November 15, 2016 edition
Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Chairman Said Aqil Siroj was one of the first people President Joko Widodo reached out to following the November 4 mass demonstration. The President conveyed his gratitude to the chairman of the country's largest Islamic mass organization, for his calming statements during the protests against Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, for his allegedly blasphemous statements. In fact, just before the protests, the NU had indeed urged all of its memberstotaling more than 40 million peopleto help placate the tension by not being provoked.
In other words, Said and other NU leaders discouraged their members from joining the protests. "In Islam, there is no such thing as a demonstration," explained Said. However, he was critical of the government, saying it was slow in building communications with Islamic mass organizations. Said, 63, said the government should not communicate only when there are conflicts. "I am very happy to be approached and to have my existence acknowledged," Said commented. However, he regretted the President's statement that there were politicians who piggy-backed on the demonstrators during the November 4 protests, for their own particular purposes.
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The chairman of the Financial Services Authority (OJK), Muliaman Hadad, 56, is optimistic about the coming year. He believes Indonesia will greet the coming year with growth exceeding the 5.2 percent target set by the government. "We can do it if we harness domestic potential optimally and continue with our reforms and transformation programs to enable investment," said Muliaman.
His views do not reflect those of global economic leaders who met at the annual conference of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, DC recently, at which Muliaman himself attended. Participants at the meeting proclaimed that the world economy was growing exceedingly slow, taking far too long to recover and benefitted only a handful of people. They concluded that the weakening of the global economy which began in 2014, had yet to recover in the coming year.
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