It's hard to hold on to any sort of orientalist idealised rural-peasant stereotype of Indonesia when you're walking through central Jakarta. On a thirty-minute walk through the typical balmy, low-pressure-cooker heat, you will generally pass at least several gigantic malls filled with Louis Vuitton, Gucci and many other brand names synonymous with metro politan wealth. The exceptionally well-dressed milieu inside is part of a steadily growing middle- and upper-class demographic that for many years has…
As Anna Krien writes in her thought-provoking article for The Quarterly Essay, 'Us and Them: On the Importance of Animals', 'I am not weighing up whether our treatment of animals is just, because it isn't ... the real question is, just how much of this injustice are we prepared to live with?' Using animals in scientific research is an area where the benefits of new medical treatments has provided a strong counter-weight to the ethical…
