MENTAL illness is rarely discussed openly in any society. In Indonesia, however, the stigma seems particularly acute. In November last year, when the BBC’s Indonesia service highlighted the case of Mr Sukidi, a young man in his late 20s shackled for years at his home in East Java, the local media hardly regarded the matter worth reporting.
IT WAS a Saturday morning and five-year-old Fitria Judin was playing with her two older sisters outside their house on a plantation in Bengkulu’s Kepahiang regency. Suddenly a tiger emerged from the nearby woods and attacked her. Terrified, Fitria’s two siblings ran 7km to the nearest village to seek help.
WHEN it comes to poverty, even the poor turn a blind eye. In Medan last week, my young companions, the offspring of some of the poorest families in North Sumatra, blithely ignored the shanties that lined the narrow lane as we travelled to and from their residence at the local Salvation Army children’s home.
EARLIER this year, when Indonesia’s first private cancer hospital opened for business, its backers believed they were tapping an important market. Along with non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, cancer has emerged as one of the primary causes of death in the relatively prosperous urban areas of East and Central Java.
BY INTERNATIONAL standards, Indonesian society is not particularly violent. In fact, statistics on the subject released by the World Health Organisation in April suggest that deaths involving violence (excluding war and insurgency) are no higher in Indonesia than in most other South-east Asian nations.
The inability of the government led by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to bridge the deep divisions between her populist government and its royalist opponents in the military and bureaucracy remains a major concern.
Prime Minister Yingluck has selected a competent economic team, but it is difficult for these technocrats to deliver on the new government's campaign promises without triggering inflation or hurting business.
The government has also been unable to resolve the ongoing insurgency involving ethnic Malay Muslim rebels in the south.
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My name is Dr Bruce Gale and I am a senior writer with the Singapore Straits Times. I studied at LaTrobe University (BA Hons) in Melbourne and later at the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies at Monash University (MA). My PhD thesis, which focussed on Malaysian political economy, was completed at the Malaysian National University (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia) in 1987.
From 1988 to 2003 I was Singapore Regional Manager for the Hong Kong based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC).
I have written several books and articles on Southeast Asian affairs, including Political Risk and International Business: Case Studies in Southeast Asia (Pelanduk Publications, 2007). Books on language include Mastering Indonesian: a guide to reading Indonesian language newspapers (Pelanduk Publications, 2008)