Jakarta (Parliament of the Street)

Photo: AFP

Transparency International has released its Corruption Perceptions Index  for 2009.

The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) table shows a country’s ranking and score, the number of surveys used to determine the score, and the confidence range of the scoring.

The rank shows how one country compares to others included in the index. The CPI score indicates the perceived level of public-sector corruption in a country/territory.

The CPI is based on 13 independent surveys. However, not all surveys include all countries. The surveys used column indicates how many surveys were relied upon to determine the score for that country.

The confidence range indicates the reliability of the CPI scores and tells us that allowing for a margin of error, we can be 90% confident that the true score for this country lies within this range.

In short New Zealand ranks at the least corrupt and Somalia the most corrupt.

Indonesia ranks in the bottom third keeping company with Algeria, Egypt, Mali, and Togo. That is 111 out of 180 countries surveyed (a 2.8 out of 10 with 10 being the least corrupt).

Marginally better than last year’s ranking of 126. Still, not so great for a nation with the largest economy in Southeast Asia.

Street parliament

The Jakarta Post | Fri, 11/13/2009 9:00 AM | Opinion

“The drawn-out battle between the KPK antigraft body and the National Police and the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) has provoked an unprecedented public outcry not seen since the 1998 political upheaval that brought Soeharto down.

Never before has an outpouring of sympathy snowballed in such a way toward a single agency. The public perceives the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to be a political victim, following a series of attacks on it by the two powerful law enforcement agencies. They believe these agencies would like to eliminate the KPK precisely because of its impressive achievement in stemming corruption.

Two of the KPK deputy leaders, who were charged with abuse of power, bribery and extortion, were suspended and later detained by the police without adequate evidence. Strong public pressure forced the police to release them, although the police denied the release had any link to the public outcry.

The two suspended deputies still have to regularly report to the police.

This week’s legal tussle, widely covered by the media, has increasingly shown that the police have conspired with the AGO to undermine the KPK.

For weeks, people have held public rallies in big cities, performed musical and theatrical plays and gathered forces in the virtual world. More than a million Facebookers have thrown their support behind the KPK.

Two things set this support apart from past rallies. Unlike the reform movement around 1998 that brought autocrat Soeharto down, this public pressure has not been spearheaded by university students. The students still take part in the rallies but an increasing number of members of the middle class have joined them.

This encouraging development is reminiscent of political rallies before and after the 1998 political earthquake and of rallies in our neighboring countries, such as Thailand and the Philippines, where professionals and white-collar workers hit the streets to fight for what they believe in. The idea of people power, though remote, is floating…”

From: AFP

Corruption scandal tests Indonesia’s Yudhoyono

By Presi Mandari (AFP) – 1 day ago

JAKARTA — Indonesian leader Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is days away from a decision on a corruption scandal that will test his election pledge to fight rampant graft and possibly define his presidency.

The president is expected to announce next week his response to the recommendations of an independent legal team set up to look into an alleged plot by law enforcers to frame senior officials at the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

The alleged conspiracy, exposed by KPK wiretap recordings played in court earlier this month, has shocked the nation with the extent of the apparent collusion of police and prosecutors — the “court mafia” — to pervert justice.

Yudhoyono is under extreme public pressure to accept the fact-finding team’s recommendations — that corruption charges against two KPK deputy heads be dropped and sanctions levelled against top police and prosecutors.

“The president will be staring his own political suicide in the face if he refuses to follow up fully on the recommendations,” English-language daily The Jakarta Post said in an editorial Wednesday.

“His choices are limited: defend the corrupt officials, or defend the people who are deeply hurt by their brutal behavior.”

Anger erupted after wiretap recordings captured senior police and prosecutors discussing ways to apparently frame the two commissioners.

The anti-graft investigators were arrested last month but were released after the KPK’s recordings were played in court on November 3.

The crisis comes just a month into Yudhoyono’s second term, which was won by a landslide in July in part due to pledges to tackle corruption.

Despite his clear mandate, the liberal ex-general has insisted he will not be “pushed” into doing anything that could be construed as overstepping his constitutional authority.

Anti-corruption activists say the longer he dithers the more ordinary Indonesians, and foreign investors deemed crucial to Indonesia’s long-term economic growth, will start to question his motives.

“The president should understand that democratic leaders do not fall because of the scandal, but because of the attempt to cover up,” said Bambang Harymurti, a senior editor of Tempo news magazine.

He said Yudhoyono had been slow to grasp the extent of public anger over the alleged police war on the KPK, which has seen street protests and over 1.3 million people join a pro-KPK group on social networking site Facebook.

The president has also been forced to swat back suspicions that he himself was a supporter of plans to weaken the KPK, with the wiretaps containing several mentions that the plot had the blessing of “RI-1″, code for Yudhoyono.

Some analysts have linked the suspected anti-KPK conspiracy to election finance for Yudhoyono’s centrist Democratic Party and a 710-million-dollar government bailout of a failing bank last year.

“More and more rumours are circulating about the president,” Denny Januar Ali, an analyst from pollsters the Indonesian Survey Circle said.

“He might have reasons for not giving clarification, but his inaction will make the public believe that he’s involved.”

Yudhoyono has staunchly denied any involvement in the alleged plot against the KPK and pledged to dismantle what he called the “court mafia” within the first 100 days of his second term.

But his party has opposed parliamentary calls for a committee of inquiry to look into the Bank Century bailout, saying — perhaps naively — that if there is any suspicion of wrongdoing it should be investigated by the police.

The head of the fact-finding team, lawyer Adnan Buyung Nasution, said that while it was obvious the case against the anti-graft commissioners was flimsy, Yudhoyono’s ambivalence is likely the result of caution rather than cunning.

“I think he might still be thinking which direction he should take… he’s very reserved (and believes as) a matter of principle that the president should not intervene on the due process of law,” Nasution said.

Nasution said there was no proven link between the plot to bring down the KPK and any scandal involving Bank Century.

“Through our knowledge, so far, from all the facts we’ve studied we don’t see a direct relationship between Bank Century and the president or with his campaign organisation,” he said.

“The rumours have been very strong but to this extent I cannot see any hard facts.”

 

Saya cicak berani lawan buaya…

Jakarta (cast of characters)

Jakarta, May 27, 2008  Photo: AFP

The Indonesian Declaration of Independence was officially proclaimed at 10.00 a.m. sharp on Friday, August 17, 1945.

As the 63rd anniversary of free Indonesia approaches perhaps it might be appropriate to review some recent history.

The curtain rises in the year of 1996.

The stage: Jakarta.

As in a Greek tragedy there is an odd but compelling cast of characters.

There are kings and princes, sycophants, embezzlers, corrupt ministers, murderers, bigots, cronies, mutes, the blind, back stabbers, oracles, and a few (very few) heroes.

There is a youthful angry chourus.

And the curtain rises with the words, “Raid PDI Headquarters”.

So begins Reformasi: The Struggle for Power in Post-Soeharto Indonesia  by Kevin O’Rourke. Allen & Unwin. 2002. 512 pages.

“Kevin O’Rourke graduated from Havard University before moving to Jakarta, where he has worked for eight years as an investment banker, consultant and political risk analyst. Throughout the height of the political transition, he scrutinised events first-hand by authoring the Van Zorge Report, an indepedent bi-weekly journal on politics and economics”… so says the overly polite blurb on the back cover of his book. 

Of course that was written in 2002, the year in which his book was published and where the narrative of Reformasi ends.

A check of the Van Zorge Report’s own cast of characters does not turn up his name but that still does not prevent me from wishing I had the $750.00 US for a year subscription or an offer to work in their Jakarta office.

” ‘Raid PDI Headquarters.’ That simple command, issued by President Soeharto to his security forces in July 1996, triggered the extraordinary political power struggle that would consume Indonesian for years to come.”

The fourth paragraph reads, “After several years, and after the loss of thousands of lives, the forces of change would triumph and Indonesia would become the world’s third largest democracy – or at least so it would appear. In fact, appearances can be misleading in Indonesia, and triumphs can prove ephemeral.”

And that, in short, is what the book is about. You could leave it at that except  for the next 416 pages a riveting and detailed narrative of events of epic proportions which occured over an six year period of Indonesian history unfolds.  It is a narrative that is written so well about a subject so compelling that it is hard to put the book down.

The characters are striking and the events terrible and bizarre. No fiction writer could ever imagine the scenario.

Beginning with Cedana Inc. and the KKN (corruption, cronyism, and nepotism) economy of Indonesia under Soeharto, O’Rourke works through the events of the economic crisis of 1997, the  corrupt banking practices which allowed Cedana Inc. and friends to loot the Indonesian treasury for years; the Indonesian university students who demanded democratic reforms, reformasi, many of which were wounded or killed in demonstrations at Trisakti and Semanggi; the Jakarta riots, a twisted and manipulated spree of looting, arson, and rape; the fall of Soeharto; at every turn violence on a scale which had not been seen in Indonesia since the 1965 coup and communist purges which brought Soeharto to power. 

From the streets of Jakarta to Aceh to East Timor to the Dyaks of Kalimatan to Maluku to the mysterious killings of dukun in East Java, Indonesian was stricken with a stunning series of horrific events.  

All the while the machinations (and there were multitudes of them!) of Habibie, Megawati (whose PDI offices were raided), Abdurrahman Wahid, and Amien Rais are played out for the public like a shadow puppet play.

Soeharto drifts in and out, on and off stage. He casts a long shadow even in the pitch black of night. His power is like magic. His money is like magic. This is the game. It threatens to swallow the nation.

Reformasi is divided into four parts: Part I, Hubris of the Elite; Part II, Tyranny of the Elite; and Part III, Melee of the Elite; and Epilouge.  There is a preface, a map of Indonesia, a map of Jakarta, extensive notes, bibliography, glossary (you need it for sure), notes on the text, photos, and index. There are also Appendices: Appendix I, Rupiah Exchange Rate (1996-2001), which tells its own story, and Appedix II, Short Biographies, which also tells a few stories.

There are 109 short biographies. It’s not a Who’s Who of Indonesia and I don’t think it accounts for everyone mentioned in the book but it does give a good outline of the main players. 

Let’s take a look at four, in order of appearance. Biographies are referenced to 2002.

“MAKARIM, Zacky  career Special Forces intelligence officer who helped perpetrate the PDI Headquarters raid in 1996 as head of Directorate A of the intelligence agency, Bais; subsequently promoted to major-general and given command of Bais, which he commanded during the the riots of May 1998; entrusted by Wiranto in 1999 with paramount authority over military operations in East Timor. as commander of the Taskforce on the East Timor Consultation (P3TT); named by both the Human Rights Commission and the attorney general’s office as a suspected perpetrator of crimes against humanity.

SOEHARTO, Tommy  also known as Hutomo Mandala Putra. Shoeharto’s third son; owner of the Humpass Group with holdings in shipping, manufacturing and energy. Embroiled in controversy over rent seeking facilities such as the clove monopoly and the Timor national car program. Accused by President Wahid of fomenting violence in retaliation for efforts to prosecute his father. Sentenced to jail in October 2000 but escaped custody and became a fugitive; finally captured in 2001.  (He was implicated in and directly involved with assassination and bombings).

SUBIANTO, Prabowo  aristocrat and son-in-law of Soeharto; Special Forces commander responsible for abducting pro-democracy activists in 1998; promoted to lieutenant-general and Kostrad commander in March 1998; blamed Wiranto for masterminding the May 1998 riots; discharged in August 1998. (Not only was he responsible for abducting pro-democracy activists there is testimony of torture and “disapperances” under his command. His claim about Wiranto is on the mark. )

WIRANTO  Central Java native who pursued a lacklustre army career before being noticed by senior generals in the 1980s; brought tp Jakarta and became presidential adjutant from 1989 to 1993; revolved through most pf the army’s most strategic posts, in rapid succession, from 1994 to 1998; appointed armed forces commander in February 1998. Touted as Soeharto’s anointed successor, but acquiesced to the president’s overthrow in May 1998; vowed to protect Soeharto and his family. While he served as armed forces commander in 1998-99 various elements of the military perpetrated the Trisakti shootings, the Semanggi I killings, the Bantiqiyah maasacre, clashes with police in Maluku , the East Timor scorched-earth campaign, the Semanggi II killing and other assorted abuses. Promoted to co-ordinating minister for politics and security in October 1999; after a tense standoff with President Wahid, sacked in January 2000. Named by both the Human Rights Commission and the attorney general’s office as a suspected perpetrator of crimes against humanity.”

And where are these people today?

16 months ago: Former Indonesian Chief of National Intelegent Agency (BIN) Zacky Anwar Makarim attends a hearing held by Indonesian-East Timor Truth and Friendship Commission in Jakarta, 28 March 2007. The Indonesia-East Timor Truth and Friendship Commission is due to hear from military officials and expects to collect testimony from 70 people overall.

 E Timor CASE CLOSED after CTF submits final report

Nusa Dua, Bali ANTARA News 6/15/2008 – The human rights violation case prior to and after East Timor`s independence referendum in 1999 was officially closed after the Commission for Truth and Friendship (CTF) submitted its report to the both governments.

“With CTF`s final report, the human rights violation case before and after the 1999 referendum is closed and would not be brought to legal process,” Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Hassan Wirajuda said here Tuesday. …> go to article

 

Soeharto`s son counter-sues in Indonesia graft case

Jakarta ANTARA News 8/13/2008 – The youngest son of former president Soeharto formally denied corruption allegations Tuesday and filed a counter-suit against the Indonesian government seeking millions of dollars in damages, lawyers said.

The counter-suit was filed in the central Jakarta district court at the same time as Hutomo “Tommy” Mandala Putra responded in writing to the finance ministry accusations of corruption.

The ministry alleges Tommy” illegally sold off assets from troubled car importer PT Timor to five of his companies at a discount to avoid paying off state loans made to Timor during the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

In a document received by AFP, defence lawyer Otto Cornelius Kaligis said the accusations were “legally baseless” as Tommy’s PT Timor had no connection with the companies listed as defendants.

He said the finance ministry had brought the allegations to court to justify maintaining a freeze of his assets in Guernsey, a British crown dependency off the French coast.

“It’s obvious that they want to use this as evidence for the Guernsey court to continue extending a freeze on a BNP Paribas account belonging to my client,” he said.

“We see the accusations as defamation against my client, so we have decided to countersue,” he said, adding they were seeking some 21.8 million dollars in compensation from the finance ministry.

They also demanded a public apology to be issued in the local media.

An Indonesian court in February rejected a separate corruption case against Tommy, awarding him 550,000 dollars in a countersuit. …> go to article

 As for Probowo and Wiranto?

  

Wiranto                                            Probowo Subianto

They are candidates for President of Indonesian in 2009.

I sometimes ask my wife about those times and it seems, even now, she cannot believe what she saw and lived through. It was crazy and very scary. To try to make sense of it even harder, especially if you are just trying to survive it all.

I think that O’Rourke does a very good job at making sense of it.  The tone of his narrative is confident. Where he speculates about events and motives his opinions are rooted in long observation and careful investigation.

He tells a good story.

One worth reading and one worth remembering.

 

Support Jakarta Urban Blog

Jakarta (deviantArt, airports, MONAS)

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

MONAS

deviantArt

Before I started to publish Jakarta Urban Blog I came across the deviantART web site while searching for images of Indonesia and Jakarta.  There I found a community of young, creative Indonesian and Jakartan artists, writers, and photographers which has really impressed me. I have used some of their photo images on this site with thier permission and with not ever having been turned down.  Thank you.  Some of my favorite artists and photographers can been see here and I recommend a visit …> go to site 

Or you can go the the deviantArt web site and type in “Indonesia” or “Jakarta” and see for yourself what turns up. You will be surprised and pleased at the talent displayed there.

As I have been sorting through the photographs which I took on my recent visit to Jakarta I have been posting a few on my deviantArt page which I like and might be of interest to my readers. These photographs can be seen here …> go to site

I will be adding more as time allows.

Airports

The flight from Hawaii to Jakarta is long. I have done this three times from Honolulu to Changi, Singapore to Jakarta.  I have come to love to the Changi airport. It is the best designed and most comfortable airport I have seen. I generally love airports anyway. Maybe this is not too politically correct these days but I do have a few weaknesses when it comes to travel.  On two other occasions I have flown Japan Airlines from Honolulu to Narita to Jakarta.  The service has been very good and the flights comfortable. 

I once flew from Honolulu to Sydney to Denpasar on Quantas. Something I will never do again as the flight time nearly drove me insane and (so sorry) the rudeness of the Austrailians upon landing at Denpasar was a little over the top. But they were, after all, there to party or whatever. The flight back to Sydney was even more rude as most of the cabin was drunk to put it bluntly.

  

Incehon, Korea

This last time I flew Korean Air from Honolulu to Inchon to Jakarta. Nice new planes, good food, but the layovers not too long and not too pleasant. The airport at Inchon is some space age steel and glass design that looks like it came out of a Star Wars set. The interior replicates a mall. It is located out in the middle of nowhere on extremely flat ground. By the time I got to Jakarta I was pretty well burned out with the layover time and the jet lag but I do like to antcipate the arrival at Soekarno-Hatta, the smell of kreteks as you walk out of the plane down the ramp and toward customs. 

As I was taking my time enjoying all this a sudden rush of Koreans went by me on the run. Yes, literally running- running fast. What that was about I was soon to find out. I had forgotten about the Visa on Demand line you have to go through before you get to immigration and your baggage and customs.  So, there I was at the end of a line of about one hundred Koreans which had gone running by me like it was some kind of Olympic trial.  But, this IS Indonesia and I had arrived safe and sound so I just waited my turn and hoped my family would not leave before I walked out of customs and on to the street looking for them.

Fortunately they waited. This too is always a good time. I love the action at Soekarno-Hatta. Love to see my family after months and months of not seeing them.  Love to get in the car and the drive over the tol road and out to the house in Citayam.

Then hot tea, cigarettes, and talking, talking, talking until you almost pass out.  But before I passed out they wanted to know what I wanted to do, where did I want to go, what did I want to see. I could only reply, “JAKARTA, JAKARTA, JAKARTA”.  Selamat mallam.

MONAS

 I needed a day to recover and as I was re-orienting myself to the local neigborhood and seeing old friends again I decided that the place to start was the very center of Jakarta. The Monumen Nasional. The National Monument. MONAS.  Start there. Take the elevator to the top and have a look at the city. A good place to start and especially after I found out my brother-in-law, Ovet, had, after years of living in Jakarta, never been to the top of MONAS. He was, after all, a MONAS virgin. Time to fix that as well.

 ”The National Monument combines tradition and modernity in the way Sukarno liked best. Its form harks back to the lingam-yoni sculptures of Indonesia’s Hindu days; its dimensions are based on 17/8/45; and its base contains a museum of Indonesian history, depicting in dioramas scenes in Indonesia’s long evolution towards independent nationhood. Placed in the centre of Jakarta’s huge main square, it managed to dominate that expanse as no other structure ever did, and its gilded flame, visible from afar across the city’s flat, low profile, reminded Jakarta’s citizens and visitor’s of the country’s past and its aspirations for the future”.

-Susan Abeyasekere (Jakarta: A History)

Monument Nasional (MONAS): 137-metre tall Italian marble obelisk topped with a 35kg gold-coated flame. Sometimes known as “Soekarno’s erection”. He probably wouldn’t mind. I am sure he was familiar with the Hindu temple at Candi Sukuh in central Java and knew exactly what he was doing.

  

Candi Sukuh

I use the National Monument as a landmark I can tie myself to give perspective to where I am in the city. I am always looking for it when close to kota and North Jakarta. Though it no longer dominates the skyline as Jakarta’s “flat profile” has changed since Soekarno’s and Abayasekere’s time you can still catch glimpses of it between the high rises as you approach Merdeka Square.

Merdeka Square was fenced during Sadikin’s turn as governor in order keep the riff-raff, the vendors, and the prostitutes out and the (now gone) kijang in. Though there are two very large main gates visitors wishing to visit MONAS must look for a narrow opening on the east side of Merdeka Square. You park your car and then take a long walk toward the monument which works something like a people magnet once you close enough to it. Depending on which way you get lost trying to find the entrance which, of course, is on the opposite (west) side of the monument from where you parked you car, the walk to the MONAS seems mazelike but without the walls.

There is plenty of magic and distractions on the way. The magic is that the price for a bottle of water goes up the closer a thirsty bule gets to it. The distractions can be anything. For example on the day we were there several hundred three-foot tall uniformed schools kids were running around and lining up and running around. And what appeared to be half the Jakarta riot police force dressed in black uniforms were marching around in the mid-day heat. Two inflatable police boats were resting on the ground. This made me wonder if they, the police, knew something I didn’t, regarding the need for a boat at Merdeka Square. You never know.

The entrance is a curiosity in itself. The entrance is a hole in the ground because to get to the monument first you must go underground. It’s part of the mystic. Take the steps down to the long tunnel corridor and take the steps up to ground level to emerge within the aura of the MONAS. There in the distance and up a long flight of stairs, appearing in the side of the yoni, (a Sanskrit word meaning “divine passage”, “place of birth”, womb”) are the great doors of the MONAS.

But before you go up you must go down again or you will not be able to say you have seen the MONAS. Down leads to the very womb of Indonesia’s aspirations for national freedom and self-determination. Down also lead to a huge open cavern and dark cool air.

The dioramas are still there. Well executed but dimly lit they depict a very long string of fights against Dutch colonial tyranny. They are believable because anyone who has read into that history knows beyond a doubt the Dutch were tyrants. Toward the end of what seems a very long story one arrives at the events of the sixties gets the sense that history is being played with here. It seems just not quite right. Sukarno is depicted on his sick bed signing the nation over to the smiling general. Is that how it really happened? Someone should fix that and fix the burned out lights which make some of the diorama scenes nearly illegible.

The open floor is polished reflecting the ceiling lights. Feral cats have found their way down the stairs and haunt the tops of the upper walls. How were they able to get up there? How will they get down? Around one side is a giant Garuda dedicated the principles of Pancasila. There was a new and sort of run down display of Jakarta mass transit routes and a model of what Jakarta might look like in the future curiously showing water taxis picking people up along open the open quays at highrise apartment buildings. Hmm? Is there a hint of something here? Is this Jakarta, the Venice of the Java Sea?

After being well steeped in Indonesian history, you have to go up again to buy your ticket to the top. MONAS has an elevator. I understand the fee for the trip up but this is the only elevator I have experienced where you can buy insurance (optional) before you step in.

Going Up

With tickets in hand you go up again, turn a corner, and queue up. Here people are orderly, stand in line, don’t smoke, follow all the directions given to them by the guards and the cute girls in uniforms who are there to look cute and answer any and all of your questions. The line is solemn and moves slowly. In the line are military cadets with short haircuts in sharp clean uniforms with their sharp goodlooking girlfriends, middle-class Jakartan families, people with nothing better to do, and no foreign tourists (at least not today and then only me).

Finally, you get close enough to see the machine. The doors are small, the elevator is small. There is a sign posted which says “Maximum 11 People” (inluding the young man at the control of the lift). Stand behind the lines and wait for the doors to open. The elevator is empty and leaves one to speculate that there is another elevator to take people down. There are stairs going up to the left and right. Then, in you go with your other ten comrades. There is no sense that you are moving but in about two minutes or so the doors open and there you are. The observation deck of the National Monument.

There is a rush of light and wind and a feeling of relief from being free from the claustrophobic feeling of being jammed into such a small space and from the fact that that the lift didn’t get stuck. Because, you know, if it had gotten stuck it would only have been minutes before total insanity prevailed.

The views are fantatic. Well worth whatever risks that were involved (known or imagined) to get to the top. It was a fine hot day so the air pollution of the city stood out against the sea of the red roofed kampungs and the spiky highrise buildings which stretched off into the horizon in all four directions.

There is a feeling of freedom here. Not just because of the wind and open views from a high vantage but also because the only offcial looking person in the relatively small observation deck was a man smoking kreteks and selling tokens to use for the telescopes.  Being at the top was a sudden release from the formality of going up.  No more solemn history here just shere enjoyment.

Going Down

I had got what I came for. I took some very good photos of the Jakarta skyline, Gambir Station, Istiqlal Mosque, and surrounding environs.  As all good things must come to an end it was time to go down.

If going up was solemn and orderly, and being on the top gave a sense of openess and freedom, going down was a bit of anarchy.  It seemed I was living the major themes Indonesian history. I was having a good time.

As it turned out there WAS only one way up and one way down. The lift that brought us up was the lift we had to take down but there were no guards and no pretty girls in uniforms to help queue the line. When you decided you had had enough and wanted to leave you gathered in from the lift door and waited for it to open then stood briefly aside to let out the incoming passengers and worked your way through a kind of MONAS rugby scrum (at least an Indonesian version of a rugby scrum).  It was a sort of a macet orang at any rate.

There was a rush to get on. Now, for some reason, with elbows out and people grabbing their loved ones so as not to have them left behind, this all seemed like a cause for the giggles to break out. Everyone was smiling and having a good time of it. And in we went on one large swoosh with my brother-in-law grabbing me by my shirt sleeve. Once inside the giggles didn’t stop, at least not for a bit. But soon, as in all lift rides, things calmed down.  On board was a that typical middle-class Jakartan family. Husband, wife, son, daughter. Dressed respectively for a day trip the National Monument.  As things calmed down a bit the husband made a single comment-  “Ohhh, Indonesia “.  Everyone knew exactly what he meant by it. For some reason, I don’t know why, maybe the the feeling of the moment coming over me, I raised my arm high and shouted ” HIDUP! “  Meaning  ” to life! ” or ” to live “.  The reply from the everyone in the lift was ” HIDUP! “.  And more giggles. THAT felt good. Today, we were all Indonesian patriots.

The doors opened, on the second floor as it turned out, and we all emerged onto the stairs.  And we were all laughing again partly from having had a good time and partly from the relief we had survived the lift ride, both up and down.  Walking back out into the shade of the yoni past the entrance there stood about one hundred of those three foot tall school kids in their sharp looking uniforms waiting to go up. 

MONAS. If you visit Jakarta, or if you live in Jakarta and have never been to the top, do not miss going. It is well worth the rupiah.

Jakarta (fear of the street, part 3)

 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.