Individual efforts make a difference

Thousands of Jakartans have seen small groups of university students standing at intersections or near toll road entrances carrying donation boxes inscribed with bold statements like "Fund the fight for the people". The money will go, among other places, to finance their street rallies outside of the House of Representatives or the State Palace.

For years, students have been protesting against administrations that oppress and kill people in Aceh, Papua, East Timor, Maluku and Jakarta. Five years ago, the students were even successful in helping to remove from office Soeharto, whose 32 years of corrupt rule inflicted much suffering on the people.

Sadly, the students have yet to take up the fight against government policies that effectively allow the killing of, according to health expert Dr. Anhari Achadi, up to 400,000 Indonesians through tobacco-related diseases. Maybe because many of the students are smokers themselves.

But there is always hope. On Sept. 15, Professor Umar Chatib Warsa declared the University of Indonesian a smoke-free campus and promised to work to turn all campus facilities, both in Jakarta and Depok, West Java, into non-smoking areas.

"We are proud to have reached this far, proud that as a campus that bears the name of our nation, we will be working to help achieve a healthy Indonesia," Warsa said in a simple ceremony that also featured members of the Indonesian Heart Foundation.

"We seek to set an example for the public, to show that we not only talk or criticize, but can also walk the walk as well," he said.

The university has 190 full professors, while one-third of its 2,500-strong teaching staff hold doctorates.

"I do not want them to get sick through their own fault; namely because they smoke. We are telling them not to smoke," Warsa said.

A high school near the University of Indonesia campus in Depok has also been declared a smoke-free zone. It may seem like slow progress, according to Anhari, who represented the health minister at the ceremony, but this progress is what Indonesia needs the most in its campaign to reduce the mortality and morbidity rates related to tobacco use.

"We may have to wait a 100 years before our campaign to reduce demand (for cigarettes) bears significant fruit," he said.

But if that is what it takes to "respect the right of more than 60 percent of Indonesian adults to clean air", Indonesia's tobacco-control campaign should proceed.

The Indonesian government has been harshly criticized for recently lifting restrictions on tar and nicotine content in tobacco products -- which means tobacco firms are now allowed to produce even deadlier cigarettes.

But at the grassroots level, individual campaigns are getting stronger. There are people like writer Azimah Rahayu, who said in a recent article that more people should have the courage to just tell smokers not to light up in public places. If they resist, Azimah said, "we should give them plastic masks" so only they inhale the smoke.

"We should tell the smokers they might have the right to smoke, but we definitely have the right not to inhale their 'garbage' so they should inhale it all themselves," Azimah wrote.

There are people like Tiernan Downes, an Irish national in Jakarta who made the antismoking campaign a personal "goal". Over the years he has written to various businesses -- from PT Angkasa Pura and PT Kereta Indonesia to Dunia Fantasi, asking that non- smokers' right to clean air be respected. Some of Downes' efforts have paid off, some received courtesy "thank-yous" and were brushed off.

But Downes believes that individual campaigns will pay off in the long run.

"Have you seen people smoking in cinemas? Have you seen people smoking on airplanes? Have you seen people smoking in the bowling alley in Plaza Senayan? Have you seen people smoking in MMC (hospital)?.

"They generally don't because they accept the rule. If the rule wasn't there they would (smoke), so an attempt to make more areas non-smoking is going to help, even if people don't stick 100 percent to it," he said.

About two years ago, Downes complained to Merpati Airlines because on flights over two hours in length they allowed smoking.

"I kept calling and writing to the airline, and they told me they were considering the matter. A few weeks later they sent me a link to their website saying they had made all flights non- smoking.

"We can also make a difference by doing small things, at least a difference in our own little environment. We don't have to allow people to smoke in our houses.

"We can make a difference ... if one person alone can get a number of businesses to change, hundreds or thousands of people could make big changes, fast," Downes said.

-- Santi W.E. Soekanto