Michael Vatikiotis: Death in Jakarta Michael Vatikiotis International Herald Tribune WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 2005
JAKARTA It's easy to be optimistic about Indonesia these days. The economy is growing at a decent clip, and foreign investors are at last showing real interest in the country. The seven-month old government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has inspired real confidence in the future and sentiment is bullish. But it would be wrong to assume that everything is getting better in the republic. For many people in Jakarta, the government's incapacity to fix things was brought home to them by the heart-wrenching story of a poor garbage collector called Supriono. Like countless tens of thousands living on the margins in Jakarta, Supriono's only real possession in life was the plywood trolley that he bought for five dollars and used to collect plastic bottles and cardboard for recycling. So when his three-year old daughter, Nur Hairunisa, fell sick with diarrhea, he was at a loss over what to do. Supriono's average daily wage is a little over a dollar, while a visit to the local clinic cost him 50 cents. Poor and uneducated, he did not understand what he needed to do for his dehydrated girl, nor could he afford another visit to the clinic. Hairnusia died as he carried her fever-wracked body in the back of his filthy plywood cart early in the morning on June 5th. Desperate to bury his daughter, he had no money to pay for an ambulance to take her to a nearby cemetery. So he decided to carry her several kilometers in his cart to a Jakarta train station to reach the town of Bogor, outside the city, where he had friends who could help him. It was while he waited at the city's Tebet station, carrying his daughters body in a sheet of cloth in his arms and still with less than a dollar to his name, that local vendors grew suspicious and called the police. The police questioned Supriono for hours. They took his daughter's body to a nearby hospital and wanted to do an autopsy. Supriono, a Muslim, was distraught and anxious to bury little Hairnusia before sundown, in accordance with Islamic custom. No one thought to give him the money to pay for an ambulance to take her to a graveyard, which is all he wanted. Questioned later by the media, hospital officials said that they had no choice - if they helped Supriono, they would have to help everyone. There simply wasn't the budget for this kind of aid. In the end, a group of neighbors from a city district where Supriono had once rented a cardboard shack pooled the money to pay for the ambulance that eventually took her for burial at a city cemetery. It cost about 50 dollars. A tabloid newspaper that reported Supriono's plight found that the story struck a chord. The tabloid Warta Kota told Supriono's life story; Supriono himself, a wiry man looking much older than his 38 years, was interviewed on the radio, and became the hot topic on Web sites and Internet blogs. The following week dozens of demonstrators carrying dummy corpses wrapped in white sheets appeared outside the presidential palace to highlight the desperate conditions of Jakarta's poor. The tragedy of Supriono is one played out daily in this city of more than 12 million, where middle class Indonesians who ride the tree-lined boulevards in brand new SUVs were recently shocked to hear that more than 8,000 children in the city were suffering from malnutrition. There are thought to be more than 1.5 million malnourished children across the country; Indonesia's rate of infant and maternity mortality is the highest in Southeast Asia. An outbreak of polio, a disease the world is thought to have beaten, indicates just how bad things are for the poor. Sadly political reform and economic recovery has barely touched the country's poor, who have only gotten poorer since the economic crisis and the downfall of Suharto in 1998. The government's capacity to help has, if anything, deteriorated. The old network of rural clinics and logistical food depots Suharto created to feed people and keep them reasonably healthy have fallen into decline since budgets were trimmed and government functions were devolved to the regions, where they lack the funds to keep these critical outposts of welfare going. Patients at city hospitals in Jakarta are usually asked to make cash down payments before being treated. No one in government could help Supriono. He simply fell through the cracks. It fell to his neighbors, the media and civil society to support him. Now this formerly anonymous garbage collector has become something of a minor celebrity, an emblem of the poor. Even the private sector has weighed in to help. Indonesia's largest flour miller, Bogasari, has tracked down Supriono and plans to buy him a new cart, one he can sell noodles from. Presumably noodles made with Bogasari flour. (Michael Vatikiotis is a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore.) Copyright © 2005 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com Milis Wanita Muslimah Membangun citra wanita muslimah dalam diri, keluarga, maupun masyarakat. Situs Web: http://www.wanita-muslimah.com ARSIP DISKUSI : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wanita-muslimah/messages Kirim Posting mailto:wanita-muslimah@yahoogroups.com Berhenti mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Milis Keluarga Sejahtera mailto:keluarga-sejahtera@yahoogroups.com Milis Anak Muda Islam mailto:majelismuda@yahoogroups.com This mailing list has a special spell casted to reject any attachment .... Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wanita-muslimah/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
