University of Indonesia

Jakarta Urban Blog highly  recommends  Issue 92: April - June edition of Inside Indonesia . With the ten year anniversary of the May 12, 1998 events at Trisakti University and the Jakarta riots just passing the current issue of Inside Indonesia is well worth spending some time with. …> go to site

From the Introduction by Gerry van Klinken:

“Indonesia has made an amazing transformation these last ten years. Too often this story is buried among the bad news. The military no longer dominates every level of government, as it did during the New Order. Free elections have been held many times. The long-running separatist wars in East Timor and Aceh have been resolved. This edition of Inside Indonesia looks backward and forward. It takes an honest look at how far the country has come down the road towards meaningful democracy, and how much further it might still go.

Vedi Hadiz and Olle Törnquist lead off with their answers to the central question: ‘How far to meaningful democracy?’ They agree on two points. First, Indonesia is now definitely a democracy, but second, it is a democracy with weaknesses. They differ on how much more forward movement can be expected. Read them both, then make up your own mind! We value your response.

Two other articles focus specifically on political parties. Both Marcus Mietzner and Andreas Ufen think the parties are better than most people seem to feel. Indonesian parties have deeper roots in society and history than Philippine and Thai ones, writes Ufen. Rather than give the parties a bad rap for corruption, writes Mietzner, people should make sure they are properly financed so they don’t have to be corrupt.

The last two articles look at the two toughest nuts for post-Suharto democratisers to crack. Have a look at Edward Aspinall ’s piece on Aceh, and Jun Honna ’s on the military. Here the record is mixed: an astonishing turn for the better in Aceh on the one hand, but far too little change in the military, on the other. One thing is for sure: Indonesia does not need the military to ‘hold the country together’, as so many people said for so long”.

 Jakarta, Trisakti University

MAY 12, 1998

TEN YEARS - NO JUSTICE

Hari ini kami datang bersama bunga dan sejuta pekik sebagai tanda kasih serta

keteguhan kami demi keadilan  …………..  karena kami yakin bahwa Reformasi

merupakan keharusan

Merah Putih setengah tiang bersaksi atas Darah, keringat, Air mata, Rasa Takut,

dan rasa ingin berontak bercampur mejadi satu ………… Ratusan dari kami yang

Cedera puluhan dari kami yang Ditembaki atas kesewenang-wenagan Penguasa

……………. Empat saudara kami tercinta, telah gugur meninggalkan ribuan duka,

kalut dan amarah mendalam

……. Perjuanganmu takkan sia-sia saudaraku, tiap tetes darahmu akan berati

bagi Bangsa dan Negri ini …………… Dan ini mejadi bukti dari kami yang setia

bahwa keAdilan adalah kePatutan!

Jakarta, 12 Mei 1998

Mereka yang telah Berjuang

<<TRISAKTI>>

Jakarta

From CNET Asia

Bill Gates scheduled to visit Jakarta on May 8 …> go to article

Budi Putra

May 7, 2008 16:59

“Microsoft Corporation founder and chairman Bill Gates is scheduled to visit Indonesia on May 8 to 9, 2008. According to Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare Aburizal Barkrie, Gates will be visiting Indonesia to reciprocate President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s tour of the Microsoft headquarters in Seattle last year.

Gates will address a plenum of the GLF (Government Leaders Forum) along with Yudhoyono on Friday, May 9. Besides attending the GLF, Gates is also expected to become a speaker at the Presidential Lecture program at the Jakarta Convention Center on Friday. GLF Asia 2008 will discuss about the “Serving the Citizen: The Transformative Power of Information Technology in Delivering Government Services”.

As reported by Antara News Agency, Gates will also talk to the Indonesian Government about the development of bird flu vaccines in Indonesia. He will also endorse the Visit Indonesia Year 2008 campaign, according to news portal Detik. This plan was revealed by Minister Aburizal during a press conference with Trade Minister Marie E. Pangestu and Microsoft Indonesia president director Tony Chen.

“We hope Gates’s presence here will give a positive image for the country’s tourism,” Aburizal said.

But the bird flu vaccines and tourism issue are not top priorities that I want to hear from Gates during his visit here. I want to know his answers to:

1. How much he (or his company) will invest here in supporting Indonesia’s next digital decade.
2. What the future projects are which fit in with his ideas on creating the Asian Miracle.
3. Whether he thinks Indonesia can be the next Asian miracle in terms of a digital world.
4. What Microsoft’s solutions and approaches are in combatting software piracy in Indonesia. (Indonesia has long been fighting software piracy problems. As written by The Jakarta Post, IDC reported that Indonesia had reduced its software piracy rate by 2 percent from 87 percent in 2003 to 85 percent in 2006).
5. Can his foundation support, well, the country’s open source movement?

I am not sure I can attend all his lectures and sessions because until today, my name was still on the waiting list to get an official badge to enter the forum.

But no problem. At least, I hope other participants will ask (if possible) the above questions I have.

Welcome to Indonesia, Mr Gates! Selamat datang”.

Yes, welcome to Indonesia Mr. Gates.  I hope you take the time to at least get out of the air conditioning for an hour or two and REALLY see Jakarta.  Why not cut away from hanging out with government elites and head down one Jalan Tikus to a kampung in West Jakarta, one by the canal? Try to find some clean drinking water. Or why not visit a school? Try to find one that is not in disrepair, has books, has chalk for the blackboards, or has a computer, even just an old one, that is connected to the internet with more than the ability to download 1MB in an hour. Of course there is plenty of MS sofware at hand. It’s cheap and generally unlicensed in Indonesia. And PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE keep a safe distance from that Bakrie fellow.

Or why not take the time to listen to Rebcca Henschke’s excellent report  on Public Radio International on how the food crisis is effecting the urban poor in Jakarta.  You can listen to this broadcast here …>go to boradcast   This report will freeze you in your tracks and make you wonder where your moral compass went astray.  Or here is an article from the AFP which might be of interest.

Rising food, fuel prices drive Indonesian May Day rallies
May 1, 2008

JAKARTA (AFP) - Thousands of Indonesians took to the streets of the capital Jakarta for Labour Day rallies on Thursday, with rising food prices and an expected cut in fuel subsidies weighing heavily on workers’ minds.

Police said about 10,000 people gathered in the city centre and at the presidential palace.

Carrying banners reading “Lower Food Prices Now” and “More Pay for Workers and Farmers,” many of the demonstrators said they were alarmed at soaring inflation and the prospect of sharply higher fuel bills.

“If they keep increasing the price of food, maybe we’ll have to eat less,” factory worker Lia said.

“The price of formula milk for the baby has gone up. It’s now 36,000 rupiah (nearly four dollars) for a can of 600 grams and the baby drinks it up in two days,” she said”. …> go to article

But don’t worry, on the upside Indonesia has plenty of oil… or…

From The Times of India …> go to article

JAKARTA (INDONESIA): “President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Tuesday that Indonesia was considering of quitting the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) because it was no longer a net oil exporter.

“Our wells are drying,” he said, adding that the country needs to concentrate on increasing domestic production, which has dropped to less than a million barrels a day even as consumption is rising.

The government opened talks on Monday on whether it “should continue to stay with OPEC or withdraw its membership until it reaches a point where it deserves to rejoin that organization again,” Yudhoyono told agencies around Indonesia.

The country of 235 million people is Southeast Asia’s only OPEC member. But it has to import oil because of decades of declining investment in exploration and extraction due to corruption and a weak legal system that makes oil companies wary of doing business here. Indonesia’s oil output has declined steadily from oil production of 1.5 million to 1.6 million barrels a day in the mid-1990s. It produced around 860,000 barrels a day of crude oil last month and recorded a deficit of $794 million in its oil trade accounts.

It is not the first time the country has re-evaluated its OPEC membership, but in past years teams commissioned by the government have recommended staying in the grouping to maintain good relations with other oil producers”.

 But with Lion Air purchasing 56 new Boeing 737s, a growth rate running at 7% in 2007, Jakarta accounting for half of Indonesia’s GNP,  building construction booming in the city, and global oil demand skyrocketing,  is it no wonder the wells are drying up?

And so this just what  Jakarta REALLY needs…

From Asia Propety Report

Jakarta to get SE Asia’s tallest tower …> go to article
by Asia Pulse

“Dubai-based real estate giant Emaar Properties plans to build a landmark tower in Jakarta, to be the tallest skyscraper in Southeast Asia, a presidential envoy said. Special envoy for Middle East Alwi Shihab said on Monday Emaar Chairman Mohamed Ali Alabbar had proposed the project to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono during an informal meeting Saturday. At the moment, we are still looking for the right location in Jakarta for the project, Alwi told the newspaper The Jakarta Post.

Emaar, the largest land and real estate developer in the Gulf is famed for its on going construction in Dubai of the 718-meter tall Burj Dubai, which would be the tallest skyscraper in the world. In March, Emaar signed a joint venture agreement with state-owned Bali Tourism Development Corp. to build an integrated tourism project in southern Lombok, Bali´s neighboring island”.

Jakarta

There are now posted on YouTube 15 videos from my recent stay in Jakarta. You can access them here:

Jakarta Urban Blog YouTube

There is also a link to these videos at the bottom of my Multimedia page. 

At the Citayam rail crossing

Whatever is said about Jakarta NEVER let it be said that it is not an interesting place.  I have returned from three weeks of walking and driving the streets of Jakarta.  I have been busy with jet lag and reverse culture shock. That is MORE shocked to be home than to be in Jakarta. Odd, I know. I must be part Jakartan. I take that with a bit of pride and a bit of insanity. So it is.

It is time to turn to the news.  This week has been busy and there is a lot which can slip by so there is some catching up to do.

 From Reuters, April 29, 2008

Idonesian Boy Dies of Bird Flu

JAKARTA, April 29 (Reuters) - A three-year-old boy from Indonesia’s main island of Java has died from bird flu, pushing the country’s total confirmed human cases to 108, a health ministry official said on Tuesday…  …The national bird flu commission said the virus had infected poultry in 31 out of 33 provinces in Indonesia. It said five provinces had not reported new cases in the past six months.

Experts say the danger is the virus might mutate into a form that people easily catch and pass to one another, in which case the transmission rate would soar, causing a pandemic in which millions of people could die.

Since the virus resurfaced in Asia in late 2003, it has killed 240 people in a dozen countries, the World Health Organisation says. Indonesia has the highest toll of any nation. (Reporting by Mita Valina Liem; Editing by David Fogarty) …> go to article

 This was just three days after this…

From AFP…

Indonesia runs massive bird flu drill
Apr 25, 2008

TUKADDAYA, Indonesia (AFP) - Hundreds of Indonesian villagers and health workers took part in a massive drill here Friday to prepare for a potentially devastating outbreak of human-to-human bird flu.

The largest bird flu drill ever held in Indonesia, the country worst hit by the virus, involved the simulated outbreak of a pandemic which experts say could rapidly spread across the globe killing millions of people.

“This is the biggest drill in Indonesia. The objective is to test the preparedness of bird flu officials to manage an outbreak in case it happens,” health ministry disease control chief I Nyoman Kandun told reporters. …> go to article

 According to this article the first thing which would be done in a major outbreak of H5N1 would be to “seal off” the area. This probably would have to done with the army. The second thing which would happen (not mentioned in the article) is that people would run.  This is a losing game. It is potentially one of the most serious issues Indonesia faces.

Last month the United Nations FAO issued the following, as reported by Reuters.

FAO says Indonesia needs help fighting bird flu 19 Mar 2008 02:27:59 GMT

MILAN, March 18 (Reuters) - Major efforts have done little to control H5N1 avian influenza in Indonesia and the country needs more help in controlling the virus, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Tuesday.

Surveillance and response teams are working in 193 out of 448 districts in Indonesia, yet birds in 31 out of 33 provinces are affected, FAO Chief Veterinary Officer Joseph Domenech said in a statement.

By June 2008, more than 2,000 surveillance and response teams will be active in more than 300 districts in disease-endemic areas of the country, he said.

But that may not be enough.

“Indonesia is facing an uphill battle against a virus that is difficult to contain. Major human and financial resources, stronger political commitment and strengthened coordination between the central, provincial and district authorities are required to improve surveillance and control measures,” Domenech said. …> go to article

 Skulls

Skulls. They keep showing up in the oddest places and god knows that there are plenty of skulls knocking about Indonesia.

From the AP comes this…

Indonesian customs officers seize 3 human skulls at airport

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Three humans skulls being sent to Britain were seized at Indonesia’s international airport, a customs officer said Thursday.

The sponge-wrapped skulls were packed in separate boxes and labeled as handicrafts, said Eko Darmanto, chief of customs at Jakarta’s airport. Two were intricately carved or decorated and the third remained in its original form.

“Police are investigating a possible crime,” he told reporters, adding that the skulls originated from Bali island and were destined for Yorkshire via air courier.

Indonesia’s criminal code says anyone who intentionally digs or moves human remains from a grave for sale or collection faces up to 14 months in jail. …> go to article

 SEX

Yes, of course, SEX. It is one of the major themes of my new Urban Studies Theory.

From ABC News…

Nude Casinos: All in a Night’s Work
Nightlife Is Racier Than You Might Think in This Muslim City
Reporter’s Notebook By MARGARET CONLEY
JAKARTA, Indonesia, May 2, 2008 

 Sashimi sex and nude casinos: It’s hardly what you’d expect to witness after the sun goes down in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

But best-selling author Moammar Emka, known as Emka, knows otherwise. He’s been tracking the steamy nightlife scene in Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta, for the last six years.

“It was unusual because the sashimi, a Japanese delicacy of sliced raw seafood, was not served on a tray with chopsticks, but presented on the naked body of a beautiful, sensual girl,” Emka writes in his first book.

Today, as he continues prowling the seedy underground for its latest trends, the former reporter is most surprised by the basic concept of sex as entertainment.

“You can find anything at anytime here,” the East Java native says over the pumping music in his black BMW, heading out for a night of research.

Clubs with sex menus, invite-only swingers parties and orgies at people’s private homes are detailed in Emka’s little black books.

 Arriving at the night’s chosen venue, Emka doesn’t need to wait in line. Well-known in nightlife circles, the doorman greets him and waves him through security.
Once inside, a scantily clad, pale-skinned beauty on stage makes eye contact with Emka. Recognizing him, she breaks into a smile and points.

They share a dance from a distance, and it’s clear why Emka fans remain curious about whether he’s an observer or a participant.

Emka, who is Muslim and studied at schools with strong Islamic backgrounds, including the Government Institute for Islamic Studies in Jakarta, makes a point of omitting graphically explicit material when he writes about “after-lunch stripteases,” “midnight lesbian packages” and “drive-thru sex.” …> go to article

 I am almost certain this article will increase the tourist arrivals at Soekarno-Hatta.

On the flip side…

From ANTARA

I am posting the entire article here.  You can read between the lines. It is more than obvious.

News Focus: Workers must not commit anarchism on May Day rally
By Bustanuddin

Jakarta (ANTARA News)- Some ten thousand workers are expected to launch rallies to mark international workers day or May Day on Thursday (May 1) in Jakarta and in its satellite towns of Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi.

Although the workers have the right to stage rallies after getting permission but Manpower Affairs Minister Erman Suparno asked them not to create anarchism during the rallies.

In Jakarta an organization called Revolutionary Workers Command (Kobar) said on Tuesday it was preparing to mobilize about 10,000 workers for a rally to mark international workers day.

“The main gathering point for Kobar`s workers will be the West Irian Freedom Monument Square (Banteng Square),” Kobar spokesman Syahganda said.

He said the thousands of workers of Kobar would come from at least 21 labor unions in Jakarta and in its satellite towns.

The the labor unions include SP Pelindo II, SRBIINDO, SPOI, Gaspermindo, PPMI-98, Sarbumusi, FSPSI, SBNMI and KSPSI Bekasi.

To hold the rally, workers would converge on Banteng Square between 10 - 12 a.m, where the rally would be filled with orations by labor leaders voicing their demands, stage performances of street musicians, and the reading of an “Indonesian Labor Manifesto.”

“The manifesto will focus on criticizing national development which does not benefit the workers,” Syahganda said adding that the theme of the manifesto would be “Redirecting the Aim of Indonesia`s Development.”

After the orations at the Banteng Square, the Kobar mass would march to the State Palace to join about 40,000 other workers, he said.

Meanwhile, Jakarta Metropolitan police chief Insp.Gen. Adang Firman said his office would mobilize 15 thousand security personnel and the military to control the mass rallies.

Adang made the remark after meeting with Jakarta Vice Governor Prijanto here on Tuesday.

Prijanto said some groups of workers including the National Labor Union (SPN) had asked permission to launch a demonstration.

Police chief Adang Firman also said his men will take stern action against any one trying to disrupt peace.

“Those who broke the parliamentary building gate two years ago have been brought to justice,” the police chief said.

Vice Governor Prijanto on the occasion also appreciated some groups of workers who intended to perform an art show including singing “Dangdut” songs to highlight May Day instead of launching rallies.

May Day in Bandung, West Java province to be observed by 2,000 industrial workers, will be commemorated in the People`s Struggle Monument (MPRJB) on Jalan Dipati Ukur.

Although May Day will fall on Thursdy (May 1) but it could also be observe on Wednesday.
Not scarred by rallies

Despite many demonstrations will happen in the country foreign investors also from China remained interested in doing business in Indonesia.

Some 70 Chinese investors have expressed keen interests in investment in different business fields in Indonesia, Deputy Chief of the Indonesian Mission in Beijing, Mohamad Oemar, said in Beijing recently.

Oemar was responding to a plan to organize an investment forum at the Indonesian Industry Ministry in Jakarta from May 15 to 16. The two-day meeting will serve as a forum between Chinese investors and Indonesian state officials and businessmen.

The forum was the fruit of efforts made by the Indonesian Embassy in Beijing to attract as many Chinese investors as possible to invest in Indonesia, he said.

He said Chinese investors had a high motivation to attend the forum. They would attend it not merely to get first hand information on investment opportunities but also to confirm their plan to invest in different business sectors in a number of regions in Indonesia.

“They will come not merely to get first hand information. They have expressed their seriousness to invest in Indonesia,” he said.

Judging by the Chinese investors` seriousness, he expressed hope the central government as a regulator and private companies as business partners would prepare themselves for the inflow of Chinese investments.

The Chinese investors include oil company PetroChina and Bank of China.

According to a report from the Indonesian Embassy in Beijing, some of the Chinese investors have been operating in Indonesia.

Indonesia and China launched a strategic partnership in 2005 aimed among others at enhancing investment cooperation by increasing mutual understanding and networking among investment authorities, including the private sectors, and by creating more conducive eco-socio-political and legal climate for the flow of investments.

Indonesia hopes to raise its trade volume with China to 30 billion U.S. dollars by 2010.

It is of course expected that the rallies will not scare the would be investors. (*) …> go to article

But here is something worth watching and something I am in total agreement with IF it could be done in a transparent manner and for the benefit of the people of Indonesia.

From People’s Weekly World come this…

Indonesia: No free ride for international corporations

Protests involving unionists, students and women’s groups have engulfed Indonesia. Demands center on sovereignty over natural resources, food and access to education.

Workers demonstrated outside Exxon’s Jakarta offices March 12 for nationalization of oil production.

In the eastern city of Ternat, labor activists joined the Coalition for Women’s Concerns in rallying for state control of mines. Five students were wounded.

In Makassar in Sulawesi, students confronted the PT Inco Company, notorious for land evictions and pollution of land and waters.

Hundreds demonstrated in North Sumatra, Maumere, and Palu City during March. The Reuters report attributes a leading role in the protests to the National Liberation Party of Unity and the National Student League for Democracy. …>go to article

 Finally we get to religion and politics…

From Spero News

Playing with fire in Indonesia
Tuesday, April 29, 2008

By Walter Lohman

The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) is Indonesia’s version of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is focused, like no other party, on the battle of ideas. And it is on a roll. In the 2004 national elections, it won 45 out of 550 seats in the Indonesian lower house (DPR), captured the speakership of the joint assembly (MPR), and joined the government with three cabinet seats. At the local level, largely out of the national and international spotlight, it has won 88 out of 149 elections.

Gambling with Indonesia’s Future

The Indonesian political elite know who they are dealing with. They are simply gambling. They believe they can turn the PKS’s success to their own advantage-whether ultimately to the good of the national interest or their own personal interests-while simultaneously containing their aims. One cannot help but imagine comparisons to Sukarno’s effort 40 years ago to balance the advantages and influence of the communists. His manipulations ended in epic disaster for the country.

Rather than jockeying for partnership with the PKS, mainline politicians would be better advised to spend their time addressing the real grievances that fuel support for radical opposition: corruption, poor public services, poverty, and the perceived lack of real political choice. And the United States should do what it can to help, whether with resources, economic opportunity, or just honest advice.

Where Indonesia may be headed in the long term is of concern to the United States for many reasons. Americans are not opposed to a role for religion in the public square, as any perusal of American history will attest. There is no reason that faith and liberty cannot flourish together. This matters to Americans because, in a world that accepts this as truism, we are all safer and our rights are more secure. By the same token, we know that religious intolerance and government coercion on behalf of one particular set of religious beliefs are precursors of a wider tyranny and, ultimately, insecurity. …> go to article

At this point I think it would be proper to end with something from Jakartass regarding the increasingly volatile situation with Ahmadiyah.  But first one might want to consider the words below after checking  this link to Indonesian Matters.

“I am now witnessing a darkening intolerance going hand-in-hand with the deepening of Indonesian democracy is sad. Although some, such as Rima Fauzi argue that the alarming increase of intolerance among people of different groups and religions … could be the beginning of Indonesia’s journey into medieval times, I tend to disagree.

And this is in spite of such outrages as the burning of a mosque belonging to a supposedly heretical Muslim sect, Ahmadiyah, by a mob of presumably underemployed hooligans. That the government is being urged to ban the sect, founded over a hundred years ago, and that SBY should ignore Article 28 (1) of the Constitution which guarantees the right to worship the god (or gods?) of one’s choosing is an indication that there is currently little focus on the problems facing this country other than the here and now. The recent ‘anti-pornography’ bans on dangdut singers, the suggestion that masseuses should wear chastity belts, are surely just signs of sexual immaturity. (Those men who are so easily discomforted in the presence of women should be ones put under lock and key.)

Society has yet to learn how to make its way in the world following Suharto’s abdication ten years ago. Having been bottle-fed from birth, and punished, often brutally, by Suharto’s New Order, Indonesia’s emerging democracy is barely past the toddler stage. Children of just ten years old are rarely able to think beyond their immediate concerns and still tend to say still ‘gimme, gimme’. This accounts both for the gross consumerism and the lack of awareness that others have a right to personal space.

If you think about motorists with their shiny cars disregarding pedestrians and ignoring the white lines painted on the roads in order to rush into the next bottleneck, you get the picture. It’s just like children with toys which they won’t allow others to play with. Readers of the local news are well-aware that it is the so-called élite who are generally caught with their pants down and their hands outstretched. They are unable to offer true leadership because they have always been sheepish followers.

Yet it is the children, the next generation, that we have to look to for guidance. If they can see through the lies which their indoctrinated teachers and parents give them, and that older generations have shown little regard for the future well-being of their successors, then maybe, hopefully, the youth of today won’t fuck things up so much when it’s their turn to operate the levers of power.

I believe the world can be made a better place before it’s too late and that the majority of today’s children offer the hope and tolerance which Indonesia sorely needs.

But then, I remain an unashamed idealist.

And you?”

Sorry for such a long post.  Just pretend you were in a traffic jam of news.

 Trisakti Monument, Trisakti University, Jakarta

Turun ke Jalan!

This is the third part of my review of Chapter 4, The Violence of Categories, in Abidin Kusino’s book Behind the Post Colonial Architecture, urban space and political cultures.

I end where Kusno begins: the economic crisis of 1997-1998, the student demonstrations, and the fall of Soeharto. In this coming month of May the tenth anniversary of those events which took place in Jakarta will pass.

Ten years ago Jakarta was in the midst of sever economic crisis resulting from property speculation and overvaluation, systemic corruption of the banking sector, systemic corruption in the government, devaluation of the rupiah, and the weariness of 32 years of Soeharto rule. It has been said that during this economic crisis the poverty rate increased by 300%. Thousands of people were without work. Political discourse descended to the street.

Ten years ago the university students were in the streets protesting for human rights and economic justice, for what they called “reformasi”.

What crackled in the background were violent riots and the deaths of perhaps as many as fifteen hundred people.

Ten years ago Jakarta was burning.

Kusno emphasizes two violent incidences in Jakarta at this time, the first was the student protests culminating in the shooting deaths by the Indonesian army of four students from Trisakti University and second the violent riots which followed and which emerged from the street.

Kusno: “Soon after the shooting, major rioting broke out in about 50 places in metropolitan Jakarta. The main targets were Indonesians of Chinese descent. For more than 35 hours, the “underclass” of Jakarta, from which the student distanced themselves, ran amok, burning and looting places that apparently belonged to Chinese Indonesians. This took place regardless of the presence of the police and military who apparently allowed the riots to occur”.

The downfall of the regime was close at hand and because this is Java there was some mystery in this violence as well. People took advantage of the violence to settle old scores. Some have reported direct government involvement in inciting to riot. The violence was such that no one knew what was going on, who was behind it, where it was coming from, and where it was going. For a real good firsthand account of this and other events in Indonesia that were taking place during this time I highly recommend Richard Lloyd Perry’s book In the Time of Madness: Indonesia on the Edge of Chaos.

Two categories emerge out of these events, “student protestors” and “underclass rioters”.

Kusno: “These two overlapping instances immediately appeared as the unspoken frame work of events in the Indonesian media, thereby reinforcing the categories of violence that were already in place”.

Kusno’s questions are these.

“Why are two difference bodies of protest constituted in one city: the “student ” (and behind them the national media) and the “massa” (considered by the national media as “perusuh”, a term for those who “lost their self control and sense of morality” as a result of the “immediate situation” of the riot)? How are these categories produced? And more particularly, what is the relation of these categories to the ways in which the space of the city is constructed?”

Answers to those questions are discussed in part one and part two of Jakarta (streets of fear).

Perhaps those events at Trisakti are remembered most clearly while is the violence of the street has been lost to a collective amnesia, as Peter Nas suggests.

Still, after the initial protests at Trisakti University and the street riots the scene shifted to Jalan Sudirman, Semanggi, Senayan, and the Parliament Building.

This is the subject of Taking the Streets: Activism and Memory Work in Jakarta, Doreen Lee, Indonesian Studies Working Papers, No. 3, September 2007, University of Sydney.

From Lee:

“The discourse of public space in Indonesia contains both the anxieties and the hopes of the social classes affected by this idea of ‘public space’ and what it promises.

The first idea of public space takes place in the interior zone of a shopping mall, shaped by middle-class ideas of comfort and safety, an idea which operates against the fear of the hot, dusty, and dangerous streets. The second and more recent development, the revival of street politics, uses these dislocations to its advantage, as activists use the street to gain proximity to the rakyat (the People) and to disseminate their political rhetoric in a most spectacular fashion. The city is the setting for these contestations for public space by different groups, made up of multiple and heterogeneous components, which nonetheless approach the street with a shared sense of its wild possibilities. One could say that a metonymy is being established, where increasingly the conditions of the street have come to represent the city.

Sudirman, as well as the destination points of the Semanggi Cloverleaf bridge and the Parliamentary Building at Senayan, became sites of physical outbreaks of violence, with rubber bullets, teargas, water cannons, and batons deployed by the state security forces, and molotovs and rocks thrown back by student demonstrators. This paper takes up one of these addresses and the events marked by its name: Semanggi, the gathering point of the Student Movement during the mass demonstrations of 1998 and 1999. 13 November 1998: The First Semanggi Tragedy. At the gates of Atma Jaya Catholic University, a crowd of student demonstrators and ordinary people protesting the Parliamentary Special Assembly (Sidang Istimewa) were fired upon by state troops. Fifteen reported killed,6 and more than 100 demonstrators hospitalised.

The Second Semanggi Incident, 23 September 1999: protesting the ratification of a new emergency act giving the military unprecedented power, 6 people were killed. In both cases, the military denied issuing live bullets to their soldiers (van Dijk 2001: 453). By now, 8 years on, the violence of the events of Semanggi I and II have attained a finished quality. Finished but unresolved. What happened on that major thoroughfare, Semanggi?

In 1998 Indonesia felt these political reverberations; the feet of hundreds of thousands of demonstrators hitting the street in different cities throughout the archipelago. The call was ‘Turun ke Jalan!’, ‘Descend to the Streets!’. The most dramatic and well-documented of these demonstrations culminated in the violent encounters between state armed forces and student-led demonstrators in Semanggi”…

Nas and Pratiwo argue in The Streets of Jakarta: fear, trust, and amnesia in urban development. University of Leiden. Leiden, that “This concept of fear, as we have described it, has shaped the social and physical environment of Jakarta. It dominates the streets and the mental maps of the streets people construct in their heads. The old gated communities that came into existence during the colonial era and the Soeharto period have been complemented by new ones of a simpler type: the abundance of steel gates that close off the many small roads to the kampongs, such as at Jalan Gadjah Mada. These gates have recently been added to the large gated communities, such as the new towns in the periphery of Jakarta, and the condominiums of the super rich, for example Taman Anggrek. Moreover, the new architecture of malls almost without front windows, or just very thick glass blocks, can be considered a new trend which will probably lead to experiments with malls completely walled on the outside, with windows on the inside in order to receive natural light from an inner courtyard. Spanish architecture could be taken as an example for this new architecture. However, apart from the ‘architecture of fear’ and the ‘planning of trust’, the desire for amnesia is also very strong. People try to forget what happened in 1965 and 1998 and during the many other riots in between. They do not want to talk about the victims and their fate. However, their mental maps still include information on where to go and where not to go, as well as where to contact each other in case of danger. The mental maps of the streets of Jakarta are burdened by both fear and trust, but in order to continue daily street life this is balanced by a strong drive toward amnesia”.

Lee: “The uncertainty of the streets, they claim, has become a part of daily life, as Jakartans retain a mental map of escape routes. People connect with each other to obtain information via remote technologies (cell-phones, radio, and for a time, high-frequency walkie-talkies) out of a sense of flight from danger. Rumors of mass riots and theft feed these uncertainties, creating urban myths and material changes to the architecture of the city, with gates and walls demarcating ever more sharply the lines between the street and non-street spaces.

If, as Nas and Pratiwo argue in The Streets of Jakarta that “ordinary (middle class) Jakartans are compelled to talk about the 1998 riots and to point out the ruins of that violence, their mental maps are of a variety driven by rumour and distance from the event. The middle class subjects of Nas and Pratiwo’s article are devoid of encounters with the street and the productive spaces of alternative politics contained in the activist accounts of that same time period. But this disparity in understanding arises as an effect of the street itself, where rumors of crime and violence bring with them a recognition and rejection of the otherness of those who belong on the streets: namely, the mad, the destitute, and the criminal. Contra to the singularity of ‘I was there’, the repetition of the riot stories say, ‘it could have been me -because I am middle class’. Such avoidance of the street plays out in the urban development of malls, as the upwardly-mobile educated and political classes build fortresses of ‘public space’ that the rakyat cannot afford, even if they might enter to look…

…Shopping malls are ‘like prescriptive institutions such as civil service training institutes’ (Young 1999: 69), where urban sophistication is learned and practised. In Young’s observation, malls in Jakarta are being described as public parks, and serve the function of public space, drawing both the rich and the poor. Note his description of the burgeoning of luxury malls in Jakarta in the late 1990s: In the most opulent malls of central Jakarta (such as Plaza Indonesia, Plaza Menteng, Sarinah Store), or in prestige locations like Pondok Indah, Pasaraya Blok M or Citraland Mall, one can spend hours walking past a seemingly endless array of specialist boutique shops, large national and international department stores, supermarkets, banks, franchised food outlets and the like…Yet, even here, there is an admixture of teenagers in school uniform, sightseers, couples on dates in the restaurants and fast-food outlets…What is being studied most assiduously are the elements of middle-class style”.

And after ten years from “reformasi”?

Lee concludes that, “Malls create a sense-repertoire that can be replicated across the archipelago. While these ‘academies’ of class socialization enable the rakyat class of people to experience the lifestyle of the upwardly mobile, the experience of the mall itself encourages a specific uniformity. Well-dressed youth are the target audience of these malls. It is a uniformity that points to a standard experience and a standard fear; the expansion of air-conditioned sanctuaries is ‘closely connected to middle-class anxieties over the worsening street crimes in Jakarta’.

Coterminous with the development of gated communities, the malling of Jakarta provides a safe haven for the retreat of the middle class, away from the perceived dangers of the street…

…In Kusumawijaya’s words, the mall attracts the middle class by drawing them away from the street, so that the street becomes something to be experienced only from the window of a car”.

The mall may seem a digression in this discussion, but it has emerged discursively as part of measures taken by urban planners and the middle class (consumers) in reaction to the dangers of the streets. The Mall as anti-street presents new challenges to the memorializing of radical politics associated with Semanggi”.

Here again is Abeyasekere’s words. They echo down the long history of Jakarta.

“…from colonial times onwards, governments have sought to impose an inappropriate façade on Jakarta, a façade which was unable to conceal the sprawl of the city.

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.

The central fallacy which has persisted from 1619 to the present is that it is possible to create a city for the privledged few, cut off from the countryside of the majority poor”.

The evidence, of which I have very direct experience, is that this fallacy is still alive and well and thriving in Jakarta at this very moment.

Taman Anggrek, Jakarta 

West Jakarta

I have left Jakarta. Three weeks of eating the Jakarta air and being saturated with advertising (promising much but delivering little) has been interesting to say the least.  But just in time anyway for MENTAL DETOX WEEK.

At my family’s house, just outside of Depok, TelKom Indonesia, has been out of order for the last six days. I had internet access on one of those six days.  But as my family says (almost in a chorus) “well, you know, that’s Indonesia”.

I have come away with over 500 photographs and 17 short videos.  Some of those, after I process it all (both mentally and physically) will filter down into the future postings of Jakarta Urban Blog. That in itself is worth returning for, yes?

In the meantime I have a layover in Seoul, Korea. Here there is high speed internet 24/7. It is free. But, alas it is not Jakarta.  

In any event to keep myself occupied I am posting the second part of my review of Chapter Four: The Violence of Categories: Urban Space and the Making of the National Subject in Abidin Kusno’s book Behind the Post-Colonial: Architecture, urban space and political cultures in Indonesia.

THE PROTECTING EYES OF THE FATHER, THE DEATH OF THE STREET, AND THE BIRTH OF THE NATIONAL FAMILY

Kusno: “The New Order of Suharto, however, did not legitimize its presence by merely fabricating the threat of “internal” others, initiating the danger of the street and providing security measures. Instead, a second point of tensions associated with a desire to form a new collective subject that represented “modernity” complicated these techniques of social control through the heavy-handed display of power and the spectacle of punishment”.

In 1974 the first student protests, demonstration, and urban youth riots occurred. The regime was beset not only with attempting to bridge the rapidly widening gap between the rich and the poor but also to satisfy demands for upward mobility.

Here again Jakarta would be used as a “symbol of the nation” but not to instill a national or revolutionary spirit as that of the Sukarno generation. This time it would be used to form, as Kusno states “national subjects who were both obedient and “modern”. Suharto’s style was to “guide from behind” like an ever-watchful parent. He is the “smiling general” representing the ideology of “development”. This idea as Kusno states “had its sense of authentic Javanese wisdom in which the children of the family are guided from behind to their destined place. The lesson has been that they know their place, do not get lost, or go astray”.

And here is what happens.

Kuson: “This task, of preventing national subjects from going astray, was perhaps first practiced by the famous Governor of Jakarta, Ali Sadikin, a Sukarno protégé who also worked under Suharto from 1966-1977. From the beginning of his administration, Sadikin found himself dealing with what he came to perceive as the problem of “urban excess”, namely, the migration of people who lacked “urban rationality” to the capital city. Under his tenure, Jakarta was given the title of “metropolitan” and “modernity” was defined in relation to the spaces occupied by the urban poor who were then subjected to the strong arm of the law”.

Here is Sadikin’s twisted logic, “The execution of law enforcement is homage to the poor people (‘rakyat kecil’). They are those with no skill, who are lacking consciousness of the law, who build their houses along riverbanks, along railways, under electric poles, along the green belt, those who sleep under bridges or in the park, or use pedestrian ways and streets for vending, those who ride ‘becak‘ (pedicab).”

The urban problems Sadikin lists are still present today in Jakarta but his war on the becak was a success. Becak, nearly synonymous with Jakarta and Indonesia, were confiscated under force, gathered up, and dumped into the ocean.

Kusno cites Sadikin, “This form of transportation, used by the poor, was too slow for “the economy (which) should move faster” and furthermore, “it is hard to administer, and the leadership simply does not want rustic-looking people pushing bikes around in their capital city”.

Kusno: “Here the memories of the populist politics of the previous regimes and the social environment of the poor became interchangeable. Both became “non-modern” elements in the city. For Sadikin, the capital of the nation must be represented as modern so that “potential troubles” embedded on the streets and in environments constructed as “non-modern”, could be suppressed, eliminated, and transformed”.

FLYING OVER THE KAMPUNG: CLASSIFYING NATIONAL SUBJECTS

Kusno: “Central to the state’s concern about discipline and order in the city, therefore, are the overlapping interests between the government’s promotion of its ideology of “development” on the one hand and the increasing numbers of the new generation of New Order “middle class”, for want of a better word, concerned with their identity, on the other. Here elevated highways occupy a special position, not least because of their “visibility”, like a giant roller coaster stretching over the capital city. The elevated highways are not just a means for de-congesting metropolitan Jakarta; they are also a sign of progress for developmentalist regime that measures its achievement through the way the city is represented…

Driving through the elevated highways suggests an experience of flying over the top of the city, escaping from its congested roads and leaving behind the “lower” classes who are routed through the crowded street at ground level. From this suspended driveway, the details of the urban fabric of Jakarta’s streets and kampung, the poor urban neighborhoods, are transformed into a series of blurred images, giving a sense of detachment from the “worldly” place below. The elevated highway is thus a system of representation that allows some forms and spaces to be visualized and others to be concealed. It is a kind of fluency provided by the city to create a dream-state of upward mobility in order to overcome the contradictions of “development”…

…this infrastructure is not merely a representation of the dominant class. It also helps to constitute the general populace by way of city buses that occasionally travel on the elevated highways. On these occasions, the relatively poor urbanites are also provided with a similar new experience of the city, but with different political implications. Here urban space is constructed to define and regulate both the privileged and the poor. They are both celebrated and constituted by the urban infrastructure, constructed to assemble crowds for uplifting purposes…

…This emphasis on the centrality of vision in architecture and urban space constitutes a phantasmagoria of display of the achievement of the New Order in embracing commodity capitalism. Along with the highway net work, it reaches its apogee in the design of department stores, high-rise office towers and real estate housing, all of which are seen to provide a field of vision available for the well-to-do. On the other side, the majority of the poor that live behind this façade, surrounded by images of a metropolis, are conditioned by the visible proof of “historical progress”. From pleasure, alienation and wonder that are derived from spectacle alone a society of consumption is produced (emphasis mine)”.

There is a punch line to this which I will attempt to deliver in Jakarta (fear of the street, part 3)…

There are few green spaces in this city. My Green Map of Jakarta lists only 38 sites. Most are small fragments of parks of just a hectare or two or less or they are attached to hotels.

Street vendors, prostitutes, drug addicts, the poor, and the homeless crowd much the public green space. My map shows no connectivity between any of the green spaces dispersed over metropolitan Jakarta.

Of the two largest green spaces listed on my map one is the campus of the University of Indonesia (more in Depok than Jakarta), which is actually quite pleasant, the other is the amusement park at Ancol and is not so pleasant.

However, there is one green space that is quite remarkable. It is number one on the list and is called Cagar Alam Muara Angke.

It is described as follows:

“Muara Angke, Jakarta Barat/Utara. Hutan rawa bakau yang awalnya seluas 70 ha saat ini semakin menyempit. Sebagian rawa telah berubah menjadi empang, tempat pemancingan ikan mujahir dan bandeng, yang popular. Jalan setapak berupa panggung papan (boarwalk) merupakan sarana untuk mengamati monyet; burung gereja, bangau putih, pecuk hitam, dan belibis. Sayang, sampah liar banyak berserakan”.

First, and most amazingly, Muara Angke IS IN Jakarta. It is tucked away between a very garish neo-imperial-roman-housing-tract-shopping-mall for the super rich (only idiots with bad taste and a lot a money need apply) one one side of the river and a poor (this is understated because I cannot think of the word for it) fishing village on the other side of the river.

At Muara Angke there is a new boardwalk running about 1000 meters into a river delta of old mangrove and nipa palm forest. There are open water lagoons, and birds, including ibis, heron, woodpeckers, swallows, and flycatchers, to name a few.

The place is mute with the sounds of the city and loud with the songs of birds. I watched a flycatcher about three feet from the end of my nose go through several renditions of a very nice song indeed before flitting away into the bush. Rather stunning after a full afternoon of Jakarta traffic.

In this place you can actually feel the physical relief of setting your eyes on something green, alive, and entirely non-human.

Muara Angke is just a tiny fragment, some 70 hectares in size, of what the coastline once looked like, oh so long ago.

And here there are monkeys. Not monkeys in a zoo. Not monkeys tied to an end of a rope dancing for a few rupiah. Real monkeys. Wild, free, monkeys. Monkeys in Jakarta.

There are crocodiles (up two three meters in length). Big snakes. Butterflies. Here is everything Jakarta is not.

detail from above

Detail from Shiva, the destroyer and god of bad habits, The National Museum, Jakarta

Here, yet again, is another Mad-Max-Road-Warrior vehicle looking like a chopped and heavily modified Vespa… for two. This was parked when I came across it so I do not know if it runs now or how fast it goes or if it is loud. Probably does all three or did at one time. And you would definitely take your chances in that second seat.

What is striking is that I felt like I had seen this before.

And yes, indeed, I had. Compare the photo detail of the rear fender with the detail from the base of the ninth century statue of the Hindu god Shiva, the destroyer and god of bad habits, that I took at the National Museum. As much as Indonesia is purported to be a Muslim country these images are not coincidental. The Hindu gods are still alive and well in Java.

Friends

A city really is a collective of individuals. Some, a few here, have it better than others. Some, most, are just trying to make a life for themselves getting by the best they can in the circumstances they find themselves in. This city can break your heart a thousand times a day. It can madden you with its indifference, frustrate you with its poor planning and ramshackle condition, drive you crazy with talking, talking, talking, with out anything being done. Its poverty is stunning. Its wealth sickening.

How do you know Jakarta? I have written about some of those ways here in Jakarta Urban Blog. 

Right now, in this moment, someone is singing a beautiful song just outside the room in which I am writing this post. Roosters are crowing.  The kampung cats are looking for breakfast.

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words.  I think a smile is worth ten thousand.