Ramadan Quiz

My team won the company’s Ramadan Quiz early this week, beating a team of pesantren graduates winner of last year’s Ramadan Quiz.

It was the first time that the department had won since the quiz’s inception five years ago. Everyone was surprised, none more than ourselves.

Only one of the team’s three members had no scruples about participating – a girl best known for her enthusiasm and raucous laughter. The other two members had to be cajoled and tricked into participating. One was a Papuan environmental PhD, the other an extrovert ex-radio DJ who could never refuse a good Lambrusco. The latter was chosen at the last minute when my tricky boss suddenly declared the DJ was a better contestant.

With such a lineup, the best that the rest of us could hope for was a good showing. I’ll bet that was what everyone else was thinking too when the three first entered the room. Boy, did the audience get a shock!

“And except for one, none of them had ever strictly adhered to the five daily prayers!” a colleague remarked in amazement.

So that got me thinking about religiousness. What constitutes as a religious person, more specifically, what makes a good Muslim?

Is it praying five times a day or more to count the sunnah? Is it being able to recite the Koran beautifully and quote its verses by heart ? Is it memorizing the dates and history of Islam? Is it knowing the meaning of various Arabic terms people consider “Islamic”?

I have never considered listening to the Tarawih preaching necessary, as I have found very few preachers worth listening to. Over the years, I have found them tedious, nitpicking Koran verses to suit their narrowmindedness or gender bias. I certainly do not consider someone who thinks the veil and segregation was necessary for the woman’s own good worth following, or listening to.

Does that make me a bad Muslim?

I choose not to wear the veil, I enjoy an occasional glass of wine or lychee martini, I can barely recite the Koran, and certainly can’t shoot off verses at random.

I show a little skin at times – we’re not in Arabia after all – and thinks that if Arabian women all unveiled, their men would probably soon tire of lusting after every little bit of skin. It’s human nature to be tempted by the forbidden after all, weren’t laws made to be broken?

Does that make me a sinner? Is it my fault that men can’t stop thinking about sex? Is it even my problem?

But, I don’t steal, I don’t have licentious thoughts about other people’s husbands, I’ve never murdered anyone nor have I ever planned to. I’ve never wilfully broken the law, I’ve always tried to obey the traffic signs (except when I’m on the ojek, and then I give the driver free reign), and I rarely bear anyone a grudge.

Does that make me a good citizen, but a bad Muslim?

I pray five times a day – more only when I feel like it, I give to the poor whenever I can (or remember to), and while I keep repeating the same prayers over and over, I actually do pray and believe in God.

But I don’t believe there’s a right or wrong religion. I believe that however you do it – over incense in a confuscious temple or with your forehead on a prayer mat – if you pray for good, God will hear of it.

Am I a good Muslim?

On BlackBerries and the Facebook Factor

Moms waiting to pick up their kids to school, teenagers hanging out with friends in a cafe, drivers waiting for their masters to finish work, businessmen in office elevators. What do they all have in common?

You would be surprised to know that Facebook and the BlackBerry are the two common denominators that brought these diverse groups together in Jakarta.

“If my maid sends a friend request to my Facebook account, should I accept?” asks Adjie, a tax advisor for an oil and gas company, to a group of friends recently. Laughter was what he got for an answer, but the problem is real enough.

Observe Faizal, since his in-laws registered to Facebook and added him as a connection, he no longer dares to make wild comments on this status, or post photos that would depict him other than a loving husband and father.

Three years ago all this would have been unthinkable. Today, it is not uncommon to see stay-at-home moms updating their facebook status on her BlackBerry Curve 8900.

Facebook has been touted to sparking the trend for reunions in Indonesia, and especially Jakarta. Old school friends connect, share stories, photographs, and organize meet-ups all because of the social networking site. It has also, undoubtedly, become one of the driving forces behind the popularity and ubiquity of the BlackBerry in Jakarta.

BlackBerries are nothing new, even in Indonesia. It was first introduced here in December 2004 by telecommunication operator Indosat and Starhub (Source) targeting the business executive market.

“BlackBerry is already the ‘must-have’ business tool for CEOs, executives, managers, employees and celebrities around the globe,” then Indosat Cellular Marketing Director, Hasnul Suhaimi, said in a press release dated Dec. 2, 2004. “We expect BlackBerry will be very popular with Indonesian companies and individuals, and will provide them with substantial productivity gains.”

But its exponential growth only started several years ago when its maker – Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM) – introduced popular instant messaging Yahoo! Messenger in 2005 (Source), then Facebook in 2007 (Source). With only 2 million users on its 20th anniversary in 2004 (Source) – which it doubled the following year – RIM now boasts a strong 28.5 million subscribers worldwide (Source).

In Indonesia, BlackBerry users have increased more than 500% within the past year. With 300 to 400,000 users to date, BlackBerry users is expected to reach more than 1 million people by the end of the year (Source).

Now, BlackBerry services are not only available to post-paid mobile phone customers, but also to pre-paid customers. And further increasing its customer base in Indonesia, RIM reportedly will soon introduce the service to CDMA customers as well.

A nation must rely on itself

Taking responsibility for the national AIDS response means empowering governments to synergize internally and allocate more local resources instead of relying on foreign help, Indonesia National AIDS Commission Secretary Nafsiah Mboi said on Wednesday.

“[The AIDS response] is not the responsibility of the Australians, it’s not the responsibility of the Americans, but it is our responsibility,” she said during the plenary titled Power Dynamics and AIDS Governance during the 9th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP).

Nafsiah, who is also one of the Co-Chairs of the 9th ICAAP said that part of the responsibility includes taking leadership of the response by staffing the national AIDS commission secretariat with professionals instead of simply assigning civil servants to do the task.

It also means synergizing with other government agencies to secure domestic funding.

“By coordinating with the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) and the Finance Ministry, we successfully included HIV into the planning for the state budget, as HIV response should be seen as part of national development,” she said.

Actively participating in international funding allocation bids such as the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) is another form of responsibility.

“With technical assistance from Australia and the U.S. we were able to have a very good proposal for the GFATM funding round 8,” Nafsiah said, adding that the proposal development process was a good example of various institutions – governmental and non-governmental – coming together for a common purpose.

As result, Indonesia has seen growth on state budget allocation for the AIDS response, to US$70,642,541 in 2009 from only $11,383,676 in 2006, she said, explaining that there have been drastic increases in budget allocation for AIDS from the Health Ministry in the last three years.

“This trend of increasing the contribution from domestic sources is also visible down to the district level,” Nafsiah said.

The allocated provincial budget for AIDS grew to Rp 38.3 billion (about $3.8 million) in 2009 from Rp 16.99 billion in 2005, while district budget allocation grew to Rp 35.2 billion this year compared to Rp 3.7 billion in 2005.

“With the Indonesian Partnership Fund, the National AIDS Commission has managed to strengthen capacity of local AIDS commissions,” she said.

With this approach, Indonesia has seen a shift in the funding landscape for its AIDS response.

In 2006, despite the growing threat of HIV and AIDS in the country, the government failed to allocate a budget for the National AIDS Commission. This changed in the last two years, with national budget allocation growing to $2.4 million this year, Nafsiah said.

On the other hand, funding from international donors managed through the Indonesian Partnership Fund (IPF) decreased to $2.9 million this year, from $4 million the year before. And the GFATM awarded Indonesia with $2 million for the AIDS response, compared to $192,800 the year before, and $242,222 in 2007.

“We ourselves have to improve governance and find resources within ourselves in commitment to our responsibility,”
Nafsiah said.

Plenary rejects double standards

The third plenary session at the 9th International AIDS Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) on Tuesday highlighted the double standards governments around the region are employing in their response to the AIDS epidemic.

“What achievements can we hope for in empowering MSM while sex between consenting adult males remains illegal and subject to police harassment in at least 11 countries of the region?” asks chairman of the AIDS Access Foundation in Thailand Jon Ungphakorn in his presentation.

“How can harm reduction be fully achieved in Thailand, Indonesia and many other countries, when injecting drug users are still regularly sent to prison while the financiers of the drug trade remain free and powerful?”

In a session titled Inequality, Vulnerability and AIDS, Ungphakorn outlined that populations in society considered “vulnerable” to HIV infection were thus because they have been denied the basic human rights accorded to mainstream society, and are in fact victims of social prejudices and structural inequities.

These include the prison population, people who use drugs, sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgender communities, ethnic minorities, migrant workers, refugees and stateless people, the homeless and street people, as well as women who have sex with men.

“Because of their vulnerability, they are regarded as ‘high-risk groups’ and as ‘threats to society’, which often result in them becoming even more stigmatized and criminalized,” Ungphakorn said, adding that the situation becomes worse when the groups overlap, such as when sex workers are also migrants.

Further, stigmatization aggravated by inequalities around class, gender, and sexual orientation becomes the underlying condition in which population groups are lacking access to care and treatment, medical anthropologist from the University of the Philippines Michael L. Tan said in his presentation.

“People who are vulnerable and socially disadvantaged have less access to health resources, get sicker, and die earlier than people in more privileged social positions,” Tan said, citing a study published in PLoS Medicine.

He compared a Filipino living in Germany who received proper treatment and care when he discovered he was infected with HIV in the 1990s, while during the same period another Filipino living in the Philippines succumbed because he had no access to antiretrovirals, essential medicines and health care.

“Even with antiretrovirals subsidized by the government, the majority still have inadequate access to treatment and care because they could not afford the diagnostics, transportation and other expenses associated with such treatment and care,” Tan said.

“While we have learned of many praiseworthy efforts to direct financial resources and program interventions towards vulnerable groups in the region, unless the fundamental injustices which shape their circumstances are fully redressed, such efforts cannot lead to sustainable results,” Ungphakorn said in conclusion.

AIDS behind bars

The Kerobokan area in Denpasar, Bali, used to be a sleepy little hamlet with rows upon rows of rice paddies turning golden during harvest time, but in 1983, following new city planning, the government constructed a prison to replace the old Dutch-built penitentiary in Pekambingan.

Following the imprisonment of Schapelle Corby and the Bali Nine for drug trafficking in 2004 and 2005, the Kerobokan State Penitentiary gained a notorious reputation exacerbated by hundreds of websites detailing life behind bars.

“A nightmare destination not featured in any travel brochure,” Queensland-based newspaper The Courier Mail was quoted as saying in one website.

Faced with overcrowding, the prison became a breeding place for infectious diseases, including HIV. In 2000, a sero-survey of Kerobokan prison’s inmates found 35 people tested positive for HIV. It does not help that about 60 percent of the prison’s inmates were convicted for drug-related cases – the sharing of contaminated needles and syringes is identified as one of the main modes of HIV transmission.

Happily, conditions have improved since then, and a report in March 2009 said that based on sero-surveys conducted in the last three years, the number of inmates testing positive each year has steadied to between 12 and 14 people.

Attributed to the success of this is the establishment of an HIV and AIDS mitigation task force in 2004, and the implementation of harm reduction programs in Kerobokan.

Focusing on reducing the harm caused by needle and syringe sharing between people who use drugs, the inmates were taught that this behavior increases the probability of someone being infected with HIV.

“The program being implemented here has made them aware that needle and syringe sharing is a very risky practice because it makes them vulnerable to HIV infection,” task force head Anak Agung Gde Hartawan said in an earlier report.

A breakthrough in HIV mitigation efforts is the establishment of a methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) clinic in the prison. MMT is considered the most effective intervention available for the treatment of opiate dependence, and has been shown to be effective in improving the physical and social wellbeing of the patient. It has been associated with reductions in risk behavior, illegal drug use, criminal behavior, participation in sex work, unemployment, mortality and HIV transmission.

In Indonesia, MMT is available in only four prisons, namely Kerobokan, Cipinang and Pondok Bambu in Jakarta, and Banceuy in Bandung. Providing inmates with a regular supply of orally taken methadone, the program aims at weaning inmates off the habit of injecting drugs.

[This article was published in the 9th ICAAP congress newspaper, The 9th ICAAP Post]