Violence becoming lingua franca of Greater Jakarta
Violence becoming lingua franca of Greater Jakarta
Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
Suta Wijaya ended up in the hospital simply because he wanted a
quiet night's rest.
Approaching a car parked in front of his house in Pulogadung,
East Jakarta, Suta asked the driver to turn down the music that
was blasting out of the vehicle.
The driver sped off but shortly returned riding a motorcycle,
carrying a knife and looking for Suta, who ended up in the
hospital with a nasty cut on his wrist.
On the same day in November, an argument between business
rivals at a trade center in Central Jakarta ended with one man
being rushed to the hospital with a stab wound.
After a heated argument, Hendra, 42, stabbed a fellow vendor,
Roy, 24, in the neck.
Violence also occurs in the home, the one place in the city
that should be safe and filled with love.
On Dec. 26, Yuda Kusuma, 23, came home from work in the
afternoon to find that his wife, Rohayati, 23, was not at home.
The neighbors later took the wife to the hospital with severe
bruising on her neck and head, a broken arm and a broken leg.
Violence, it seems, has become the first language of people in
the city.
The smallest of arguments or the least slip of the tongue can
lead to a stabbing or a beating.
According to data from the Jakarta Police, from January to
November this year, 2,059 incidents of violence were recorded in
Jakarta, Depok, Bekasi and Tangerang, or an average of about 187
incidents a month.
That figure is almost double last year's 94.5 cases a month.
The data shows the violence peaked during the general election
campaign in August and September, with 303 and 335 cases,
respectively.
"During the campaign, the number of conflicts on the street
increased. The smallest incidents generated violence," Jakarta
Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Tjiptono said on Monday.
However, violence was also up in moths outside the campaign
period. In November, when most residents were observing the
fasting month and Idul Fitri, the police recorded 170 incidents
of violence.
A sociologist at the University of Indonesia, Ida Ruwaida
Noor, said that in large heterogeneous cities, conflicts often
occurred due to the lack of solidarity and social cohesiveness.
On top of that, she said, economic factors continued to be a
major factor for the violence.
"Living in Jakarta is not easy. People are frustrated and they
express their feelings through violence. They do not care about
how their behavior will affect others or that it may take lives,"
she said.
"There are no social controls, so when violence happens people
just ignore it," she said.