Ban of European airlines to land in Indonesia

Just few days ago, EU warned European to stop flying Indonesian airlines and that EU banned all Indonesian airlines from flying to European Union. The effect is said to have stopped a number of Europe tourists from leaving for Indonesia. Today, Indonesia government officials said that Indonesia is considering to ban EU's airlines to fly to Indonesia as a tit for tat move.

This is not the first time that I am amazed, to use a softer word, with the action of Indonesia govt officials' action. The ban of EU for Indonesian airlines is in fact a symbolic one. NONE of the airlines fly to EU anyway. The reason for not flying there might in fact lies in the fact that the plane might not even reach there safely. It doesn't make sense for the airline not to fly there if they are able to since there are huge number of European tourist visiting Indonesia per year. In fact, stated by Tourism Indonesia (http://www.tourismindonesia.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=580&Itemid=34), Europe market that used to make Indonesia one of its more popular holiday destinations has dropped after Garuda Indonesia stopped flying to Europe. Therefore, Garuda Indonesia IN FACT stopped flying there long before the ban. It's ridiculous.... The fact is that despite the poor service and age of aircraft, etc, Europeans USED the airlines long time ago.

Now, the tit for tat move to ban EU's airlines is clearly going to impact the number of Europe tourists hitting Indonesia further. I wonder whether the officials even think about who is at the bad end. The ban by EU is perhaps hurting the tourist arrival by a mere 20% while the ban of EU airlines might as well stop 99% of the EU tourists. The way some of the officials think are simply preposterous. Too often such words and actions are simply fueled by short-term and super short-sighted "nationalistic" view. I wonder whether it ever dawns on them that hurting the tourism industry, which fed so many poor people living from the already hurt tourism industry (due to terror), is against the nationalistic point-of-view, in the bottom line.

Politics are used to often in expense of the small folks in virtually all countries. Not a big wonder that some religious took it upon themselves to run the office. Not that I side with them. Mixing religion with politics will create another realm of problems. I don't want to talk about it here. It's simply too complicated. :P