Indonesia: Flights ordered to stay clear from Anak Krakatau volcano

"Indonesia orders flights to steer clear of erupting Anak Krakatau volcano" -

Read more at:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-tsunami/indonesia-orders-flights-to-steer-clear-of-erupting-anak-krakatau-volcano-idUSKCN1OQ05R

Indonesia: Tsunami kills at least 222 in Indonesia after Eruption Krakkatau

"Tsunami kills at least 222 in Indonesia after Krakatau eruption" -

Read more at: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-tsunami/tsunami-kills-at-least-222-in-indonesia-after-krakatau-eruption-idUSKCN1OL0P2

Religion: Indonesian president invokes 'Pancasila' to counter rising Islamism

 Indonesia’s President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, a moderate Muslim who enjoys widespread support from the country’s minority religious communities, is resurrecting the country’s founding secular ideology, known as “Pancasila,” as he aims to counter the growing forces of Islamism in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation.

Pancasila, a term from old Javanese that roughly translates as “five precepts,” is a set of principles including “belief in the the One and Only God” and has historically been thought to demand respect for the country’s formally recognized religions – Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism. Promising a unified Indonesia and social justice for all citizens, it has been considered a key to Indonesia’s relative stability since it gained independence from the Netherlands 73 years ago.

It’s also why, many say, Indonesia has never had an expressly Islamic government.

Read more: Indonesian president invokes 'Pancasila' to counter rising Islamism - Religion News Service

The Netherlands: Why does Anti-Islam and Anti-Immigrant Geert Wilders' hides his Indonesian roots?

Geert Wilders in his yonger days

Dutch newspaper "de groene Amsterdammer reported that for years there have been rumors circulating that in reality Geert Wilders is an 'Indo' (an Indonesian-European, an ethnic mix that originated when the Dutch colonised Indonesia).

A Dutch genealogist said he had found several Indonesian ancestors of theright-wing populist Dutch politician known for his rabid anti-immigrant and anti-Islam ideas. Now anthropologist Lizzy van Leeuwen describes how his roots can be seen as the driving force behind his outspoken views.

In an article in the left-wing weekly De Groene Amsterdammer Van Leeuwen asks: "Is it possible that the post-colonial and family history have made Wilders what he and his politics are today?" The article is an intellectual attempt to analyse what drives Wilders to say that "all immigration from Islamic countries should be halted" and that "all fundamental problems in the Netherlands are related to immigration".

Wilders now dies his hair peroxide blond -

The conclusion reached by Van Leeuwen is that these statements - plus the fact that he dies his hair peroxide blond - are indeed related to his genealogical link to the largest Islamic country.

Geert Wilders' increasing popularity made his Party for Freedom the second largest Dutch party in European parliament in June. Known for his anti-establishment and anti-immigration politics, Wilders has been calling himself a 'Dutch freedom fighter'. But given that his mother's roots lay outside of the Netherlands, Van Leeuwen says a sense of 'displacedness' is the recurring, underlying motive in his statements.

The 6-page article reveals that Wilders' grandmother, Johanna Ording-Meijer, came from an old Jewish-Indonesian family and that Wilders lied about this in his 2008 biography. However, Van Leeuwen, an expert on the position of Indo-Dutch people in the post-colonial age, goes beyond the notion that a politician known for judging others on their ethnic roots can himself be traced to foreign ancestors.

Van Leeuwen went into the national archives to find the sad story of Wilders' grandfather on his mother's side. Johan Ording was a regional financial administrator in the Dutch colony who suffered several bankruptcies and was fired while on leave in the Netherlands in 1934. He was reduced to begging when the government refused to give him a pension, but later made it to prison director. Van Leeuwen suggests that Wilders is out to avenge the injustice done to his grandfather.

But more than anything, he was defined by his Indo-roots, she says. Indonesia was a Dutch colony until 1949 and many mixed-race people moved to the Netherlands after the Indonesian independence. Van Leeuwen describes how these people were put in the same 'cultural minority' box with labour immigrants from Turkey and Morocco, whom they felt no connection to at all. More so, they had always felt very patriotic about the Netherlands and harboured strong sentiments against Islam, the dominant religion in their motherland.

Van Leeuwen explains how this group has long been part of extreme-right movements (many supported the Dutch Nazi party NSB in Indonesia in the 1930s) while others belonged to the far-right of the right-wing liberal party VVD. She puts Wilders' statements in the conservative and colonial tradition of this group, which strongly believed in patriotism and "European values".

Van Leeuwen's analysis goes beyond the personal level: "The fact that Wilders obviously operates in a post-colonial political dimension, without it being recognised, says a lot about how the Netherlands dealt with, and still deals with the colonial past. Keep quiet, deny, forget and look the other way have been the motto for decades. Because of that, no one could imagine that what happened in Indonesia 50 years ago could still have its impact on modern-day politics."

And the hair? Van Leeuwen says his died mop is a "political symptom not taken serious enough". She thinks it was a brilliant move to step away from his Indonesian roots and hide his post-colonial revanchism. Although this may also be an example of his "classic Indo identity alienation."

Wilders has not responded to the publication.



Almere-Digest 

Netherlands: Famous WWI Spy Mata Hari's Dutch Birthplace Destroyed by Fire

Mata Hari in Paris

Over the weekend the home in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, in where exotic dancer and WWI spy Mata Hari was born got totally destroyed in a fire.

One person was killed by the fire on Saturday evening as it engulfed several buildings in Leeuwarden, about 140km (87 miles) north of Amsterdam.

Local media said the victim was thought to be a 24-year-old man who had lived in a flat in the buildings.

Mata Hari was born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle in August 1876, to a shopkeeper and a Javanese ( Indonesian) mother.

In the early 1900s she left her husband and travelled to Paris where she found fame as an exotic dancer. Her work brought her into contact with many high society figures.

But she was arrested by France during WWI, accused of being a spy for Germany.

Her defense attorney, veteran international lawyer Edouard Clunet, faced impossible odds; he could not cross-examine the prosecution's witnesses or directly question his own witnesses. Under the circumstances, her conviction was a foregone conclusion. She was executed by firing squad on 15 October 1917, at the age of 41.

German documents unsealed in the 1970s proved that Mata Hari was truly a German agent however. In the autumn of 1915, she entered German service, and on orders of section III B-Chief Walter Nicolai, she was instructed about her duties by Major Roepell during a stay in Cologne. Her reports were to be sent to the Kriegsnachrichtenstelle West (War News Post West) in Düsseldorf under Roepell as well as to the Agent mission in the German embassy in Madrid under Major Arnold Kalle, with her direct handler being Captain Hoffmann, who also gave her the code name H-21.

Several films have been made about Mata Hari's life, most famously in 1931 where she was played by Greta Garbo.

Also read more in: BBC News - Mata Hari's Netherlands birthplace destroyed in fire