Looking for riots in all the wrong places<\/p>\n
By Dini S. Djalal<\/p>\n
PEKALONGAN, Central Java (JP): The street was peaceful.
\nUniformed schoolgirls in jilbab (Moslem headdress) giggled as
\nthey drank green soda from a street vendor. A man cycled past,
\nbalancing a pile of tin boxes on his bicycle. Some women sat in
\nfront of their two-room houses, chatting about local gossip.<\/p>\n
Faced with this slice of small town slumber, I asked myself
\nthat most charming of journalists' questions: \"This is it? This
\nis the political hotspot? Where's all the rock throwing?\".<\/p>\n
The man running our hotel, a relic filled with \"modern\"
\nappliances likely assembled around the time the word \"modern\"
\nentered the English language, said: \"Well, it was quiet today,
\nand yesterday. We did have some trouble from the campaigners a
\nfew days ago. And before that. And maybe later today. But we hope
\nnot. Are you a reporter? Are you looking to find a riot?\".<\/p>\n
Well, actually, yes, and yes. It's election campaign time in
\nIndonesia, and we're in Pekalongan, Central Java, site of recent
\nclashes. And as much as we advocate world peace and human rights,
\nnewspapers and TV love upheavals and disasters, manmade or
\nnatural. It's one of those unavoidable pacts with the devil,
\ninsensitivity brewed by bitterness. We disapprove of the
\ntragedies we write about, but we need the tragedies to occur so
\nwe can protest about why they happen.<\/p>\n
We drove out to this United Development Party (PPP) stronghold
\nfrom Jakarta, going through the West Java countryside before
\ndetouring to the North Coast. We had debated between coming here
\nor Temanggung, also another missed hotspot in Central Java. It
\nwas a long, bumpy ride. For 10 hours, our Kijang, seemingly
\nmonstrous amid Jakarta's luxury sedans, had to dodge mammoth-
\nwheeled buses and trucks zig-zagging the pothole-friendly road.
\nBut passenger discomfort was a trifling detail compared to the
\ncampaign excitement Pekalongan seemed to promise.<\/p>\n
But this is politics, world of empty promises. And we were
\njournalists looking for trouble -- little did we know, in all the
\nwrong places. In Bogor, we passed a car plastered with Megawati
\nposters. How quaint of little Bogor to display such rebellion, I
\nthought as we drove out of the city. The next day, the papers
\nreported that a thousand pro-Megawati Indonesian Democratic Party
\n(PDI) rallied through Bogor at 2 p.m., or precisely a half hour
\nafter we left town.<\/p>\n
It wasn't my first time missing the boat. On the first day of
\ncampaigning, I drove for two hours around East Jakarta (West
\nJava, actually, that's how far it was) looking for a rally led by
\nRhoma Irama, the dangdut king-turned-parliamentarian. Rhoma's
\nsecretary said Bambu Apus, but could not specify exactly where.
\nEventually, I found a small gathering of yellow shirts huddled
\naround a candidate I've never heard of. Later that afternoon, a
\ncolleague said the Rhoma rally, attended by thousands, was just
\n10 minutes down the road.<\/p>\n
I'm not alone in my fruitless search for a story. The day
\nafter the clashes on Jl. Matraman, Central Jakarta, camera crews
\nsat patiently at the same spot waiting for a follow-up outbreak.
\nConversation between local journalists this month has been
\ndominated by the following exchange: \"Did you see that fight at
\nfill-in-blank?\", \"Nope, got there too late\". Anticipating
\nviolence is callous, but missing it means the tragedy goes
\nuntold. It may be hard-hearted, but photographed brutality
\narouses compassion more than a third-person account.<\/p>\n
Clueless<\/p>\n
So why has so much campaigning, and particularly the violence,
\ngone undocumented? Part of the problem is disorganization within
\nthe parties, which seem as out of the loop with campaign rally
\nschedules as we are. By accident or design, the mechanism just
\nisn't there to provide journalists with accurate information.<\/p>\n
Fortified with editors' demands but no clue, what's a
\nfoolhardy reporter to do? Buy a map, stare at it for hours and
\nguess where the action will take place. Election reporting this
\nyear is like playing the boardgame Clue; half the task is
\nfiguring out the mystery they call campaign itineraries. And with
\nsupposedly 200 foreign journalists in town covering this
\n\"democracy festival\", competition to get that hot story is rife.<\/p>\n
So while many people this month avoid the campaigns,
\ncomplaining of traffic gridlock, hawkers jamming the markets with
\nparty paraphernalia, and the chore of puncturing a small piece of
\npaper with so-called political aspirations, journalists are
\nworking overtime looking for \"color\". And they don't just mean
\nthe ubiquitous yellows, reds, and greens, of the rival parties.
\nThe election waits for no one, least of all those who want to
\nlead normal lives. Lunch is hurried before the convoys begin and
\ndinner rushed between deadlines, even when there's not much to
\nwrite about.<\/p>\n
But then again, the story depends on the writer. Later that
\nafternoon in Pekalongan, we returned to Buaran, the suburb where
\nthe riots took place. On the same street so quiet earlier,
\nconvoys roared to go. Masses were gathered in front of buildings
\ncovered in green paint and white stars, and the few yellow shops
\nvandalized in March by angry mobs protesting a planned concert by
\nRhoma Irama, once a PPP supporter, now a Golkar member.<\/p>\n
The people on the sidewalk were cheering the youths cruising
\nthe mile-long road in their beat-up Hondas. But at the top of the
\nroad were two trucks full of riot police armed with machine guns
\nand grenades. Some soldiers directed the chaotic traffic, others
\njust stood with grim expressions. They looked disapprovingly at a
\ncameraman filming the commotion.<\/p>\n
Some PPP supporters said that trouble would brew not at the
\nrallies, but when they would leave for home. They talked of tear
\ngas, arrests, physical clashes. On the day we were filming, the
\nfriction did not break into violence. But it didn't matter.
\nFortunately for the people, we missed a riot, but not the tension
\nthat riots stem from. No blood was shed to tell the story, but
\nthe guns, even unfired, painted a clear picture.<\/p>",
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