Newsbriefs

Newsbriefs



King Lear

Multiculturalism became reality when Shakespeare's play King Lear was staged in Jakarta 5-7 February 1999. The lavish production brought together actors and musicians from six countries. Naohiko Umewaka from Japan played King Lear and spoke in Japanese. Jiang Qihu from the Beijing Opera played Lear's oldest daughter Goneril and spoke Chinese. Thai actress Peeramon Chomdhavat played Lear's youngest daughter Cordelia in Thai, while Indonesian actor Gani Abdul Karim spoke his own language. 'We started from the philosophical assumption that no one culture or language can understand this tragedy completely without needing translation. I believe this play belongs to people of every nation and language', said Singapore producer Ong Keng Sen (36). Shakespeare's original script was adapted by Japanese artist Rio Kishida, who highlighted the strong, ambitious women in the play in order to bear out new values of female strength, as well as a new vision for Asia.
Kompas 6 February 1999.

Hollywood attacked

Two recent American films, according to Indonesian intellectual H Syamsi Ali who lives in New York, give a wrong image of Islam and should be banned in Indonesia. The Siege, starring Denzel Washington, shows a terrorist doing the Islamic prayer ritual before committing a suicide bombing in New York. 'Islam teaches salvation and peace. How could it be put in the same category as terrorism?', asked Syamsi Ali. He also said the animated film The Prince of Egypt, with the voices of Sandra Bullock, Michelle Pfeiffer, Val Kilmer, and Jeff Goldblum, was a Judaic depiction of Moses when in fact Moses was also an Islamic prophet described at length in the Koran. 'The film wants to show that Jews are world leaders, while other communities are their servants', said Syamsi Ali. (Nothing further has been heard of his call for a ban.)
Republika 2 February 1999.

Dirty seas

PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, a subsidiary of the largest gold mining company in the world, uses the cyanide heap leaching process to extract gold in a mountainous part of North Sulawesi, then pumps over 600,000 tonnes of waste daily to the sea and deposits it on the sea bed. The company now plans to create an artificial reef in Buyat Bay to increase fish yields. But environmentalists have questioned the plans. 'What is the point of making a reef if the sea water there is polluted?', they said. Coral reef expert Janny Kusen said there was no evidence of the stable thermocline which the company claims will prevent cyanide waste from rising up to the surface waters. Krapp, an NGO based in Central Java, explained that since PT NMR had been dumping mining tailings on the sea bed, the number of species in the bay had fallen from 17 to five. The local extinction of fish had significantly contributed to increased poverty and poorer nutrition in a community already hard hit by the economic crisis.
Kompas 5 May 1999, Down to Earth (dtecampaign@gn.apc.org).