Opini

By Sarah J Newman On any given afternoon around the Lapangan Tugu, the large field nestled in between Syiah Kuala University and IAIN Ar-Raniry University in Banda Aceh, clusters of students can be seen hanging out together or having a snack at one of the little food stalls that start to appear there at that time of day. Groups of ...

By Roswita Nimpuno Khaiyath Today is Hari Kartini, or Kartini Day, a national holiday proclaimed by the late President Sukarno in 1964 in recognition of Raden Ajeng Kartini for establishing the first school for Javanese girls and for becoming an important symbol of Indonesian identity. As a schoolchild, it was on Hari Kartini that we ...

By Dzof Azmi 1Malaysia is great in theory, but to achieve ‘one-ness‘, there should be a clear goal and our leaders must show us the way to a better place. THERE was a story in the newspapers last week of a woman in Langkawi who came back home to find her puppy missing. A neighbour had confronted her and told her that it had ...

By Ursula Schaefer-Preuss and Emil Salim Hundreds of islands in Indonesia and the Philippines, large swaths of VietNam`s Mekong Delta, and great portions of Thailand and Singapore`s sovereign territory are all under imminent threat. Why, then, the deafening silence? Why no call for urgent action? Perhaps it is because the foe is not a ...

By M. Ajisatria Suleiman One is justified in saying that the majority of Asean countries have always been allergic to international intervention in their domestic human rights practices. And as it stands, many people — mostly human rights advocates — are undermining the future effectiveness of the planned Asean Human Rights Body. All ...

By Sumet Jumsai The editorial “New approach needed in the deep South” in The Nation of April 29, is well argued except for the blurb, which refers to “the century-old `occupation` of the Malay historical homeland, known as Patani, by illegitimate Siamese masters”. The blurb can easily be misunderstood and taken as the writer`s own ...

By Tunku Abidin Muhriz There have been some strongly worded letters about history in this newspaper in recent weeks. As a lowly research fellow I dare not get in the way of Dr Collin Abraham and Tan Sri Khoo Kay Kim: as a postgraduate student in the Comparative Politics of Empire I have witnessed violent debates between historians ...

BY Mario Masaya Last weekend`s National Education Day should give us all pause to consider the state of education in Indonesia. The unfortunate truth, however, is that even in a time of political campaigning, education is an issue largely missing from the national dialogue. Political parties and presidential candidates tend to avoid ...

By Rokhmin Dahuri Perhaps there is no country in the world that might have a greater need than Indonesia to be concerned about its ocean space and resources. After centuries of being at the epicenter of international trade and commerce due to its geo-strategic location on the the Asia Pacific Rim, Indonesia, which forms the ...

By Sukristijono Sukardjo In the Indian Ocean region, Indonesia owns the biggest mangrove ecosystem. The mangrove areas in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Irian Jaya provide a primary source of food for millions of coastal inhabitants, and they play a vital role in maintaining ecological balance. Mangroves release large quantities of ...

By Farish A. Noor History, it has to be remembered, is never a closed text and the writing of history – despite its political considerations – is never a totalised enterprise that can bring us to any degree of hermetic closure. The open-ended nature of historical narratives means that all events that have and will happen in the course ...

By David Scott Mathieson In January and February this year, the world was aghast at images of thousands of emaciated Rohingyas on rickety boats reaching shorelines in Sumatra and southern Thailand. But even more shocking was the brutal treatment meted out by the Thai Navy, which pushed several boats with hundreds of men back to sea ...