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Asian Games pride, virginity testing shame
With all eyes focused on the Games, unsurprisingly there were other events that were vastly overshadowed.
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Indonesia's delegation parades during the opening ceremony of the 2018 Asian Games at the Gelora Bung Karno main stadium in Jakarta on August 18, 2018. (AFP/ Jewel Samad)
Wow, like most Indonesians, I was bursting with pride over the Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang, South Sumatra!
What’s not to be euphorically proud of? It wasn’t just the 31 gold medals, or coming fourth after China, Japan and South Korea. It was also the magical, mesmerizing, fun-fantasia extravaganza of the opening and closing ceremonies, the super-cool James Bond-like motorcycle entrance stunt video of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo entering the Gelora Bung Karno sports complex, the smooth running of the event by paid personnel and volunteers alike, and so many feel-good moments. One of the most heartwarming was when Jokowi and Prabowo Subianto — twice rival presidential candidates, in 2014 and again in 2019 — hugged when Hanifan, a pencak silat athlete won a gold medal. This rare moment earned the hashtag #WowoSayangWiwi(Prabowo loves Jokowi). Aawww, so cute!
What cannot happen in the political arena, can happen in sports, demonstrating how our love of sports can galvanize the nation into two weeks of a genuinely blissful unity that we have not felt in a long time.
With all eyes focused on the Games, unsurprisingly there were other events that were vastly overshadowed. One was the 70th anniversary of the Indonesian Policewomen (Polwan), which fell on Sept. 1.
