Sports stadium becomes market
Sports stadium becomes market
From Media Indonesia
I feel called upon to talk about this matter in public because the condition of the area outside the main stadium of the 'Bung' Karno sports complex has now become the cause of increasing concern. On Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays in particular, the place changes into a market, rather than a place for physical exercise. You can find practically everything there: garments, food and drink, footwear, crockery, pirated CDs and VCDs, aquarium fish, vegetables, carpentry tools and even rat poison. Entertainment abounds, including, for example, performing monkeys.
You cannot go jogging or roller-skating as there is hardly any room left even for walking. Everywhere you are surrounding by vendors. In a situation like this, sports fans can only leave the place in abject disappointment.
Ironically, a notice board proudly warns that it is prohibited to sell anything in this area. Vendors simply ignore this and the stadium management may have forgotten about it.
To ensure that this area may be used again for sporting activities, some of the vendors must be moved away. Perhaps they could be allowed to sell their wares along the passage leading to the entrance to the stadium. Also, efforts must be made to ensure that only vendors selling food and drink will be allowed to do business in this area.
The sports stadium management could first try to persuade the vendors to move on but if persuasion does not work, they should call in bulldozers or even armored vehicles to ensure that the vendors leave the place. This will show seriousness on the part of the management.
Will the vendors refuse to move and fight back? Certainly not because the management has approached them sympathetically to tell them why they must move to another place. The vendors must be made to understand that they enjoy the right to earn money but at the same time are obligated to respect other people's rights.
Unless serious efforts are made to tackle this matter, it will not be long before we witness this sports stadium being completely destroyed. Then there will be nowhere left for Jakarta people to play sports.
N. HIDAYAT
Jakarta