IMAGES OF INDONESIA: Decentralization

The purpose of this report is to know about how far is decentralization in Indonesia. Each region has its own uniqueness, and its own needs that can be different from the others. If all government business is controlled from Jakarta, then it is unfair for the people living in remote regions. From my interview with Irman G. Lanti, Ph.D., Assistant Country Director/Team Leader, Democratic Governance Unit in UNDP Indonesia, I learned that decentralization in Indonesia is a necessity because Indonesia is a big country with so many different ethnic, religious, cultural, and racial groups living in it. 

Decentralization in Indonesia is still new, so there are still some problems in its execution. The most difficult challenge is how the local governments can function to serve the best interest of the people, rather than of their rulers. Decentralization should bring benefits to the people because the local governments are supposed to know the needs and aspiration of the their people better. The other challenge is how regional governments can cooperate with one another, rather than to fulfill or pursuing its own goals. Local governments should coordinate their development policies with those of their neighbours because in reality they live side by side and are dependent on each other.

Despite these challenges, Dr. Lanti is optimistic that decentralization in Indonesia will be successful because he does not think that anyone will agree if the government power is brought back to the central level. His office in UNDP is assisting the Indonesian government in ensuring that decentralization in Indonesia is successful, through support to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Bappenas, and the pilot provinces in Bangka Belitung, East Nusa Tenggara, and Gorontalo.

Kalista Maharani Lanti

XD

IMAGES OF INDONESIA: MOVIES

Most of the teenagers, including students I’ve interviewed like to watch movies.  There are many different kind of movies such as comedy, action, romance, horror and many more. Not all the teenagers like the same kind of movies. So I’ve interviewed some of my friends to know what movies the most of the teenagers like.

According to my interviews, young people like action and fantasy movies a lot. The reasons are its so tense and attractive that makes its enjoyable to be seen, for example is Harry potter. Half of them like romance and drama because it’s entertaining. 20 percent of them like adventure. And one of them like science fiction because it’s educating people. All of them like to watch international movies especially movies from USA.  They prefer International movies since Indonesian movies are quite not creative in the story line, the animation is not quite good, or there are no movie genre they like, and many more. But there are some Indonesia movies that they like such as “Laskar Pelangi" because it has a good moral story and great film shooting.

Unfortunately, western movies affect Indonesian teenagers lifestyle. There are many western culture that different from Indonesian culture, for example; manners to elders, the way the western’s teenage dress, and many more. They will copy the western culture and less developing Indonesian culture. So Indonesian movies should be improve so the teenagers and the others can enjoy their own country movies. 

 Sarah Nadia Avianto XD/37

The Consumptive Behaviour of Indonesian Teenagers

Indonesia is well-known as a country with high consumption rate, especially the teenagers. Most of Indonesian teenagers are easily affected by what are their peers doing or buying, also what things are trending in the western teenagers’ community.  This condition makes Indonesian teenagers tend to be consumptive.  The word ‘consumptive’ could clearly describe how most Indonesian teenagers behave now. They often spend their money for things that they do not really need. 

Based on the research that I have done among my friends, some of them admit that they buy expensive branded bags just to follow the trends or showing their high social status, not because they need to substitute their old bags. The other mentioned that they buy a thing after their mates are buying it too, not because they like that thing. These examples are only some of Indonesian teenagers’ consumptive behavior among the other awful cases.  Based on my view, this consumptive behavior is influenced by two major aspects; environment and advertisement.

We cannot deny that environment plays the big role in teenagers’ character building. Most teenagers imitate how people around them are behaving. This means that when a person lives in a consumptive community, he or she will tend to follow the rest of people around him or her. A fifteen year-old teenager confessed that she buys a lot of expensive clothes while she is hanging out with her friends with the purpose of showing her wealth among others. Beside of that, advertisement also affects teenagers’ consumptive behavior. Another fourteen year-old teenagers mentioned that she buys a lot of clothes because her friends persuaded her to buy it with frequent advertisement. 

This consumptive behavior of Indonesian teenagers will trigger some crucial problems for the society.  When teenagers are consumptive, it means that they forget how hard it is to collect money in this world. On the long term effect, they will tend to be careless in managing their finance because they used to spend money all over the time. Also, this consumptive behavior will make parents allocate more money for their children’s unnecessary needs. Another problem that may come up is social status problems. A boundary will be formed between well-heeled and the poor communities and at the end, they will not socializing each other just because the different social status.

The consumptive behavior should be handled as soon as possible by planting strong moral values to the teenagers and also growing a responsibility in finance management. Parents should also play their important role in teaching their children to be a wise shopper so that they could select things that they really need to buy or not. At last, the most important thing is the individual himself/herself. When he or she has the strong life principle, he or she will not be affected by the consumptive lifestyle around him or her. 

Pritamara Wahyningtyas (Tara)

X-D / 30

IMAGES OF INDONESIA: Teenage Lifestyle

What are teenagers like? I interviewed some of my friends, my seniors and my juniors about teenagers in the past and present, teenagers in public and private schools, are some things suitable for teenagers or not, and the kinds of music they listen to. Their answers are somewhat different because they are different people from different schools with different atmospheres. The purpose of this is to know better about teenagers in Indonesia.

Teenagers these days and teenagers in the past are completely different people. They like different clothes, hairstyles, music and a lot of other things but most of all, which is healthier? According to my interviews, most agree that teenagers are much healthier in the past because there were no junk food but some people say that teenagers in the present are healthier because the technology is far better than the past so nutritious food is easy to get. That was the comparison of teenagers in the past and present. What about the differences of public school teenagers and private school teenagers? Are they different? The answer is, yes there are some differences. Some say that teenagers in private schools are upper-class people and vice versa, and teenagers in public schools are more open to their surroundings while private school teenagers are only involved in their own circle. Their similarity is that almost every Indonesian teenagers go to malls, play video games, or go online on some social networking sites.

When we go out and we see teenagers in malls, we see them wearing cosmetics or makeup. Is it just some people, or do teenagers always wear makeup now? I asked that question to the people I interviewed and they said that it is not necessary for informal events but for formal events, it is necessary because that way, they will look appropriate. For example, in weddings we all wear makeup because it is suitable. One other thing that we see some teenagers do is going to clubs or bars. Is that normal? No. Based on our country’s culture and Islamic rules, teenagers aren’t supposed to go to clubs and bars.

When I asked about music to my interviewees, they started to mention a lot of different songs with different genres. Some say club or dance music like LMFAO. Others say hip-hop like Black Eyed Peas, indie like Ellie Goulding and Ryan Adams, and pop like Taylor Swift and Bruno Mars.

I agree with the answers my friends gave me. That’s it from me, thank you for reading my report :)

By:

Dhiya Divia Rachmat XD/13