As I mentioned in the Learning Indonesian blog, it has been a long time since I last studied Indonesian and added to this website!
I only logged properly into Blogger last month to have a look and to start a new blog. Lots of things have changed in Indonesia.
1) Indonesia's New President
They have a new President who is considered moderate. His name is Joko Widodo and is known as Jokowi amongst the people. My friend at the Indonesian Consulate here in Perth is a fan of President Widodo as he had a struggling start, had a successful business, and is considered someone who will clean up Indonesia's politics. However, I notice on Wikipedia that although he was successful in business it's funny that it was closed due to fraud...
Who knows, maybe he's just considered less fraudulent than the other Presidential competitors out there or he completely turned a new leaf?
2) Schapelle Corby
Good ol' Aussie drug criminal Schapelle Corby... I'm not sure why Australians really care about her any more. She was granted a prison sentence reduction of 5 years in 2012 and was released on parole last year after 9 years in prison. She was released into the lap of luxury and cannot leave Indonesian until 2017.
But enough of Schapelle, since she is old news.
3) Bali Nine
And I wonder why some Aussies get a bad rep over in Bali. Not only do we have Schapelle Corby but we have the Bali Nine imprisoned for drug trafficking. Consisting of Andrew Chan, Si Yi Chen, Michael Czugaj, Ranae Lawrence, Tan Nguyen, Matthew Norman, Scott Rush, Martin Stephens, and Myuran Sukumaran - this group of criminals planned to smuggled a 8.3 kg of heroin worth AUD$4 million from Indonesia to Australia. So kind of like Schapelle Corby, except in a group.
Most of the Bali Nine have been sentence to either 20 years or life in prison. However, the ring leaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran are facing the death penalty. At the moment, the Australian Government is trying to save Chan and Sukumaran from the death penalty and President Widodo is under pressure to give them clemency. I think the Australian majority believe that they should do their time for sure and are against capital punishment... however I disagree that we should boycott Indonesia or Bali just because of this. These people actually did the crime with malicious intent and greed. It was not an extraordinary circumstance whereby they had to be a drug mule so they could saved a loved one unlike Van Tong Nguyen. Now that's truly a sad case - but the majority never said that we should boycott Singapore despite the fact he wanted to save his brother!
