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