Starting Points

May 15, 2010

Luck of the Draw for Indonesian Migrant Worker

A matter of luck - Inside Indonesia - a quarterly magazine on Indonesia and it's people, culture, politics, economy and environment

Migrant domestic workers aspire to more than their home communities can offer and are willing to take risks to change their lives

Rosslyn von der Borch

Singapore's Lucky Plaza, a popular meeting place for domestic

workers

Wayne Palmer

The changing nature of Indonesia's rural economies and an increased awareness of the world - brought about by higher levels of education, greater exposure to the mass media and the ever growing numbers of returned labour migrants - have contributed to a marked change in the aspirations of young rural women. At the same time, the absence of almost any work opportunities beyond poorly paid farming or factory work drives many to seek work abroad, powerfully sustained by their dreams of a better future for themselves and their families.

Women have little or no choice about the external factors that determine the way their migratory experience unfolds. A migrant domestic worker newly arrived in her host country is assigned to an employer about whom she knows nothing. In the absence of any sense of control, she relies on 'luck' to deliver kind and understanding employers.

Migration roulette

Employers and agents often claim that migrant domestic workers arrive in host countries unprepared for the challenges ahead and attribute the difficulties they experience to this lack of preparation. This is true in part, as many migrants find the move from an Indonesian village community and lifestyle to the urban, middle- to upper-class household of their employer disorienting. But it is important to acknowledge that agents, employers and the host community can also make this transition more difficult than necessary.

When I have raised the issue of labour migration with young domestic workers in Indonesia, they have indicated that they are well aware of the high levels of risk attached working overseas. Television and print media coverage of the ordeals endured by some migrant workers make this common knowledge. Prospective labour migrants, then, are generally aware that they will be confronted with a range of difficulties and may experience intense homesickness.

Domestic worker Rini Widyawati secretly kept a diary in which she recorded her observations and experiences during the years she spent working in Hong Kong, which was published after her return to Indonesia. In the opening pages of her diary she describes her stark awareness that she may fail to earn the money she dreams about, but also that the gamble she is taking and may even cause her death. She writes:

A nervousness rises in my heart. Will the future that I seek here be mine? … Will I leave this airport in two years having been successful? … Or will I die here, so that only my corpse will again pass through this airport. This has been the fate of some other Indonesian migrant workers, the reasons for whose deaths are sometimes not clear. Or will I kill myself here when I feel lonely and isolated, with work and family problems piling up on each other? My friends, who have also been migrant domestic workers in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Singapore, have told me this happens.

Perhaps only willing risk-takers seek work abroad, while the 'risk-averse' stay at home. In any case, hundreds of thousands of women take these substantial risks each year, hoping for high gains that are not possible if they stay in Indonesia.

Cycles of luck

When Indonesian migrant domestic workers go overseas they find themselves pitted against familiar enemies, in particular the structural disempowerment so intimately known to their home communities. It is unsurprising, then, that they speak so often of luck. Wilma, who works in Singapore, comments:

Being a maid is not bad at all, but a lot depends on luck. Luck is important. Because if you go to a family and they bully you, don't give you any days off, lock you in the house, then you're really in a bad place. So you need luck.

The uncertainties that arise when transferring from one employer to another can be immensely stressful. But Susi feels she has always been fortunate in the placement lottery:

I've always been lucky, I think, where employers are concerned. They have all treated me well. Maybe I'm good [laughs] or maybe they're good - or it's just my life, or something like that. It's okay. I can do my work.

Dian commented that she was lucky in having the 'understanding' of her employers:

My first boss and this one, they've both let me do my own thing. She isn't finicky about time. The important thing is that the work is done. Yes, they've both been understanding. I've been lucky in that.

Nina talked about cycles of bad luck and good luck. She experienced the 'bad luck' of being repatriated at short notice by her first employer in Singapore, which infuriated her. However she went immediately to another employment agent in Jakarta and applied to return:

So one month later I came back to Singapore. That employer was Straits Chinese. Her mother was sick and had complications, so she needed another maid. She employed me. But I wasn't lucky. Four months later the lady passed away. But good luck was coming. Because I went to the agency and said I wanted a transfer… In the afternoon the agent called me. She asked me, 'Do you want to transfer to a whitey?' [Very animated tone of voice]: 'Hey, that would be great!' I said. At two o'clock I had an interview. Then I got my employer.

Talk among domestic workers of the importance of luck - and of the personal resources necessary for dealing with adversity - points back to the structural injustice and disempowerment that affects labour migrants, to government and legislative failings in both home and host countries, and often to the personal ethical failings of employers, agents and government officials. Consequently, luck continues to play a part in determining the working conditions of migrant domestic workers, even after years overseas.

Not just passive accommodation

In some cases, migrant workers' reliance on luck may decrease as they gain confidence and are empowered through their experiences as migrants. Given access to each other - especially through days off that can be spent discussing problems and experiences, sharing food and news from home or attending classes - a domestic worker's reliance on luck can begin to be combined with a more complex awareness of her rights.

A reliance on luck in navigating the risks inherent in labour migration can suggest a passive accommodation to fate. But it is also closely linked to the personal capital that can make the difference between a 'successful' and an 'unsuccessful' migration experience. Especially in situations where a migrant domestic worker finds herself 'unlucky', her ability to accommodate her situation and to garner the personal resources necessary to see out her contract or to negotiate change, are tested.

But while accommodation can appear to be in tension with the notion that these women are active risk-takers, it can also be an active state, closely aligned to these women's views of themselves as economic pioneers and as risk-takers. As Nurjannah observed, speaking to me about having acquired the discipline of accommodation:

Lately everybody's talking about foreign workers, about maids. That never happened in the past. Even so, there are still many local employers who use mean and bad words when they talk to their maids. Especially - well I can't say especially who they were - but I was a victim of this myself, long ago, sometimes. But I grew up and now I don't care what they say. I just - I mean - but some girls might feel irritated when the - often employers call them 'sotong (squid) head', something like that [laughs, a bit embarrassed] and sometimes the children say bad things as well. I can handle it. I don't mind. I understand. But some newcomers, they've never heard that word, and they might feel so bad and so irritated and they feel so angry.

When asked to explain what she meant when she said she understood, Nurjannah added:

For myself, for my own personal wellbeing, what else can I do? Apart from wear it? It's easier on myself if I just wear it. It makes everything easier. No arguments. I just let them go. Later I will talk to them nicely so they will think about what they've said. But some girls can't do that. Especially in the beginning. I was also like that with my first employer.

In the importance placed on luck by migrant domestic workers, then, we can see a pragmatic appraisal of what is possible in their relationships with their employers and as migrants.

A form of resourcefulness

No migrant worker in receiving countries where comprehensive labour laws exist - and are enforced - should have to rely on luck to deliver reasonable working hours, time off from work and fair pay. However, like Nurjannah, many migrant domestic workers are prepared to accommodate a great deal, regarding this as part of the job. The focus of these women is pragmatically fixed on the route to the achievement of their ultimate goal of financial gain, and not on what is 'right'. Even if she becomes the victim of severe abuse, this goal may not be risked through attempts to assert her rights unless the odds are clearly in her favour.

But far from signifying acceptance of their 'lot', the ways that migrant domestic workers accommodate the challenges and difficulties they encounter demonstrate a resourceful negotiation of complex circumstances in which they are largely powerless. It is in this resourcefulness that the possibility lies for them to achieve the life they dream about - a life in which they have a measure of autonomy, more power to consume and knowledge of the world beyond their village.

Rosslyn von der Borch (rosslyn.vonderborch@flinders.edu.au) teaches Indonesian Studies at Flinders University in South Australia.

Burma Junta Hampers Water Aid

2010-05-14

Burma’s military government hinders aid during a severe drought.

Local resident

In a photo provided by a local resident, opposition National League for Democracy party members and other private donors distribute drinking water in Pegu, 50 miles north of Rangoon, May 13, 2010.

BANGKOK—Burma is suffering from a major water shortage during the annual dry season, but authorities are slowing relief efforts, according to residents in the hardest-hit regions of the country.

Residents said the Burmese military government is attempting to project an image of maintaining control over the situation, even as the drought has led to several deaths in Rangoon and Pegu divisions.

They added that the junta-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) is refusing to allow some aid donations and is forcing organizations that provide relief to mark their vehicles with the USDA flag.

A young man from Dala township said local authorities were questioning aid workers and taking photographs of people who were distributing water earlier in the week.

“USDA members stopped donors’ cars and asked them to place their flag on their vehicles. If the donors don't place their flag on the car, they won't be allowed to distribute water to the local people. They said this was a directive issued by their high-ranking officials,” the young man said.

“Some donors placed the USDA flag on their cars. Others refused and drove their cars on another route. But now there are fewer donors in this township, and many monasteries are facing water shortages,” he said.

“Local authorities are also distributing water, but they are only assisting their family members. They haven’t distributed water to the people. They even deny people water when they are asked for it.”

A relief worker in Kwunchangone township said many villages in the area are also suffering from drought and that the water distributed there is not enough to meet demand.

“Many villages in the area are suffering from severe water shortages after an accelerated evaporation of Burma’s ponds and reservoirs,” the worker said.

“The donors have been questioned by the authorities. The government cannot help the people, but they also don't want others to provide aid. They are suspicious of well-wishers who try to help the people,” he said.

“We are also afraid of an outbreak of disease because of the lack of drinking water and basic hygiene. There is no electricity in the city. It is difficult to pull water from the wells. How do we get water without electricity? We all have many problems.”

Government response

Drought-affected areas of Burma. Credit: RFA

Burma's military government, which calls the country Myanmar, released a statement acknowledging that abnormal heat had dried up lakes in Rangoon division, leaving locals with a shortage of drinking water.

The statement said that a large number of water tankers had been sent out around the region to supply water to people in need and that authorities are tapping underground wells in urban wards with the help of citizen aid workers to meet previous levels of water consumption.

In a May 13 article published in an official newspaper, the government said that some residents of western Magway division and central Mandalay division were hospitalized due to high temperatures.

Of 11 hospitalized Magway division residents, seven died and four are receiving ongoing treatment, while no deaths have been reported from the 14 people hospitalized in Mandalay division, it said.

The article said that the Ministry of Health is issuing daily instructions on steps the public can take to protect themselves against high temperature via TV, radio, newspapers, and journals. It cited an “unnecessary loss of lives as some failed to follow the notifications.”
Not enough done

But aid workers said that the government hasn't done enough to warn the public and to provide them with relief following the weeks of drought.

Myo Myint Thein, a physician in Rangoon division, said the elderly are particularly vulnerable and need to be given better instruction on how to protect themselves from the heat.

“Old people, especially between 60 and 70, have died of heat. Some people who drink alcohol have also died. The death toll has reached 37 within 12 to 13 days. The number is a bit high,” he said.

“People lack awareness [of how to react] and they put wet blankets on their body to prevent heat. This is the wrong thing to do. You should not do things like that in this heat. Especially people in rural areas don't know about it. The death toll is only the number of people who died in urban areas.”

Shwe Zee Kwet, a donor from the Free Funeral Service, an organization that provides burial services to the poor, said the public has been forced to act on its own to deal with the water shortage crisis.

“We went to Pyawbwe village near Thakala Village in Bago division. They don't have safe drinking water. They only have polluted water. All the lakes are dried up. Villagers are trying to get water by digging wells, but there is no drinking water in them,” Shwe Zee Kwet said.

“People from Bago division are distributing water by themselves. We gave them plastic containers to bring water. And they contributed their water and cars. We are also providing fuel and other expenses to people who distribute water in villages,” she said.

“We try to distribute water twice a day, but sometimes we can do so only once a day.”

Chairman of the Free Funeral Service Kyaw Thu said he had donated 1 million kyat (U.S. $156,000 according to the official exchange rate) from his prize money as aid to assist those in need.

“Yesterday the funeral service took care of 70 dead people. Normally we provide services for 40-50 people each day. Now the number has reached 70. Old people, young car drivers, and rickshaw drivers are dying from heat stroke.”

Nargis precedent

Burma’s military government is wary of both international and domestic aid groups and has routinely blocked relief efforts seeking to assist citizens affected by natural disasters.

The junta blocked aid and imprisoned members of NGOs providing assistance to homeless Burmese after Cyclone Nargis tore through the south of the country in 2007, leveling infrastructure and killing some 140,000 people.

Villagers in the worst-hit regions said they have been unable to rebuild their lives in the wake of the storm, which left millions with no home or livelihood.

Local and overseas aid workers said Burma’s ruling military junta deliberately blocked aid to victims of Nargis, and failed to ensure that fields were ploughed in time for the harvest. It has also jailed a number of private citizens, some of them well-known, for aiding cyclone victims.

The junta at the time was preoccupied with a national referendum on a new Constitution. It went ahead with the vote May 10, and announced that the constitution had been overwhelmingly approved. Amid an international outcry, the junta let relief agencies into the country almost four weeks after the storm.

Original reporting by Nay Rein Kyaw, Nay Linn and Aung Moe Myint for RFA’s Burmese service. Burmese service director: Nyein Shwe. Produced by Susan Lavery. Translated by Htar Htar Myint. Written for the Web in English by Joshua Lipes. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

Thai Monarchy Influence Fading, as Class Polarization Gets Very Politicized

News Analysis - Thailand’s King Sees Influence Fade as Crisis Intensifies - NYTimes.com

By SETH MYDANS and THOMAS FULLER

BANGKOK — A battle over Thailand’s future is raging, but the one man who has been able to resolve such intractable conflicts in the past has been notably silent: King Bhumibol Adulyadej, long a unifying father figure for his nation.

Thailand is convulsed by a bitter struggle between the nation’s elite and its disenfranchised poor, played out in protests that have paralyzed Bangkok for weeks and now threaten to expand. The ailing 82-year-old king finds his power to sway events ebbing as the fight continues over the shape of a post-Bhumibol Thailand.

“It’s much bigger than the issue of succession,” said Charles Keyes, an expert on Thailand at the University of Washington in Seattle. “It’s a collapse of the political consensus that the monarchy has helped maintain.”

Andrees Latif/Reuters

King Bhumibol Adulyadej returned to a hospital after marking the anniversary of his coronation in Bangkok on May 5. More Photos »

As his country suffers through its worst political crisis in decades, the king has disappointed many Thais by saying nothing that might calm the turmoil, as he did in 1973 and 1992 when with a few quiet words he halted eruptions of political bloodletting.

For more than two months now, demonstrators known as the red shirts, who represent in part the aspirations of the rural and urban poor, have occupied parts of Bangkok, forcing major malls and hotels to close as they demand that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva dissolve Parliament and hold a new election. Soldiers and protesters continued battling Saturday, and the Thai military declared a Bangkok neighborhood a “live-fire zone.”

After taking the throne nearly 64 years ago, King Bhumibol expanded his role as a constitutional monarch without political power into an enormous moral force, earned through his civic work and political astuteness. He has also presided over an expansion of the royal family’s now vast business holdings. With the monarchy at its heart, an elite royalist class grew up including the bureaucracy, the military and entrenched business interests. A palace Privy Council has exerted power during the current crisis.

It is this elite class that the protesters are now challenging.

Those who seek to maintain the status quo have proclaimed themselves loyal to the king and have accused the red shirts of trying to destroy the monarchy as they seek changes in Thai society. For their part, most red shirts say they respect the king but want changes in the system he helped create.

The politicization of the king’s name “has ensured that the monarchy cannot play a central conciliatory role any more,” said Chris Baker, a British historian of Thailand.

More broadly, the divisions in society may have become too deep and the anger too hot to reconcile for years to come. Many analysts say a lasting class conflict has been ignited between the country’s awakening rural masses and its elite hierarchy. With the king confined to a hospital since September with lung inflammation and other ailments, concern about the future has sharpened. The heir apparent to the throne, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, has not inherited his father’s popularity.

But discussion about the succession and about the future role of the monarchy are constricted to whispers and forbidden Internet sites by a severe lèse-majesté law. A 15-year penalty for anyone who “defames, insults or threatens the king, queen, the heir apparent or the regent” has been broadly interpreted in cases brought against writers, academics, activists, and both foreign and local journalists.

Though it is the protesters who are pressing for change, including some who may see a republican form of government in the future, it is a leading member of the establishment party that now rules Thailand who put the issue into its plainest terms.

“We should be brave enough to go through all of this and even talk about the taboo subject of monarchy,” said Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya, in a speech last month that he gave, significantly, outside Thailand at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. “I think we have to talk about the institution of the monarchy, how would it have to reform itself to the modern globalized world.”

He spoke of Britain and the Netherlands as models, with constitutional monarchs who play a largely symbolic role.

On paper at least, those models are not so very different from the system now in place in Thailand. What sets King Bhumibol apart is the aura that surrounds him and the faith among many people that when things are really bad, he will step forward to save them from themselves.

In a way, what some Thais are saying now is simply that it is time for the king’s “children” to grow up and solve their problems themselves.

“There might still be people in Thai society that want to see the king play a role in resolving the crisis,” said Jon Ungpakorn, a former senator and one of the nation’s most vocal advocates for democracy.

“But on the other side, a large section of society realizes that we should not depend on the monarchy for resolving crises,” he said. “If we are to be a democratic system, we must learn to deal with our problems ourselves.”

During weeks of street demonstrations, protesters have assiduously asserted their patriotism. But unlike other protests in the city, there has been a conspicuous absence of portraits of the king. Among both residents of the northeast, the country’s rural heartland, and the red-shirt protesters in Bangkok — many of whom have traveled back and forth in shifts — a new, less reverent tone has quietly crept into conversations.

Krasae Chanawongse, a medical doctor and former government minister in the northeast who is a strong monarchist, laments that “many people are talking about destroying the monarchy.”

But protest leaders insist that they are not challenging the king but the system that is built around him.

“Real democracy would have the king at the top, with no elite class to interfere,” said a protest leader, Nattawut Saikua, in an interview.

Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had built an electoral base among the country’s poor majority, who also form the base of the red-shirt protesters, threatening the traditional supremacy of the old guard. A coup in 2006 that ousted Mr. Thaksin is believed to have had at least the tacit approval of the Privy Council and other elites who saw the prime minister and his base as a challenge to their power. The red shirts have demanded a new election that could bring back Mr. Thaksin, now abroad fleeing a prison sentence for corruption.

Whoever succeeds King Bhumibol, the veneration and the place the king holds at the heart of Thai society are unlikely to survive him.

“In private discussions people say to each other, ‘What will we do without him?’ ” said a prominent poet who, like many people speaking about the monarchy, insisted on anonymity. “They get disappointed and upset and even scared about the change in the future.”

As he has grown older, concerns have risen about divisions and disputes in society that might erupt once he is gone. It appears now, with the king no longer playing the role he has in the past, that those conflicts are already under way.

Singapore Legend Dr Goh Keng Swee Dies

Channel NewsAsia - Cabinet ministers pay last respects to late Dr Goh Keng Swee - channelnewsasia.com

Former Deputy Prime Minister Goh Keng Swee died early Friday morning after a long illness.

Dr Goh, who had also served as Finance Minister and Education Minister, was 91.

An instrumental figure in the development of Singapore from its first steps at nationhood through to the 1980s, Dr Goh will be accorded a state funeral.

Dr Goh is survived by his wife, son, daughter-in-law, two grandsons and three great grandchildren.

Latest News


		Dr Goh's "radical" idea led to formation of GIC: Dr Tony Tan Updated: Sat, 15 May 2010 22:49:10 SINGAPORE : Former Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan paid his last respects to the late Dr Goh Keng Swee on Saturday evening. Full Story

	NSP pays tribute to late Dr Goh, says S'pore has lost a great man
	Dr Goh's message to serve should be passed on to next generation: PM Lee
	Co-operative federation pays tribute to Dr Goh

Arizona Government Is Racist

Image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via Flickr

City Brights: Michael Yaki : Arizona law banning Ethnic Studies: Arizona Gov't is the real racist.

by Michael Yaki

Arizona once again delves into uncharted constitutional waters by seeking to ban courses catering to minority--again, in this case, primarily Hispanic -- students. Indeed, the Arizona State Superintendent, Tom Horne, said it was written to target Mexican or Chicano ethnic studies classes, which he claims divides students by race and promotes race resentment.

The statute bans courses that "promote resentment toward a race or class of people . . . are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group . . and advocate ethnic solidarity." The statute then goes onto exempt courses on the Holocaust because, of course, without that exemption, every class that shows Schindler's List where at the conclusion you resent the Nazis (a class of people) and wanting to save the Jews (promoting solidarity), you would have violated Horne's law.

Horne's dilemma is that enforcement will be so arbitrary, so capricious, relying, most likely, on Horne's particular biases and whims that the statute is begging for a First Amendment challenge. How do you quantify or measure "resentment." "Ethnic solidarity?" If two Latino students, hearing about the plight of migrant workers in the lettuce fields of California, feel that they should send a donation to the United Farm Workers to help them combat the agrigrower owners, has that crossed a line? If a teacher shows "Roots" and black students feel compelled to talk about the anger they still feel at the legacy of slavery, is that a violation? If students leave a classroom finally understanding the prejudice and struggles of their parents of whatever race or religion or background, and feeling justifiably angry, will Tom Horne be there with a questionnaire to gauge whether their teacher fueled their discontent so he can yank their funding?

Image by aprilzosia via Flickr

And let's not forget Arizona's participation in one of the most shameful acts of racism in American history: the incarceration of over 100,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. The Arizona desert was a lovely place for west coast Americans to spend their time simply because of their ethnic heritage. If a Park Ranger spoke at a class in Arizona about Gila River and Poston, and condemned the paranoia and racism at the time, and several Asian American students petitioned their school to form an afterschool group for Asian Americans, is that the "ethnic solidarity" deemed a no-no by the law?

I remember a history class at UC Berkeley I took on American history. It left me shaken, and angry, and ultimately disappointed that my high school history glossed over the tremendous struggles that workers and minorities suffered through in the rise of the industrial age. If anything, shouldn't Tom Horne be targeting universities, the real hot-beds of controversial thinking? On-line education? Any Learning Annex lecture given by a minority lecturer? Isn't Horne, Brewer, and the entire Arizona Legislature, plain and simple, engaging in censorship and whitewashing promoted by a state government?

If the Governor, legislature, and education departments of Arizona are worried about "resentment" towards them by the substantial Latino population in the state, there are greater things to worry about than simply 1984'ing the state curriculum. Perhaps if they addressed the inequities in health care, living conditions, the standard of living for many Latinos living there the "resentment" level might just die down. Perhaps if they didn't pass laws targeting Latinos, regardless of citizenship, for racial profiling and police interrogations on the "suspicion" that they may be undocumented persons there wouldn't be any fears of "resentment."

Learning about your heritage and your roots is part of who we are as Americans. Perhaps if the Arizona government recognized that undeniable, indisputable fact, if they just behaved like human beings who should care about other human beings, without regard to skin color, ethnicity, or nationality, then maybe, just maybe, their claims about "ethnic chauvinism" wouldn't sound so hypocritical. Because, right now, everything they have done in the past month bears the ugly stain of racism.

Posted By: Michael Yaki (Email) | May 15 2010 at 08:33 AM

China Lifts Xinjiang Internet Ban at Last

Image by dreamX via Flickr

After a 10-Month Ban, Western China Is Back Online - NYTimes.com

By EDWARD WONG

BEIJING — Full Internet service was restored to the vast western Chinese region of Xinjiang on Friday, 10 months after it was blocked following deadly ethnic rioting that convulsed the regional capital, Urumqi. The blockage was the longest and most widespread in China since the Internet became readily available throughout the country a decade ago.

The announcement was made in the morning, and many residents in cities across Xinjiang took the day off from school or work to rush to Internet cafes, where they pored through months of unread e-mail messages or chatted via instant messaging. Some also dived back into online gaming, one of China’s most popular pastimes (“World of Warcraft” imitators being the most played).

In the violence in Urumqi on July 5, 2009, ethnic Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people that is the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, rampaged through the streets after security forces tried to break up a protest over social injustices. The government says at least 197 people were killed and 1,600 injured, most of them ethnic Han, the majority in China. Many Uighurs resent discrimination by the Han, who are migrating in large numbers to Xinjiang and hold the top positions of power.

The Chinese government blamed overseas Uighur groups for using the Internet to stir up hostilities, and in particular they pointed at Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur exile living in the Washington area. Ms. Kadeer has denied the accusations. After the initial rioting, the government cut off Internet service and cellphone text messaging across Xinjiang, which makes up one-sixth of China’s territory.

On Friday, the regional government Web site carried a brief statement on the restoration of service: “For the stability, economic development and the needs of people from all ethnic backgrounds of the autonomous region, the Communist Party and the government of Xinjiang decided to fully resume Internet services beginning May 14.”

The restoration of Internet service comes before a major central government meeting this month that is aimed at setting new policy in Xinjiang. In late April, the government announced it was replacing the most powerful official in Xinjiang, Wang Lequan, who had been regional party secretary for 15 years. A hard-liner on ethnic issues, he has been widely blamed by Uighurs and Han for creating a poisonous atmosphere.

Mr. Wang’s replacement, Zhang Chunxian, party secretary of Hunan Province, is nicknamed the “Internet secretary” for his use of online tools to communicate with people.

One travel agent in Kashgar, an ancient Silk Road oasis town, said he came into his office Friday morning to find all his co-workers on Yahoo.

“Yes, I am excited, but I have already forgotten all my passwords,” the travel agent, Kasim, said in a telephone interview.

He said he knew people who had moved out of Kashgar — even as far away as Guangdong Province in southeastern China — to ensure they had Internet access. This was especially true of those who needed to use e-mail for their jobs or businesses, Kasim said.

“I’m happy to know that I can recover my old friends, I can finally write to all my friends,” he said.

Late last year, the Xinjiang government slightly relaxed the ban on the Internet, first allowing access to some propaganda-heavy news sites created for the region’s residents. After that, some Chinese e-mail services were reopened. Last month, the government began allowing limited text messaging.

The Internet in Xinjiang, however, is still subject to China’s complicated censorship apparatus, nicknamed the Great Firewall, which blocks social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, as well as a vast number of Web pages devoted to delicate subjects (the Dalai Lama, Falun Gong or the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre).

The Chinese government has taken a hard line against Internet freedom in the last year. This spring, Beijing created a new department, Bureau Nine, to help police social networking sites and other user-driven forums.

Xiyun Yang contributed reporting.

Google Translate and Google Squared Expand Services

Image via CrunchBase

Official Google Blog: This week in search 5/14/10

This week, we announced a number of new search enhancements.

Google Translate learns and speaks new languages
This week, we launched 5 new "alpha" languages on Google Translate — Armenian, Azerbaijani, Basque, Georgian and Urdu. We also extended our support for spoken translations to 29 more languages. With these launches, you can now translate text, webpages and documents between 57 languages, and hear translations spoken in 36 languages. For many search queries where you want to translate a word or a phrase, we offer a translation powered by Google Translate directly in our search results. We also recently added romanization to this feature — when translating to or from a foreign language, you can now see the translation written phonetically in roman characters.

Example searches: [translate how are you? to chinese] or [translate обезьяна]

Twenty more languages in Google search get virtual keyboard
Recently, we announced that we've integrated virtual keyboards into Google Search homepages in 35 languages. Virtual keyboard lets you type directly in your local language script in an easy and consistent manner, no matter where you are or what computer you’re using. Feedback is always important to us, and we were excited to get more than three thousand votes for other languages you felt the keyboard should be launched in. Today, we're happy to announce that we are adding Virtual Keyboard to another 20 languages — making it now available in 55 languages.

For those of you who speak a language we don't yet support, we're hard at work adding the virtual keyboard into more languages listed in Google Language Tools page. You can also vote for the languages you'd like us to add next. We always appreciate your feedback as we continue our efforts to help you input text in your desired languages as easily as possible.

Example languages we added this week:

Finding short answers

Image by Search Engine People Blog via Flickr

This week, we introduced a new feature that brings the technology of Google Squared right to your search results. Squared makes it easier to highlight answers for fact-based queries, so you can get more accurate answers, faster. Now, you'll see these answers right at the top of your search results, brought to you from across the web. And, we've also made sure this feature works great on mobile browsers.

Example searches: [timezone in nevada] or [when was jean-jacques rousseau born]

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned next week for more search news.

Posted by Amit Singhal, Google Fellow

May 14, 2010

Kyrgyzstan's Ethnic Violence Pits Muslims against Muslims

Government Backers Retake Buildings in Kyrgyzstan - NYTimes.com

By ANDREW E. KRAMER

MOSCOW — A chaotic day of deadly street violence in southern Kyrgyzstan ended Friday with the interim government retaking control of administration buildings in two southern cities.

The buildings were overrun a day earlier by followers of the former president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was toppled in an uprising a month ago. The interim government established in the wake of that unrest has consolidated power in the capital, Bishkek, but still has a tenuous hold on the south, the homeland of Mr. Bakiyev.

At least one person was killed and 37 were wounded Friday in exchanges of gunfire between supporters of Mr. Bakiyev and those backing the interim government. Crowds on both sides included dozens of armed men, witnesses said.

The interim leader, Roza Otunbayeva, blamed Mr. Bakiyev for the uprising in the south, the most serious challenge yet to the new government. A former adviser of Mr. Bakiyev was arrested and accused of fomenting unrest.

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Kyrgyz Chaos Eruption- 3 killed, dozens injured in fresh street battles

In Kyrgyzstan, 30 people have been injured and 3 are reported to have died after violent street battles in the south of the country. Gunshots ...

“The former president again spilled the blood of Kyrgyz citizens,” Ms. Otunbayeva said in a statement carried by local news media.

Government officials said Thursday that they would not use police force, but instead would encourage supporters to swarm into the buildings held by armed followers of Mr. Bakiyev. The result was a strange tableau of violence as the pro-government groups — some peaceful and some armed with sticks, rocks and rifles — storming the government buildings while uniformed police officers and special forces largely stayed on the sidelines, witnesses said. The loyalty of those forces in the south has been in question.

Kyrgyzstan, in Central Asia, is the home of a base used to supply the United States-led war in Afghanistan.

The turmoil seems likely to continue. The violence is emblematic of the challenges facing the small group of people who proclaimed themselves the interim government. They are unelected and have no formal legitimacy, and it remains unclear whom the police and the army are siding with, particularly in the south.

The danger of violent uprising is heightened because the population is bristling with guns. Legal gun ownership in Kyrgyzstan is restricted to hunting firearms, but many households in rural areas keep Kalashnikov rifles owing to a history of ethnic fighting in the region. Also, an Interior Ministry arsenal was looted during the April 7 uprising, scattering hundreds of small arms.

The worst violence on Friday unfolded in Jalal-Abad, near the former president’s home village.

The first shots there were fired as a group of pro-government protesters walked toward the administration building, Asylbek Tekebayev, a supporter of the interim government, said in a telephone interview.

Mr. Tekebayev said the two sides shot at each other across the city’s central square in front of the administration building, at a distance of about 150 yards.

“It was horrible,” he said. “The bullets were hitting people in the back, in the side, they were falling and tripping, and everybody started to run.” By late afternoon, the crowd, which Mr. Tekebayev said included at least half a dozen men with rifles, regrouped.

The opposing groups also exchanged fire over control of a university building where the pro-Bakiyev group had positioned snipers, according to news agencies, which reported three wounded in that shootout.

The Kyrgyz Health Ministry said hospitals in Jalal-Abad admitted 37 people wounded in the fighting. The ministry said one man had died from gunshot wounds and five were in grave condition.

A political party leader in the south who is loyal to the interim government, Batyrbek Abdrazakov, said that by the evening pro-government groups had full control of the government building, the Interfax news agency reported.

The United States Embassy in Bishkek issued a statement urging restraint on both sides.

“We continue to encourage all parties to refrain from violence and express hope that Kyrgyzstan can move forward on a productive and democratic path,” the statement said.

After the buildings were stormed on Thursday, a committee that said it represented Mr. Bakiyev’s supporters issued a statement in which it claimed to have wide support in the south and called for his return to power.

Demonstrators had shoved their way into buildings not only in Jalal-Abad, but also in Osh and Batken. The three cities are the regional capitals of southern Kyrgyzstan, which is separated from Bishkek and the north of the country by a rugged mountain chain. In Batken, the protesters eventually left the building, though the circumstances were unclear.

After taking over the government building in Osh on Thursday, demonstrators escorted the former governor, Mamasadyk Bakirov, back into his office, which had been occupied by the appointee of the interim government, Sooronbai Zheenbekov. By Friday afternoon, Mr. Zheenbekov was back in his office, the Kabar news agency in Kyrgyzstan reported.

To try to re-establish control over the south, the defense minister, Ismail Isakov, was sent to Osh and granted new powers as a governor general for the three southern districts, according to Edil Baisalov, the interim government’s chief of staff.

After protesters seized government buildings last month in Bishkek, including the president’s office, Mr. Bakiyev fled to the south before going into exile. During that takeover, 86 people died when police officers and soldiers guarding the government buildings in the capital fired at protesters, some of them also armed.

Gulaiym Ashakeeva contributed reporting from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Clueless in Arizona

Image by Dan Shouse via Flickr

Citing Individualism, Arizona Tries to Rein in Ethnic Studies in School - NYTimes.com

By TAMAR LEWIN

Less than a month after signing the nation’s toughest law on illegal immigration, Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona has again upset the state’s large Hispanic population, signing a bill aimed at ending ethnic studies in Tucson schools.

Under the law signed on Tuesday, any school district that offers classes designed primarily for students of particular ethnic groups, advocate ethnic solidarity or promote resentment of a race or a class of people would risk losing 10 percent of its state financing.

“Governor Brewer signed the bill because she believes, and the legislation states, that public school students should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or classes of people,” Paul Senseman, a spokesman for the governor, said in a statement on Thursday.

Judy Burns, president of the governing board of the Tucson schools, said the district’s ethnic studies courses did not violate any of the provisions of the new law and would be continued because they were valuable to the students.

“From everything I’ve seen, they empower kids to take charge of their own destiny, gain a sense of the value of their own existence and become more determined to be well-educated contributing members of society,” Ms. Burns said.

The new law, which takes effect at the end of the year, is a victory for Tom Horne, the state superintendent of public instruction, who has fought for years to end Tucson’s ethnic studies programs, which he believes teach students to feel oppressed and resent whites.

“The most offensive thing to me, fundamentally, is dividing kids by race,” Mr. Horne said.

“They are teaching a radical ideology in Raza, including that Arizona and other states were stolen from Mexico and should be given back,” he continued, referring to the Mexican-American studies classes. “My point of view is that these kids’ parents and grandparents came, mostly legally, because this is the land of opportunity, and we should teach them that if they work hard, they can accomplish anything.”

Mr. Horne, a Republican who is running for state attorney general, said he also objected to the textbook “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by Paulo Freire.

The schools in Tucson, where about 56 percent of the students are Hispanic, offer Mexican-American studies classes in history and literature and African-American literature classes. Although the classes are open to all students, most of those who enroll are members of the ethnic or racial group being discussed.

In June 2007, in an open letter to the residents of Tucson, Mr. Horne said, “The evidence is overwhelming that ethnic studies in the Tucson Unified School District teaches a kind of destructive ethnic chauvinism that the citizens of Tucson should no longer tolerate.”

In that letter, he said he believed that students were learning hostility from La Raza teachers, citing an incident in which students at the Tucson High Magnet School walked out on a speech by his deputy, a Republican Latina, who was trying to refute an earlier speaker who had told the student body that Republicans hate Latinos.

Sean Arce, director of Tucson’s Mexican-American studies department, said the ethnic studies courses do teach students about the marginalization of different groups in the United States through history.

“They don’t teach resentment or hostility, in any way, shape or form,” Mr. Arce said. “Instead, they build cultural bridges of understanding, and teach the skills students need to understand history.”

Furthermore, Mr. Arce said, the ethnic studies courses have been highly effective in reducing students’ dropout rates and increasing their college matriculation well above the national average for Latino students.

Mr. Arce and Ms. Burns said that they had repeatedly invited Mr. Horne to visit the ethnic studies classes, but that he had declined the invitations.

“We wish he’d come see it, so he’d know what we do, and not just go on hearsay,” Ms. Burns said.

Mr. Horne acknowledged that he had never sat in on a class, but said he did not believe that what he would see would be representative of what regularly took place.

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Thailand Edging toward Civil War?

Thai General Linked to Protests Is Shot in Head During Interview - NYTimes.com

By THOMAS FULLER and SETH MYDANS

BANGKOK — A renegade major general who allied himself with the protesters who have paralyzed Bangkok for weeks was shot in the head and critically wounded here on Thursday as the military began sealing off a barricaded encampment of antigovernment protesters.

The general, Khattiya Sawatdiphol, 58, had become a symbol of the lawlessness and impunity that have torn Thailand apart as the protests have pitted the nation’s poor against its establishment.

He was shot during an interview with a reporter for The New York Times about 7 p.m., one hour after the military announced the start of a blockade and cut off electricity and water to a tent city of thousands of protesters.

Photographs

Rogue General Shot During Thai Protests

The reporter, who was two feet away and facing the general, heard a loud bang similar to that of a firecracker.

The general fell to the ground, his eyes wide open, and protesters took his apparently lifeless body to a hospital, screaming his nickname: “Seh Daeng has been shot! Seh Daeng has been shot!”

He was later reported to be on life support. Within hours, protesters were clashing with security forces in Lumpini Park in Bangkok.

The general rankled both the government, by joining the so-called red-shirt movement, and many protest leaders, for his refusal to back down. The government accused him of a role in the violence that has taken more than two dozen lives since the protests began in mid-March. In the interview on Thursday, he described other leaders of the protesters as cowardly “idiots.”

Nonetheless, the general had assumed control of security for the protesters, placing his own black-shirted paramilitary fighters at entrances in the makeshift barriers around their encampment, and he claimed the loyalty of a small but intense group of protesters.

Although the government called him the main impediment to peace and suspended him without pay, he was allowed to move freely, exposing the impotence of the authorities here.

“I deny!” he cried in English, with a laugh, when asked in an interview on Sunday about the dozens of bombings that have set Bangkok on edge and about the mysterious black-shirted killers who escalated the violence on April 10 that killed 26 soldiers and civilians. “No one ever saw me.”

The military, which has held back from clearing out the protesters for fear of bloodshed, now appeared ready to crack down. The general’s last words before being shot were, “The military cannot get in here.”

But even as the military moves to seal off the area, it remains stymied by the likelihood of resistance that could expand outside Bangkok into rural areas that are the heartland of the opposition.

And the protests themselves are only the latest and most dangerous manifestation of what seem to be irreconcilable differences in the country. Thailand’s social contract has frayed, posing a challenge to an entrenched hierarchical system with a constitutional monarch at its core.

There are several levels to the protesters’ demands, including the return of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a coup in 2006 and is now abroad evading a corruption conviction, and a desire for a more equitable democratic system in which their voices would carry greater weight.

The protesters first accepted and then refused a government offer to hold an election in November in return for an end to their sit-in. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva withdrew that offer. He previously called General Khattiya a terrorist.

The reversal of the agreement with the government was a sign of growing factionalization of the protest movement — the Thai news media reported that a number of the leaders stepped down on Thursday — and raised fears that even if some of them agreed to break camp, others would hold their ground.

General Khattiya’s involvement with the protest movement underlines fractures in the military, and more broadly in Thai society, after four years of political turmoil.

“The people won’t go home,” the general said on Sunday night, as admirers crowded around him at a McDonald’s restaurant in the heart of the protest area. “Just stop? Compromise? All these people, the hard core, they want to stay longer.”

When the bullet struck him on Thursday, General Khattiya was facing a road, an overpass and a business district with several tall buildings.

In the minutes afterward, more gunshots were heard, and there were later reports that 20 people had been injured, though the cause of their injuries was unclear.

The protesters clustered around a high fence surrounding the park, throwing stones and firing slingshots and possibly shooting firearms at soldiers inside. One protester was shot in the head and was taken away by an ambulance, even as gunfire from within the park continued. He was later reported to have died.

Still later in the night, gunshots and explosions could be heard.

General Khattiya reveled in the attention he was receiving, from the prime minister, the press and the protesters, who he said “believe that because Seh Daeng is here they won’t die.”

“That’s why everywhere I go people cheer me and ask for my autograph,” he said. Along with a knife and a canteen, he carried a blue marker pen and wrote his name on shirts and caps as he posed for pictures with his admirers.

Before he was shot, the government had announced that armored personnel carriers would be used to cordon off the area in what appeared to be the beginning of an operation to disperse the thousands of protesters who were camped out outside shopping malls and luxury hotels.

A half-hour before he was shot, General Khattiya was addressing a scrum of reporters at sundown at the barricades. Most peeled away, leaving the general in a conversation with the reporter.

The general commented on his uniform, saying it was the one he had worn when fighting communists three decades ago. He spoke about working with the protesters and about how it was different from his previous military missions.

He described himself as leading a “people’s army” that was bracing for a crackdown by the military.

This clash would be “free form,” he said, adding, “There are no rules.”

Seth Mydans contributed reporting.