Indonesia a train on an unknown track

By Nathaniel Myers

JAKARTA (JP): I am on a train, in the Indonesian unknown. Out my window the countryside hurtles by. The train shows signs of previous glories, of luxuries once proudly offered. It is an "Executive Car" with air-conditioning. Large, plush, cushioned seats. Footrests. Women handing out sealed cups of water. A "refreshing tissue".

The train is nice, but seems to only hint at what it once was. Like much of Indonesia, it looks as though it has not seen maintenance in some time. My seat is soft, but a large spring protrudes uncomfortably into my back. The kick-down footrests are dirty, creaky and unwilling to move. On the wall, a strange black beetle scurries to safety at the top of a battered and cracked window. The paint around the window's metal frame is cracking, chipping, falling.

Down the aisle trudges a young man, carrying a plastic tray displaying containers full of little box lunches. He traverses the entire compartment and makes one sale. He smiles sadly. That seems to be the way many Indonesians are taking their newfound problems, with a sad, accepting smile. The dreams are fading.

Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than on street corners, where we spend so much time waiting in front of stop lights. As the light turns red, a multitude of people pour off the corner. Crippled beggars appear at the window, piercing the air with what is left of their arms or legs. Young teenagers strum miniature guitars as their friends sing along. Little kids stand next to them, clapping their hands and shaking rickety homemade tambourines. In between are the vendors, hawking everything from newspapers to dictionaries to wooden sculptures. They smile suggestively, nodding hopefully at their wares. I shake my head and they reluctantly move on.

The vendors and the beggars leave me in a moral quandary. I find myself turning my eyes from a man selling magazines before passing a tattered bill to a beggar. One is attempting to work for his money, one is simply asking for charity, and I give to the latter. There is little I feel I can do; I have no need for any of the vendor's magazines and The Jakarta Post is delivered to my house. I have contemplated simply giving the vendor some money without receiving a product in return, but I fear insulting him. Instead I give to the beggar, and feel guilty that the hard worker walks away empty-handed. It's certainly not fair, but I do not know what else I can do.

The city's street corners all seem identical, tied together by a common feature: people trying to scratch together just a few more rupiah, by begging, by selling, by singing, by whatever else might win a few bills. Not everyone has been able to adjust to a life on the street corners. I hear weekly of the increasing crime rate, of some new ploy that criminals are using to stop cars and rob their passengers. Stop-light muggings last week, nails strewn on the highway this week. Indonesians are in trouble, some are getting desperate. The train is still chugging, but no one knows where the next stop will be.

The desperation plays a role in the Indonesian political arena. The general election went peacefully, to most people's approval, but that is not the end of this nation's political dilemmas. Secessionist movements in Aceh, Irian Jaya and East Timor have provided glimpses of horrible brutality, driven in part by the krismon (monetary crisis), and encouraged by the political uncertainty here in Jakarta. The recent East Timor elections were unexpectedly peaceful despite attempts at intimidation, but intense violence has since consumed the territory; its future is unknown.

Perhaps saddest of all is that the unrest and its chaos are created not by the popular masses, but by smaller minorities striving to further their own agendas. The over-95 percent turnout in the East Timor ballot proved that the high majority of Timorese supported the peaceful plebiscite but the army-aided militias have since devastated Dili. East Timor's train is headed in a different direction from Indonesia's, and certain forces are doing their best to derail it.

Jakarta itself seems more stable, but at times it still feels as if we are living in a police state; it is impossible to ignore the ever-present soldiers on our streets. But it is relatively peaceful here, contrary to what foreign news agencies would sometimes like us to think. Despite the tendency of these agencies to occasionally sensationalize outbreaks of violence, the Indonesian media has taken up its newfound freedom with gusto, and now reports on anything and everything it sees fit. What would have been taboo three years ago is now seen daily in Post, and so much the better.

The media is now able to maintain pressure on the government, to ensure that it does its job properly. But despite all these gains -- civil rights, a free press, democratic elections -- Indonesia has not found stability. There is a prevailing air of uncertainty that lingers in the city; no one really knows what to expect from the future. The train's destination remains unknown.

Here in my train we are rocking gently through the green countryside. The man now pushes a large cart down the center aisle, from which he offers goods, like they do on airplanes. In front of my seat, in the weak and dying webbing, there is a catalog showcasing his products. I look closely at it, there is a date in the corner: June 1998. The month after Soeharto resigned. Things will never be the same.