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.