Jakarta (Bung Karno)

Sukarno 1948  - Born in 1901 in Surabaya. First President of Indonesia. Architect. Genius. Womanizer. And, yes, indeed, a megalomaniac. I love him.

“Is Jakarta the awful culmination of the nation’s past or does it in fact mirror Indonesia’s future? Throughout its history its rulers have certainly intended the latter, but the real city has always taken its own perversely different path, making it to some extent a microcosm of the country at large- a forum for government policies at odds with people struggling to make a life of their own”.

Abeyasekere 1987: xvii

“Dust lies hot on streets
Clearly empty of love and pity;
It’s not like my green village
Here”.

- Ebiet Ade

“As you know, I am an architect. Besides, I have been roaming far and wide abroad… and everywhere, in every country, I’ve seen the Parliament Building is always the most prestigious… Oh, yes, I am indeed a megalomaniac…”

Cited in Leclerc 1993: 54

“Build up Djakarta as beautifully as possible; build it as spectacularly as possible, so that this city, which has become the center of the struggle of the Indonesian people, will be an inspiration and beacon to the whole of struggling mankind and to all the emerging forces. If Egypt was able to construct Cairo as its capital, Italy its Rome, France its Paris and Brazil its Brasilia, then Indonesia must also proudly present Djakarta as the portal of the country”.

Sukarno 1962 (The Transformation of Djakarta Raya)

“Projects such as the Asian Games, the National Monument, Independence Mosque, the Jakarta By-pass, and so on, are examples of “National Building” and “Character Building” …of the whole Indonesian people striving to recover out national identity. Who is not aware that every people in the world is always striving to enhance its greatness and lofty ideals? Do you remember that a great leader of a foreign country told me that monuments are an absolute necessity to develop the people’s spirit, as necessary as pants for somebody naked, pants and not a tie? Look at New York and Moscow; look at any state capital, East and West it makes no matter, and you always find the centers of nations’ greatness in the form of buildings, material buildings to be proud of”.

Cited in Leclerc 1993:52

“Man does not live by bread alone. Although Djakarta’s alleys are muddy and we lack roads, I have erected a brick-and-glass apartment building, a clover-leaf bridge, and our super highway, the Djakarta Bypass, and I renamed the streets after our heroes: Djalan Diponegoro, Djalan Thamrin, Djalan Tjokroaminoto. I consider money for material symbols well spent. I must make Indonesians proud of themselves. They have cringed too long”.

Cited in Abeyasekere 1987:210

“Comrades from Jakarta, let us build a Jakarta into the greatest city possible. Great not just from a material point of view; great, not just because of its skyscrapers; great not just because it has boulevards and beautiful streets; great not just because it has beautiful monuments; great in every respect, even in the little houses of the workers of Jakarta there must be a sense of greatness… Give Jakarta an extraordinary place in the minds of the Indonesian people, because Jakarta belongs to the people of Jakarta. Jakarta belongs to the whole Indonesian people. More than that, Jakarta is becoming the beacon of the whole of mankind. Yes, the beacon of the New Emerging Forces”.

Cited in Abeyasekere 1987:168

“Who is not proud that he is a member of a nation that is not stagnant, of a nation that is moving, moving, moving on swiftly towards a building of a great state, whole and strong, that stretches from Sabang to Merauke, a great state that moves forward fast toward a life that is noble and respected, just and prosperous, that is a beacon to others, that had no exploitation de l’homme par l’homme, and that is rapidly becoming one of the champions of the new emerging forces, a nation that is moving to realize socialism based on its own identity?”

Cited in Feith and Castles 1970:118-19

“What we ask is just a dike
No monuments or football stadiums
Or coloured fountains
Send us lime and cement”.

-Taufiq Ismail

Cited in Teeuw 1967:254

Notes:

Abeyasekere, S. 1987. Jakarta: A History. Singapore. Oxford University Press.

A is for Abeyasekere. Susan Abeyasekere, Jakarta’s historian. If you have anything to say about Jakarta at all you start with her. Her book is perhaps cited more than any other text in journal articles, books, and Jakarta Urban Blog.

Kusno, A. 2000. Behind the Post Colonial: Architecture, urban space and political cultures in Indonesia. Routeledge.

I am currently reading Kusno’s most interesting book. Most of the Sukarno quotes are cited there.

Leclerc, J. 1993. ‘Mirrors and the Lighthouse: A Search for Meaning in the Monuments and Great Works of Sukarno’s Jakarta, 1960-1966′ in Nas, P. (ed.) Urban Symbolism, Leiden: E.J. Brill.

Teeuw, A. 1967. Modern Indonesian Literature. The Hague: Nijhoff.

Off to Jakarta (or not)

I am certainly going to bring pants and not a tie. I would look somewhat foolish walking down Jalan Thamrin with just a tie and no pants. But either way I can’t go alone…

My wife tells me that if I go to Jakarta by myself then I can’t go. No way!!!! (emphasis not mine). It appears I need a minder, mind you. In the old Soviet days you couldn’t go anywhere without your local Intourist Guide (= KGB agent). I am sure their methods have improved and the spying is all remote and electronic now. But I digress. The issue is not that I would be out to steal any of Indonesia’s state secrets it’s more that something unpleasant might happen to me while strolling down Jalan Thamrin. Should that occur it would be a family scandal of high magnitude, catastrophically unlucky, not mention unpleasant.

How about Jalan Jaksa? You know Jalan Jaksa?

Oh, that’s where the bule live. Cheap apartments. Kind of the “bule district”. Looks like Bali. Small street. Many café there. People know that’s where the bule live so they know all the bule there and leave them alone. They know they have money or not. Because, you know, bule miskin are there. You can go there.

Can I walk around there by myself?

You can go with Dedy or Ovet or Budi or Gari or Eky.

Why can’t I go around Jakarta by myself?

Because you’re a nice person and you don’t know Jakarta. You’re a virgin. You know virgin?

What!? Yes, of course…

Ya, you’re a Jakarta virgin… (laughs). You don’t know Jakarta well enough. There are bad people there that seem nice and nice people there that are really bad.

What!?

How can you tell the difference? They’ll take advantage of you because you’re a nice bule.

How do they know that? I see, I am like someone who just comes from the village for the first time to Jakarta. Is that it then?

You think you know Jakarta but you don’t. You can’t go by yourself.

Ok, well how about Jalan Thamrin? Can I go there?

Yes, if someone goes with you… (more laughs)

Can I take the train?

Nooooooooooooo way!!!!!

Look for me soon on the streets of Jakarta. You will know who I am.  The nice bule with the pants and the entourage of minders walking down Jalan Thamrin.

Jakarta (on $2.00 a day)

 Gedde-Pangrango National Park

Jakarta on two dollars a day …>go to article

Boston Globe March 11, 2008 04:26 PM

Resources are meager, and clean water is scarce.

By Anita Bekenstein

Sunday March 9

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Two dollars a day! That, we are told, is what more than 40 percent of the residents of north Jakarta survive on. It is a figure that defies belief. How can people live with so little?

We are in north Jakarta, a neighborhood filled with migrants, to look in on a pilot Mercy Corps project that aims to convert household garbage into money-making compost.

The migrants’ tale is like that of many others in the developing world. Laborers leave their families behind in rural areas of Indonesia and come in search of work to the capital, where better economic opportunities exist. They work in local factories, in construction jobs paid by the day, in shops, as street vendors. They live a meager life so they can send money back home to support their loved ones.

So, what does $2 a day mean for the people here? For one thing, it means precious little clean water, which, we learn quickly, is in terribly short supply.

Cheap sources of water are the few public wells where residents can access shallow well water. But it is both salty and contaminated, and is not suitable for drinking. Nevertheless, this precious water is carried to homes for bathing and cleaning.

Fewer than half the homes here are attached to the public water supply. The majority of the people have to purchase their water from those with the supply, or resort to the even more expensive option of buying bottled water. The water from the public supply still has to be boiled before drinking it, a time-consuming process which also adds to its cost.Access to toilets is limited. Public toilets are available to adults for a fee. Children use the side of the road”.

The question is not Have You Washed Your Car Today but are you thinking outside of the Indonesian box?

As noted today is the United Nations sanctioned World Water Day.
 

What Jakarta needs… 
 

The Next Big ThingA Way To Produce Cheap, Clean Water …>go to article

CBS News

From inventor Dean Kamen comes his latest project: creating a machine that can produce clean water cheaply (I recently saw this demonstrated and not only is the idea quite remarkable it actually works. You can make drinkable water from raw sewage!).

“In the emerging world, in the under-developed world, a gallon of water is so precious that without it, you’re going to die,” says Kamen.

“In some places, the average amount of time per day spent looking for water that’s safe for their kids by women is four hours. And they carry this stuff, which weighs 62 pounds per cubic foot, four or five miles. And if it didn’t turn out to be the right stuff, or they put their hands in it and contaminated it, they spend the next day or two burying the babies.”

How did this fit into his work - his vision? He started by making a better energy source for his IBOT. Knowing that batteries weren’t going to be capable of carrying enough energy to do what fossil fuels do, he began experimenting with a Stirling engine.

The Stirling engine, named after its designer, Robert Stirling, a 19th Century Scottish minister, is a non-polluting device that plays heat against cold to create energy. It is a closed box with two chambers, one filled with gas. Once heated from the outside, with anything from burning wood chips to charcoal, the gas expands, creating pressure. That pressure drives a piston from the hot chamber into the cool chamber.

In Kamen’s design, that mechanical power achieves two goals: It creates electrical power - 300 continuous watts - enough to run a few electrical devices - and, as a bonus, creates enough heat to distill contaminated water, making it drinkable”.

More information here at CNN

Segway creator unveils his next act Inventor Dean Kamen wants to put entrepreneurs to work bringing water and electricity to the world’s poor. …>go to article

To install these machines in every kampung in Jakarta is doable right now.

 Some additional notes on H5N1…

For more on H5N1 I highly recommend Center for Infectous Disease and Research Policy (CIDRAP). They keep their site well updated and are not messing around. 

Many US and European cities have developed emergency plans for pandemic outbreak of H5N1. What of Jakarta? 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is another good site for up-to-date information and contingency planning regarding H5N1.

I have written a number of posts about H5N1 in Jakarta and Indonesia.  It is an issue not to be taken lightly and will have profound effects if (perhaps when) the virus mutates and becomes transmissable from human to human. Given the conditions in Jakarta you have to ask yourself what would ensue if this occurred.

Jakarta (trends and emergent properties again)

 Photo: Jakarta Daily Photo

Let’s start out with this, it’s a conversation I found on a web site called topix which has an Indonesian Forum.

Indonesia; The Most Sucks Place I Ever Visited …>go to discussion

This broadside begins with a post from Kore, who resides in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

“I must say that Indonesia is not a country worth visiting … sorry about this… For starter, Jakarta is very dirty, you’ll see trash and litter everywhere you go. I just can’t imagine a capital city with this poor level of cleanliness…  …you’ll feel like that you’re in some third-world country with poor people and trash everywhere (I think Indonesia is still considered a third-world?)…

…I was lucky I have a friend in Jakarta, otherwise I wouldn’t dare goind around in public transportation… …I certainly didn’t want to take the public busses. Wait until you see them yourselves, and I bet you wouldn’t want to ride in one either. The busses are so dirty, so packed with people and the vehicles themselves look as if they’re very poorly taken care of. I couldn’t even find a decent information of which bus should I take if I would want to go somewhere, and what is the fare… …Not to mention the streets from hell. The traffic in Jakarta beats the hell out of any traffic I’ve ever seen in the world. Traffic jams everywhere. People driving with only one or two inches away from each other. The worse of all is the motorcycles. I even said to my friend that they are like motorcycles from hell. They squeezed their way to very small gaps between cars, sometimes even hit our rearview mirrors. They constantly cut your way, so my friend always to be extra careful with them and sometime he even had to hit the brake brutely to avoid collisions. What an experience … I must say. I sometimes jumped from my seat when suddenly a motorcycle speeding through our side of the cars with just few inches away, in a traffic jam, with their loud noises …. a hell indeed. Andy even told me that be very careful not to hit a motorcycle, since even that you’re not the one causing the collision, the car driver would be the one blamed and they could go rough on you asking for money. I said “what the hell …. what kind of people are they … we’re not living in the dark ages are we?” … and Andy could just shrugged with bitter smile.

Another important thing … be careful of the food. I got stomachache for 3 days because Andy took me to this food stall that he said very delicious. Well the food was alright … but I got diarrhea the next day. Well, if you go to this food stall, you wouldn’t be surprised why I got the diarrhea. It was a very small food stall, on a pedestrian. Just next to the pedestrian was this open sewer, and guess what … people threw away trash into that sewer. Not to mention flies everywhere and I could have sworn a saw a cockroach running around…”

There are a few choice words in the discussion line which followed but SoRaYa from Jakarta sets everything right with this final post.

“Malaysian has no brain to be creative, they only can insulting Indonesian and stealing Indonesian’s traditionals.

Hey u, KORE…
If u don’t like Indonesia, why ur country steal Indonesian’s traditional dancer n many more?????

If u don’t have mirror @ur house, i suggest u to BUY IT!!!! N take a good damn look to ur ashamed UGLY FACE as they r UGLY MIND&SOUL u have indeed..”

Moving on… 

Rising Food Prices in Indonesia Raise Security Concerns …>go to article
Voice of America

Nancy-Amelia Collins
Jarkata
19 March 2008

“…According to government statistics, in the past year cooking oil has risen nearly 40 percent, rice is up 25 percent and tofu, a staple of the Indonesian diet, has gone up by 50 percent.

Bayu Krisnamurti, the deputy minister for agriculture, says the government is concerned the high price of basic commodities has the capability of fueling social unrest, similar to the 1965 coup that led to the rise of the dictator Suharto and the 1998 protests that toppled the former president.

“We are worried. In 1965 we faced a very, very depressing situation to make social unrest,” said Krisnamurti. “Even in a more recent history, in 1998, it’s also a similar situation. We do hope that 2008 is not another situation like that because the cost to the economy is too high.”

Sensitive to price-related unrest, the government continues to spend about 35 percent of its entire budget on fuel and electricity subsidies to keep those commodities affordable for the poor.

The World Bank estimates about half of Indonesia’s population of 220 million lives in poverty, on around $2 a day.

The rising cost of food has raised concerns even more people will slip into poverty.

Agricultural analyst H.S. Dillon says this is a recipe for disaster.

“What is the prognosis? High food prices amidst poverty? I see nothing and I don’t have a crystal ball, I see nothing but social unrest,” said Dillon”.

If this was not bad enough…

Rice supplies set to fall to 25-year low …>go to article

Times On Line March 13, 2008

Rhys Blakely in Bombay

“World supplies of rice are reaching dangerously low levels after stores of South Asia’s staple food fell to a 25-year low and governments battled to stabilise domestic markets.

The US Department of Agriculture is predicting global rice stocks will fall to about 70 million tons this year, the lowest level since the early 1980s and half the level in 2000.

Earlier this week, the Philippines failed in an attempt to buy rice to boost its inventories.

Traders offered to sell the country only 325,000 tonnes when it wanted to buy 550,000 tonnes. The average offered price, of nearly $680 a tonne was up more than 40 per cent from January…

…Despite a tenfold hike in rice prices in some local markets over the past year, social unrest has been kept at bay partly because most of the increases have been gradual, analysts say.

However, most of the world’s rice crops are consumed by the countries that produce them, which means the global market in rice is relatively thin and prone to violent swings.

Jonathan Pincus, the UN Development Programme’s chief economist in Vietnam, said: “One big increase in imports from a large country such as India could lead to a big spike in prices. This is the danger.”

He said: “Historically, every Asian government has shown it is very aware of the close relationship between political stability and the stability of the rice market.”

Then one more incremental click foward…

Bird flu in Indonesia could mutate into human form: UN agency …>go to article
From AFP 4 days ago

ROME (AFP) - The bird flu situation is “critical” in Indonesia, where the virus could mutate and cause a human pandemic, the UN food agency warned on Tuesday.

“The prevalence of avian influenza in Indonesia remains serious despite (national and international) containment efforts,” the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation said in a statement.

The FAO’s chief veterinary officer, Joseph Domenech, said he was “deeply concerned that the high level of virus circulation in birds in the country could create conditions for the virus to mutate and to finally cause a human influenza pandemic.”

UN: Indonesia Failing in Bird Flu Fight …>go to article
AP 3 days ago

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - “Efforts to contain bird flu are failing in Indonesia, increasing the possibility that the virus may mutate into a deadlier form, the leading U.N. veterinary health body warned.

The H5N1 bird flu virus is entrenched in 31 of the country’s 33 provinces and will cause more human deaths, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement released late Tuesday.

“I am deeply concerned that the high level of virus circulation in birds in the country could create conditions for the virus to mutate and to finally cause a human influenza pandemic,” FAO Chief Veterinary Officer Joseph Domenech said.

Indonesia “has not succeeded in containing the spread of avian influenza,” Domenech said, adding that there must be “major human and financial resources, stronger political commitment and strengthened coordination.”

The H5N1 virus has killed at least 236 people in a dozen countries worldwide since it began ravaging poultry stocks across Asia in 2003. It has been found in birds in more than 60 countries, but Indonesia has recorded 105 deaths, almost half the global tally, according to the World Health Organization”.

And so it goes… 

 

dari Jakarta (Barack Obama)

Barry

Here is an idea for “thinking outside the Indonesian box“.

Barack Sukarno for governor of Jakarta.

We need a new paradigm. We need a new way to live on this planet. And we need it now.

After five years of war in Iraq the United States is now facing an economic implosion of debt. Here we are on the verge of our own krismon. The war(s) drag on at enormous costs in life and treasure.  There is a perfect storm of economic trouble brewing. 

Rome burns while Nero fiddles. 

Barack Obama never has claimed that he is perfect. He does have a clear and consistent message. His speeches, which I have seen, have been astonishing in delivery and content. His demeanor is that of an honest man.  His connection to Jakarta is of interest.

A Free-Spirited Wanderer Who Set Obama’s Path …>go to article

New York Times 3.14.08 

Janny Scott

The article is about Ms. Soetoro, Barack Obama’s mother. Well worth reading…

“She felt that somehow, wandering through uncharted territory, we might stumble upon something that will, in an instant, seem to represent who we are at the core,” said Maya Soetoro-Ng, Mr. Obama’s half-sister. “That was very much her philosophy of life - to not be limited by fear or narrow definitions, to not build walls around ourselves and to do our best to find kinship and beauty in unexpected places…”

“…She loved living in Java,” said Dr. Dewey, who recalled accompanying Ms. Soetoro to a metalworking village. “People said: ‘Hi! How are you?’ She said: ‘How’s your wife? Did your daughter have the baby?’ They were friends. Then she’d whip out her notebook and she’d say: ‘How many of you have electricity? Are you having trouble getting iron?’ “

She became a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development on setting up a village credit program, then a Ford Foundation program officer in Jakarta specializing in women’s work. Later, she was a consultant in Pakistan, then joined Indonesia’s oldest bank to work on what is described as the world’s largest sustainable microfinance program, creating services like credit and savings for the poor.

She died in November 1995, as Mr. Obama was starting his first campaign for public office. After a memorial service at the University of Hawaii, one friend said, a small group of friends drove to the South Shore in Oahu. With the wind whipping the waves onto the rocks, Mr. Obama and Ms. Soetoro-Ng placed their mother’s ashes in the Pacific, sending them off in the direction of Indonesia”.

Still, the politics of fear haunt the American political scene.

CNN debunks false report about Obama …>go to article

“JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) — Allegations that Sen. Barack Obama was educated in a radical Muslim school known as a “madrassa” are not accurate, according to CNN reporting”.

 Obama’s own response to this and other allegations has been to say calmly and with intent that it is “ridiculous”.

There has also been quite a bit of interest about Obama in Jakarta.

CAMPAIGN OUTSIDER

The Indonesian candidate …>go to article

Asia Times 2.20.08

 Muhammad Cohen

“Award-winning Indonesian poet and writer Laksmi Pamuntjak sees a further impact on Obama from spending time in a country that has “Unity in Diversity” as its motto.”Having lived in Indonesia, at the very least, would have acquainted him with the idea of living with difference, as Indonesia itself, a modern 20th century invention for all intents and purposes, is made up of some 17,000 islands, some 450 languages, is continuously in flux and is never the ‘one’ thing - something, in the words of a friend, of a patchwork of old/new, here/there, high tech/new tech materials, and always with a sense of bricolage.”The young Obama would have probably had an early taste of the vacillations, ambiguities and imperfections of such a place, but also of the richness of viewpoints and interpretations, the struggle with history, and the sense of hope that comes, as young nations always do, from finding oneself anew.”

A week before the Hawaii Democratic caucus voting occurred I attended a Barack Obama organizational meeting in Hilo. Congressman Neil Abercrombie gave a short introductory speech in which he said “the day Barack Obama is inaugurated as President of the United States you will hear the enitre planet heave a sigh of relief.”

Barack Obama also likes to say that none of this will be easy. To find oneself anew you must participate.

Yes, we can.

 

Jakarta (in transit)

Narita, Japan (in transit to Jakarta, 2004)

Below is an email reply, somewhat modified from the original, to an email I was sent recently.

I will be in Jakarta next month, in April, for about three weeks. There are a few people I need to see. Check out my cognative map and take photographs.

If you are still planning to write your article about blogging in Indonesia here are some ideas.

I confess I have not the slightest idea what blogging is.  

I don’t know how I know this but I have read that blogging has been around for about seven or eight years. It is not new, and it seems, just by the shear volume of blogs listed in search engines on the internet, that a lot of people are doing it these days.

The web site Indonesia Matters has a list of 500 blogs with their subject being Indonesia.

I came to be a blogger from a project I worked on in a Human Geography course at the University of Hawaii, Hilo, in 2007.

As I  was working on a presenation about monuments in Jakarta  I found one web site named deviantArt. This is not a blogging site but it is a site where people post their writing, artwork, and photography. If you go to that site and search “Indonesia” or “Jakarta” you will see some very remarkable art that Indonesians and Jakartans are producing. Some of the finest photos I have ever seen are on that site.  I have used photos from deviantArt in Jakarta Urban Blog, always to asking permission first (no one has turned me down so far, thanks).

My current university course  is urban geography or urban studies.  The notion that I could create a blog to use in this course seemed a logical  way to share information and my interests. 

 Before I knew it I had acquired readers from all over the world.

If you write, make your money that way, you know that it is not an easy thing to do. Writing takes time and it takes thinking. I have a full time job, part time school, a house, a wife, two cats, and a this blog.  All need attention. And so does my Support page.

As I am busy posting images, keeping up a links list, keeping the weatherpixie happy, I am also writing from a distance. I am not in Jakarta.

Mostly what comes out of Jakarta seems to be bad news. The city has more than its fare share. But that is the character of news, is it not? Urban centers are increasingly becoming more and more important in the larger scheme of things.

The planet will live or die by cities.

 Cities on the edge of chaos …>go to site

“It is one of the most seismic changes the world has ever seen. Across the globe there is an unstoppable march to the cities, powered by new economic realities. But what kind of lives are we creating? And will citizens - and cities - cope with the fierce pressures of this new urban age? Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum and author of a major new report, asks if the city of the future will be a vision of hell or a force for civilised living? “

 Sudjic states, “Cities are made by an extraordinary mixture of do-gooders and bloody-minded obsessives, of cynical political operators and speculators. They are shaped by the unintended consequences of the greedy and the self-interested, the dedicated and the occasional visionary. The cities that work best are those that keep their options open, that allow the possibility of change.

The ones that are stuck, overwhelmed by rigid, state-owned social housing, or by economic systems that offer the poor no way out of the slums are in trouble. A successful city is one that makes room for surprises. A city that has been trapped by too much gentrification, or too many shopping malls, will have trouble generating the spark that is essential to making a city that works.”

Which brings to mind Sukarno. Such a different time.

“Comrades from Jakarta, let us build Jakarta into the greatest city possible. Great not just from a material point of view; great, not just because of its skyscrapers; great not just because it has boulevards and beautiful streets; great not just because it has beautiful monuments; great in every respect, even in the little houses of the workers of Jakarta there must be a sense of greatness… Give Jakarta an extraordinary place in the minds of the Indonesian people, because Jakarta belongs to the people of Jakarta. Jakarta belongs to the whole Indonesian people. More than that, Jakarta is becoming the beacon of the whole of mankind. Yes, the beacon of the New Emerging Forces.”

-Sukarno as cited in Abeyasekere 1987: 168 

What happened?

Now, more people live in cities than at anytime in the history of humanity. 

This  is the subject of the web site Urban Age. From this  The Endless City  edited by Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic in collaboration with the London School of Economics and the Urban Age Project will be published soon.

The problems of cities are ultimately going to be solved by the people who live in them.

I do not entirely despair that Jakarta is so broken that it cannot be fixed.  If not fixed then understood. And to understand you must see. There are many scholars, journalists, human rights workers, bloggers, and Jakartans whose central interest is the welfare of the city.

I am looking forward to seeing them.

 

Jakarta (assignment)

 

 Photo by Osocio

This morning as I was reading through the news I came across the two articles below published by Xinhua News.  I have posted each of the articles here in full. Both articles appear to be wire stories orignating from The Jakarta Post.

Jakarta is always mentioned and written about as a city of contrasts.

 Violence against women rises in Indonesia …>go to site

 JAKARTA, March 8 (Xinhua) — Violence against women in Indonesia has steadily increased after nearly a decade of political reform, the Jakarta Post quoted the National Commission for Women’s Protection as saying here Saturday.

State institutions both in central and regional governments were among the main perpetrators through their discriminatory regulations, the report said.

Violence has increased despite the fact that the government has enacted 10 laws and signed three regional treaties to eliminate all forms of violence against women.

In a report on the state of women’s protection issued in conjunction with tje International Women’s Day, the commission highlighted 27 regional bylaws which it says discriminate against women, either through the criminalization of women or seeking to control women’s bodies.

“For example, there’s a regulation that forbids women from going out at night or others that determine how women should dress,” commissioner Arimbi Heroepoetri said.

She said that under these regulations women could easily be labeled, and punished, as “immoral” women simply because they went home late at night or wore tight clothes.

Tangerang municipality near Jakarta last year issued an ordinance banning women from going outside of their homes after 10p.m.

According to Arimbi, there has been a significant increase in the number of cases of domestic violence reported thanks to the law, which categorizes all acts of violence against women as criminal.

She said the sharpest increase in the number of reported cases of domestic violence occurred in 2005, with 16,615 reported cases, or almost four times the 4,310 cases reported in 2004.

The second article is: 

5 Indonesians on Forbes’ list of richest …>go to site

JAKARTA, March 8 (Xinhua) — Five Indonesian businessmen are among the 1,125 wealthiest people in the world listed by Forbes magazine.

The 58-year-old Sukanto Tanoto, owner of the Raja Garuda Mas group, is ranked 284th on the list with estimated assets of some 3.8 billion U.S. dollars, local English newspaper the Jakarta Post reported on Saturday.

Raja Garuda Mas group and its subsidiaries operate in a range of industries, including pulp and paper, palm oil plantations and construction.

Also on the Forbes list are Michael Hartono and Budi Hartono, owners of tobacco company PT Djarum. Their fortunes were estimatedat 2 billion dollars each.

Other Indonesians to make the list are Martua Sitorus, the owner of palm oil producer Wilmar International Holding, who is ranked at 652nd with 1.9 billion dollars, and Peter Sondakh, the owner of Rajawali Group, at 962nd with 1.2 billion dollars.

This year’s list includes 1,125 people with a total net worth of 4.4 trillion dollars.

There are 211 Asians on this year’s Forbes list, up from 160 the previous year. Apart from the five Indonesians, India has 53 people on the list, including four in the top 10, the Chinese Mainland has 42, China’s Hong Kong has 26 and Japan has 27.

Your assignment is to think of how and in what ways these two articles are connected.

Jakarta (informal) part 2

Photo by Qusing 

Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Greek for oikos (house) and nomos (custom or law), hence “rules of the house(hold).” …> go to site

Economics at its most basic might be thought of as the ways in which we make a living. The economy can also be described in terms  of the relationships between supply and demand.

 The rules of the household (a few examples)

Begging

One evening while taking the new communter train from Jakarta to Depok with my friend Budi I noticed a man several cars down crawling along the floor of the train carriage. He would stop occasionally and collect a few coins or rupiah form the commuters. Others ignorded him.  As he approached where we were sitting I reached into my pocket for the stack of coins which I had been accumulating through the day.  He held out his hand and I gave him the coins.  Budi did nothing. The man moved on.  Budi then told me, “Maybe if you follow him home you will see what a nice house he lives in“.  I took this to mean that the man was either faking his disability or he was some sort of professional beggar working his audience.  Shortly after that the train made a stop and a young blind man with his mother walked on board.  He had strapped on his back a small portable karioki machine and proceeded to sing into his microphone with a very good voice.  At this Budi reached into his pocket and handed over his coins.  Budi could tell the difference.  I could not. It is still hard to this day.

There are an estimated 200,000 street vendors in Jakarta each month they pay out about $1.5 billion rupiah for protection, in extortion, or for illegal fees. There are perhaps 80,000 street kids who make their living by begging.

In Spetmeber 2007, the Jakarta City Council approved a bylaw that bans busking, begging and street hawking as well as banning people from giving money to beggars, vendors and hawkers.

Initiated by the city’s departing governor, Sutioyoso, the bylaw says that anyone who is caught giving money to beggars, and others of their ilk, will be fined of 50 million rupiah.From World Street Children News …>go to site 

Mohammad Yazid, Jakarta

“A beggar recently scolded my wife for refusing to give him some money at a busy intersection in Cempaka Putih (famously known as Coca-Cola intersection), Central Jakarta.

“How stingy, so what’s the headscarf for?” he said to my wife. I told my wife not to roll down the car window because I was afraid he was a crook.

Bluffing and smirking have become forms of pressure exerted by beggars operating at nearly every crossroad in Jakarta.

They employ various other methods at other places such as public transportation and residential areas. Some use the conventional style of pretending to be starving or seriously ill, while others apply the criminal way of extorting money from passengers by appearing as alcoholics or newly released convicts.

Women have an effective trick of approaching benevolent people and exploiting the innocent looks of children under the age of five and carrying “hired infants” at Jakarta intersections.

There is no official data on the total number of beggars in Jakarta, but according to Suciardi, head of the commercial sex rehabilitation service at the Jakarta Social Welfare Office, their numbers increase by 40 percent during Ramadhan through Idul Fitri, from the 2,295 normally found in the city.

Chairman of the National Commission for Child Protection, Seto Mulyadi, said the number of street children in Greater Jakarta reached 80,000.

Amid the prevailing economic difficulties and different mishaps affecting Indonesia, many people choose begging as their profession, because they often make more than those who work at government offices or private businesses. Earning about Rp 50,000 to Rp 75,000 daily on average, in a month a beggar can make Rp 1.5 million, far more than Jakarta’s minimum wage of Rp 900,000″.

 Black Markets

Begging, of course, is small change compared to Jakarta’s black markets. Havoscope Global Black Market Indexes lists  the market value of Indonesia’s black market at $3.32 billion (US). The counterfeit goods market value (books, cable, music, movies, and computer software) is listed at $458 million (US).  Black market handphone sales may be as high as $370 million (US). The value of the illegal drug trade is not listed but may also be in the millions of dollars as is indicated by the  recent incident of 600,000 ecstasy pills seized from a shop-house in Cengkareng, Tangerang district, Banten province, last February 26.

Human Trafficking

 from Human Trafficking.org

“Indonesia is primarily a source, but also a transit and destination country for human trafficking. UNICEF estimates that 100,000 women and children are trafficked annually for commercial sexual exploitation in Indonesia and abroad, 30 percent of the female prostitutes in Indonesia are below 18, and 40,000-70,000 Indonesian children are victims of sexual exploitation. The East Java Children’s Protection Agency estimates that at least 100,000 women and children are trafficked annually from, through, and to East Java.

Indonesian women and children are trafficked for sexual and labor exploitation in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, and the Middle East.  A significant number of Indonesian women voluntarily migrate to work as domestic servants but are later coerced into abusive conditions. Some Indonesian women are recruited by false promises of employment and are later coerced into prostitution or forced labor. Ethnic Chinese women and teenage girls in the West Kalimantan district are recruited as mail-order brides for men in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Indonesian women from the Riau Islands, Bali, and Lombok are used for sex tourists from Malaysia and Singapore”.

 from Fact book on Global Sexual Exploitation - Indonesia

“A 1992 survey showed that one out of 10 prostituted persons was under age 17, and that one out of five of those older than that age said they took up prostitution before they reached 17. Dario Agnote, “Sex trade key part of S.E. Asian economies, study says,” Kyodo News, 18 August 1998

The sex industry accounts for an estimated 1.2 billion dollars to 3.3 billion dollars in annual earnings, or between 0.8 and 2.4% of the country’s GDP, the study said. In Jakarta alone, prostitution-related activities are estimated to be worth 91 million dollars annually. Dario Agnote, “Sex trade key part of S.E. Asian economies, study says,” Kyodo News, 18 August 1998

There are between 140,000 and 230,000 prostituted persons in Indonesia (1993-1994 estimates). Prostituted persons are mainly adult women, but there are also male, transvestite and child prostitutes, both girls and boys. International Labor Organization. Dario Agnote, “Sex trade key part of S.E. Asian economies, study says,” Kyodo News, 18 August 1998

There are at least 650,000 prostitutes in Indonesia. In 1998 there were 150,000 registered prostitutes compared to 72,000 in 1995. 30 percent are children. (Yogyakarta Free Children Society, Mohammad Farid, “Indonesian economic crisis boosts prostitution,” Reuters, 26 July 1998

There were 65,582 registered prostitutes in 1994. The highest estimate is 500,000 women in prostitution. CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific

About 200 prostituted women in Jakarta, Indonesia, protesting plans by the mayor to close down their complex carried signs stating “I did not want to become a prostitute. The economic difficulties have made me a prostitute.” “Indonesian prostitutes join wave of protests,” Reuters, 2 July 1998

Earnings from prostitution average $600 a month in Indonesia and are higher than in other unskilled jobs. International Labor Organization, Elif Kaban, “UN labour body urges recognition of sex industry,” Reuters, 18 August 1998

Particularly because of the economic crises in Asia, women in Thailand and Indonesia are increasingly forced into prostitution as the only means of survival. “Women Workers Are Last in, First Out,” Associated Press, 30 April 1998

In Indonesia the economic crisis has driven thousands of women into prostitution for economic survival. Although “streetwalkers” are prohibited in Jakarta, there is no law prohibiting the sale of sexual services. Yogyakarta Free Children Society, Mohammad Farid, “Indonesian economic crisis boosts prostitution,” Reuters, 26 July 1998

The sex industry takes in US$ 1.2 - US$ 3.6 billion. CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific

The city of Surbaya, with tens of thousands of prostitutes, is the largest sex industry center in South East Asia, which consists of hectares and hectares of modest houses with large, plate-glass windows where bored girls sit waiting: “streets full of human aquariums”. It is also a magnet for the divorced and dispossessed women of the strict Islamic villages. The sex industry serves as a source of women for prostitution in provincial towns, through a black market network of pimps. Louise Williams, “Sex in the Cemetary,” Sydney Morning Herald, 25 January 1997

30% of the girls in Semarang, Indonesia who are homeless are forced into prostitution for survival. University Diponegoro study, Nicholas D. Kristof “Asian Crisis Deals Setbacks to Women”.

Other sites (grim and enlightening) addressing this issue are at:

 Child Prostituion - Indonesia

Intersections: Traditional and Emergent Sex Work in Urban Indonesia

Then there are these sites. 

Best Ladies Escort Agency in Jakarta

Travel Sex Guide Indonesia

Jakarta After Dark

And…finally

from AFP Penises and Prayer Mats: Its Sexual Healing Indonesian Style

“A consultation with Haji Baban is an encounter with the arcane. Sitting cross-legged in semi-darkness, the patient is asked to detail his wishes with the visual aid of a selection of carved wooden phalluses.

Then comes the diagnosis, delivered after a contemplative silence.

Solemnly, Haji Baban intones that the client’s appendage is “fairly average,” and offers to conjour up a six-centimetre (2.3-inch) extension.

The prescription for such whopping growth is a 10-day course of eating and drinking mystery concoctions and secret potions, with the first dose of bitter berries to be taken immediately, washed down with dark brown liquid.

An assistant then brings a phallus-shaped bamboo tube containing a roll of sticky coconut rice that has to be swallowed whole to avoid what Haji Baban describes ominously as “terrible genital consequences”.

Haji Baban ends the consultation with a vegetable oil that the client must promise to apply daily with a specific hand action from base to tip. And no eating green bananas or citronella, he orders.

The daily cost for treatment is between 700,000 and one million rupees (70-100 dollars), depending on the options selected.

This is a hefty sum for many in Indonesia but the imposing mansions being built around Caringin seem to indicate that plenty of men are willing to pay.

A local motorcycle taxi driver gestures to the newly-built homes and says: “They belong to Mak Erot.”

A Last Note

From begging to the black market to human trafficking to penis enlargement. Such are the rules of the Indonesian household. 

I suppose I should be editorializing or moralizing at this point.  In this post I have moved from  the lighter side (is there one?) to the darker side (most certainly there is one) of the informal economies of Jakarta.   I now see that this was sort of an inevitable progression. As it is with all households everything is connected to everything else. It is there in the tension between the rich and poor, the politics and economics of gender, the educated and the uneducated, those with power and those who are disenfranchised. 

As Mary S. Zurbuchen writes in Images of Culture and National Development in Indonesia: The Cockroach Opera, “if the poor of Jakarta are like cockroaches, then these purportedly disgusting insects, instead of signifying filth and being driven from sight, must be welcomed. Victorious and pervasive, they persist everywhere, from the sprawling marbel villas of luxury housing estates like Pondok Indah to the immense slums of Tanjung Priok. The roach should not be counted a symbol of the lowlife here but rather a ubiquitous survivor of thousands of fantasies of ultimate extermination”.   

And still, time after time Susan Abeyasekere’s words from Jakarta: A History just won’t go away, “the central fallacy [of Jakarta] which has persisted from 1619 to the present is that it is possible to create a city for the privileged few, cut off from the countryside and the majority of the poor”.  

This goes to the who, what, why, and where of Jakarta’s informal economies. And it is clear, as the reality of the city declares,  that it is not possible to create a city for “the privileged few”.

It is true for Jakarta as it is for any place else you can point to on the planet.

Jakarta (informal) part 1

A short note to begin. 

The Jakarta Post is celebrating its 25th year in publication and has developed a new web site with a new format.  You can link through to it here …>go to The Jakarta Post

Jakarta Urban Blog has used much from TJP (for example the blog below). Without them I would feel lost. I have to say thanks and wish them well for the future.

You see them everywhere. In the morning they wheel their carts from the kampung to the street side, under a shady tree, or off to the side of a parking lot. In the evening they wheel their carts home or light their lamps to catch some business from commuters as they pass on their way home.

These are the cart vendors. Kaki lima, five legs, two for the vendor and three for the wheeled cart. They sell just about everything in the pantheon of Indonesian street cuisine: mie bakso, kacang, nasi gorang, sate, or soft drinks as in the photo above. There are hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, or perhaps through all of Indonesia millions of these carts providing a livelihood for the vendor and his family. This is just one type of small business activity that you see in a dizzy array of small business types throughout Jakarta.

I think probably more than anything else the kaki lima cart vendors and the becak drivers (perhaps less so the becak because it has been banned in Jakarta, but it is still seen and used in the suburbs) are symbols of Jakarta’s informal ecomony.

In economics, the term informal economy refers to those economic activities which fall outside of the formal economy which is regulated by economic and legal institutions. Generally the informal economy can be thought of as small scale market economy where certain types of income and business activity are unregulated, untaxed, or unmonitored (formally anyway).

Typically economic activity of this type is not calculated in the Gross National Product (GNP) but it can account for as perhaps as much as 60% of the labor force and contribute as much as 40% of the Gross National Product (GDP).

The terms “under the table” and “off the books” are sometimes used to describe the informal economic sector.

In its darker aspects the informal economy can also encompass black markets, contraband, piracy, and human trafficking.

Hans-Dieter Evers in The End of Urban Involution and the Cultural Construction of Ubanism has written that, “The pattern of urbanization in Indonesia has been described as one of “urban involution” during the 1960s and 1970s when intricate patterns of an informal urban economy developed without leading to the modernization of built structures, modes of transport, industries and occupations.

Involution -in contrast to evolution- designates a process in which structures, patterns and forms become more and more intricate and complex without reaching a new stage of evolution. According to Geertz involution, an “inward over elaboration of detail” leads to stagnation and underdevelopment.

For most towns and cities the growing bureaucracy and informal sector trade have been the major driving forces of urbanization rather than industrialization or the development of a modern service sector.

Quite detached from the reality of shared poverty, stagnation and underdevelopment the capital city of Jakarta was symbolically created as an exemplary centre of culture, national identity and power. A unitary post-colonial nation state had to have an “exemplary centre”, a capital. It was therefore necessary to develop a central capital city at least as a symbolic representation. “Virtual urbanism” was essential to gloss over the harsh reality of a large urban sprawl of squatters and semi-rural kampungs. It had to be demonstrated to the world that Indonesia was a unified nation and a leader of the “newly emerging forces” of the Third World. Jakarta developed for the “imagined community” of the Indonesian nation state a symbolic universe of meaning, a virtual world of monuments, parade grounds and significant buildings following a pattern of cultural, rather than material urbanization.

Today for Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung and Medan and some of the other larger provincial capitals the process of involution has come to an end and -in the words of Terry McGhee a “true urban revolution” is under way.

Less than half of the Indonesian population makes a living from agriculture and an urban middle class, following global patterns of consumption, changes the cityscape.

Open markets are still there, but shopping centres and malls have been constructed to cater for the new consumers and high-rise buildings mark the new CBD (Central Business District) with an ICT (Information and Communication Technology) infrastructure that enables world-wide networking.

This process has far-reaching consequences”.

 And here is what some of them are.

Jakarta appears to go through periods where  evictions of market and street vendors occur in regular cycles. Markets are cleared and removed, vendors scatter. The famous Kwitang  traditional book market in Senen, the flower and fish market at Barito, in South Jakarta, which have been in the news recently, are just two examples of a long list of removal and eviction by city authorities.

More talking needed: Urban observers

Evi Mariani

January 18, 2008 , The Jakarta Post

“As part of this process, the administration decides to clear an area and sends in public order officers and bulldozers to make sure residents and traders leave. Most of the time the process is far from satisfactory, achieving none of the administration’s desired results”… …”On Jl. Urip Sumoharjo in East Jakarta, vendors were blamed for causing constant traffic jams. Once they were evicted from the area, the traffic congestion eased slightly. However, eventually many of the evicted residents decided to return to the area, remaining there until this day. On Jl. Pancoran in Glodok, West Jakarta, an eviction a few years ago also proved to be a waste of time, with many vendors continuing to trade in the area”.

 A list of recent Jakarta Post articles of  market and vendor evictions can be found at 2.Bangkok.com here are some of the story lines…

Glodok traders search for break, new turf after eviction, January 18, 2008 The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Vendors become victims of changing times in Jakarta, January 18, 2008 The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Flower power wilts thanks to city’s deaf ears, Opinion and Editorial - January 21, 2008 Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post

Vendors stand their ground near bypass, The Jakarta Post, 30/01/08

Rawasari vendors vow to maintain struggle, City News - February 11, 2008 The Jakarta Post

What recently caught my interest was an article in the Jakarta Post from 2.24.08 titled The informal sector: Jakarta’s survival strategy by Raphaella Dewantari Dwianto. Dwianto has PhD in urban sociology from Tohoku University in Japan and is a faculty member at Atma Jaya Catholic University in Jakarta.   I have posted the entire article here.  The article not only has useful insights to Jakarta’s informal ecomony but also includes Dwianto’s personal observations and interactions with it.  Which is exactly the kind of writing I like. 

“People in Jakarta and other big cities have been, for some time, very familiar with news reports of street vendors being “kicked-out” (often literally) from places where they run micro-scale businesses such as selling foods, soft drinks, snacks and so on.

But I have my own experiences with the city’s informal sector.

Living 25 kilometers away from my office in the central business district of Jakarta, I often choose to take the air-conditioned express train to the office or to return home.

One of my little pleasures when I get off of the train at the station near my house, usually feeling rather exhausted after a whole day of working in the city, is to enjoy a nice live music performance.

On the stairs toward the main exit of the railway station, are always the same young men, sitting or standing, playing musical instruments such as violins and bass, performing harmonious, easy-to-listen-to music .

If in the evening I am entertained by the soothing live-music performance, likewise in the morning another group of young men will perform a more dynamic piece of music, using their guitars and drum-set to play mostly Indonesian popular songs. When an express train arrives, they will get on the train, play their music in the car, collecting money from the commuters.

I am always amazed by their agility as they jump out of the train with their musical instruments just barely avoiding the closing automatic door.

It is not only music I can enjoy while waiting for my train to commute to Jakarta. In the morning, I can also have my breakfast on the platform. The hawkers on the platform have a lot to offer, from snacks such as kue pastel or risoles, to more filling food such as fried noodles or nasi uduk.

Or, if you do not want to eat in the station but rather bring some food to your office, there are food vendors with plastic baskets offering you Indonesian sweets such as onde-onde, or even some Dutch klapertaart or macaroni schootel.

Apart from food, there are people who sell shoes, clothes, sunglasses, accessories for cellular phones and morning newspapers all on the same platform. I might exaggerate a little, but I can say that, in the morning, I only need to wake up and wash my face beforing heading off to the station.

People who get their income from the informal sector in Jakarta are the majority when compared to people working in the formal sector. Yet, the former group actually belongs to the urban minority group.

The informal sector is nothing new to urban areas such as Jakarta. In the 1930s, a Dutch scholar named Julius Herman Boeke found that, in the economic activities of the Netherlands East Indies, now called Indonesia, there were economic activities based on the principles of capitalism, represented by enterprises and firms.

At the same time there were contrasting activities, which he described as oriental economy, which were none other than economic activities of the informal sector.

Eight decades after Boeke’s findings, the informal sector in this country still prevails.

According to data provided by the World Bank in 2002, the total revenue from the informal sector in Indonesia accounts for almost 20 percent of the country’s GNP. However, the percentage is much lower compared to other Asian countries, such as Thailand or the Philippines, where the number reaches around 50 percent of the GNP.

When it comes to the ability of the informal sector to absorb Indonesians in their working prime, the informal sector includes around two thirds of the working people in Indonesia.

When it comes to urban areas in Indonesia, a study done by the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) shows the percentage of people working in the informal sector keeps increasing.

In 1971 the percentage of workers in the informal sector in urban areas was around 25 percent, which then increased to 36 percent in 1980 and 42 percent in 1990. The number peaked in the year 2000 — around two years after the economic crisis — when it reached 65 percent.

Many of us must still remember the sudden emergence of many kafe-tenda during the economic crisis, which showed that even middle class people in Jakarta would turn to the informal sector in a time of crisis.

The fact that the informal sector can serve as a safety net during and after an economic crisis is concluded by two German sociologists, Hans-Dieter Evers and Rudiger Korff, who said the informal sector was a method for people to survive in urban areas.

Even though Evers and Korff’s idea of urban survival concerns people working in the informal sector, it also defines the survival strategy for consumers in the informal sector.With an unstoppable rise in prices of goods these last few months, I would rather get my lunch from a nearby vendor costing me less than Rp 10,000, and I believe I am not alone in this preference.

If the informal sector is a strategy for survival for workers in the informal sector and also consumers, then there must be a better policy than the government’s “scrapping” policy to deal with it. To be able to formulate this better policy, we must begin by acknowledging the significance of this sector on the lives of the people”.

I will have more to say on Jakarta’s informal economy in later postings.