for all eternity, which would be worse (if you consider its duration) than being raped, murdered, and then mutilated by a man maddened by dirty pictures.

I am not here to ridicule Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin or any of Indonesia's moral and even elected leaders. He in fact won my sympathy. He may not a be television evangelist, although he probably preached on radio from time to time. (They all do.) He may be a profoundly sincere Moslem and family man, doing a pretty good job no doubt spreading the teachings and life of Mohammed as he understood it, sexually decent, and not pathologically fond of the goods of this Earth and so on. He is merely trying to hold together an extended family, a support system far more dependable than anything the Indonesian Government could put together, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, whose bond is commonly held beliefs and attitudes. (I had studied anthropology, after all, and so knew in my bones that human beings can't like life very much if they don't belong to a clan associated with a specific piece of real estate.)

So the Commission on Pornography, a traveling show about dirty books and pictures put on the road, is a much-needed moral renewal.

This above all should take precedence, instead of the crazy quilt of ideas all its members had to profess put the Council of Trent to shame for mean-spirited, objectively batty fantasias: that it was good that civilians could buy drugs so easily; that anybody doing or thinking acts other than the preferred lifestyle should be called "infidels" at every opportunity; that the contents of wombs were Government property; that people with AIDS, except for those who got it from mousetrapped blood transfusions, had asked for it; that a billion-dollar general's house was well worth the price; and on and on.

Others may find the Commission on Pornography as blatantly show business, a way for the moral groups to draw attention to its piety by means of headlines about sex, and to imply yet again that those in favor of freedom of speech were enthusiasts for sexual exploitation of children and rape and so on.

I have a resigned, world-weariness about much of my writing, as you can so clearly see, for I have accepted the futility of railing against the evils and injustices of life.

To be 'anti-infringement of free speech' makes as much sense to me as being 'anti-earthquakes'. We are at the mercy of our biology: people have chemicals that control their brains, which are sometimes subject to weather.

So it is with grace that I, as a newfound resident of Indonesia, do hereby obey and follow her laws, such as the original form of the Pornography Bill which "allows the imposing of fines on women who refused to cover "sensitive" body parts, such as their hair, shoulders, midriffs and legs.

Violators risk jail terms and fines up to Rp 2 billion (about US$214,000)."

In relation to this, the penalty for killing someone in cold-blood, a little past the strike of midnight of a new year, for no apparent reason other than being served a restaurant bill, in plain sight of all innocent bystanders, the penalty is only Rp 100 million (about US$10,000), plus a two-year suspended sentence.

Hey, life may be cheap, but fashion is not.

End of joke.

A Kiss Is Just A Kiss, A Sigh Is Just A Sigh

In deference to the recent issue that has idiotically gained airtime on TV, print publication, current affairs, and my friend's petition, whose identity we shall protect from the authorities and so shall hide under the pseudonym Wusamah Margono Halimun, I am, in case you-eavesdropping-rumor-mongering authorities happen to understand a bit of English and therefore would like to know what my name is, or aliases if any, which is Manda Azhairie ... or Tom Cruise; I am herewith reprinting an article I'd written when the issue first came out.

My ignorance ignited my acquiescence, my moronic belief that such an issue would have died its natural death. Unfortunately, it didn't.

After all, the only way for a bad thing to exist is for the good people to do nothing.

I'm not good. Never was and never will be. But some of the people still are.

Therein lies the hope.

 

A KISS IS JUST A KISS, A SIGH IS JUST A SIGH
By N. Mark V. Castro

 

You arrive at the Soekarno-Hatta Airport after being away for some time, you see the woman you love patiently waiting for you, and caught between the winds of winter and summer, you kiss her passionately, with much longing in your heart, with much happiness that, at last, you are home … then they cuff your hands and lock you up in jail for 10 years.

That, in a nutshell, is part of the New Criminal Law.

“The proposed draft includes provisions banning public kissing, unmarried couples from living together and adultery. Offenders caught kissing in the open could be jailed up to 10 years and fined as much as 300 million rupiah (33,000 dollars) under new penalties,” according to AFP News, France.

As most expats go, we tend to look for things that we neglected or enjoyed back home in a new place where we insist on it being our new homes. We may have different views about daily living, even belief, but scratch that skin and you will find Malay blood coursing through it. Hence, Indonesia and the Philippines have shared a symbiotic relationship over the years, as neighbors, as trade partners, as allies, as friends, as ASEAN brothers.

But the proposed New Criminal Law range from the almost apologetic to the openly apoplectic. One is positively apocalyptic, invoking the wrath of God to fall on those human creations that do not extol His glory.

But a kiss ... I have meticulously searched all the Holy Books known to man and have not come across a single entry on God's desire to punish any living creature from kissing each other, either in public or in private. And yet, here we have gifted men walking on earth with us who invoke morality and righteousness as though only they were ordained with wisdom by God. Given the chance, I wouldn't be surprised if they chose who got Wind or Sun today. Ironically, sinners or saints both get the same privilege under God.

"This is in response to the wishes of the people," Abdul Ghani Abdullah, Indonesia's director general of legislation, told the Associated Press news agency.

What people? Which people? All 200 million of them? Besides, even if an ordinary kiss gets out of hand in public, there is already an existing law that curtails them. Why add more? It's not like we see young teenagers or even adults kissing in public all the time. I have spent a lot of time in Indonesia's premiere malls and have not come across a couple of kids spending hours on the bench or even standing up kissing each other. I barely see any couple kissing each other inside the theatres.

 

What people? Which people? Which country?




Mankind is replete with history of people kissing. Artists, poets, singers have all written much about a kiss. And here we are, way into the birth of a new millennium, trying to curtail it? Wait, wait, wait and backtrack a bit. Are we going forward or backward? Do you really have to spend taxpayers' money for two years debating over public kissing? Shouldn't that money be allocated to the poor instead? Besides, I'd rather prefer a couple kissing in public anytime, anywhere than two people fighting.

"Kissing in public is a crime if the people around are not happy and lodge a complaint. But if they think it's all right, then no action will be taken," justice ministry official Abdul Gani Abdullah told AFP as reported by Matthew Moore, Herald Correspondent in Jakarta.

But who decides when it becomes a crime and when it isn’t, the public? Therefore anybody can make an accusation. This is a big headache waiting to happen when it could have been avoided to begin with. A kiss? A kiss becomes a crime? What kind of kiss? A French kiss? A peck? Isn’t there a law that prohibits acts of lasvisciousness? Must we go to the extreme of deciding which kiss is criminal? It wasn’t even a question of whether or not it’s immoral. It goes right away to being criminal.

A kiss.

Articles 469 and 473 dictate that anyone may be charged with violating pornography laws --- which carry sentences between 5 and 12 years.

The bill couldn't even pin down what constitutes "lewd" or "pornographic". It almost makes you think their authors spent or plan to spend a great deal of time dwelling on it or are engaged in some kind of acts projecting their fantasies and prescribing punishments for them. I can almost picture their research assistants watching stripshows all over the world intently in dark joings and telling grinning acquaintances who espy them in scornful tones, "In aid of legislation."

But this is the sort of seemingly trivial thing that has not very trivial consequences. You can't afford to dismiss it blithely. I can appreciate how some parents might feel at having the frail sensibilities of their children assaulted by ads in newspapers, TV and billboards that show women (and men) in a state that little improves on the one they got launched into the world in. Though while at this, surely the frail sensibilities of those children stand to be more ravaged by ads that ask them to change the color of their skin through skin whiteners? Yet no MP has thought to protest this. But these bills do not make things better, as decency goes, they make things worse. This is one cure that is patently worse than the affliction.

At the very least, it poses a danger not to pornography but to art. A lesson in caution, how do you decide Leonardo Da Vinci’s work on The Man? Further, you likewise cannot invite your Egyptian neighbors for their cultural dance because they show their belly buttons for their belly dancing. And you can now see the decline on traditional dance and music such as Dangdut, Jaipongan, and even Balinese culture. All these cultural values that have been handed down from one generation to another, all these gone, forever erased from the memory, and all because of a legislative act that wanted to be Godly?

Indeed, pornography is not an easy animal to identify. Naked bodies, particularly as those locked in the exchange of body fluids, the thing that particularly stokes the wrath of the authors of these bills, should be interpreted in context.

The five bills themselves, vying with one another to ferret out evil and cast it into eternal fire, are a surefire guarantee of a plunge to an artistic Stone Age, where only "The Sound of Music" can be shown. Maybe not even that, as some idiot can always say there is something ungodly in Julie Andrews' choice of a widower to a nunnery.

More than to art, the bills pose a clear and present danger to freedom of expression. Or indeed to freedom of the press. This is not something only tabloids should be protesting against, all of media should. The bill is especially frightening in that respect.

Can an idea be more insidious, or idiotic?

I remember editing my college newspaper and often getting into arguments with the board of regents simply because I refused to let them touch it. Whenever they would so much as open their lips to declare that ours was a free press, I'd laugh right out in the auditorium and say that it's as ridiculous as having the Church edit Penthouse. You can't have media and preside over it. You have media and you let them polic it themselves. You let it mature. Otherwise, settle for brochures.

And finally, these bills pose a danger to society itself. I don't know if this is part of a plan to shift gears towards authoritarianism or fundamentalism or any other "-ism," but plan or not, it can be used to shift gears toward iron-fisted rule. It is all a piece with the rhetoric and practice of anti-terrorism and with calls for emergency measures to meet all sort of threats, for the most part of government's own making. Anti-smut has always been the Trojan horse of fascism. It was so in Germany, when Nazi youth raided cabarets and Jewish synagogues alike, proclaiming both to be obscenities. Ironically, the cabarets became the last bastion of defense, in the form of satirical revues, against the coming of the night. Yet similarly, what has FPI been doing again as of late?

Give bureaucrats and ass-lickers power and they are not going to stop at pornography, they are not going to stop at anything. The point is not to choose between the five bills, to embrace the one as more reasonable than the other. The point is to reject them altogether. The job of policing the ranks of media belongs to media, however they have often been remiss in it. That is so for all excesses of media, from lack of sensitivity to lack of taste.

The alternative is more than worse, it is disastrous. In a free and democratic state, no one is allowed to enter your house under the name of Allah or the Government, unless they have an arrest warrant or they're with Keannu Reeves playing Constantine.

 

You start policing the media and you're inviting everyone to polic your house. If so, then it's time to quit calling this a democratic country and start calling this Republic of Coca Cola, which will always be a friend to my country, Republic of Pepsi Cola.

The laws also propose to ban black magic and witchcraft.

Indonesia, in her attempt to rid further Western influences, is ironically moving more and more towards the early mistakes of the West.

"Anyone using black magic to hurt or kill faces five year's jail," but Indriyanto Seno Adji, a member of the Government appointed committee responsible for the laws conceded it was very difficult to define such offences in a criminal code.

Black magic and witchcraft.

One word comes to mind: INQUISITION.

So we may agree to disagree. But we all want to have a better world than the one we found, the question is: at what point do we sacrifice a person's right? A person's right, remember, something that even God would not dare coerce, interfere with, banish or some such. As I've said, come tomorrow, both the sinner and the saint would share under the same sun, breathe the same polluted air and live in the same shrinking planet. Imagine giving that ultimate power to your local priest or Imam.

  

I’d shake your hands as a gentleman, but then again, I’m afraid it might be against the law.

 

N. Mark Castro is a Corporate Crisis Management Strategist in the Philippines and US, PR / Media Adviser, and has served in English-based international magazines as former TEE OFF Golf Magazine editor-in-chief, MAN Magazine columnist, MABUHAY Magazine columnist, Filofax columnist for Manila Bulletin; In the business field, he has been an  International Business Negotiator, and a Strategic Business Analyst. He specialises in strategic communications planning, media relations and business advocacy. He has likewise been involved in film & TV production in the Philippines. He has broad international experience in organization business structures across Southeast Asia (Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia) and business partnerships in Europe (Italy) and North America. 

He has served as a managing consultant to Singapore-based Enaya Management Consultants, Pte. Ltd., and has held positions as Strategic Business Analyst, General Manager, and COO for PT. Bunda Global Indonesia. He is the CEO of media group consulting (mcg), a Makati-based public relations firm in the Philippines which is presently a consultant for several congressmen, mayors, and multinational companies; EVP / Corporate Communications of Titan Brigandine, Inc., a mobile marketing solutions company in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore; and he likewise sits in the board of Hexagon Envirosystems, Inc., a large-scale water-treatment Italian-Philippine company whose main principal is W.T.D. Trattamento Acque, s.r.l. of Italy.



Presently he is the COO of INFINITI Professional Development Centre (a subsidiary of P.T. Bunda Global Pertama), and is a Senior Media Adviser at IDA SUDOYO & ASSOCIATES PR Firm in Indonesia. He also sits as a Corporate Communications Director / Lead International Negotiator for Malaysian-Indonesian mining company P.T. Total Tenaga Prima Persada.

He may be contacted at nmvcastro_bgp@indonesia.com or mediagroup@consultant.com

Posted by Norwin Mark Castro on March 13, 2006 at 09:15 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Two Steps Behind ...

One Step Forward, Three Steps Backward

By N. Mark V. Castro

Recently I received this bulletin note from my friend, another newfound brother from another mother, whose identity we shall hide under the name Wusamah Margono Halimun. It was a plea for common sense and, ironically, decency. The real one, and not the one defined by that idiot who wrote in Jakarta Post and tried to describe what pornography is.

I normally divorce myself from fruitless public conducts, yet I try to contribute in any way that I can to public scandals. However, one issue that touches me deeply ... or at least touches me, Period, is any threat of censorship. This does not dismisses the fact that a certain moral code should be adhered to by the general public, so long as it does not curtail his freedom ... one which he has fought for so long. It is the same freedom you feel when you see wild horses running freely. It is the same freedom you breathe as the air kisses your cheeks. It is the same freedom you have, one which God never for once touched as soon as He'd given it.

In my own country, a dead man once entitled a book he wrote with one phrase in the Spanish language which had been prohibited by the colonizing Spaniards to be spoken or written by the Indios (locals). It was a phrase that encapsulated the flexibility of Malays residing in a country which was not yet called the Philippines (this name was given by the Spaniards to honor then King of Spain Philippe). It was a phrase that captured the edge of patience of Malays residing in those exotic 7,100 islands. It was a phrase that eventually led to the first armed revolution in Asia. It was a phrase that eventually gave birth to the first democratic republic in Asia. It was Jose Rizal's ...

Noli Me Tangere

Touch Me Not. You may do as you please, abuse me to a certain degree, but touch me not. Touch not my freedom, for once you do you will unleash the anger of my Malay forefathers that have conquered the earth of their birth. Once you do you will open the gates of hell.

 

And here we are, yet again, threatened by a group that wishes to enforce their own lunatic reasoning down our collective throats. I should be nonchalant about the whole thing, actually. I could actually say: "It is not my country. These are not my people. They can go fuck themselves." Yet deep within, no matter who you are, no matter where you are, no matter what you are ... you will know that at the end of it all we are nothing but humans sharing a vastly shrinking and dying planet.

Is nationalism a privilege to the citizens of a country alone? The dead Slobodan Milosevic used the term Nationalism to purge his country and systematically kill all the Moslems -- Asian and European, black and white, male and female, young and old, good and bad -- in order to promote his own definition of what is right and wrong.

You can take the word Nationalism and shove it up your ass. As I've said before, I am not interested in some imaginary real estate that could never really pinpoint where one country begins and another one ends. The "weight of the water" weighs heavily as it rises and falls ... whence, does your country fall?

As my own form of participation, I shall henceforth re-issue a post I'd made as soon as the news of this New Anti-Crime Bill came to pass.

The question is: where do you stand? Or can you make a stand at all?

Thus, the plea begins:

"Please help in preserving our National Identity by participating in a public petition to oppose RUU APP by signing in the provided link:

http://www.petitiononline.com/ruuapp/petition.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------

And my friend's note follows thus ---


Your beloved country, Indonesia, is about to take a step backward, a hundred years backward. Some of you may not care, some may not understand it at all but  the proposed bill RUU AntiPornografi/Pornoaksi (RUU APP) is a direct violation of Human Rights.

Not only the proposed bill detracts from the real problem which inflicts this nation, its central core leans toward fanatical religious fascism that is determined to eliminate our culture. Corruption is directly attributable to the much travail present in our country not off the shelf retail mini skirts. A civilized nation does not condemn its citizens for the type of apparel they wear.

RUU APP also seeks to impose strict rules on how we practice our customs and traditions. The diverse culture and ethnicity which exist in our archipelago should be preserved. Bhineka Tunggal Ika implicitly defines who we are. RUU APP will destroy that ideal and separate our people rather than unite them.

Consequently RUU APP acceptance would lead to other infractions as it provides precedence for malefic opportunist to pursue their selfish agenda.

Lastly, I am an Indonesian and I am not about to give my birthright by dressing and behaving in accordance to Arabic rites and traditions.

Sincerely Yours

Wusamah Margono Halimun

Posted by Norwin Mark Castro on March 13, 2006 at 09:01 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (1)

Penthouse Live

A PORNOGRAPHIC PARAPHRASE
By N. Mark Castro




I LOVED the part in "The Aviator" where Leonardo DiCaprio's Howard Hughes goes to a hearing on his movie "The Outlaw" by the Motion Picture Association Censorship Board. The board head argues that "The Outlaw" does not deserve their seal of approval because it shows Jane Russell's "prominent mammaries shockingly uncovered," which could "appeal only to prurient interest." In response, DiCaprio/Hughes proceeds to unveil several blow-ups of women's breasts partly exposed, which appeared in pictures that had the board's seal of approval. He asks a mathematician to demonstrate that Russell's breasts are no more prominent or shockingly exposed than the others. He gets his movie passed.



If I were a movie producer or magazine publisher, I'd do a similar thing at the House committee hearings on the anti-pornography bills. Except that in lieu of photographs of partially exposed women's breasts, I'd bring photographs of titillating scenes from old movies. These photographs will consist of a man and woman kissing, of women wearing one-piece or even two-piece bathing suits, and men and women dancing "the latest craze." I don't know what expert I'd bring to demonstrate that these scenes were the most shocking thing in their time, as shocking as some scenes of disrobing and simulated sex are today. I won't need an expert to show that what was shocking then is completely acceptable, even tame, today.




One of the things that do not get much attention in debates about pornography is the changing of taste or the evolution of convention. The least pernicious of the bills that would presumably scuttle smut, FPI's version of it, which calls for the prohibition of the publication of lewd photographs and sex stories in tabloids and broadsheets, argues that "press freedom does not entail publishing materials that are offensive to society's moral standards." Seemingly simple and forthright, that is really a most convoluted proposition. The head of the pin upon which it rests is the phrase "society's moral standards."




At the very least, that isn't one neat package, in this country more than others, which is rived by many divides. There is no single "society's moral standards." There are the standards of the various ethnic groups, there are the standards of the cities and the provinces, there are the standards of artists and priests, there are the standards of Muslims and Christians, there are the standards of different groups within the dominant Moslem majority. The very essence of democracy is precisely toleration, specifically the toleration of the minority viewpoint.




Indeed, the very essence of art -- which is why it is the first to be swept in the path of anti-pornography -- is to challenge "society's moral standards," or its most conservative expressions. To hold up a mirror to society and show its warts. That can be very offensive to the so-called "pillars of society." Henrik Ibsen's plays were. They were received with much bile by Victorian society, exploding as they did their myths, chief of them male superiority, veiled in bourgeois custom and tradition, as in "A Doll's House." Ibsen was repeatedly called immoral and subversive, and his play, "Ghosts," which told of an ostensibly upright family ruined by infidelity and venereal disease, was banned for some time by Norwegian authorities. Yet Ibsen is considered by modern dramatists today as fairly conservative, compared for example to August Strindberg.





Which brings us to the point about the changing of taste and evolution of convention. What was immoral and subversive yesterday are the convention and orthodoxy of today. The first kiss in movies might have been the most shocking thing for movie audiences, but the screen kiss is pretty much par for the course today-even the French variety. I recall that in the Catholic school I went to during my childhood, James Bond movies were spoken of as a one-way ticket to hell. That was not because they treated women like bimbos, that was because they showed women as Adam might have seen Eve at a moment of revelation.





Yet you watch old James Bond movies -- there is only one James Bond, and he is Sean Connery -- and titillation will not be the first thing you'll feel at the sight of the women there. Vast amusement is -- at their idea of skimpy clothing.





The same is true of the old Indonesian movies they show in Indosiar, where a vamp or moll, the one with the cigarette on one hand and whisky on the other, sitting on a stool in a skirt raised provocatively above one knee. Had these things been censored then -- and there were efforts to do so by society's "watchdogs," more defined by their doggishness than watchfulness -- Indonesia would still be living in that time.




Indeed, I still remember how it was when women first began wearing mini-skirts, a most inspired idea in women's fashion along with the bare midriff. You could hear the weeping and gnashing of teeth among the pious from here to Thy Kingdom Come.




These days, the miniskirt no more entices unduly concupiscent eyes than does the lack of any frontal covering on the women of indigenous groups.




Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say. And concepts of beauty do change, from women of luxurious build to leaner ones. So does ugliness.





Prissiness reflects more on the qualities of the beholder than the beheld.




Thankfully, I'm in a country where 90% of the people wouldn't even understand what was just written: the irony, the satire, the ... oh what the hell, everything. Besides, the greatest pornographic act is happening before their eyes -- how women are subjugated to the lowest form of creatures -- and yet they howl at the very thought of a naked picture.




Idiots.