The Other Side - "Hey Mister!" pt5

(Originally written 29/5/2009)

I usually write about the weekends, rather than the job, when I’m working in a foreign country, and I do that for two reasons. The first is fairly obvious; some of the job information is covered by security legislation. Not terribly high security – I still don’t know who killed JFK, even though the chap who does works in the next office – but enough to potentially drop me in it if I chat about specifics. The clever thing is that they don’t tell you what information is secure and what isn’t, so I just have to clam up about everything.

The second reason is that I don’t want to depress anyone reading these tales. I don’t often go to the tourist places, I tend to be in the capital city, working with projects that provide aid in some form to disadvantaged people, and some of the stories and experiences of those people are not the stuff of a jolly report from a foreign correspondent.

There’s a problem with simply writing about the sightseeing, the hotel and the hot weather, though. It gives the impression that I’m on holiday, when I’m actually working fairly hard, not to mention justifying the expense of sending me here. So here’s the other side of life in Jakarta, and if you prefer not to read it, don’t.

Around half the population of Indonesia live on the equivalent of two US dollars a day. A significant number live on less than a dollar a day. To put that in some kind of perspective, a Big Mac costs about two and a half US dollars here. As I’ve written previously, the roots of poverty are often complex, but I’ll do what I can to explain why there are so many poor people in Indonesia.

Jakarta is nicknamed “The Big Durian” by the locals, and some explanation of that is probably required. A durian is a fruit, and if someone offers you one, my advice is to punch them hard and walk away. I’ve tasted durian. Just once, and I won’t be doing it again. The immediate flavour is of fruitiness, for about half a second, and then the onions kick in. Oh yes, onions. Very strong onions, and after that, the rotting meat. It’s eye-wateringly vile, smells as bad as it tastes, and hotels won’t let you in if you have one with you. Not the greatest advert for Indonesia’s capital, is it?

It’s not quite as bad as the nickname suggests, but there’s no doubt that parts of Jakarta do pong. The heavy traffic throughout the city means that exhaust and oil fumes are everywhere, while the humidity, clouds and lack of a breeze all contribute to keeping them there. That’s bearable, but where Jakarta does get seriously niffy is around the shanty towns along the canals. The canals themselves honk a bit as they carry effluent away with the tide, but put lots of corrugated iron, plastic and asbestos shelters beside them with no sanitation, and you have a smelly problem. Not to mention, of course, a breeding place for disease.

Yet I walk through malls filled with designer-label shops, where my first impression was of a city where there is lots of money. There is, too – Indonesia is rich with natural resources, copper, steel, silver, gold, and more. There are cranes in every direction, testifying to a big building programme going on, financed by private money. What’s being built, though, are luxury flats and more malls, to be used by the rich people of Jakarta. There’s a massive gulf between the rich and the poor, one that the poor find impossible to cross.

Indonesia is a country emerging from dictatorship. Eleven years ago this month, riots in Jakarta lead to the resignation of President Soeharto, and the echoes of his 32-year grip on the country can still be felt. Corruption is still at almost endemic levels; in the four months to the end of April, it cost Indonesia $194m (two trillion rupiah), and I have the Attorney General here to thank for that figure. Bear in mind, of course, that this is the corruption that is known about. The true figure is certainly higher. For example, a director of the state oil and gas company was recently found guilty of embezzlement. He was sentenced to six years in prison, fined US$3m and ordered to repay nearly $190m. He’s paid it, and the fine, indicating that he’s still got a few pennies to rub together.

You want something done in Jakarta, you pay. If you can’t pay, you can’t get much done. Want planning permission? Send in your plans and they will get considered. Endlessly. Want to skip the queue? Then make sure you know someone who knows someone who knows someone, and come with a full wallet. Want a driving licence? 200,000 rupiah is reckoned to be the current bribe, if you want the fast track. Want to build a mall? Stick an official on your Board of Directors and you’ll avoid a lot of problems.

Want to be an official? Ah, then you’d better work hard at school, get your qualifications, learn English and Arabic as a minimum, and go to University. People from shanty towns have problems working hard at school, and one of them is that they often don’t go to school. They’re too busy working, of which more later.

There’s a fight back against corruption happening, because people are starting to recognise that it’s wrecking their society. The top people in the Government are doing what they can to prevent it, and there have been a number of high-profile trials in the last year or so. Some shops and businesses have signs outside their premises that read “Thank you for not tipping our staff”.

It’s going to be hard, though, because what people really need is money, and the more, the better. There is no welfare state here in Indonesia, so if you lose your job, you have absolutely no income. If you get sick, you have to pay the doctor. When you get old, you have to have some savings, or a family to look after you or you have to carry on working, because getting money isn’t easy.

To say that Jakarta is overpopulated is an understatement. Indonesians flock here, even though they know that opportunities to grow rich are limited – but where there are people, there are opportunities of a kind. People make a mess, so there are opportunities to clear up after them, which is why, wherever you look, someone is polishing, sweeping, dusting or brushing. People need doors opened for them, lift buttons pressed for them, taxis summoned for them. People need to eat, even poor people, so get a Calor gas ring, a wok and a barrow to push around and you’ve got a fast food stall. Make a little money and you can afford some corrugated iron panels or some waste plastic that someone will fashion into a shack by a stinking canal.

The ones who arrive in Jakarta know that they’ll never get rich here, but it’s often a better existence than where they’ve come from. The earthquake of 2006 flattened entire villages, while the tsunami of a few years back destroyed large numbers of coastline communities. Despite international appeals, there’s little long-term charity money for reconstruction. Sick, dying and homeless people who need immediate help will open the wallets of  charitable people, but when the Red Cross, Medicin Sans Frontieres and other emergency charities leave town, there’s fewer organisations with the cash to rebuild an infrastructure, remake roads, construct planned housing and install drains. Long-term reconstruction requires the help of groups like the World Bank (in fact, they are co-ordinating the international effort), but they won’t subscribe to any corrupt practices… so the money doesn’t get spent and some villages and parts of the coastline remain in ruins. (An honourable exception to this is Habitat for Humanity, who are doing great things, and Christian Aid.) If there are no jobs and your house is spread across what used to be your garden, you might as well come to Jakarta, live in a shack and sweep something, because there’s bound to be a job for you here.

Of course, with so many people looking for work, there is no such thing as a minimum wage. It’s an entrepreneur’s paradise, where employees worry about losing their jobs. And speaking of jobs, children are better at some things than adults, like the tiny intricate stitching on a fake designer handbag that sells for $5 in one of the cheaper malls. (Note: this is not to suggest that children are involved in the manufacture of genuine designer goods.) Parents who earn very little are faced with a terrible choice – either they find the money for their children to be educated, or they allow them to earn money for the family by doing what the adults cannot. I have no evidence that Indonesian Mummies and Daddies love their children any less than Western parents, so they must feel awful when making the choice.

I have been particularly disturbed by the number of street children here in Jakarta, begging at traffic lights, or walking between the cars, singing and playing the ukulele for a few coins. They are heartbreakingly young - almost too tiny to peer over the doorframe, they stand at the window with hands pressed together as if in prayer. Who, in their right minds, would send a five year-old out on a four lane highway to wander between the cars, especially at night? Desperate people, that’s who. It’s sometimes very difficult to accept my life of what must seem like impossible luxury to these kids… but giving them money is the very worst thing you can do for them, no matter how much better your conscience feels, because it simply confirms to their parents that little Jimmy or Susie is good at begging, and gives them more reason to send them out to risk injury or worse on the roads. But… at ten in the evening, I saw a three year-old begging in the middle of Jakarta’s biggest and busiest roundabout. Sometimes, Lord, it’s too hard…

No, I’m not going to wear my hair shirt needlessly, nor spout some socialist polemic, I know there are rich and poor, I didn’t choose to be born in the developed West, and I’ve worked hard to get where I am. I also know a thing or two about how aid can be most effectively delivered, and it’s not through an open car window. The fact is, though, that a lot of the choices that we have in the West simply don’t exist out here. For these children, employment in a handbag factory is actually a step up from where they are now. Their parents, I’m sure, would want them to go to school, but if only one family member has work, and that as a door-opener at a top mall, then school is never going to be an option. If Grandad gets sick and needs medicine, who is going to go without food to pay for it? Or will Grandad go without medicine? Poverty doesn’t respect age, sex, religion, disability or even ability. It only respects money.

Indonesia is an example of where uncontrolled capitalism will get you.

A lot of the people that I have worked with in the last two years have said how difficult it can be to be involved with disadvantaged people, then go home to a nice house with a swimming pool and plenty of food in the fridge. Many of them support a local charity or two, often with more than money. I know how they feel, because I couldn’t sit down to eat, or sleep in my big bed in the rather good hotel where I live, if I didn’t make some kind of contribution to a charity that works directly with the people in Jakarta.

My job is to show the local office staff how to use a new finance system, encourage them to spend your money in a transparent, accountable way, and offer advice on how multi-million projects can be run more effectively and efficiently. I can’t do the latter part of the job without knowledge of the local problems, and that’s not really something that can be properly learned from briefing papers. It’s best to see things at first hand, which is one reason why I have all the immunisations available.

The biggest question, of course, is why doesn’t the Indonesian government look after its own problems, and why do we get involved with them? Bluntly, the Indonesian government chooses not to. There’s no threat from the poor people, they’re not spreading their diseases outside their own groups (but that could change swiftly if there’s an outbreak of a new infectious disease) and they’re not too much of a nuisance. There’s very little political capital to be made from improving the lot of the disadvantaged, compared to the opportunity to attract new businesses to Jakarta with the offer of cheap labour.

As to why we do it – it’s because the UK government is committed to the Millennium Development Goals, as are the rest of the G8, who all play their part in funding aid projects. Massive demonstrations of popular feeling in the UK seem to indicate that there is a determination to help developing countries such as Indonesia, and I can’t tell you how fulfilling it is to be involved, even in a small way, with some of the projects that I have seen at work here.

That doesn’t stop me being upset by many things that I have seen over here, but it does mean that I’m determined to do the most professional job that I can. There are children looking through my car window, you see. I can’t let them down.

P.S. This isn’t a charity appeal. You’ve already contributed, and you’ll continue to do so. If you want to help, just make sure that our government, no matter what political hue it is, continues to honour its promises to the G8 and the developing world.