[Kabar-indonesia] Arief, Rendra, Iskandar win Achmad Bakrie Awards

[Joyo at aol.com]

The Jakarta Post
Saturday, August 12, 2006

Arief, Rendra, Iskandar win Achmad Bakrie Awards

Adisti Sukma Sawitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Sociologist Arief Budiman, playwright W.S. Rendra and physician Iskandar 
Wahidiyat have been named this year's Achmad Bakrie Awards winners for their 
lifetime achievements and contribution to humanity.

The award, sponsored by the Achmad Bakrie Foundation founded by one of the 
country's main business families, is presented in three categories: social and 
culture, medical and literature. The event was organized by the Freedom 
Institute, also founded by the Bakrie family.

Each of the winners received Rp 300 million (US$33,057).

Arief Budiman, who currently heads the Indonesian studies department at 
Melbourne University, has dedicated 40 years of his life to social and development 
studies in Indonesia, especially during Soeharto's New Order era.

He introduced theories highlighting developing countries' dependency on 
capitalism and exploitation of female labor in the 1980s. It was a breakthrough in 
countering traditionally rigid economic development strategies based primarily 
on Western concepts of market liberalization.

"In fact, as liberalists, we don't really support his thoughts, but we really 
do appreciate his determination and consistency in speaking out about what he 
believes is right," said the institute's program director, Hamid Basyaib.

Arief's persistence and criticism of the authoritarian Soeharto regime led to 
intimidation from the authorities. After working as a lecturer for almost two 
decades at Satya Wacana Christian University, Central Java, he had to move to 
Australia in 1997.

Poet/playwright W.S. Rendra's own determination and consistency led to him 
being honored in the literary category.

A member of the jury, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Rendra 
pioneered narrative poetry during his 50-year career, which immeasurably 
contributed to the development of modern verse in Indonesia.

His original works also succeeded in depicting the country's condition in a 
frank and down-to-earth way, a rarity today amid the rise of pop poetry 
glorifying linguistic beauty rather than substance.

Prof. Iskandar Wahidiyat of the University of Indonesia has also dedicated 50 
years to the study of thalassemia, an inherited disease that has received 
little attention in local scientific circles.

The genetic defect that results in the vulnerability of red blood cells to 
injury kills from 120 to 140 of every 1,000 newborns in Indonesia, and requires 
people with the condition to undergo lifelong blood transfusions.

Iskandar initiated the founding of a foundation to support research and 
assistance for patients, including establishing a thalassemia section at Cipto 
Mangunkusumo hospital in Central Jakarta.

"Early blood screening as a preventive measure is the most important thing to 
do because people usually are unaware that they have the disease," he said.

The foundation also presented scholarships to two science prodigies, 
17-year-old Jonathan Pradana Mailoa and 18-year-old Rudolf Surya Bonay.

Jonathan was the absolute winner of the 2006 World Physics Olympiad, while 
Rudolf won a gold medal in The First Step to Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2006.

The foundation will finance the two young men's doctorate programs in any 
university of their choosing around the world. 

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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