Blogger Indonesia of the Week: 30 – 33

As I said earlier on, the salient feature of a person with leadership capacity and instinct is he/she would think of others as much as he/she thinks of him/herself. That’s why, the leaders always emerge in their own way in critical situation. They are not necessarily the best skillful person in the field, unlike a manager, yet they’re certainly the most caring and not rarely the most honest towards others who need help.

CONTENTS

• #30 Enda Nasution
• #31 Maya Nasution
• #32 Jennie S. Bev
• #33 Rasyad A. Parinduri

Blogger Indonesia of the Week (30): Enda Nasution

During the Tsunami catastrophe last couple of years, every persons with leadership instinct within their hearts in Indonesia did what the best they can do to help their brothers and sisters who were in a very critical conditions depriving of their home, properties and even their souls. Many individuals around the world listen to the call and give their heart out to the outcry of suffering the Acehnese has been under. The most towering figures in the line are two former president of USA Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr. who’re so much involved in those crisis.In Indonesia, for the first time –as far as I can recalled– all Indonesian (pribumis and Chinese-Indonesian) came in unison to offer help and some even went to the ground zero in Aceh themselves.From blogger Indonesia community, it’s Enda Nasution who initiates the Indonesia Help blog in which he gives necessary information and news relating to Tsunami, its victim and addresses of important fund-raiser organisations like red cross (PMI – Palang Merah Indonesia in local acronym) and others which turns out to be very beneficial.

Blogger Indonesia of the Week (31): Maya Nasution

Indonesian Expats Life: Bringing Indonesia to the World

There are some few debates, pros and cons, in several Indonesian mailing list (or milis as it’s locally known) over Indonesians who keeps staying abroad after finishing their studies and making a decent living. Some speculations being raised about their sense of nationalism as well.

For me, the existence of Indonesian expats everywhere in the world, like Maya Nasution, is a blessing and should be appreciated and even encouraged by those who are yet to have enough guts and courages to do so. Questioning their nationalism for me not only irrelevant, but also a sign of stupidity and narrow mindedness. Some simple reasons will tell you why.First, they help Indonesia and Indonesian government in a big way in introducing & promoting Indonesia, its culture, tradition and custom to the world. It’s not a cheap business, mind you. For the same purpose, Indonesian government set up embassies around the world and hire “undiplomatic” diplomats with highest salary an Indonesian civil servant can ever get (around USD$3000 to USD$8000 per month). Yet, they do almost nothing except merely fulfilling minimum duties plus corruption practices wherever and whenever possible. The Indonesian expats do all that for free!

Second, the existence of Indonesian expats help Indonesia to make a sort of network outside the country to help the Indonesian job seekers to have keep up with latest job information and contact persons. This is how Indian expats has been doing all along by helping their juniors in India who wants get an experience working outside, because of which Indian expats have been dominating the workforce in the US and even in Europe. Out of five of my landlord sons, three of them go and work abroad. When I ask them how, they simply said, “my (Indian) friend abroad help me finding the required jobs. “

Third, what Maya Nasution whose blog is under-review has been doing in France is self-explanatory. She writes almost everything she’s been doing and will do in creating and developing her business as well as introducing Indonesian culture to French people. Visiting her blog will take you to the sort of feeling on how hard but exciting to be an entrepreneur in a foreign land. An effort some Indonesian youth even dont have a gut to do at the homeland and choose, instead, to be a PNS (pegawai negeri sipil or civil servant)!

Appreciation should be given when it’s due. But to appreciate what someone else has done you need to know them by keeping informed whatever they’ve done. I’m glad to see someone like Maya actively blogging from France. I expect every Indonesian expats to do the same, not only to tell people in Tanah Air what they do in promoting Indonesia, but also to tell us in other parts of the world what the plus and minus points of French culture, traditon, enterpreneurship and even political life so as to widen our horizon of thinking.***

Blogger Indonesia of the Week (32): Jennie S. Bev

Blogger Indonesia of the Week (32): Jennie S. BevProductivity is Better Off Abroad?Do Indonesian scholars & intellectuals need to live abroad to stay productive and prolific in a conducive environment? Many Indonesian scholars like Nadirsyah Hosen think so. One such case in point is Jennie S. Bev.

She’s arguably the most prolific contemporary Indonesian writers with “a 40+ books and over 900 articles published in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Singapore and Indonesia.”

Apart from that,

She is currently working on several other books and juggling projects while managing a boutique consulting firm based in San Francisco Bay Area and teaching college-level classes.

How does she manages the 24-hour-a-day time to write such plenty of books apart from her other hectic academic and family activities? “Passionate,” she told me. Granted. You cannot be a prolific writer in such a massive scale without being passionate to what you’re doing. And to be passionate in writing, you gotta be living in a country where your works got sufficient appreciation, socially and financially. You wouldn’t be able to write on full-time basis with insecure feeling about how to feed your kids, would you?

Another tips from her to be a prolific writer is “be a big dreamer.” Dream is not only beautiful, it also motivate you further, she says in her Bahasa Indonesia blog But she warns that to make your dream comes true, you gotta be selective and focussed on achieving your dream.

I personally proud to see her flourishing and shining in the US. Indonesia must be even prouder to see what one of her hardworking daughter has done not only for herself, but also for Indonesians. She’s currently running Style Career consulting which can be accessed for free and got special appreciation from Koran Tempo.

She tries her best to do something useful for Indonesia and Indonesians from abroad because Indonesia is “a land I hold so dear in my heart,” she told me the other day.

That’s why in one of her letter to me she said,

…I feel sad whenever people think that I don’t care about Indonesia, because I really do and have proven to myself (at least) that I could do meaningful things for Indonesia while being away from her. Of course, I will continue to contribute to Indonesia in my own unique way directly or indirectly. I also believe in “bridging” your own best people by being abroad.

Such kind of feeling is understandable. Indonesia, represented by its government, often forget to appreciate its best achievers. And that’s one reason why many of our sportpersons go abroad for better appreciation, not only for better living. We, as the people, should never ever do and repeat what our government did in the past.***

Blogger Indonesia of the Week (33): Rasyad A. Parinduri

Blog of an Indonesian Economist

Economy is mighty important thing in life. You cannot even live without it. You can’t even read this blog if you don’t have Rupiah (Indonesian currency) to access the internet. In practical terms, It’s the only one any human being have something in common. From an illiterate farmer in a remote village to an ’sophisticated’ cosmopolit guy on the mega cities in other parts of the world all are in need of economy.

To make a living. To materialise their dreams. To get a decent life and earn expected sort of respectability. To some it’s even used as a way to hegemonize others. Thus it also become a powerful tools for a person or country against another.Yet, as far as economics philosophy (theory) goes, not many are interested. How many people care about the nitty gritty of the economy fall and rise and the reasons behind it? Why Indonesia, once called as one of rising tiger of economy in Asia, is suddenly falling sort of third country category?Why a country rich of natural resources like Indonesia cannot afford to even pay its debt and beg its creditors for resechedule? And why millions of Indonesian people earn less than a dollar a day? What’s wrong? And how to correct the mistakes?

You won’t get the answer yourself, will you? That’s why an economist like Rasyad A. Parinduri is needed. We need his voice and any other Indonesian economists like him to tell us (and government) “the What, the Why and the How to” of what’s going on and what should be doing.

I’m glad to see him blogging in English. It’s not only benefitting us, Indonesian–who mostly understand English–, but is also for the benefit of non-Indonesian readers who wants to know about Indonesian economy and its current dynamism.

Last but not the least, so far as blogging goes, he needs to expand his blog traffics as to make his writing more known and widely read. As any blogger knows, link-exchange and blog-directory submission are two important elements of improving blog traffics. One of most widely read political blog that’s Insta Pundit, just does exactly that. It’s also a symbol of humility and interactiveness among bloggers.