Bekasi people marginalized

Bekasi people marginalized

From Merdeka

Criminality is rife in the town of Bekasi 30 kilometers east
of Jakarta. It was in Bekasi that two robberies, in the same
house, by the same gang, took place within a few months. The gang
leader also raped the owner's wife on both occasions. In another
burglary, a whole family was murdered.

Bekasi is representative of a typical developing town. It was
once a place where a struggle was waged against the colonialist
oppressors as described by the poet Chairil Anwar in his poem
Between Karawang and Bekasi. Nowadays, speaking of Bekasi, people
only think of two things: one, an industrial estate and two,
criminality.

The formerly agrarian community suddenly faces a large-scale
urban lifestyle. Those who possessed expansive lands received
compensation and were compelled to leave the land of their birth.
In fact, they did not only leave their land but also their
culture and social environment.

Families that have found a place outside Bekasi may no longer
have any problems. But for those who have moved only to the
town's periphery, things look different. As an agrarian
community, they lived in an ambience of mutual help. Now they
face an industrial community whose philosophy is based on profit
and loss.

The Bekasi inhabitants who have sold their land for industrial
or housing projects may be "rich" - they own a personal
automobile and another motor vehicle leased for public
transportation; they have slightly better houses; they have gold
necklaces and bracelets.

Wealth that is not well managed will soon get depleted. The
car, the house and other riches will vanish in enabling the
owners to keep up with the lifestyle of the industrial community.
They will be transformed into a marginal community living on the
periphery of Bekasi. They will now become mere spectators.

Continuous pressure and the lure of luxury gives them two
alternatives: find employment in a factory and become coolies or
commit crimes against the people who live on their land.

Bekasi is only one of the many "mistakes in evaluation" in
developing a town. It is ironic that the millions of dollars from
the export of products manufactured in the industrial estate on
the land of the rural people, must be got by the uprooting of the
people's culture. They are now in a state of cultural perplexity.
They are no longer rural people, neither are they urban people.

AGUS HUSNI

Depok, West Java