Impacts of Globalization for Indonesia

Globalization or global village becomes a popular public policy term in the late 80’s. Literally globalization is defined as a process of being interdependence and interconnected among countries in the world. This process originally boosted by free trade and advancement of information technology especially the internet revolution. Capital, news, currencies exchange and investment could flow freely around the world in the measurement of second. Many countries were joining transnational free trade agreement such as APEC and AFTA, while, in the same time, there were many business entities operating trans-nationally.


In recent days, globalization is not the matter of when will happened, but how globalization shapes and effects community which could be appear on export-import, exchange of culture, globalized food and lifestyle and in the negative side transnational crime and internationally organized terrorism. Globalization as inevitably process had bad and good impacts on all community around the globe. For the purpose of this essay, community refers to country, local community and surrounding as the writer experiencing as a member.

Globalization has been a common phrase of Indonesian leader in the 1990’s, since the New Order regime promoted it as unavoidable process. The popular sentence of former President Soeharto was, “we cannot avoid globalization process, but we need benefiting from it”. Since then, many local leaders was echoing globalization as popular term in their official speeches, sometimes exactly with not clear meaning or context.

Problems of Bureaucracy in Developing Countries

According to Huges (2003), bureaucracy in developing countries could be characterized organizationally, culturally and structurally. Organizationally, it has strict hierarchies’ norm as continuation of colonial government practices. Moreover, the post-colonial government in developing countries tends to be heavy bureaucracy and slow-moving. Culturally, government employee recruited in lifetime basis as a prestigious and “well-paid” career. Structurally, some of bureaucracies were influenced by socialism or Marxism model, that in their economic model many developing countries adopting strong state sector.


However, Weber (in Huges, 2003) stated that principles of traditional bureaucracy as; first, fixed jurisdictional areas that set by regulation, second, principle of hierarchical office, third, management by the written rules, fourth, expertise to operate office management, fifth, demands for full professionalism to operate official activity and sixth, management follows some basic rules. These principles adopted by many post-independence countries in the world after World War II with varying degree of consistency.

Even though some developing countries have long history of their own administration before colonization, however in post-independence they have many weaknesses aspect in their government. Bureaucracy in developing countries, especially in post-colonial era, tends to only continue the system of colonial government without considering the philosophy inside it. Furthermore, many local governments failed to creatively adjust to the new concepts of public management.

Semarak Ramadhan Muslim Indonesia di Canberra

Dimuat di Eramuslim.com, Kamis, 19/08/2010 08:28 WIB


Menunaikan puasa Ramadhan di negeri orang adalah sebuah tantangan keimanan tersendiri. Kaum muslim harus siap tidak mendengar kumandang azan atau penanda waktu imsak/berbuka, absennya spanduk ucapan Ramadhan, tanpa acara TV islami ataupun juga komersialisasi Ramadhan lainnya seperti di Tanah Air. Kebanyakan orang “Barat” memang tidak berpuasa dan kehidupan mereka berjalan sebagaimana biasa.

Yang menyejukkan perasaan, tidak ada perbedaan awal puasa Ramadhan di Canberra seperti yang sering terjadi di Tanah Air. Pengumuman awal Ramadhan dari Canberra mosque, satu dari dua masjid di seluruh Australian Capital Territory (ACT), disampaikan melalui sms dan secara cepat menjalar melalui milis-milis komunitas muslim. Selebaran kalender jadwal puasa diberikan secara gratis oleh beberapa sponsor dari kalangan pengusaha muslim di Canberra seperti penjual kebab dan grill ataupun chemist.

Puasa Ramadhan kali ini bertepatan dengan musim dingin di “kota terdingin” di Australia ini. Imsak yang jatuh pada pukul 5: 10 am waktu ACT diliputi suhu sampai minus 4 derajat celsius yang menghadirkan morning frost di pagi hari. Untungnya, kami tidak terlalu merasakan lapar dan dahaga dalam menjalani puasa sampai waktu maghrib menghampiri sekitar pukul 5:32 pm yang biasanya berkisar pada suhu 8 derajat celsius.