Muhammad Muhyiddin, Jakarta – University of Indonesia political communications expert Ade Armando says that Prabowo Subianto’s Islamic supporters are furious over Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s visit to Indonesia.
Armando said he was disappointed by the attitude of supporters of the Greater Indonesia Movement Party’s (Gerindra) patron Prabowo who said that the visit was only for commercial objectives.
“You can’t think in such narrow terms. Not to mention linking Mark’s visit to his Jewish heritage”, said Armando when contacted on Tuesday October 14. “Don’t keep provoking the nation, especially with racial issues”, he said.
Armando added that the visit by Zuckerberg, a Harvard University drop out, should be taken advantage of because he wants to establish a service provider in Indonesia. So there will be an economic impact that can be felt by Indonesians. “Don’t just see things through the prism of conspiracy”, he said.
Armando cited remarks from the website VOA Islam (Voice of Al Islam – Voice of the Truth), which supports Prabowo. The VOA Islam website referred to Zuckerberg as wanting to implant Jewish influences in Indonesia. President elect Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is cited as being a member of the Rotary Club, part of the Zionist network.
Jewish international groups, wrote VOA Islam, have a strong interest in meddling in Indonesian affairs through Facebook. “The birth of a new government that is pro-Israel, that is their aim”, wrote VOA.
Yesterday, Widodo said that he spoke about a variety of issues related to the internet with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, one of which was utilising the Facebook social network for campaign activities.
“Earlier [they] mostly talked about the use of Facebook during the [election] campaign”, he said, although Widodo did not elaborate on this.
Widodo also said he conveyed Facebook’s potential to Zuckerberg. Widodo explain that Indonesia has a population of 240 people with around 70 million Facebook users. “This is a potential market for him”, said Widodo.
According to Widodo, Facebook can be utilised to stipulated the people’s economy. One of the uses of Facebook is to stimulate micro, small and medium sized business. “Earlier we talked about how to utilise Facebook to speak to the people”, he said.
[Translated by James Balowski.]
Source: http://www.tempo.co/read/news/2014/10/14/078614173/Pendiri-Facebook-Temui-Jokowi-VOA-Islam-Berang
