Indonesian leaders are constantly going on about the country’s “drug emergency”, which they say is killing up to 50 people per day (a number based on flawed statistics) and threatens to ruin the country’s youth, as justification for the country’s draconian narcotic laws.
Unlike female dangdut stars who are usually known for their sexy dance moves, Rhoma Irama, one of the country’s most famous musicians (he is often referred to as the ‘king’ of the uniquely Indonesian musical genre) is known more for his highly conservative politics, including his support for the nation’s war on drugs. He even once penned a song titled “Narkoba” in which he sang about the terrible dangers of drugs and declared them “our enemy” that could cause an entire generation to disappear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-_ZfvTfYvE
But since his own son, Ridho Irama, was busted by police with shabu (crystal meth), the dangdut king has started singing a different tune.
Rhoma, who is also the chairman of the Idaman political party (he briefly flirted with the idea of running for the presidency of Indonesia in 2014), was apparently shocked and heartbroken when he heard the news that his son, also a musician and performer, was caught by police from the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) with 0.7 grams of shabu in his car in March.
But the king of dangdut says that the authorities should take it easy on his son, since he wasn’t using the drugs for fun (hmm… maybe we should write a song about this).
“When Ridho used it for the first time his motivation was not to have fun, not for debauchery, but in order to make his posture more ideal as an artist, as a singer and a movie star,” Rhoma said outside the West Jakarta District Court yesterday after his son’s hearing, as quoted by Kompas. (Ridho’s lawyer claimed the young musician had been using the drug to lose weight.)
Rhoma said that he hopes the judges in his son’s case would be fair in rendering their verdict according to the law and that Ridho would be placed in rehab.
Which is probably where drug users such as Ridho belong. But Rhoma’s statement seems to indicate that he believes that intent should be considered in terms of drug sentencing because some illegal drugs have uses besides debauchery (seemingly contradicting previous times in which he said that drugs, along with gambling, were mankind’s greatest enemies).
Perhaps the dangdut king will next come to the defense and even pen a song for Fidelis Arie Sudewarto, the man who is currently being prosecuted by BNN for growing marijuana for the sole purpose of helping treat his dying wife’s illness. We’d be the first ones to buy it.
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