Divided Jakarta shares woes with all

Emmy Fitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Debby Sahertian is living the good life. The entertainer has a home in Puri Cinere, an upmarket residential area in South Jakarta that boasts all the conveniences that money can buy.

It's a world away from the packed, clamorous kampongs hugging riverbanks in other parts of the city. Populated by those left behind in the capital's rush to development, the slums lack the most basic necessities.

While the Dutch colonial government kept Batavia's citizens divided along ethnic lines, evident in such place names as Kampung Bali in Central Jakarta and Kampung Melayu in East Jakarta, it's economic determinants that build walls between us in Jakarta today.

An ample bank account allows some residents to take refuge from the city's problems in well-tended real estate complexes, far from the madding crowd in the slums.

But it's a tenuous escape, and the security codes and high fences cannot shield them from the very real problems -- environmental pollution, shoddy infrastructure, spiraling crime -- that impinge on the quality of life.

In Jakarta, inevitably the twains do meet.

"I still have problems," Debbie admitted about her home. "The streets are always congested at certain hours, we just can't avoid it."

When the worst flooding in years hit the city in February- March 2002, it not only disrupted the lives of residents in low- income neighborhoods such as Tanah Abang in Central Jakarta, but also hit elite areas like Menteng in Central Jakarta, and Pulomas in East Jakarta.

As Jakarta celebrates the 476th anniversary of its founding on Sunday, the myriad problems do not appear to be diminishing or leveling off, but rather increasing.

For Sindy, a 36-year-old secretary, crime is the biggest worry in the city today.

Yet she realizes that it's a deep-seated problem.

"We need to open up more job opportunities. For instance, they show all these raids against prostitutes on the streets, but what good does it do if there are no jobs for them to go to? And the next day they have no choice but to go back to selling themselves."

Who is to blame?

Most point to the city administration, out of touch with the needs of the people. They accuse the administration of devising stop-gap measures at best, seemingly incapable of coming up with a cohesive, structured plan to deal with the city's problem

Activist, legal expert and legislator Nursyahbani Katjasungkana faulted those in the city administration, saying "they don't have the sensibility to respond to what the people say and they don't have a clear vision. They still hold on to the old paradigm".

She added: "They are still stuck in the old paradigm -- top- down projects and not projects or programs based on the real problems or realities of the people."

The perennial problems never end, she noted, saying that there was no discernible change in the policies of Jakarta governors over the years.

Once the cleaning up is done after floods or the electricity blackout is corrected until the next one, Jakarta residents go back to their lives in the divided city.

And so the capital lives up to the theory that history repeats itself. Divisions and the uprooting of people have always been common, said Betawi (native Jakarta) cultural expert Ridwan Saidi.

Conquering Central Java prince Fatahillah expelled people from their kampongs in the 16th century to build forts. The Dutch continued the practice, planning and building an elite residential area in the center of the city.

"The place is what we now know as Menteng. I think that's the first real estate (complex) ever founded here. Not all Dutch people could live there, only a limited group, the affluent and superrich."

The last official mass eviction was in 1977 under then governor Cokropranolo, who intended to break up the Muslim enclaves in Kalibaru, North Jakarta, following the loss of then ruling political grouping Golkar in the general election.

Yet there have been other ways of displacing people, from subtle measures, such as converting areas to new purposes in the name of development, to more aggressive tactics of intimidation.

The history of the Betawi people is particularly telling. Very few remain in the inner city, their land gobbled up for the construction of offices, malls and hotels and their culture given short shrift.

"I have to acknowledge that we now see how poor people and the menial class, both Betawi and migrants, have had to move aside, living along the rivers, on the city outskirts or in packed neighborhoods in the downtown areas," Ridwan said.

But they go on with their lives until the next crisis brings them together with their fellow residents. In a sense, it is the capital's continuing woes that give us a shared identity as residents of Jakarta.