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.