Odd people out

Odd people out

With the Idul Fitri post-fasting holidays not yet over, the
Jakarta authorities are once again facing a major headache. The
appalling number of new migrants arriving from poverty-stricken
rural areas, who have accompanied their relatives returning home
to the capital city after celebrating the festivities with their
families in the countryside, has naturally caused great concern.

What the authorities fear are the problems this "social
plague" might cause. Let's face it, these people are poorly
educated, disastrously unskilled, and lacking the necessary
documents and money required to find a good place to live. They
have quit their rural poverty and are now looking to Jakarta as a
place of opportunity. They have also seen this city of dreams on
the televisions installed in front of the local district offices.
The metropolis they have seen is swarming with the super rich,
all of whom drive luxury cars. For them it is hard to tell which
is Indonesia and which is Malaysia or Singapore, much less
America. And their relatives have asserted: "Once you are in
Jakarta you will soon be better off, no matter what you want to
do, lawful or otherwise."

Most of the stories later turn out to be partly lies and the
new arrivals mostly add to the burdens of the city, which already
has more than enough unemployment and transportation problems to
deal with. And they usually end up adding to the ever-increasing
crime rate.

However, should they be blamed? They have been driven out of
their villages by the poor social, economic -- and lately --
political and security conditions amid the imbalance in national
development and the much-maligned centralization system. But the
Jakarta authorities do not care about these realities. According
to their calculations, between 200,000 and 250,000 newcomers have
arrived in the city since last week. The figure has been
calculated based on the number of people who went home for Idul
Fitri and the number of those who have come to Jakarta with their
returning relatives, as of this week.

These "odd men out" can now look forward to document search
operations. The City Population and Registration Agency plans to
implement regular searches soon. The dates have not been set but
the newcomers will be subjected to searches for their ID cards --
if they have any -- a pass from the local authorities and a
police certificate declaring that the bearer is free from
criminal charges, a strange document that tells either half
truths or no truth at all. They will also be searched for
documents indicating that they have reported to the local
community organization and another document from an office or
company declaring that it has guaranteed them a job. All of this
-- but especially the last mentioned item -- sounds like nothing
but a cruel hoax, given the multi-dimensional nature of the
crisis. How can companies be expected to provide jobs for these
poorly educated and awe-struck creatures when many of them have
had to carry out mass dismissals? But still, those who fail to
produce any of the necessary documents are subject to a Rp 5
million (US$500) fine or three months in jail. Most of them would
likely go to jail.

Where is the logic in these regulations? While Jakarta has not
yet been declared a closed city, the authorities tend to be
egocentric. Last year's budget allocated Rp 69 billion for
security and order in the city alone. But the city authorities
have to bear in mind that it is inappropriate to search innocent
people in the street or in their homes in the wee hours, as
Jakarta's security and order officers have done in the past.

Now that our country has opened the door wider to foreign
tourists, it is illogical to conduct such searches of our own
citizens. Such a measure not only violates the principle of the
presumption of innocence, it is also an insult. And Indonesia is
a nation-state, meaning that an ID card cannot only be valid for
a certain province and invalid for Jakarta. With corruption still
rife in local bureaucracies, not every adult citizen has been
able to procure an ID card.

A more logical way of overcoming the urban exodus is to
promote informal sectors, push for equal development in all
areas, expedite regional autonomy, and promote security and order
in troubled provinces.