Streets of Jakarta: Love or hate?

STREETS OF Jakarta is the only place where residents from all classes experience a real interaction with one another. The divider here is not classes but rather the mode of transportation. Pedestrians are the lowest rank while speeding buses are in a head-to-head competition with zigzagging motorcycles for the King of the Road crown.

On Jl. Wijaya in affluent Kebayoran Baru, a dirt poor bajaj driver has a same chance with a Honda CRV driver coming out of the South Jakarta Police office to have a near miss with an absent-minded pedestrian.

Such class equality, I argue, is a rare find in the increasingly segregated Jakarta. Public schools, once were a place where a lower-income child can forge a warm and equal friendship with a kid from an affluent family, are now divided into a caste system. Rotting public schools teach kids of local washer women and ojek driver families, while exemplary public school teach the middle-high class children. Private schools are segregated according to their tuition fees. The days when Catholic schools applied cross subsidy are over.

Public space is the same. The capital has Senayan City, Grand Indonesia, and Mal Kelapa Gading for the middle-to high-class. The lower-income bracket are welcome at Pusat Grosir Cililitan, Klender Plaza, or Blok M Mal. While Ragunan, TMII, and Monas are always packed with families arriving with chartered pick-up trucks or Transjakarta, some particular higher class members might choose Taman Suropati or Taman Menteng.

When a rich Jakartan talks warmly with a single mother of three who has to leave her family hundreds of kilometers to make ends meet, big chance is they are an employer with the housemaid. While the employer can throw as many plates as they want at home, the housemaid, of course, could not do so freely.

On the streets of Jakarta, however, people from all walks of life mingle and all have a good chance to get stuck in a long traffic or hit by a falling tree. (No, I’m not talking about those government officials who part the Traffic Sea with the motorcade like Moses. Those people are not in the same league with the rest of us, the good citizens.)

There is no love on the streets of Jakarta, however. The chance to interact is not translated into amicable relationship among the road users.

Car drivers hate motorcyclists, motorcyclists despise angkot drivers, while angkot drivers hate motorcyclists in return.[1]

Each and everyone in the street thinks only about his or her own interests. Other people who share the same space are strangers. “Us” and “them” happen everyday on the street.

We travel everyday without regards about the others. We walk in a fast pace on a sidewalk in Jl. Thamrin, without looking at security guards at each entrance of the buildings. We drive without really paying attention to hawkers waving Jakarta’s maps or FHM magazines at our windshields.

Nevertheless, amid all the indifference there are positive, heart warming stories happening on Jakarta streets.

One day, in a trip in a cab to a shopping center, my friend and I had a little beggar knocked our taxi’s window. My friend gave him Rp500 and the boy left. Seeing this generosity, three more came, knocking on both sides of the car. I gave Rp1,000 more for two little beggars. One was left behind while we did not have more small change. He knocked and knocked and begged, feigning a pitiful expression. Perhaps out of frustration, my friend made a wave movement with his hands and arms, like a breakdance move. The little beggar couldn’t help it; he broke into a happy laugh, teeth and all. Suddenly, I saw him. He was a little boy, a human being. He was no longer “them”, but he was “us”. We’re in this together.

He ran to the back of the car, away from his stage, our window, only to return, back to feigning a sad face. He was a beggar again. But for that fleeting moment, he looked like someone I would like to talk to, and help if I could.

Another friend of mine had this story: He got his motorcycle tank empty in the middle of a road at night. He pushed his bike until another motorcyclist pulled over, assessed the situation and decided to share some of his gasoline with my friend. This kind man fish for gasoline from his own tank and pour it into his water bottle and later to my friend’s tank until there was enough for him to ride his bike to the nearest gas station. My friend thanked him and tried to pay for the share of the gasoline and all the efforts because he thought nothing was free in Jakarta anymore. But this man refused. He thanked my friend instead. Here was his two cents: I thank you because you give me an opportunity to do a good deed.

That one was a tear jerker.

Only this morning I saw four awkward teenagers helped a blind man to cross Slipi, one of the city’s busiest intersection packed with merciless road users and ignorant public minivans. Once they reached the other side of the road, one of the teenagers jogged back to the other side. Apparently, he went across the road only to help the blind man.

My colleague, Mariani Dewi, wrote a column about kindness on the streets of Jakarta. Among the generous acts she experienced, she pointed out that she was never refused, nor given the wrong directions when she asked for directions “Some even took the effort to go out of their way to point me in the right direction,” she wrote.[2]

There are options in looking at anything. Positive one is one I am increasingly interested in. Here’s a short story about how to make the best out of our life.

Once I took a public minivan that waited for passengers or ngetem several times during my short journey. It stopped at the intersection and got one passenger. I grew restless although I knew what to expect when you hailed an angkot. It stopped again at Palmerah market. Seconds after seconds passed but no one got on. Suddenly, one of the passengers said to the driver: Wait for me a second. The driver was a bit surprised but he did not say anything. She alighted, went to fried chicken vendor in front of the market, made a transaction, put a wrapped chicken in her bag, and got on the minivan again, all took only a minute. Nevertheless, the driver scowled and hit the gas once she was in the car.

Kudos for her. I never saw the ngetem habit that way; I always silently cursed the driver. But why not put use into the habit? When life gives you orange, make orange juice, a proverb says. When you got a messy public transportation system, why do you insist on waiting for buses at bus stops? It is very convenient to have drivers whom you can ask to stop right in
front of the book store.

Clearly there are several ways to see things and I say enough with the negativity.

Simple courtesy and civility can be looked at as nothing more than nonsense (basa basi), but it can be more than that. A research by Jennifer Lee, “Civility in the City”, on customers-merchant relationships in Los Angeles and Harlem after early 1990s ethnic riots made a point that civility can help thwart altercation between the contesting groups. A Korean merchant for example, employed her black neighbor at her shop and treated him fairly. It was routine, simple and not grand. But it can be enough.

Last year, residents of Kampung Pulo in East Jakarta kicked out students of Arastamar Theology Schools from their neighborhood. They said the students were stealing from them. Even if the accusation was true, why the residents made a big fuss about a pair of sandals? From ensuing events and comments made by both sides, it seemed that both students and residents were never engaged in friendly occasions. There was a culture gap in the first place. The students are mostly from eastern Indonesia and Christians while the residents are Betawi and Muslims. The gap were never closed while simple courtesy like bringing cakes to the neighbors might do the trick.

I’m not saying it is easy to smile to a stranger, moreover to an unruly ojek driver who overtakes you from the left. But we need to make an effort. Why?

The customers and merchants of Harlem and Los Angeles did so because civility and positivity could keep the business and life in their neighborhood go on. Constant conflict hurts the society and in return hurts each member of the society. Peace and amicable setting, on the other hand, is a condition in which better life can be achieved.

So, from what Lee observed, merchants and customers in Harlem and LA endeavored to make civility a routine, not just a random case of kindness.

In Jakarta case, I believe, positive attitude towards each other at public space like the streets can help promote better city.

My little stories are a testament to such kindness and civility. However, what happens in Jakarta is rather random acts of kindness done by random generous people. Therefore, I argue, kindness in Jakarta is not yet a routine like the one in Harlem and LA. Merchants and customers in LA and Harlem have a rather material reason to ensure civility;
they need to do so to continue business.

What could be a good reason for road users in Jakarta to be kind and civil to each other? There is no easy answer to this because honestly what would happen if a friend of mine is denied answer to her question about direction? Would Jakarta crumble? Perhaps not.

But I argue, Jakarta would probably be a much better place if the road users are courteous even kind to each other.

Don’t you ever hear a friend of yours tells you a touching story happens on the street that makes her or his day? I believe everyone of us has at least experienced such heartwarming event at least once in our life in Jakarta. Doesn’t it make our life a little bit better?

So, why not bring love to the streets? Why not develop a positive attitude in public space? Let’s make the heartwarming stories a routine rather than a coincidence or extraordinary
event.

After all, it is a place, may be the only place, where you can interact with many kinds of people. Why don’t we share love instead of adversity?

When the street might be the only place where a rich kid hit a poor pedestrian, it can also be a place where an established businessman smiles to a poor parking attendant and gives him generous tips for finding him a good spot.

It is a place where a fierce-looking cab driver poured his heart’s content about his son who could not sit in a final test due to late tuition payment to an office professional, who then sincerely gave a generous tip to help him out. (It really happened between my friend and a cab driver.)

Intersections of Jakarta is a showcase of humanity and struggles for a decent life; a beggar boy near my office sometimes takes a break begging and takes care of his little brother by carrying him in a sling. They joke around and laughs. You would be able to see through your Jaguar window that they share love amid the roaring sound of the impatient motorcycles and cars. It is something you don’t find on TV.

Why don’t you look with your heart, pierce through the hard façade of the city. Almost at every corner of the city, there are kind ojek drivers who would give you detailed direction; you don’t need a GPS here.

We’re in this together, let’s get out of this together.




Jakarta, May 2009




EVI MARIANI SOFIAN was born in Bandung, 1976. In 2001, she graduated from the Department of Communication, Gadjah Mada University, after a seven-year struggle to make it to graduation. In 2002, she started working at the Jakarta Post daily, and her first assignment was to interview Metromini drivers. One Metromini conductor seemed to have taken a fancy to her and gave her a candy while helping her stepped out of the bus. Since then, she became interested in the urban issues and took up Urban Studies at the University of Amsterdam. At the newspaper where she works today, she serves as the editor for the city desk, close to the issues she likes but far from all the cool happenings in the city as she works merely in the office, browsing the Internet, and playing computer games.