Destructiveness of local spectators is pathological
Unruly behavior of spectators at major sports and music events have haunted organizers. The latest case being the Thomas Cup badminton championship in which the two final matches were called called off. Zainul Biran, head of the Social Psychology Department of the University of Indonesia, discusses this phenomena in an interview with The Jakarta Post.
Q: Malaysian shuttlers and officials have complained about the terror inflicted by Indonesian spectators in Thomas Cup championship. How could our supporters behave like that?
A: I think we should differentiate spectators of badminton from those of soccer matches who vented their frustration over a game's outcome by damaging public property. I personally think that our spectators who jeered and booed foreign players during the badminton championship, were not acting out of line. Only a few did, by throwing empty water bottles at foreign players or officials. It's still within acceptable ranges of behavior ... after all, they were acting the way any mass of people would act.
Q: They were only expressing their excitement, and did not show destructive tendencies. I believe our players have occasionally experienced similar treatment abroad.
A: I am more concerned about soccer match spectators, music group fans or even ill-behaved students on the streets, who often vandalize public property. East Javanese soccer supporters who recently damaged train cars on their way home after their home team was beaten by the Bandung team in Jakarta, for instance, showed signs of social pathology.
Q: What factors cause this social pathology?
A: I believe too many variables are involved in this social symptom. There is, for instance, frustration. Many of the football fans are youths who may be dropouts or are jobless. They are displacing their frustration over one condition, in this case unemployment, to another condition, which is their home team's defeat in a soccer match.
Most of us have certain levels of aggression, or averse conditions in psychological terms, buried inside of us. This aggression needs to find an outlet from one time to another. Usually, reactions such as these are spontaneous, impromptu, so a football match can be the channeled for the expression of such an aggression.
Behavior becomes pathological when people vent their aggression in destructive ways. The youths who smashed expensive cars, when they were denied entrance to the Metallica music group concert here because they did not buy tickets, planned to destroy things, as did the football fans, after their home team was defeated. It's like they were saying, "We'll do this or that if they won't let us in." It's like they were saying, "We'll get angry if our team is defeated."
Q: What turned the supposedly spontaneous reaction or expression of frustration into a pathological condition?
A: I have been observing press reports about youth vandalism, including that carried out by high school students, and cannot help but feeling that there is something wrong with our society. We have to admit that there are many social gaps, which contribute to the feeling of frustration of these people. What is hard to understand is why they choose destructive, over constructive expression. Why do they vent their anger by destroying public property?
Certainly there are other factors, too, that contribute to the pathological condition. For instance, alcohol. I do not know for sure, but I think many of the youths who damaged public property did so when they were drunk. What's unfortunate is that our people tend to condone wrongdoing which is done under the influence of alcohol. We'd say, "No wonder those youths are smashing buses and cars, they are drunk."
Q: Does the fact that the objects of these people's fury are public property, or the belongings of the privileged few in society, have any significance?
As I said, social gaps play a factor in these people's acts. But we can't discount the fact that some of the youths, like high school students in Jakarta, do not have any specified targets for their anger. They smashed buses, roadside vendor stalls, anything. That's what defines their acts so pathological.
These students, these people, show little or no regard for other people's property, even other people's lives. They do not stop to think that the boy they hit, or kill, is somebody's son; that a woman who gets caught in their fights and is hurt, is someone's mother. They show just how dehumanized our society has become.
Q: What ways would you suggest to help control the situation?
A: Closing the gaps in the society would be the ideal answer, but it would take too long a time. Instead, I suggest that the authorities and we, as members of the society, take temporary measures. The government should launch consistent and firm actions such as controlling the production of alcoholic beverages or subjecting the young offenders to stricter punishment.
I also suggest that the youths, who have become so used to destroying things, be committed to a special program which teaches them to build, instead of destroy. Send the young offenders to transmigration sites, and let them face real situations in which they have to build things in order to survive. (swe)