The Second Wake-up Call

In my travels across the region, I've often marvelled at the impeccable quality of service given by the hotels in Indonesia. One feels enormously pampered the moment one steps into any one of the business class hotels here. The people are courteous and gentle, and there's a certain grace and charm in the way the locals move and speak, equalled perhaps only by the Thais.

The JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta where today's bomb blast occurred is no exception. Though I myself have never stayed there before--preferring the duller but more refined Regent Jakarta--friends who have raved about the service given. They liked the broadband service; they liked being greated by their names the moment they alight from their Silverbird taxi at the entrance of the hotel; and they liked the in-room massage.

Wake up calls in the morning are always personal-- non of that electronically programmed ones. Sometimes the sweetness of the voice at the other end induces you to continue indulging in your reverie for another ten minutes, often to disasterous consequences.

Which is why they will always enquire in their ever-polite manner: Do you need a second wake up call sir? Yes of course. And you slide deeper into your cool white sheets, happy that you are in such good hands.

Now it is clear that we have been sleeping long enough.

As reports of casualities and injuries from the latest bombing incident in Jakarta pour in, the magnitude of the tragedy is becoming more evident. This is not another one of those Tommy Suharto-linked fire-cracker-like explosions engineered to create mischieve and to scare people into not supporting the present government. This Marriott incident has the stamp of JI/Al-Qaeda written all over it.

For a while, we were lulled into a sense of false comfort because we had Amrozi, Muklas, Imam Samudra and Abu Bakar Baa'syir under custody and put on trial. Now it is clear that the terrorist groups are far from being crippled.

Bali was the first wake-up call. Marriott is the second. I don't think we need another one.