Unspun

Cont6inuing the saga of excruciating foot dragging by police to clamp down on militant organizations using Islam as their excuse for violence…Police over the weekend now say they want to act against thyese groups, but they cannot do it alone.

This, they say, is because the phenomena of thugs using Islam to legitimize their violence is a socio-economic issue caused by high unemployment rates. So they need the Jakarta authorities to solve this probloem with them or they'll never be able to solve it alone.

So now we have an escalation of what is essentially an enforcement problem and lack of political will on the part of the government into a socio-economic problem. What else would the police onjure up…universal human rights?

The only positive thing to occur in the weekend is that, cornered by the Press, Jakarta Police Chief Firman Ghani had to name the organizations that he would like to, but cannot, take action against. He named three:The Islam Defenders Front, the Betawi Brotherhood Forum and the Betawi Communications Forum.

But of the 21 Islamic Defenders Front that were detained by police in Bekasi there is no further news of. This is common in Indonesia but I wonder if we bloggers can do anything about it. If the newspapers do not have the stamina to follow an issue to its conclusion, and thereby sending a message to the suthorities that theyir action and inaction is being monitored and recorded for posterity, perhaps bloggers can do something about it. It may even force the media to pay attention.
Perhaps we can even start a wiki of the development of issues that affect society but are not taken seciously by the media, such as the garbage problem in BVandung, so that development of all these issues are all documented and others – activists etc can take them up. But I do not know how to set up a wiki and I do not know if anyone is interested. if there's anyone reading this that thinks this may be a good idea drop me a line or post a comment.