Mafia Barkeley vs Berkeley Mafia
A political scientist from the University of Indonesia named Syamsul Hadi Phd (not PhD) wrote an op-ed published in the front page of Investor Daily today under the title, Setelah Kegagalan 'Mafia Barkeley' which literally means After the Failure of 'Mafia Barkeley'. I'm not going to discuss the content of the article which is just too easy to guess. I'm more inclined to do some words interpretations.
Dr Syamsul Hadi wrote in the article about the definition of Mafia Barkeley as technocrates graduated from the University of California, Barkeley. I'm not sure where is the university's location, as the one I know, simply because I studied there, is the University of California, Berkeley located in Berkeley, just few miles away from the romantic city of San Francisco.
I'm not sure whether it's just a gramatical error on Hadi's side or the editors at Investor Daily. Or Hadi really mean Barkeley, a different university and location of UC Berkeley. But if he want to say UC Berkeley, Hadi should be ashamed of. How come a PhD can't even spell Berkeley? Without that we have two terms, Mafia Barkeley and Berkeley Mafia. The first term is for those economists or political scientists who don't know where and what is UC Berkeley and the Berkeley city. The second is for those UC Berkeley alumni who led the economic team of early years of Soeharto regime.
There are few things that deserved comments though.
In the article Hadi mentioned professor Mohammad Sadli as a member of Mafia Barkeley. As an alumni, it's an honor to have Sadli, graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a member of the Mafia Barkeley, not Berkeley. Even if Berkeley is what Hadi wanted to say, it's sad for MIT guys to have one of their alumni as a member of Berkeley Mafia, right?
Hadi also stated that economists who had been brain-washed at Barkeley (not Berkeley) with neo-liberal school of thoughts are still holding key positions in economic decision making. I'm sure he is right. None of UC Berkeley alumni in the cabinet, except the minister of defense Juwono Sudarsono (he earned master degree from UC Berkeley). Dr Boediono, the captain of the economic team is Wharton School alumni, Dr Mari Elka Pangestu (trade minister, UC Davis), Dr Sri Mulyani Indrawati(finance, Illinois), Purnomo Yusgiantoro (energy, Colorado School of Mining), Sofyan Djalil (Info-comm, Tufts), etc. We have also Dr Sjahrir as the president's economic advisor (Harvard Alumni).
So, Hadi is right, Mafia Barkeley is currently at play, not Berkeley Mafia anymore.
I bet the Mafia Barkeley is a brand new group of technocrats, including Hadi himself, for their misunderstanding of the right word, Berkeley!
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Dr Syamsul Hadi wrote in the article about the definition of Mafia Barkeley as technocrates graduated from the University of California, Barkeley. I'm not sure where is the university's location, as the one I know, simply because I studied there, is the University of California, Berkeley located in Berkeley, just few miles away from the romantic city of San Francisco.
I'm not sure whether it's just a gramatical error on Hadi's side or the editors at Investor Daily. Or Hadi really mean Barkeley, a different university and location of UC Berkeley. But if he want to say UC Berkeley, Hadi should be ashamed of. How come a PhD can't even spell Berkeley? Without that we have two terms, Mafia Barkeley and Berkeley Mafia. The first term is for those economists or political scientists who don't know where and what is UC Berkeley and the Berkeley city. The second is for those UC Berkeley alumni who led the economic team of early years of Soeharto regime.
There are few things that deserved comments though.
In the article Hadi mentioned professor Mohammad Sadli as a member of Mafia Barkeley. As an alumni, it's an honor to have Sadli, graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a member of the Mafia Barkeley, not Berkeley. Even if Berkeley is what Hadi wanted to say, it's sad for MIT guys to have one of their alumni as a member of Berkeley Mafia, right?
Hadi also stated that economists who had been brain-washed at Barkeley (not Berkeley) with neo-liberal school of thoughts are still holding key positions in economic decision making. I'm sure he is right. None of UC Berkeley alumni in the cabinet, except the minister of defense Juwono Sudarsono (he earned master degree from UC Berkeley). Dr Boediono, the captain of the economic team is Wharton School alumni, Dr Mari Elka Pangestu (trade minister, UC Davis), Dr Sri Mulyani Indrawati(finance, Illinois), Purnomo Yusgiantoro (energy, Colorado School of Mining), Sofyan Djalil (Info-comm, Tufts), etc. We have also Dr Sjahrir as the president's economic advisor (Harvard Alumni).
So, Hadi is right, Mafia Barkeley is currently at play, not Berkeley Mafia anymore.
I bet the Mafia Barkeley is a brand new group of technocrats, including Hadi himself, for their misunderstanding of the right word, Berkeley!
Labels: Purnomo Yusgiantoro, SOEHARTO Inc, Sri Mulyani
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posted by yosef at 8:47 AM
4 Comments:
I am a big fan of your writings, which are of high quality and very informative. They are my primary source of Indonesian business and investment news. However, I am a bit confused with this article. I am not sure whether I got the point :). But thanks for your postings so far, and I look forward to more quality journals to come!
Henri Goliono
Kellogg MBA 2006
This is hilarious and I laughed out loud the whole way through. I hope the responsible editor has been forced to copy your title out one hundred times as punishment. Still chuckling...
talk about juwono, you may want to look at juwonosudarsono[dot]com
Ha..ha..
You also made a mistake dude...!
Purnomo is not alumni of Colorado School of Mining...
but Colorado School of MINES...
...simply just like Hadi that you are mocking around in your article... :-)
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