Stepping up security ahead of Christmas Eve has become the drill for the last 10 years, since church bombings in 2000. Some of the later bombings were traced to networks of "jihadi" elements. It's surely convenient to blame everything on 9/11 and its causes, which experts say include resentment of rapid "globalization," leaving many communities marginalized.

But the latest attack on a church construction site in Bekasi shortly before Christmas resulted in earlier patterns of authorities blaming the victims. The police reaction was similar to their inaction on the assault on Ahmadis in the city and elsewhere. An explanation for extreme "religious" behavior might simply be that criminals are encouraged by the complacency of law enforcers.

And why the complacency? Police should clearly act against those disturbing the peace. Follow the attitude to key decision makers and we find our leaders taking the side of the vocal majority, with minorities being blamed for disturbing the peace, either through engaging in a cult that makes Muslims "restless", or conducting church services in majority Muslim residential areas, where they are accused of not having permits to build churches.

Time will tell whether the new administration of re-elected President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will live up to his slogan "prosperity, democracy and justice" for all.

Indeed he didn't get to begin work on any of that as the controversial bailout of Bank Century still dogs the administration. The only positive sign from the top is that there's no need to temporarily suspend the finance minister and the Vice President, as legislators have demanded. So we might still have stability.

The President is on shaky ground now as his showing in Copenhagen did not help distract attention away from Century. Few noticed the President's declaration that Indonesia would commit to reduce harmful emissions by 40 percent even though we are not bound to do so; a commitment that would mean SBY would have to do everything in his power to improve Indonesia's ability to adopt green technology and help vulnerable communities across the archipelago adapt to climate change.

This week we also suffered growing pains while getting used to new media of networking and self-expression. Celebrity Luna Maya tweeted angrily that the paparazzi, "were worse than whores and murderers." The Indonesian Journalist Association (PWI) filed a defamation complaint with the police. Luna, however, refused to apologize. Journalists from the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) this week volunteered to mediate the row, saying journalists should not be offended because paparazzi are "not journalists" anyway.

So one issue was keeping your cool about tweeting, or whether we should jump to file lawsuits at every impudent tweet, or remind celebrities to be nice even though they are pushed to the wall by hundreds of microphones and cameras.

Another was whether we should ask the public to be understanding of our profession: that "we" are the "pros" and "they" are the production house workers or just reporters for entertainment news who can mix gossip with a few sound bites. In today's world it seems it's the "non-pros" who are reminding journalists of the public's expectations of them. If anyone can tweet, blog or podcast first-hand information of a bombing, earthquake or gossip, where do we draw the line between mainstream media workers, paparazzi and citizen journalists? What if the citizen journalist is more mindful of his ethics than a business editor putting a spin on a story to appease shareholders?

And now the Indonesian Ulema Council can say, "I told you so!" reminding us of their fatwa that infotainment is haram!

* * *

Toward year-end, recreation invariably means shopping. We're reminded here of four construction workers who were killed, and 12 others injured, when a structure connecting two Tanah Abang market buildings collapsed Wednesday.

The structure was one of those modern features becoming a trend across cities - skywalks which carry hundreds of people over the streets at once, and not only on one level either. The Tanah Abang lesson must be one that ensures all is done to prevent a similar incident as more malls sprout in this city.

This week our thoughts also go to those stranded in Europe and the United States because of heavy snow, disrupting all holiday plans and family gatherings. Many of our readers, though safe and sound here, are also without their families this holiday season.

To all our readers, we hope you can enjoy the best of the year's end and put your feet up a bit before we return to the roller coaster of life again.

- Ati Nurbaiti

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