TheJakartaPost
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Letters: Facebook and the clerics
An article of the May 22 edition of The Jakarta Post reports that a large number of Islamic clerics, including the influential head of the Muslim clerics want to have restrictions on using social networking sites such as Facebook as they believe the sites may promote "lust" and other forms of illicit sexual activity
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An article of the May 22 edition of The Jakarta Post reports that a large number of Islamic clerics, including the influential head of the Muslim clerics want to have restrictions on using social networking sites such as Facebook as they believe the sites may promote "lust" and other forms of illicit sexual activity.
One must certainly respect the unfailing ability and willingness of Indonesia's Islamic clerics to provide the country with a regular dose of comic relief, in the form of their ever more bizarre pronouncements, from the harsh realities of contemporary life in Indonesia. If nothing else, these pronouncements surely make an entertaining change from the endless political news in the run up to the forthcoming presidential elections.
Never mind the serious economic and social issues that most Indonesians face on a daily basis as they struggle to get by. It seems that lust and other forms of illicit sexual activity, as shamelessly encouraged and promoted by that evil force, Facebook, are of far greater concern to the local Islamic clerics than poverty, substandard medical facilities, unemployment, poor education and corruption. It is certainly good to see they have got their priorities so very right.
No doubt, the average Indonesian will be greatly comforted by this concern for his/her moral well-being. It must be supposed that, as long as there is no lust or other forms of illicit sexual activity in Indonesia, the population will be only too happy to put up with poverty, substandard medical facilities, unemployment, poor education and corruption.
On a somewhat more serious note, it is certainly disconcerting to see just how out of touch many of Indonesia's Islamic clerics apparently are with what it seems reasonable to assume are likely to be the real concerns and needs of the great majority of Indonesians.
William A. Sullivan
Jakarta
