Knee-jerk anti-governmentarianism makes strange bedfellows
As reported by Unspun, apparently the Indonesian branch of the Friends of the Earth, Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia (WALHI) is joining forces with pro-Bashir Jemaat Islamiyah folks in demonstrating against the government.
The same way anti-war demonstrations bring peace activists, Trotskyites and Islamists together, or anti-G8 demonstrations bring fair traders and protectionist unions under the same roof, this looks like another case of the hard left confusing their suspicion of government-business collusion practices and the memories of past human rights violations (Indonesia has its cases of desaparecidos under President Soeharto's 32-year rule), to actually attack legitimate anti-terror operations *and* quite possibly a company that is innocent of the accusations.
Indonesia has legitimate environmental issues, and the security forces are obviously not perfect. By bringing a baseless case (WALHI apparently is refusing to engage in a public debate on the merits of their allegations) and then joining hands with a terror organisation (that the Indonesian media has been disturbingly lenient towards: JI members' families are covered in the media in sympathetic terms, the treatment Americans reserve for their convicted celebrities) -- by doing this, they are making life harder for the right-thinking, rational people who want Indonesia to change for the better. It's stunts like this that gives activism a bad name.
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