The new year of 2008 in Indonesia has started with two important events.
Firstly, since the midst of December 2007, a huge flood has swept more than 95,000 hectares of paddy fields in the West, Central, and East Java, three largest producers and suppliers (65%) of rice at national level.
Secondly, for the first time in history of this country, on January 14, thousands of producers of 'tofu' and 'tempe' (fermented soybean cakes --one of the most popular food in Indonesia) held a 3-days strike and big rally into the front of Presidential Palace and the National Parliament to protest the increasing price of imported soybean.
These two events should be seen differently from other disasters and rallies before, since they have directly connected with the issue of food security and insecurity, a problem in which the government of Indonesia always plays a similar behavior: 'disavowing' in various ways such as 'words game' (euphemism) or 'numbers game' (statistical mystification). And, this kind of 'denial syndrome', obviously, never solved the problem, even worsening it in the long-term.