Irony of Jakarta's motto

Irony of Jakarta's motto

From Suara Karya

Jakarta's slogan expressing its strongly faithful character
(Teguh Beriman) is ironic compared to existing realities in the
capital city, there are numerous localities where people engage
in immoral acts and the state of work discipline, traffic and
cleanliness is poor.

Cleanliness is part of faith. Strangely, very few Jakartans
are concerned with cleanliness. They are well aware that the
capital city is vulnerable to floods. Cleanliness would help
prevent the clogging of drains.

Another strange trait of Jakarta Teguh Beriman is the blatant
dishonesty its citizens experience every day. It is unfortunate
that the dishonest behavior also comes from the Jakarta DKI
Administration.

One example is the supposedly express, limited passenger
buses, bis patas. The bus was originally designed to be rapid and
to have a limited number of passengers, as its name states. In
fact these buses are overcrowded.

The community gets the impression that the word patas is only
a hoax to increase the fare. This dishonesty is more brutal with
the higher priced airconditioned patas buses which indulge in the
same wrongdoing as the regular patas buses.

Do we still have faith in our hearts if we are not touched
seeing such falsehood and other sinful acts?

I would like to appeal to Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso to change
the city's slogan into a new motto with better relevance to the
situation.

The campaign for national discipline heralded by President
Soeharto could inspire the following motto: "Jakarta, honest and
disciplined". (Jakarta Jujur dan Disiplin)

The principle of honesty will push us to conform our deeds to
our words. The determination to behave with discipline will
encourage us to participate in the national discipline program,
making Jakarta a pilot project for it. It is from these
perspectives that we will become strongly faithful.

T. HAKIM

Jakarta