Frightening student brawls

Frightening student brawls

From Neraca

Last Friday I witnessed two (high school) student brawls. One was in the afternoon on Jl. Kramat Raya and another in the early evening on Jl. Pasar Minggu.

The brawls caused huge traffic jams. City buses were even afraid to continue their journeys out of fear of having their windows smashed.

Bus crews are naturally cautious in such situations because students on buses often taunt their foes on the street, who resort to stone-throwing in response. More often than not the stones injure passengers.

I would ask education institutes to look into the matter. Reliance on the police to handle student brawls is not sufficient. The police sometimes shave the heads of the culprits but this makes the students even prouder of their feats (although in fact they are cowards because they only dare to fight in gangs).

I would like to suggest to the schools that they dismiss students who have participated in brawls. A probe into the brawls would show that only a few students are the prime movers.

Enmity between certain secondary schools has been going on for years. If the likely culprits are known, brawls could be anticipated. A friendly meeting could be organized between the contenders. Once they know each other more closely, brawls would hopefully not erupt again.

ROFI'L

Jakarta