Riots send message from the urban poor

Riots send message from the urban poor

Jakarta which was rocked by major riots nine days ago has
slowly returned to normal. Political scientist Juwono Sudarsono
argues that the tragedy that cost three lives, the injury of
dozens and Rp 100 billion (US$ 42 million) in losses, signals the
need for serious attention to the urban poor.

JAKARTA (JP): In the weeks preceding the riots of July 27,
rumors had been circulating among observers, diplomats and
journalists in Jakarta that a military crackdown on the order of
Tiananmen (June 1989) or at least of Bangkok (May 1992) was in
the offing.

Other rumors spoke of a repeat of the February 1986 Manila
misnomer, "people power", when essentially middle class rivalry
saw a change-over from one oligarchy to another. There were
speculations about possible parallels with Yangon 1990, when a
dissatisfied populace facing a military dominated government
sought salvation from a prominent woman dissident.

In the end what they got was April 1992 Los Angeles-type urban
mayhem. The Indonesian poor, whom the disparate democracy
movements were ostensibly representing, became the very first
victims of the rioting, looting and destruction of July 27.

There are lessons for all from the tumultuous events in the
past week. For advocates of democratization, the most telling
must surely be in recognizing the failure of organization. It is
much easier to launch rambunctious rallies and mass
demonstrations than it is to control the agenda of the debate
over substantive issues such as corruption, business collusion
among the rich or cronyism in the bureaucracy.

Advocates of democratization maintain that the present
political system is redundant, stagnant and repressive. The
reality is that the system has never been tried on the basis of
sustained work in the nitty gritty of political canvassing,
registration of members, holding meetings, keeping the books in
order, or printing programs based on platforms created from
meetings among caucus members.

Burdened by too much romanticism concerning mass movements,
Indonesian politics and politicians have relied too much and too
long on improvisation. Like other restive urban social and
political leaders across the world, their rhetoric tends to be
long and their follow through dismally short.

But the single most important lesson of the July 27 riots may
be the one addressed to the government and its supporters among
the urban middle class. That lesson lies in the urgent need to
provide swifter, wider and deeper social and economic outreach to
the increasing urban underclass, particularly those who have
neither access to employment, the requisite skills needed to
ascend the social ladder, nor to the credit structure that tends
to favor the well-connected.

More than 48 percent of urban dwellers in Jakarta still have
no access to potable water, primary health services and other
forms of social overhead that make-up "social capital". Every
year, more than 2.1 million young Indonesians enter the
workforce, struggling for employment, social respect and personal
recognition. For the vast majority of them, living in an urban
environment increasingly impregnated by market advertising and
consumer lifestyles, there exists a cumulative sense of severe
deprivation, which is easily exploitable, motivating them to acts
of desperation and destruction.

The urban poor constitute the single most important factor of
future Indonesian politics. By 2003, more than 56 percent of
Indonesians will live in urban areas. The strains on the city's
infrastructure -- public housing, mass transportation, drinking
water, public recreational facilities -- will be even more
overwhelming. Social capital is rapidly diminishing. Pressure
cooker politics can be expected to continue well beyond 2003.

The January 1974, the riots in Jakarta, which had wider
national impact than the recent upheaval, spawned numerous calls
for "a new leadership pattern based on circumspect behavior" and
widespread appeals to the well off to adopt "simple lifestyles".
It remains to be seen whether today's government leaders and the
affluent middle class will heed the lessons to be learned from
the steps not taken in the past 22 years. The next time round may
not be another Los Angeles, but something more resembling Bangkok
or even Tiananmen. And this may not have to wait another 20
years.

The writer is vice governor of the National Resilience
Institute, Jakarta.