Weakening social solidarity causes public apathy

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Amid bitter complaints from activists about public apathy towards public problems, a sociologist and a psycho-social expert say the indifference is due to weakening social solidarity among the people.

"Social solidarity has weakened considerably among the people as they will only react to an issue if it impacts directly on their lives," said Ery Seda, a sociologist from the University of Indonesia.

Ery said the abundant sources of information available to the public did not guarantee that people would take concrete action to react to the problem.

Driyarkara School of Philosophy psycho-social expert Suhati Kurniawati concurred, saying that unless problems being raised affected individuals as well as the community as a whole, all efforts to address the problems would fail to garner public support.

"People will simply ponder whether or not the issue being addressed can help fix their daily problems and whether their involvement and role is really needed. Otherwise, they will prefer not to become involved directly," Suhati said.

The public's indifference has concerned many activists.

Environmental activists mourned the public's lack of support for "Car-Free Day", which was held last month to promote easing air pollution. In June, anti-drugs activists were also critical of the public.

The latest protest, organized by several non-governmental organizations, including the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC), the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta) and the Democratic People's Party (PRD), to protest plans to fence off the National Park (Monas) in Central Jakarta by forming a human chain late last month, fell short of supporters. They failed to form a perfect circle as only 1,000 of the 4,000 protesters expected to turn up, joined the rally.

Commenting on the failure of the campaigns to attract the support of the public, Suhati said such issues were not popular.

"The people may all agree with activists that issues like open space, air pollution, drugs are important and urgent problems. But, they will think it does not significantly affect their daily lives so they fail to see the significance of their involvement in the movement," Suhati said.

Suhati also attributed the people's lack of support to the people's reluctance to endanger their safety during street rallies.

"Threats from police and security personnel to use violence in cracking down on street demonstrations is still apparent ... the use of violence still takes place," Suhati said.

However, Ery said that people would easily become involved if the problem affected them or their neighborhood.

"We witnessed recently a wave of protests in the work places or neighborhoods ... No wonder that all employees or residents, regardless their classes, get involved in the rallies as it directly affects their purses and homes," Ery said.

"We must also keep in mind the fact that many Jakarta residents are migrants who do not consider Jakarta a permanent residence. They see it as a place to earn money. Public issues are out of question."