At first I was happy to find another website that blogs in English and informs the outside world about Indonesia. However, when I started to read more of its article, it reminded me of muslim-haters such as faithfreedom.com and such.
A few examples:
[ The Crusades and Liberal Islam ] (see comments by Patung, its owner)
[ Tennis Team won’t play is Israel ] – (quoted: “The Indonesian refusal to recognise the existence of Israel rears its ludicrous head again”)
It’s absolutely Patung’s rights to express his/her opinions. But with “Indonesia” in its website title, while the articles doesn’t reflect what many Indonesian think; well I was just hoping that he’d be able to be more neutral.
Or at least makes it clear that the website contains his personal opinions; which may not necessarily represent most Indonesian.
I’ve dealt with many muslim-haters before; some are just mislead / misinformed, some have flawed logic, but some intentionally use any way to destroy Islam. I’ll engage in a discussion here in my spare time, and we’ll be able find out who’s who.
here’s the comment that I posted there:
Hi Harry,
I do have an “About” page that says it’s written by me, but perhaps I should make things clearer on that though. The use of the word “Indonesia” is not restricted I think and it’s pretty obvious that it’s not a government site or anything so I don’t see any problem there. What the majority of Indonesians think is not my concern, why should it be? I’ll admit I’m not sure whether I want to do it as blog (=personal) or as a straight news site, but the line between those two is somewhat blurred these days. Ultimately everything we write contains our own opinions, etc.
I can’t immediately reply to your comment on my site as I am currently having a problem with it.
can you just replace the name of your blog to something more approriate ? especially if you like to make a headline story that trigger controversy !
Hello Patung,
Because your website name is “Indonesia” matters.com, it’s as if you’re speaking for all of them. While, as you said earlier, it’s pretty much your own personal website.
Different story if it’s my.patung.com or whatever, then of course you’re totally free to express yourself. But with your current website, people might get the wrong idea about the rest of us.
In journalism there’s this method called “reporting”.
Basically, you just report things as it is. This is more neutral then a standard article / column.
Might be a problem with your ISP ? eg: they employ a transparent caching that’s too aggressive / serves stale files.
You might want to try accessing it again with different ISPs.
Salam,
Harry
wow, the writer seems to suffer from a really chronic islamophobia. i wouldn’t waste time on it.
priyadi – usually I do that, but this is also the chance to bust many hoaxes/misinformation. I saw that many contents there are the same with other islamophobic websites.
however, the responses from muslims so far are usually of anger – not logic.
so here’s a try for that.
another comment I made on an article on that website, muslim radicalism in 2005 :
Islamophobic… a new disease that not only infected westerners but also Asians and (some) Indonesians alike…
To counter Islamophobic is to preach the peace face of islam.
To expect one blog to be neutral and objective is too naive.
Well, naive sekali malah π tapi poin saya bukan itu. Silahkan dibaca lagi baik-baik, trims.
And I just found this really offensive post, about ME:
(http://www.indonesiamatters.com/493/muslimah-gothess/)
Why would someone put up a really cheesy post criticizing about someone’s life (in this case, mine) and put some nasty prejudice about it on a blog called “Indonesia Matters” as if my personal life really generalizes the whole thing about Indonesia. Very untolerable. And he actually took, or let’s say, stole my picture. It’s a copyright infringement.
This is a serious thing over cyber space, and whoever this person is, I think he needs to learn his lessons alright.
Regards, Dee
Dee – I’m really sorry to hear that. btw; my best wishes on your plan, hope you’ve found your soulmate.
hehehe, it seems setting up your own racist blog can get you featured in national magazine π
http://www.tempointeraktif.com/hg/mbmtempo/arsip/2006/07/31/SEL/
go to article on “10 blog pilihan” π
Quite a surprise indeed, so I have sent an email to Pak Budi regarding this. Shown below :
Note that the article in Tempo says “Blog jurnal semacam ini sangat bermanfaat bagi orang asing untuk memahami masalah penting di Indonesia.“.
That’s why I’m concerned with IndonesiaMatters.com
Kayaknya percuma ngributin “Tempo”. Bukannya mereka sering memberitakan informasi miring tentang Islam.
Treespotter seems to agree on this topic as well.
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!
Hi Harry,
You’ve said most of them are Muslim Haters in the IM Blogs? How so? How come you are leaving out those Chinese Haters?
Your primary motive as I see is such that you may be a Muslim and seeing that when others commenting on matters concering religious you condemned them as Muslim Hater!
You you said that you are happy that there are a IM Blogs that speaks things on Indonesian matters and then you should be broadminded enough to swallow what other commented and not saying Patung’s commenting representing the whole Indonesian community. No he doesn’t. He simply bring up those subjects from certain publication, paper or links to the attention the the Indonesian community so as to speak.
If we are mature enough to look on the wider kaleidoscope on the variety of comments, then you would not just pick and choose.
Yes it is agreeable that there are many who commented on reciprocity and there are many who have reacted based on their life experience in Indonesia. Don’t you think so.
I am one person that will ticked a Chinese Hater off anytime anywhere. So let’s not be prejudicial.
Thank you
@dragonwall – How come you are leaving out those Chinese Haters?
.
I’m not sure I’d be able to understand you properly, your comment is pretty ambiguous.
.
Anyway, is me not commenting on chinese hater means that I agree with them ?
.
Think again.
yes, i found indonesiamatters.com from searching for news on Indonesia. initially i was full of joy to found a website about Indonesia written in english. but once i start reading the content i just realized that those people are nothing but a bunch of condescending smart-bule-ass. what a bunch of wankers. especially with patung and ross. yo losers, got nothing better to do in your country and decided to stick your nose to Indonesia?
and dragonwall, WTF? .. seriously WTF? what moslem-haters got anything to do with chinese-haters??? something is seriously flawed with your logic.