Reaching for the sky, blind to the reality down below
My friend complained the other day that she could not find a decent playground for her child near their home. She has resorted to taking her to one at a shopping mall.
"It's not the kind of park we want to take our children to, there's no trees or fresh air," complained my friend. "But, what choice do we really have?"
Right. But we do have the space for imported herds of deer, although by now the poor animals (they never asked to be brought here) must be choking from the traffic pollution around the busy National Monument (Monas) park in Central Jakarta.
We can foot the bill to build expensive statues and renovate the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle, although it does not look so different to me. Shopping malls (at least nine more retail centers will open this year), spiraling office buildings, luxury apartments, ostentatious hotels -- we have them all.
But a playground for children? Forget it -- for we have shopping malls to provide their own form of retail therapy. Parks? We have them but they are certainly not comfortable or inviting places to smell the roses.
No clean water? Buy bottled. Waste and flood problems? Oh, there is no money to deal with them, so take your multivitamins to shore up your immune system and invest in a rubber dinghy.
Still, we can afford to build another grandiose attraction (maybe the city administration's investment/tourism slogan should be "Build it, and they will come"). We will soon see the construction of the world's tallest tower, the 558-meter Jakarta Tower in Kemayoran area, Central Jakarta.
We are truly something else. Our per capita income is US$710 per year, according to the World Bank's statistics on Indonesia, but somehow we can afford to plunk down Rp 2.7 trillion for a tower.
OK, pinch me now, please.
Unfortunately, this is not a nightmare. Instead, I am increasingly getting to know the feeling of being swallowed up that in shown in artist Ken Pattern's pictures of Jakarta's smothering labyrinths.
"Maybe after his comparative study trips abroad, Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso wants to transform the city into one that is equal with other metropolitan cities," reasoned my husband.
"But it's superficial," I insisted. "It's like going through plastic surgery to look like Britney Spears -- you're still not her."
Are we so busy reaching high into the sky that we forget the ugly reality down below?
Several months ago, we witnessed people uprooted from their homes as the city forged on with development plans. Only the other day, media headlines told of another human tragedy: Students of SMP 56 state junior high school, located in the upmarket Melawai area in South Jakarta, had to study in an adjacent parking lot because their institution is earmarked for development (they were allowed back in on Friday).
In city which aspires to be one of the metropolitan centers of the region and the world, how are such tragedies tolerable?
"You should try to think positively," my husband said.
Yeah, right. I know about the land swap deal and the plan to turn the school into a commercial area. But there was something not quite right when Sutiyoso sent in his public order officers to take over the school in the first place.
Are we fighting children now? Or was he simply too impatient to wait for a court verdict, so he felt he should take matters into his own hands?
Even without my husband's coaxing, I think I strive to be a positive person. It's just so hard -- and frustrating -- when the decisions that are made are mind-numbingly out of touch with the reality of our lives.
How many more shopping malls are needed by the city's 10 million people? How many more hotels, apartments or office buildings will be squeezed into this already crowded city?
I feel a sudden urge to take a long, deep, calming breath. But, like the rest of my fellow citizens, I guess I will have to go out of this stifling city to find a bit of fresh air.
-- Stevie Emilia