23.5.2010 Amnesty and Gotong-Royong What amnesty has got to do with gotong royong, you would say. Amnesty usually refers to affairs between countries whilst gotong-royong involves things at the village level. If you have a criminally cynical and critical mind like mine, then you would probably correlate these two phenomenon and skewer them together in the same BBQ pit in a negative light. Amnesty here refers to the recurrent government amnesty (grace period) to allow illegal immigrants to go back to their countries of origin before the long arm of the law goes on a blitz to nap illegal immigrants. This will predictably start a slowdown in nation’s economic activities as all our nitty gritty work of cleaning our homes to building mansions are manned by immigrants (legal and otherwise). Pressure groups in the form of politicians and businessmen, like a knee jerk reaction, will start pressing the enforcers to go lenient on the wrongdoers who in turn will temporarily slow down the whole...
It is all Mimesis