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House to summon education minister over Frankfurt Book Fair
Jakarta Post - November 4, 2015
According to Teguh Juwarno, Commission X member from the National Mandate Party (PAN), the spending of 10 million euros (US$11 million) was excessive as the Indonesian delegation presented only 200 translated titles.
"We know that Indonesia was invited to the fair as a guest of honor, and we did see it as a good opportunity to display the richness of Indonesian literature to the Europeans," said Teguh as quoted by tribunnews.com on Wednesday, "but [we] expected Indonesia to take at least 1,000 titles."
He also noted that most of the translated works exhibited at the event allegedly involved the events of 1965.
"Regarding the books' contents, why did [Indonesia] only display [works] from certain fields? We received complaints from several diplomats who regretted that the showcased material was not in line with our country's diplomacy guidelines," said Teguh.
According to Teguh, the books did not cover Indonesia's status as the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, not its status as a democracy. "Another issue that we regretted was the lack of Islamic literature," Teguh added.
The ministry's budget of 10 million euros for the Frankfurt Book Fair previously attracted calls that it be audited as it is considered by some to be too large for the event. (ami/kes)
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