Week in Review: Plague and the city

Sun, 05/03/2009 1:05 PM  |  Opinion

Over and over, scenes from the classic The Plague have come to life across the globe - a city hit by a plague, restrictions on transportation, communication, characters in denial, characters rebelling against the restrictions placed upon them, people like Raymond Rambert who tried to reach his lover despite the travel ban for all inhabitants of the rat-infested town of Oran (now thankfully one of the recommended destinations in Algiers).

Many Indonesians have long been familiar with the work of Albert Camus, translated into Sampar. But the 1947 novel, one of several plotted around pandemics, is probably the least likely to pop up in our minds, amid reactions to all sorts of diseases surrounding us.

The media rush this week has strived to catch up with wherever the latest source of an imminent pandemic - the virus of "swine flu" - is believed to appear, since over 60 deaths related to the disease were reported in Mexico last Saturday. Pork lovers here are so far undaunted, expressing hopes the virus will drop dead in our tropics, just as our Health Minister said. Then again, it might develop resistance, as another expert warned, so naturally it would be best to err on the side of caution.

But while we have yet to find out how this latest disease came about - said to be caused by a new virus strain with "a mix of pig viruses with some human and bird viruses", it is apparently the feared one, the virus spreading from human to human.

Officials are still figuring out the best precautions to take, while we haven't even been able to guarantee fool-proof measures against avian flu. Living near poultry being part of many an Asian's way of life, even international public health authorities were at loss over a realistic way out after visiting countries like Vietnam and Indonesia. Therefore hopefully in the weeks to come, we will learn how to live with these threats, which may, or not, go away in a short time. In a number of "clusters," bird flu has taken the lives of more than one family member. The H5N1 was feared to spread from human to human - and before we know it, the latest virus is doing just that.

Our region and our country is never short of surprises.

The swine flu coverage immediately competed with the reports on the race to power. Suddenly on Friday, the legislative elections' manual tallies revealed the party of Megawati Soekarnoputri to be the winner.

The official electronic count hasn't even reached 15 million votes, so the waiting for those ready to throw a party for well-wishers is excruciatingly slow. Candidates of Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) must be rejoicing, though with nervous reserve, at the results of the counting of 31 million votes. In the electronic tallies, the PDI-P was still consistently third runner-up, with 14 percent of votes as of Friday afternoon.

Election officials have said nothing can be concluded just yet, and certainly no one would want to invoke bad luck. A starkly different result in the final tallies would throw all earlier efforts to the wind, one might say, and we'll be spectators of another roller coaster of party lobbying in all directions.

The voter needs to stand by quietly as she or he will have the final say in the July presidential elections, if all goes well.

The more informed citizen (not the majority of swing voters) will screen available candidates and their allies in their "grand coalitions". For instance, if you voted for the PDI-P on April 9, would you definitely give Megawati another shot at the presidency? Or would you first check out her running mate? Her secretary general said the names circulating among the PDI-P chapters included the Yogyakarta monarch and governor, Hamengkubuwono X, and Prabowo Subianto, a retired army general and leader of the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra).

And what would the PDI-P have in common with the Sultan and the Golkar Party, or with Prabowo and Gerindra? The shared magic word is rakyat, the common people, used by politicians of every hue, the sense of nationalism touted by all parties - apart from the confusing differences or similarities in policy trends when the Golkar Party or the PDI-P were in power.

Again, if you voted for the Democratic Party in the last elections, you might simply be consistent and decide to vote for Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in July - or stop and wonder whether the Islamic parties are to your liking, if he or any other major party decides their small percentages of tallies could add up to a highly worthy 10 percent or more.

But this week and in the following weeks, let's spare a thought for those who are struggling with their exams - high school students were followed by those of the junior high level (ninth graders) this week and the sixth graders will soon follow. Some even sat exams in their hospital beds; others grimaced with frustration when hearing students at some schools, as usual, managed to get leaked answers, and also as usual, will not likely get caught or punished.

May 2 was Education Day. What milestones have been passed on to the next generation? Ahead of the exams, students of all levels were still struggling with over 10 compulsory subject matters, just like in our days.

Progress in education clearly plods along at a much slower pace than the election tallies.

- Ati Nurbaiti

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