Readwrotes Blog

BY MANY MEASURES, the Indonesian economy prospered under the New Order of President Suharto after he came to power in 1966; growing industries added the benefits of modern technology to the natural abundance of the tropics, once the mainstay of the colonial economy. In 1965, before the New Order was initiated, the Indonesian economy had virtually no industry and little more total production per capita than when controlled by Dutch colonialists. However, so complete was the economic transformation under the New Order that, by the mid-1980s, the production of steel, aluminum, and cement was far more valuable than the produce of many thousands of hectares of plantations. Perhaps the New Order's greatest asset was the resolve to alter policies when they no longer worked. For example, throughout the 1970s, tax revenues earned from oil helped fund growing government investment. In the ...

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) posed a major public health threat for Indonesia in the early 1990s. Although in an April 1992 report the Department of Health reported only fortyseven documented cases of individuals whose blood tested positive for human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV), according to the department there were at least 100 times that many undocumented HIV cases, making a net estimate of 4,700 cases. According to government officials, the most likely mode of HIV/AIDS transmission was through heterosexual contact with prostitutes. By the end of 1990, twelve cases of AIDS had been reported in Indonesia. While the Department of Health devoted relatively few of its resources to disease prevention in 1991, it cooperated with the World Health Organization (WHO) in the distribution of 500,000 condoms annually and with a United States Agency for International Development ...

Although there was a 3.2 percent annual decline in infant mortality since 1960, in 1990, according to some accounts, nearly 5.5 percent of babies born to Indonesian mothers still did not survive to their first birthday, the lowest figures for all ASEAN countries. Other sources reported a higher rate--10 percent--for infant mortality. The situation varied regionally, from a low of about 6 percent mortality in Yogyakarta, where a colonial legacy of public health programs left behind an educated populace, to almost 19 percent infant mortality rates in Nusa Tenggara Timur Province. Dukun --traditional healers--continued to play an important role in the health care of the population in the early 1990s. Often, dukun were used in conjunction with Westernstyle medicine. In some rural areas, these healers represented a treatment option of first resort, especially when there was no community health c...

One of the most notable features of Indonesia's health care system, in comparison with other Southeast Asian nations, was the low level of government support. The modern health care system continued the Dutch colonial pattern of low investment in health care. The Dutch did relatively little in the field of public health prior to 1910, with the exception of giving smallpox vaccinations. In the 1930s, however, the government devoted increased attention to health education and disease prevention, particularly in rural areas. An elaborate public health infrastructure had developed by 1939, including a particularly sophisticated model program in Purwokerto in Jawa Tengah Province. But this public health system collapsed after the Japanese invasion in 1942. During World War II, mortality rose dramatically and the general health situation of the country deteriorated. In the postwar peri...

Services and Infrastructure As access to education improved throughout the archipelago, use of modern forms of health care also increased. Statistics show a correlation between the rise of education levels and the increased use of hospitals, physicians, and other health resources. Indeed, in the 1970s and 1980s, health in Indonesia showed overall improvement. Life expectancy for men was 58.4 years and for women 62.0 years in 1990, up 7.3 years and 7.6 years, respectively, since 1980. By the 2000-04 period, life expectancy was projected by the World Bank to reach 66.5 for men and 69.7 for women. However, the distribution of those improvements, as well as the resources for health maintenance and improvement, were unequal. Whereas infant mortality fell from an average of 105 per 1,000 live births in the 1980 to 75.2 per 1,000 in 1990, according to the World Bank, and was expected to de...

The character of Indonesia's educational system reflects its diverse religious heritage, its struggle for a national identity, and the challenge of resource allocation in a poor but developing archipelagic nation with a young and rapidly growing population. Although a draft constitution stated in 1950 that a key government goal was to provide every Indonesian with at least six years of primary schooling, the aim of universal education had not been reached by the late 1980s, particularly among females--although great improvements had been made. Obstacles to meeting the government's goal included a high birth rate, a decline in infant mortality, and a shortage of schools and qualified teachers. In 1973 Suharto issued an order to set aside portions of oil revenues for the construction of new primary schools. This act resulted in the construction or repair of nearly 40,000 primary school...

Identifying someone in Indonesia as a member of the Chinese ( orang Tionghoa ) ethnic group is not an easy matter, because physical characteristics, language, name, geographical location, and life-style of Chinese Indonesians are not always distinct from those of the rest of the population. Census figures do not record Chinese as a special group, and there are no simple racial criteria for membership in this group. There are some people who are considered Chinese by themselves and others, despite generations of intermarriage with the local population, resulting in offspring who are less than one-quarter Chinese in ancestry. On the other hand, there are some people who by ancestry could be considered halfChinese or more, but who regard themselves as fully Indonesian. Furthermore, many people who identify themselves as Chinese Indonesians cannot read or write the Chinese language. Alth...