Human rights in a 'So what, gitu loh' country

Human rights in a 'So what, gitu loh' country

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak
Jakarta

Let me save you the suspense of having to look up the dictionary
or Wikipedia as the Internet-savvy people usually do. So what,
gitu loh (So what, there you go) is a popular expression among
young people in the capital, an effective response when they are
cornered with the "whys".

Let's not blame the young people for their ignorance -- both
for the improper use of language and their need to evade
responsibilities with meaningless excuses -- the phrase was not
invented overnight.

For decades the country has so often seen meaningless excuses
given by the government regardless of the regime in the case of
mishaps where the government fails to give a quick response that
may have saved the lives of many.

Civilians have become collateral damage in armed conflict,
people living in isolated areas often die of famine,
undernourishment and plague. Children drop out of schools because
education is just not for all and women only have limited access
to protection from sexual abuse or domestic violence as well as
to sources of income, not to mention politics, for example.

The abuse of people's basic rights, indeed, is always
associated with the government or the small number of people with
power against the weak majority. But please keep in mind that
this nation is a quick learner, in the same speed they will
completely forget about history and past experiences.

Still fresh in our minds is how furious human rights fighters
were when the government issued the antiterrorism law five years
ago that allows arbitrary arrest of suspects without immediate
legal aid.

The excuse given at that time was: "The nature of terrorism
itself is the abuse of the basic rights of so many people to live
without fear. So what's wrong with reducing their rights to legal
protection?"

The antiterrorism law has become an oxymoron.

Although there have not been reports on torture of terrorist
suspects in detention or in imprisonment, the people have taken
over the authority of meting out social punishment on terrorist
suspects and those who are declared terrorists, and their family
members.

It was a sad day for the parents of the young man involved in
Oct. 1 bombing in Bali when they buried their son in a public
cemetery for the unknowns in Jakarta, as the people in their
hometown in Central Java refused to have a terrorist buried too
close to their front doors.

The wives and children of terrorist suspects lost their social
and school lives as friends and neighbors shut them out, treating
them not much better than a pest. Maybe the young Indonesian wife
of Malaysian fugitive Noordin M. Top, the mastermind of a series
of bomb attacks in the country, is luckier than the rest behind
bars.

And what an unfortunate gift for those who look like the
terrorist fugitives because bystanders on the street may beat you
without further ado and drag you to the police station until the
intelligence officers finish the paperwork and realize that the
young man's face is in fact not like those on the flyers.

People within one community -- even in villages -- spy on
their neighbors, not leaving pilgrims who are staying in mosques
in transit as is the traditional practice, in peace.

So, what? They may be carrying bomb materials in their bags
and they may be here to recruit bombers, the residents argued.

There were also ideas floated by the government of taking
fingerprints of students from all Muslim boarding schools and of
imposing a moratorium on the establishment of more such boarding
schools, which the government soon refuted, claiming that the
ideas originally came from several Muslim preachers.

It is not clear why the government did not see those ideas as
flawed in the first place.

The bird flu scare provided us with an interesting example of
how human rights abuse took place.

Parents demanded the school dismiss a cured bird flu patient
and forbid their children from playing with the surviving members
of the family. Some even moved their children away from the
neighborhood. Little did they know that they have to vaccinate
their birds or pet chickens which may be the source of the fatal
disease, while, on the other hand neighbors have been trying to
reach the husbandry agency to put the birds on the next culling
list.

A little knowledge is dangerous, they say. When the residents
are not aware of what is wrong and what is right, the
responsibility is in the hands of the government to step in.

It is high time that all of us realized that beating women and
children, burning a small-time thief alive or embezzling funds
meant for the needy are all human rights abuses.

The International Human Rights Day on Dec. 10 passed with
little significance, hopefully because the government was too
busy in dealing with itself.

Or was it because the government does not have anything to
say?

How can the government protect the basic rights of the people
when it fails to create an atmosphere where everybody respects
the rights of others?

There will be a time when so what, gitu loh becomes a thing of
the past and long forgotten. It could be replaced with another
idiom of the same genre: problem lu (it's your problem).

The author is a staff writer at The Jakarta Post.